THE ARCANE SCHOOLS - Fort Myers Beach Masonic Lodge No. 362

In more than one place the apostle Paul has fondly dwelt upon this
metaphor. Thus he tells the Corinthians that they are "God's building,"
and he calls himself the "wise master builder," who was to lay the
foundation in his truthful doctrine, upon which they were to erect the
edifice.[203] And he says to them immediately afterwards, "Know ye not
that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in
you?"
In consequence of these teachings of the apostles, the idea that the
body
was a temple has pervaded, from the earliest times to the present day,
the
system of Christian or theological symbolism. Indeed, it has sometimes
been carried to an almost too fanciful excess. Thus Samuel Lee, in that
curious and rare old work, "_The Temple of Solomon, pourtrayed by
Scripture Light,_" thus dilates on this symbolism of the temple:--
"The _foundation_ of this temple may be laid in humility and contrition
of
spirit, wherein the inhabiter of eternity delighteth to dwell; we may
refer the _porch_ to the mouth of a saint, wherein every holy Jacob
erects
the _pillars_ of God's praise, calling upon and blessing his name for
received mercies; when songs of deliverance are uttered from the
_doors_
of his lips. The _holy place_ is the renewed mind, and the _windows_
therein may denote divine illumination from above, cautioning a saint
lest
they be darkened with the smoke of anger, the mist of grief, the dust
of
vain-glory, or the filthy mire of worldly cares. The _golden
candlesticks,_ the infused habits of divine knowledge resting within
the
soul. The _shew-bread,_ the word of grace exhibited in the promises for
the preservation of a Christian's life and glory. The _golden altar_ of
odors, the breathings, sufferings, and groanings after God, ready to
break
forth into Abba, Father. The _veiles_, the righteousness of Christ. The
_holy of holies_ may relate to the conscience purified from dead works
and
brought into a heavenly frame." [204] And thus he proceeds, symbolizing
every part and utensil of the temple as alluding to some emotion or
affection of man, but in language too tedious for quotation.
In a similar vein has the celebrated John Bunyan, the author of the
"_Pilgrim's Progress_" proceeded in his "_Temple of Solomon
Spiritualized_" to refer every part of that building to a symbolic
meaning, selecting, however, the church, or congregation of good men,
rather than the individual man, as the object of the symbolism.
In the middle ages the Hermetic philosophers seem to have given the
same
interpretation of the temple, and Swedenborg, in his mystical writings,
adopts the idea.
Hitchcock, who has written an admirable little work on Swedenborg