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 perversion of this love, the rejection of its dictates, and the debasing of the soul by sensuality and sin, separates man from his Maker, destroys, this heavenly conjunction, and plunges the, being born for eternal life, into all the horrors of ruin and death; this disjunction is expressed by the Lord's anger and wrath, and by the punishment which follows. Every man can recognise two things in himself—nature, which God has made; and sin, which man has added.

Zion signifies the celestial state of good, and "its gates," the introductory Truths leading to such good; while the "dwellings of Jacob," denote the externals of worship, of doctrine and faith; and as the externals of worship—a belief in doctrines, however true, and the performance of ceremonies, however just, can do but little for us, without the inward love of what is pure and holy, we may discover why "the Lord loveth the gates of Zion, more than all the dwellings of Jacob."

It is to be lamented that too many in our day rest satisfied to be, as it were, at home, in the dwellings of Jacob. Here they stop short in their heavenly march, and make no advance toward the gates of Zion. The introductory truths, or gates, which lead directly to the holy mount, to an exalted state of celestial love,—these are, as it were, the opening blossoms of the brightest wisdom, which promise to the rational faculties of the mind a rich luxuriance of the choicest fruits. Into those inlets to the soul, the Lord enters with all that is celestial and pure, and binds the immortal man to himself in an everlasting bond of marriage union. It is in Zion, that the divine voice of the bridegroom is heard, and there we hear the sweet response of the bride.