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ESSAYS

BY

THEOPHILUS PARSONS.

BOSTON:
OTIS CLAPP, SCHOOL STREET.

MDCCCXLV.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1845,
By Otis Clapp,
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Massachusetts.

M-nz3ff Pa?

BOSTON :
PRINTED BY FREEMAN AND EOLLES,
WASHINGTON STREET.

SUBJECTS OF THE ESSAYS.

Life.Providence.
Correspondence.
The Human Form.
Religion.The New Jerusalem.

I have concluded to publish these slight and hastily written papers,
for the little good that they may do, but with very great reluctance
from the fear that their faults and imperfections may be attributed to
the System of Truth, of which they present a few portions. Whatso
ever is found in them new and just and interesting, belongs to that
system ; and the obscurities which mingle with the light I have en
deavored to borrow, are my own. I call them Essays, only for want
of another name ; for if I knew one of less significance I should
certainly adopt it. They have been somewhat circulated in manu
script, — the purpose for which I began to write them, — and 1 have
yielded to the advice of others and put them in print, only in the hope
that they may sometimes lead a reader to seek in the writings of
Swedenborg and in the Word as it is resplendent with the light
which these writings unveil, the Truth that is now descending from
Heaven. T. P.
Boston, 1845.

L-I F E

LIFE.

The wants and cares of life occupy most persons
and employ their thoughts exclusively ; but there
are always some who would answer the deeper
questions which the worlds without and within
them constantly suggest. The enigma of existence
presses upon them. Human destiny, the Nemesis
of an old religious philosophy, is to them, if they
are feeble, a terror ; and to the strong and weak
alike, it is a mystery. If religious tendencies lift
up their thoughts, they seek a God whom they may
worship ; and they who seek, find Him. But
clouds are all around Him. The statue at Sais,
above which " the learning of the Egyptians " had
written " I am whatever Is, or Has been, or Will
be," wore upon its face an impenetrable veil.
How many, in all ages, have sought to raise this
veil ; how many have labored to reconcile the

y LIFE.
world into unity with itself, and into a higher unity
with God. Is this end reached at last ? Has this
veil been lifted ? I believe so ; and will try to
sketch the outlines, the bare and naked outlines, of
that system of the laws of existence, which gives
back his creation to God and fills his creation with
Himself. I begin then with saying that there are three
degrees of Life — or of Existence. To those who
hear this for the first time, the words have no mean
ing ; and I must first endeavor to explain the truth
they express before I use it as the means of ex
plaining others. There are three degrees of life ;
and they are in everything that exists, because
they are primarily in Him from whom everything
exists. In God is Infinite Love, — Infinite Wis
dom, — and the eternal Action of that Love by or
through that Wisdom. And in Him these three
are always one. For His perfect Love perpetually
desires and seeks that which His perfect Wisdom
contemplates, and precisely that which His Pow
er is always effecting. To repeat this in other
words. His Power is incessantly exerted, for if it
ceased for a moment, the universe would cease to
be ; and this Power always acts in perfect conform
ity with His Wisdom ; and this Wisdom is always

LIFE.

warm with the life of His perfect Love. He is
always active, and every Action is guided by his
Wisdom and springs from his Love. Thus these
three elements of the Divine Nature, Love, Wis
dom, and Power, are distinct, yet essentially do-
operative and conjoined into Unity.
The universe exists from Him ; for before Him,
or without Him, there is nothing ; or else it would
be another and an equal Eternal and Infinite. And
as He creates all things from Himself, so everything
reflects Him ; the universe is His mirror, and every
thing in the universe bears his impress and is sig
nificant of Him. The three elements of his divine
life are, in Him, perfectly one ; but when they
come forth from Him to do the work of creation,
and as they exist in his works, they are more or less
separated and one or another becomes more or
less dominant ; and this may be regarded as the
first cause of the infinite variety among the exist
ences in His universe. Thus there are three hea
vens. In that which is nearest to Himself, His
Love is the ruling element; because they who
compose that heaven have permitted Him to infuse
His Love into their wills, so that it has become
their love ; so that they love what He loves. They
who compose the heaven which is only lower than
the highest, have not permitted him to do more

10 LIFE.
than open their eyes and their hearts to His Wis
dom. But they see the beauty of His divine order ;
they perceive that out of that order grows justice ;
and they love justice ; they seek always to know
and to do what is right, and they find what they
seek, and thus they love their neighbor, and have
the happiness of that love. Below this is another
heaven ; and its angels have reached their eternal
home by the way of obedience ; they acknowledge
and adore His power ; they listen to His Word ;
they obey His commands, and in this they find
their happiness. Thus, these heavens are severally
arranged, animated and governed by the elements
of His Divine Nature. Opposite to the heavens
are the hells; and they are in these unhappy
states, who have permitted Him to awake in their
hearts, neither a love for Himself, nor a sense of
right and thence a love of the neighbor, nor even
a disposition to obey. They have no conscience,
and they have no heaven. But they have their
own happiness, because He gives them all the hap
piness such as they can enjoy ; but it is not the hap
piness of heaven ; and they are necessarily subject
ed to such punishment and coercion as may pre
vent their casting away, or destroying for each
other, the happiness they may enjoy.
Between the heavens and the hells are the

