Page:Spiritual Reflections for Every Day in the Year - Vol 2.pdf/221

 draw us to a common centre. Thus we read, "The Lord our God is a sun." Now, astronomically, a sun is the centre around which attendant worlds revolve. They are kept in their orbits by attraction and repulsion, or what astronomers call the centripetal and centrifugal forces, one tending, towards the sun or centre, the other drawing from it; and by this double attraction, the earth is preserved in equilibrium, and prevented from approaching too near the sun, by which it would be burnt up; or receding to far from it, by which it would perish from cold. From this physical law of nature, we are instructed, by analogy, in the operation of the spiritual law of heaven. If the Lord our God, as a sun occupying the centre, is the source of spiritual heat and light, or of love and wisdom to the myriads of human beings he has created, and if all these are so many miniature worlds revolving about him, it is plain that to approach too near to him, would endanger our existence, because the Lord our God is a consuming fire—so pure, so holy, that even the angels cannot approach his divine essence. So, again, if we were to recede to far from him, we must inevitably perish, inasmuch as our life can only be continued as we abide in his sphere, because he is the life, as well as the light of the world. If this be true, if we are unable to approach him too nearly, without destruction, or to go too remotely from him without perishing, why are we exhorted to draw near to God, under the promise that he will draw near to us? The answer is, In the infinity of His goodness He has provided for us a means of access; he has condescended to take our nature, and that nature he has glorified and made divine, so that we can approach