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Home Preface 5 Planes of Existence Introduction Five Planes of Manifestation A to Z Contact Related Information BIBLE VERSES |
SOWER OF SEEDA symbol of the Higher Self who places in the lower nature (earth) of the soul, when prepared, the germs of the higher qualities of wisdom, truth, and love, that these may grow up and increase, and by crushing out the lower qualities render the soul a fit abode for the Holy Spirit, a veritable “garden of God.” “No man ever has a complete and perfect intellectual consciousness of all his active nature; something instinctive germinates in us, and grows underground, as it were, before it bursts the sod and shoots into the light of self‑consciousness. Sheathed in unconsciousness lies the bud, ere long to open a bright, consummate flower.” — Theodore Parker, *Ten Sermons*, p. 6. “How it is possible to teach spiritual things by natural emblems. 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? These are questions which, though simple as to the occasion which suggesteth them, are yet as deep as they are important, and, being well sifted, will afford the true resolution of the main difficulty which we have always felt in the exposition of this parable of the sower. … Certainly it is not accidental that the natural world should bear such wonderful analogies with, and afford so many emblems or similitudes for expressing, the spiritual world.” — Ed. Irving, *Works*, Vol. I, p. 69. “This parable of the sower, of course, contains an image so natural in its application to all wisdom, that it is not on His lips only that truth has been described as ‘seed.’ There are manifold facilities about the emblem on which one may dwell for an instant. The seed has a germinating power in itself that leads to endless reproduction. So every blessed word, every true word, whether of Christ's gospel or of man's wisdom, that finds its way into hearts and minds, works there, springing and growing, and bears fruit and reproduces itself — on and on again without end. … And then, again, there are such other ideas as these: Man is but the soil. If you are to get Divine desires and a Divine life in a human heart, they must be sown there; they are not products of the soil. There needs the bringing of the seed by another. There needs the imparting of truth and righteousness and purity from a higher source and a Diviner hand. There must be the sowing before there is any right and good harvest off this soil of our sinful souls, barren but for weeds.” — A. MacLaren, *Sermons*, 2nd Series, p. 282. |
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AGRICULTURALIST
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