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LESSON ELEVENTH.

I propose to speak to you, in this lesson, of spiritual death, or of the death of the soul. And I will in the first place say something more about natural death, or the death of the body. While we live in this world, we have a soul and we have a body. And the body is the covering of the soul, because the soul is within it. The body is also the instrument of the soul. You know what an instrument is. A pen is an instrument with which you write, for you could not write very well with your fingers. A knife is an instrument with which you mend your pen, because you could not cut your pen with your fingers.

You remember that I have told you, that regeneration is the thing for the sake of which we live in this world. But, if we had only a soul, we could not live in this world, and do our duty in it, or do any thing at all in it. Therefore, while it is necessary for us to live in this world, the Lord

gives us a body, in which we live, and which is then an instrument, which we can use in doing the duties which belong to us here. thus live in the body, the soul alive.

And while we

keeps the body

After a few years, sickness, or some accident, or old age, does such harm to the body, that it is no longer able to be a covering to the soul, or an instrument of it. If a coat is worn through by age, or torn into pieces by accident, it can no longer be useful as a covering. If your pen grew so blunt it would not mark, or your knife so dull it would not cut the quill, neither of them could any longer be useful as an instrument, and might be cast away. So it happens, that the body becomes no longer fit to be an instrument for the soul. It no longer corresponds to the soul, and the soul no longer keeps it alive. And then the body dies, and the soul goes out of it. And this is what we call death.

But the Lord foresees all things, and provides for all things, and this death never happens to us until it is best for us to live no longer in this

world, and until it is best for us to live in another world; and then, when the soul leaves this natural body, we live in the spiritual world. Our soul has, or we have, a body there, but it is a spiritual body. We have the same body here, but it is within our natural body, and we do not see it nor feel it, nor know that we have it, until we leave this natural body.

Thus we see that death, or the death of the body, may be looked upon as the birth of the soul into the spiritual world.

Let us now consider what the death of the soul can be. After we go into the spiritual world, there is no other world beyond that. Therefore our soul cannot pass from the spiritual world into another, by the death of the spiritual body; and therefore death, when we speak of the soul, must have a different meaning; and I will try to tell you what it is.

I suppose you have sometimes been in the country, and walked abroad among the fields. Then, perhaps, you noticed the different things which were growing there, and inquired of those with

you what they were, and what good they did, or what harm. You may have observed the grass growing close to the ground, and you know that cattle eat it, and that it is good food for them. There was, perhaps, a tree there which bore apples, and another which bore pears, or cherries. And there were, perhaps, bushes from which you could pick berries, or beautiful flowers which you were permitted to gather. All these are good things. Perhaps, however, you saw a creeping vine running over the wall, or a pale blue flower, shaped like a deep bell, and were told they were poisonous, and would make you sick, or possibly kill you, if you handled them, or eat the berries

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Now, did it happen that you wondered how those bad and poisonous things came to be there, in the midst of the good grass, and fruit trees, and bushes? They all grow from the same earth. The same rain and the same dews water them all. The same sun shines on them, and in the heat and light of that sun they all live, and without its heat and light they all die. You therefore see, that

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there are some things, which, under the rain, and the heat and light of the sun, ripen wholesome fruits, and others, which, under the same rain, and the same heat and light, ripen poisons, and are most dangerous.

You may wonder that the Lord, who is so good, and who governs all things, should permit these evil things to grow. But the reason of this is, that the world is created according to correspondence. Or, in other words, the things of the natural world correspond to the things of the spirit; or, in yet other words, natural things correspond to spiritual things. And poisonous and dangerous plants grow and ripen their fruits, because they correspond to poisonous and dangerous thoughts and feelings; and when these poisonous and dangerous thoughts and feelings lead one to wicked actions, then they ripen their fruits.

If the heat and light of the sun did not come to a plant it could not live, or grow and ripen its fruits, whether good or bad. If the heat of the spiritual sun, or the divine love of the Lord, did not enter into your wills, they would not be alive,

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