Page:Spiritual Reflections for Every Day in the Year - Vol 3.pdf/123

 believes nothing to be true but what he sees with the bodily eye, and nothing to be good but what ministers to his own selfish gratification. Such a man the Scriptures describe as dead while he liveth. The Lord, by His providence, is constantly operating on such a man, that the lowest of the spiritual degree may be opened in him.

A spiritual man in the lowest degree perceives by intuition that there must be truth and goodness, but he has no clear or precise idea how this truth operates; therefore his belief is rather one of faith than of love, and he only comes gradually into the knowledge of the existence of goodness, as he advances towards the higher degrees of the spiritual state.

But the celestial man, while he perceives all truth that is spiritual, and feels its effects within him, acts, nevertheless, entirely from a principle of love. With him yea is yea, and nay is nay, and whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil. The natural man is always under restraint, and acts by restraint. The spiritual man sees truth, and is engaged in defending it; he is, therefore, more or less trammelled or shackled, even by the weapons of his own warfare. The celestial man is a man of love, he is the only free man, for with him "Perfect, love casteth out fear." The first chapter describes the varied states and degrees of the natural and spiritual man, but the second enters upon a description of the celestial man.