LIFE. 11
earths of the universe and all their inhabitants ; and
all of them have three distinct planes or degrees in
their minds, or three distinct grounds on which the
elementary principles of their life and character
rest. These three degrees in human minds, cor
respond to the three heavens, just as these cor
respond to the three elements or degrees of the
Divine Nature. For every man may have a dis
position to obey vivified within him, and this will
place him in close connection with the lowest hea
ven, where that love rules. Or, he may not stop
thfere, but, while on earth, (only on earth, for as
the tree falls so it lies,) he may permit his Father to
awake in him a sense of right and a love of his
neighbor, and then he will have within him the
vital influences of that higher heaven and its hap
piness ; or he may permit Him to fill his affections
with His love, and then, in his spirit and through
an eternal future, he will dwell near His throne even
in the highest Heaven, and amid its light and bliss.
And these three are in perfect harmony and con
stitute one heaven. If we go further down the
scale of being, we still find the image of this Trinity
in Unity. Thus every individual man has a soul,
and he has a body, and would die but for the con
stant action of the soul within and through the
body. Again, he has affection, which produces

12 LIFE.
thought, and through thought action. Indeed,
we may say that everything, animate or inani
mate, exists for the sake of some end or purpose,
and this may be regarded as that which it seeks
or loves ; and it has also a form or organization
adapted to its purpose, which form corresponds
to its design ; and it has an activity or opera
tion by which its character or quality is manifested
and its purpose effected. If we bear with us
this same truth to the realms of nature, we shall
find in the same correspondence, — the animal
kingdom, characterized by desire, affection, will ;
the vegetable kingdom, where there is organ
ization and life but without consciousness or will ;
and the mineral kingdom, which only obeys
the impulses which it receives. Thus, beginning
with God, we find these three degrees, and go
where we will through his creation we find them
also, for everywhere we find Himself. And this
is one of the many senses in which we may say
with His Word, " Whither shall I go from thy
spirit, or whither shall I flee from thy presence ?
If I ascend up into heaven thou art there ; if I
make my bed in hell, behold thou art there. If I
take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the
uttermost parts of the sea, even there shall thy hand
lead me."

LIFE. 13
I have thus endeavored to exhibit the existence,
the origin and nature, of the three degrees of being,
because it is by them, through them and in constant
conformity with them, that God created and creates
and ever sustains all that is. And therefore, they
are so intimately connected with the laws of be
ing, that the knowledge of these degrees must
constitute the foundation of all understanding of
these laws. Of these laws themselves, the first
thing to be said, is, that they are not dead laws,
once enacted by sovereign power and written on
the open pages of creation, and there left. They
are indeed nothing else than the methods of His
divine action in constantly creating ; for, with Him,
creation was not a work once done, but a work
that is always in doing. Time belongs not to His
nature, but to ours. And the laws of existence are
but the methods and the order whereby He is per
petually pouring forth life and being to all things.
I again repeat, for it is a central truth, — that
existence is but perpetual creation.
It is to be well remembered, that He alone has
life in Himself ; He alone is Life. He alone is
the vine; all other things and beings are the
branches, the leaves, the blossoms, the fruit. He
alone is the Fountain ; all other things are but drops
of the ever-rolling and unbounded stream of being.

14 LIFE.
He alone is anything by Himself; and all other
things are constantly created by him, from Himself.
And how ? Life, one effluent life, yet containing
in itself and consisting of the infinite elements of all
possible life, flows forth from Him, first, into the
heavens nearest to Him. And because it is from
Him and is His own life, it forms and moulds
them and all who are in them into an image and
likeness of himself. But it is lAfe; it stops not on
its way ; it still goes on ; it passes through these
heavens and into the heavens next to these, and
forms and moulds them also into a remoter image
and likeness of Himself, Still the stream of life
goes on ; passing through these, it flows into the
lowest heavens and forms them into the same
image and likeness, but still on a lower ground
and with a more dim resemblance.
Because this life, in its origin and essence,
is Infinite ; because its constant effect and ten
dency is perpetual and infinite growth and repro
duction, there is none the less in God, although
all the life of creation is always proceeding from
Him. And the stream of life flowing into and
through the heavens, and into and through men on
earth, still abides with all ; for it is one effect of the
original divine nature of life, that every thing and
every being that lives not only loses nothing by

LIFE. 15
imparting, but lives on condition that his strength,
his thought, his affection, his life, shall perpetually
flow forth in use. " He that would save his life shall
lose it," because the command, " Freely ye have
received, freely give," is constant and universal.
From the heavens therefore, life again goes forth.
But let us stop, for a moment, to look at its effects
and manifestations in the heavens. The Love and
Wisdom which fill and constitute them, are in
their source and their divine perfection, alike inef
fable and inconceivable ; but when they reach
the highest heavens, and the created human beings
who are there, they enter into their wills and un
derstandings, and become their love and their wis
dom. And because these angels are near to God,
and love Him supremely, the love and wisdom
they receive, although limited and defined in
them, are so little corrupted or perverted, that they
remain almost as inconceivable by us as before.
Their thoughts are not as our thoughts, nor their
affections as ours; and- their blessedness nothing
upon earth enables us to conceive. But when the
love and wisdom which constitute their affections
and thoughts, pass down into the lower heavens,
there they become more appreciable by us ; they
become what the wills and understandings of the
angels of those heavens make of them. They are

