Page:Swedenborgs Maximus Homo.pdf/66

 did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ." (1 Cor. x, 1-5.)

And referring to what befell "some of them" in the wilderness, he continues:—

"Now these things were examples for us" [symbols or types—tupsi] "to the intent that we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted."

And this fact of the symbolic character of the Scriptures proclaimed at the first Advent, and this spiritual interpretation of them, was handed down by Paul and the other Apostles to their immediate successors; so that the primitive Christian Church almost universally believed that there is a deeper meaning to the Scriptures than that which the natural man sees in the letter; and many of the most pious and eminent Biblical scholars of that period had their understandings opened to a pretty clear perception of the spiritual meaning of Scripture. Of this we have abundant proof in their published writings. The celebrated historian, Dr. Mosheim, speaking of the most distinguished luminaries of the church in the second century, says:—

"They all attributed a double sense to the words of Scripture, the one obvious and literal, the other hidden and mysterious, which lay