True Christian Religion # 583
583. IV. The process of regeneration is on the model of a person's conception, gestation in the womb, birth and upbringing.
The natural and spiritual events in a person's life, that is, what happens to his body and what to his spirit, are so ordered as permanently to correspond. The reason is that a person is by birth spiritual as regards his soul, and he is clothed with a natural form which is constituted by his material body. When therefore this is laid aside, his soul, clothed in his spiritual body, comes into the world where all things are spiritual, and there associates with people like him. Now the spiritual body has to be formed in the material one, a process accomplished by the inflow of truths and various kinds of good from the Lord through the spiritual world. These are inwardly received by the person in such things belonging to the natural world as are called civil and moral; so it is evident how the process of formation takes place. Because, as already said, there is a permanent correspondence between the natural and spiritual events in a person's life, it follows that this process must resemble his conception, gestation in the womb, birth and upbringing. That is why natural births in the Word mean spiritual births, that is, the birth of good and truth. For whatever stands in the literal or natural sense of the Word, enfolds and stands for something spiritual. I demonstrated fully in the chapter on the Sacred Scripture that every detail of the literal sense of the Word contains a spiritual sense.
[2] The natural births mentioned in the Word refer to spiritual births, as is evident from the following passages.
We have conceived, we have given birth, we have as it were brought forth [wind], we have not done what is sound, Isaiah 26:18.
At the presence of the Lord you give birth 1 , O earth, Psalms 114:7.
Has the earth given birth in one day? Shall I break and not bring to birth, and cause to give birth but close 2 up the womb? Isaiah 66:7-10. Sin gives birth and No shall be on the point of being breached, Ezekiel 30:16.
The pangs of childbirth shall come upon Ephraim. He is an unwise child, because at the right time he does not stand in the womb of sons, Hosea 13:12-13.
There are many other similar passages. Since natural births in the Word mean spiritual births, and these are the Lord's work, He is called He who forms and brings out of the womb. This is clear from these passages among others:
Jehovah your maker and who forms you from the womb, Isaiah 44:2.
He who brings me from the womb, Psalms 22:9.
I have been placed upon you from the womb, from my mother's inmost parts it was you who brought me forth, Psalms 71:6.
Pay attention to me, you who were carried by the belly, borne by the womb, Isaiah 46:3.
This is why the Lord is called 'Father' (as at Isaiah 9:6; 63:16, John 10:30; 14:8-9), and those who are in possession of good and truth from Him are called 'sons', 'born of God' and 'brothers' among themselves (Matthew 23:8-9). It is also why the church is called 'mother' (Hosea 2:2, 5; Ezekiel 16:45).
Poznámky pod čarou:
1. Reading parturis for parturit, as elsewhere when this verse is quoted.
2. 'not close' in the Latin, but corrected in the author's copy.
Exodus 21
1
"Now these are the ordinances which you shall set before them.
2
"If you buy a Hebrew servant, he shall serve six years and in the seventh he shall go out free without paying anything.
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If he comes in by himself, he shall go out by himself. If he is married, then his wife shall go out with him.
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If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out by himself.
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But if the servant shall plainly say, 'I love my master, my wife, and my children. I will not go out free;'
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then his master shall bring him to God, and shall bring him to the door or to the doorpost, and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl, and he shall serve him for ever.
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"If a man sells his daughter to be a female servant, she shall not go out as the male servants do.
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If she doesn't please her master, who has married her to himself, then he shall let her be redeemed. He shall have no right to sell her to a foreign people, since he has dealt deceitfully with her.
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If he marries her to his son, he shall deal with her as a daughter.
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If he takes another wife to himself, he shall not diminish her food, her clothing, and her marital rights.
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If he doesn't do these three things for her, she may go free without paying any money.
12
"One who strikes a man so that he dies shall surely be put to death,
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but not if it is unintentional, but God allows it to happen: then I will appoint you a place where he shall flee.
14
If a man schemes and comes presumptuously on his neighbor to kill him, you shall take him from my altar, that he may die.
15
"Anyone who attacks his father or his mother shall be surely put to death.
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"Anyone who kidnaps someone and sells him, or if he is found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death.
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"Anyone who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death.
18
"If men quarrel and one strikes the other with a stone, or with his fist, and he doesn't die, but is confined to bed;
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if he rises again and walks around with his staff, then he who struck him shall be cleared: only he shall pay for the loss of his time, and shall provide for his healing until he is thoroughly healed.
20
"If a man strikes his servant or his maid with a rod, and he dies under his hand, he shall surely be punished.
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Notwithstanding, if he gets up after a day or two, he shall not be punished, for he is his property.
22
"If men fight and hurt a pregnant woman so that she gives birth prematurely, and yet no harm follows, he shall be surely fined as much as the woman's husband demands and the judges allow.
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But if any harm follows, then you must take life for life,
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eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,
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burning for burning, wound for wound, and bruise for bruise.
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"If a man strikes his servant's eye, or his maid's eye, and destroys it, he shall let him go free for his eye's sake.
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If he strikes out his male servant's tooth, or his female servant's tooth, he shall let him go free for his tooth's sake.
28
"If a bull gores a man or a woman to death, the bull shall surely be stoned, and its flesh shall not be eaten; but the owner of the bull shall not be held responsible.
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But if the bull had a habit of goring in the past, and it has been testified to its owner, and he has not kept it in, but it has killed a man or a woman, the bull shall be stoned, and its owner shall also be put to death.
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If a ransom is laid on him, then he shall give for the redemption of his life whatever is laid on him.
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Whether it has gored a son or has gored a daughter, according to this judgment it shall be done to him.
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If the bull gores a male servant or a female servant, thirty shekels of silver shall be given to their master, and the ox shall be stoned.
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"If a man opens a pit, or if a man digs a pit and doesn't cover it, and a bull or a donkey falls into it,
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the owner of the pit shall make it good. He shall give money to its owner, and the dead animal shall be his.
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"If one man's bull injures another's, so that it dies, then they shall sell the live bull, and divide its price; and they shall also divide the dead animal.
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Or if it is known that the bull was in the habit of goring in the past, and its owner has not kept it in, he shall surely pay bull for bull, and the dead animal shall be his own.
