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THE

INTELLECTUAL REPOSITORY

AND

NEW JERUSALEM MAGAZINE

VOL. XIX-ENLARGED SERIES

VOL. XLII.-ENTIRE WORK

1872

LONDON:

Published by the General Conference of the New Church,

SIGNIFIED BY THE NEW JERUSALEM IN THE REVELATION:

AND SOLD BY

JAMES SPEIRS, 36 BLOOMSBURY STREET.

MUIR AND PATERSON, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.

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WHEN Israel went up out of Egypt, where they had dwelt, dating from the time of Abraham, four hundred and thirty years, their outgoing was made to them the beginning of a new year. "This (said their Divine Deliverer) shall be unto you the beginning of months; it shall be the beginning of the year to you." Their emancipation from bondage and restoration to freedom was a new epoch in their history, and was indeed the beginning of their national existence. But, what is still more important for us, it was the real beginning of their existence as the representatives of a Church. All their religious festivals and observances, initiated by the feast of the Passover, took their date from this commencement of their ecclesiastical year-the year of their redemption. But their redemption foreshadowed one of infinitely greater magnitude and significance, a redemption that affected not one but all nations, that emancipated the whole human race from a far more terrible and enduring bondage than that of the perishable body, and which formed the commencement of a kingdom and Church that shall have no end. The birth of Jesus is the real commencement of our ecclesiastical year-the year of our redemption. This formed a new epoch in the history and condition of our race. From it we date the commencement of the spiritual freedom and the upward progress of humanity, through the redemption and glorification of Him who is the perfect Man, to whose likeness man shall be restored. The second coming of the Lord is indeed a new epoch in the history of redemption

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