The Collected Writings of Edward Irving Volume 1 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1864 edition. Excerpt: ... INTRODUCTORY. HOW IT IS POSSIBLE TO TEACH SPIRITUAL THINGS BY NATURAL EMBLEMS. TT is often placed to the account of the Lord's exquisite taste, large knowledge, and fine feeling of natural fitness and beauty, that from the commonest occasions, and humblest occupations of life--as the sower, the shepherd, the vinedresser, &c.--he should have been able to draw the sublimest lessons and doctrines of religion; but when the niceness of taste, and the skill of execution, and the wise adaptation of the moral, have been all observed, commented upon, and admitted to the utmost, (and it is impossible to pass the bounds of truth in the admiration and commendation thereof), the mystery remains as before, and has never been touched by the elegant observations and exact criticisms of our lettered and cultivated discoursers. The mystery lieth in this, how it should be possible to represent things which are invisible by means of things which are visible; things which are spiritual by things which are sensual; things which are pure and perfect as the will of God, by things which are to the very heart impregnated with, and to the brim full of, impurity, imperfection, and wretchedness? How come these analogies to exist between the realities of a fallen world, and the ideas, promises, first rudiments, and beginnings of a world unfallen? Are they accidental? or are they designed in the purpose of God? Is it a work of ingenuity or of piety to search them out? Is it a proof of subtlety or of wisdom to have discovered them? And is it of the artificial decorations of eloquence, or of the essence of instructive discourse, to employ them when they have been found out? These are questions which, though simple as to the occasion which suggesteth them, are yet as...