Page:Spiritual Reflections for Every Day in the Year - Vol 2.pdf/266

 it an appearance, but only an appearance, that the Lord is the author of evil as well as good; for when this is examined according to the light of the spirit, the words are pure and genuine truth. They however require attention in the reader of the Scriptures to discern their true meaning.

Light is our familiar analogy for truth, and darkness for error. Light and darkness, truth and error, are opposites. Again: suppose we liken the internal constitution of man to a plain, on which are opposing forces preparing for a conflict; the affections and thoughts within him, some of them good and some evil, some true and some false, are those forces. We may conclude that the good and the true will range themselves on one side, and the evil and the false on the other. Peace, which is a state of heavenly quietude and rest, can never exist where evil is; for it is an important truth, that "there is no peace to the wicked:" hence, peace and evil, as well as light and darkness, are opposites. Here, then, we perceive that man is, as it were, the subject of two sovereigns, of the most opposite dispositions; and as the principles composing the subject of these two sovereigns admit of no harmony or happiness while the affections and thoughts are divided, the grand object on the part of the essential perfection and goodness, namely, the Lord, is so to operate upon man, without destroying the freedom of his will, that he may be rescued from the thraldom of darkness, and become a child of light; and the spiritual sense of the passage before us proves this clearly. The verb, to create, is connected with darkness and evil, but not with light and peace. I light, and  darkness; I  peace,