Page:Spiritual Reflections for Every Day in the Year - Vol 1.pdf/249



HE offerings commanded to be made in the Jewish church where all representative of those spiritual states of the mind and life which were essentially necessary to be present in the soul of him who brought the offering. Without attaching those spiritual ideas represented by the things offered, the ceremonies of the Jewish worship would be void of all interest, and appear as so many unmeaning things; but if heavenly ideas are attached to the offerings, and to each its own representative meaning, the whole then becomes infilled, as it were, with the light of heaven, and a fulness of Divine instruction is at once presented to our delighted minds. In the Jewish worship nothing unclean was allowed to be offered, to teach us that no unclean affection or thought should be allowed to mingle in our devotions. Every man was ordered to offer a lamb without blemish (Exod. xii. 5), shewing by this, that innocence and gentleness of spirit, denoted by a lamb, should be without any defect—having no blemish. Every man was to bring his offering willingly, to shew us that worship must come from the will or heart. "Of every man that giveth it willingly with his heart ye shall take my offering." (Exod. xxv. 2.) Among the many things offered were gold, silver, brass, blue, purple, and scarlet, fine linen and goats' hair: all these represent various degrees or states of goodness and truth in which the