from the beginning of philosophy, and that among those writers who are called mystics, it had always been regarded as of great importance. But the writer of this article was not sufficiently acquainted with Swedenborg, to know that he was the first man on earth to disclose the SCIENCE of correspondence; to know and to tell the grounds of it and the laws of it; to teach it as a science; a complete, coherent, exact science, entering into perfectly definite relations with other sciences, receiving its completion from them and giving them completeness.

So, too, already it has been said that many of Swedenborg's views of the Bible may be found, intimated if not expounded, by the Talmudists; that his doctrine of the Lord may be gathered from Plato, Sabellius, and Origen; while his statements concerning a future life and another world, have been anticipated in the dreams and rhapsodies of other enthusiastic religions. But there is just this difference. In Swedenborg these things are told with such precision and yet such fullness; the statements are so connected and correlated; they all so rest upon exact and intelligible and universal principles; that they are neither fragments, nor dreams, nor rhapsodies. They constitute a precise and definite, well arranged and well compacted, and far reaching system of truth. The builder of a temple does not create the stones which make its walls, but he forms them and fits them to each other, and puts them together, and the temple is a very different thing from the rocks which lay scattered upon the ground.

We certainly do not mean that there is nothing in the doctrines of the New Church, which is, by itself, new. For these doctrines are full of truths as absolutely new as they are full of life and power. We say only that this church is none the less a New Church, because it adopts and includes and illustrates all existing truths.

Let us now contrast the views concerning the Bible, which are held in the New Church, with those now prevailing in the Old Church.

We have seen that the Bible of the Jews was held by them in the most absolute reverence; that the Gospels of Christ acknowledged its sanctity; and that the whole Bible, consisting of the Old and the New Testaments, was regarded by the earlier Christians, and until nearly our own time, with profound reverence. It was under cover of this reverence that the Romanists withheld it from common use. And it was by availing of this reverence, that the Protestant leaders used it as their great weapon in their war with Catholicism. recently, by gradual but certainly not slow advances, "Rationalism" has established its claim to treat the Bible like any other book; to subject it to criticism, and "impartial inquiry," as it is called; and end with showing it to be about equally deficient in the proofs of its genuineness and in its accuracy. In fact it is declared to be, in an extreme degree, unscientific; and by

But

this word, for many minds, a whole world of reproach is cast upon it. Nor is there much power in decaying Christianity to meet this reproach. It appeals to the lingering sentiment of reverence; and when it seeks to answer farther, by reason and logic, it has very little success.

Then Swedenborg comes to its defence. His first position is, that the Bible is not to be judged and investigated in the same way, and only in the same way, as other books, for the plain and simple reason that it is "The Word of God;" and God, its Author, is not on the same level with the authors of other works.

Does he then object to, and prohibit this profound exegesis, and critical inquiry? Not at all. He welcomes it, and desires it. He regards the study of the literal sense of the word, with all the means which can throw light upon it, as a most interesting and profitable study. But then he brings to this work new canons of criticism. Settle the literal sense of the word as accurately, and illustrate it as much as possible; but then remember that it has a soul within it; that it is an expression of the Divine wisdom; and a vehicle by which this Divine wisdom is brought down even from Himself, from that Divine Essence wherein it exists in perfectly inconceivable and unendurable light, down through the ranks of heaven; stopping on its way with each gradation in the series, and there offering itself to receptive minds, in a form precisely adapted to reception and use by them; and closing its descending course, by assuming, through the minds

and thoughts of the men employed by its Divine Author to write it, its last and lowest form. In this form, because so late and so low, it reaches the last and lowest of human beings. None are so poor, none are so blind, none so low in state and thought, as to be where it cannot find them. And wherever it goes it speaks in language suited to the state and condition. which it finds.

No one, not yet fatuous or insane, can be unable to comprehend its simple commandments, its plain instruction. And if they learn what is thus given to them, and obey what for their good is commanded to them, these lessons will lift them up, and as they rise their eyes will open upon higher truths. Thus, from the very bottom, an ascending series begins, and its steps are all joined one to another, and man, whom God has made that He Himself may have objects and recipients of infinite love, may climb upwards forever and forever.

Thus will the New Church restore, and vindicate, and forever establish, and infinitely advance the sanctity of the Word of God.

Let us now consider the doctrine concerning Jesus Christ, which is held in the New Church.

The doctrine of the Lord presents itself before the mind, as a topic not only of inexpressible importance, but of vast magnitude, and of most widely extended

relations. And yet it is possible to present its characterizing and fundamental truths simply and briefly, and, it is hoped, intelligibly.

The New Church is taught, that the Infinite and Eternal Father, whom no hand has ever touched and no eye has ever seen and no mind has ever conceived as He is in Himself, came down to earth, and in the Virgin Mary assumed a human body and a human nature derived from her. This human nature contained all the inherited and accumulated proclivities to evil proper to it; and they had become so many and so various that the germs of all evil were there. So they are now in all men; and in each individual, some of those evils are brought into activity by providential permission through the agency of evil spirits, who are the embodiments of those evils; but only those evils are thus aroused, which the man can, in freedom, resist, overcome and put away. Those evils which he cannot thus overcome, are suppressed, or kept quiescent. And so far as a man does resist and overcome the evils thus brought to his knowledge, he is regenerate; and only so far. In the human nature of our Lord all of these evils were excited; all came out in open assault; all were directly resisted, and completely overcome; and the evil spirits who vivified these evils were thus subdued, and reduced to order; and their destructive power over the human race mitigated and restrained; and thus the possibility of salvation was secured to every man, by the redemption of the whole human