To build something generally means to put together a variety of simpler pieces to make a useful and more complex structure, as to build a house out of wood or bricks, and it is commonly used this way in the Word. In the land of Shinar men wished to build a tower, and in the new testament Jesus advised that a wise man should build his house on a rock. But in a representative sense the meaning is to build a mental and spiritual structure, like the doctrine of a church or the individual concepts of spiritual reality in a single mind. The building materials are representative also. The tower of Babel was built of brick, which is man-made rock, or representatively, man-made "truths", that is"truths" not from God but ideas of spiritual reality thought out by men. The house that the wise man would build was founded on a natural or "God-made" rock, which means a truth from the Word.

118. For this reason it happens that, if only a man's ruling affection is known, then, when he is saying or doing anything, another recognizes from what purpose and from what love, as it were from what fountain, it springs. The Lord says that an evil tree bringeth forth evil fruit, and a good tree good fruit, and that an evil tree cannot bring forth good fruit. ¹

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