spiritual warfare of which Paul speaks, and which every regenerating soul must endure—a warfare needful to the purifying and strengthening of the soul, and necessary, therefore, to its entrance into the kingdom of heaven.
From this we may learn what is the true meaning of taking up the cross, and why the Lord says: "He that taketh not his cross and followeth after me, is not worthy of me;" and "if any one will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." When we see and acknowledge our evils, and strive with the Lord's help to overcome them, or to bring them into complete subjection to the revealed lays of our higher or heavenly life, we are doing the very thing which is signified in the spiritual sense by "taking up our cross." And as it was in this way that the Lord overcame the hells which infested his assumed humanity, and so made that humanity Divine, we are really and in the true sense "following" Him, when we thus deny self and take up our cross.
Thus the doctrine of the Cross, as held and taught in the New Church, is at once rational and spiritual, and eminently practical. It involves the doctrine of Christ's glorification, and of our regeneration which is its image and likeness. It involves, further, the doctrine of our entire dependence on the Lord for strength to overcome
