out to that Being whose image and
superscription it bears, and climb up from those darker resemblances
of the Divine wisdom and goodness, shining out in different degrees
upon several creatures, till they sweetly repose themselves in the
bosom of the Divinity; and while they are thus conversing with this
lower world ... they find God many times secretly flowing into their
souls, and leading them silently out of the court of the temple into
the Holy Place.... Thus religion, where it is in truth and power,
renews the very spirit of our minds, and doth in a manner spiritualise
this outward creation to us.... It is nothing but a thick mist of
pride and self-love that hinders men's eyes from beholding that sun
which enlightens them and all things else.... A good man is no more
solicitous whether this or that good thing be mine, or whether my
perfections exceed the measure of this or that particular creature;
for whatsoever good he beholds anywhere, he enjoys and delights in it
as much as if it were his own, and whatever he beholds in himself, he
looks not upon it as his property, but as a common good; for all these
beams come from one and the same Fountain and Ocean of light in whom
he loves them all with an universal love.... Thus may a man walk up
and down the world as in a garden of spices, and suck a Divine
sweetness out of every flower. There is a twofold meaning in every
creature, a literal and a mystical, and the one is but the ground of
the other; and as the Jews say of their law, so a good man says of
everything that his senses offer to him--it speaks to his lower part,
but it points out something above to his mind and spirit. It is the
drowsy and muddy spirit of superstition which is fain to set some idol
at its elbow, something that may jog it and put it in mind of God.
Whereas true religion never finds itself out of the infinite sphere of
the Divinity ... it beholds itself everywhere in the midst of that
glorious unbounded Being who is indivisibly everywhere. A good man
finds every place he treads upon holy ground; to him the world is
God's temple; he is ready to say with Jacob, 'How dreadful is this
place! this is none other than the house of God, this is the gate of
heaven.'"

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 316: In R.L. Nettleship's _Remains_.]

[Footnote 317: In addition to passages quoted elsewhere, the following
sentence from Luthardt is a good statement of the symbolic theory:
"Nature is a world of symbolism, a