16 LIFE.
still the means of indescribable happiness ; but they
are nearer, and in the lowest heaven much nearer
the love and thought which may be experienced or
conceived on earth.
Below the heavens are the earths ; below the
angels are the inhabitants of earth. While we Hve
here, we are not arranged and classified as they
who are there, because our life here is but prepar
atory for and introductory to that ; and as a means
of discipline for that end all the elements of life are
mingled here. It is the constant effort of Provi
dence to develop and vivify in every human being
the highest plane or degree of his nature, which is
capable of free and voluntary life ; further than
this He does not go ; for, of all things. He always
guards and keeps that freedom which is the essen
tial condition and foundation of all good. All men
have in them capacities for the highest gifts which
bless the angels. All men have planes and degrees
of mind and affection answering to all those of the
heavens, from highest to lowest. But those which
are not developed here, which do not receive life
here, which the man does not by his free, voluntary,
and active cooperation, permit the influent life of
the heavens to vivify and fill, — these remain for
ever closed. Hence the life of the heavens, or the
divine love and wisdom which constitute the life,

LIFE. 17
the affection and thought of all in the heavens,
flow through them and enter as they can the minds
of men. Wherever it is possible, the divine love
and wisdom, modified only by the wills and under
standings of the highest angels, enter into minds of
kindred character upon earth. Where this is not
possible, but still, good and truth though of a lower
kind, reign, such persons live, because some among
the angels are media of life to them. Some
among the angels do, by their own wills and un
derstandings, so modify, so form and qualify the
divine love and wisdom, that it becomes adapted to
the states and wants of such men and capable of
becoming life in them. Where even this can
not be, where men have turned from good to evil,
from light to darkness, where they will not receive
the life of the heavens, even they still live ; for in
the regions of evil and of darkness are those who
so pervert the influent life they receive, as to quahfy
and adapt it to find reception with and give life
to all of their unhappy resemblances on earth.
Thus it is, that every man, whatever he may be
and whatever he may choose to be, lives, because
Divine Providence finds in the heavens or in the
hells appropriate media through whom he may
receive the life which suits his own good or evil
nature.

18 LIFE.
But while to all men is thus supplied the life
they love, it is not permitted to rule them ; for
good spirits have no desire to possess those to
whom they are mediums of life, and evil spirits
are not permitted to do so. Thus the influences
which supply life are always so met and equalized
by opposite influences, that the man himself has
life, but has it in freedom. Earth, with all who
dwell upon it, is between heaven and hell. In all
things and beings here, influences from above and
from below meet. Every man has near him, as the
media of his life, good and evil spirits. With
good men, the former agree with the will and the
choice, and the latter only so temper the influence of
the former, as to leave the man in freedom ; with
evil men the case is precisely reversed. To every
one it is given, not merely that he may, but that he
must, by his own will and life, determine whether
the influence from above, or that from beneath,
shall prevail with him forever.
The heavens, the hells, and the earths between
them, are inhabited by human beings, and we have
considered the laws of their existence. But all of
these human beings have worlds round about them
adapted to their natures and their needs. Let us
now look at these worlds ; and first at our own
earth and its kindred earths in the material uni-

LIFE. 19
verse. How are they created ? How do they
exist ? We have already seen that all human be
ings derive life from the One Source of Life ; and
this life consists of Love and Wisdom, which are
constantly flowing forth, and so creating. Let us
pursue the progress of this life-giving influence.
Having constituted the life of the heavens, and the
life of men on earth, it still goes on and constitutes
the earth itself. The Divine Love and Wisdom,
on their way to the earth, through the minds of
living and conscious beings, become in them affec
tions and thoughts ; but when they flow beyond
them, and so beyond the realms of consciousness,
they then become Heat and Light. These are the
primary elements of material creation, as Love and
Wisdom are of spiritual existence. The sun is as
the shadow of the Almighty in no merely poetical
sense ; it is His image, because it is the first and
nearest form which He assumes in His descent to
this outer world. His Love and His Wisdom per
petually well forth in the form of heat and light ;
and that form they assume as the medium or in
strument whereby He constantly creates and pre
serves the worlds of nature. But this is not all.
As in man, everywhere, there is a will and an un
derstanding, in which reside the love and truth
which are the heat and light of his soul, and

20 LIFE.
this love and truth become in his mind all the infi
nitely varied forms of affection and of thought of
which he is capable ; so too, through all these va
rious forms the influent life passes and flows forth,
and represents itself in the infinitely varied mate
rial forms which it assumes and so causes to
exist ; and all of these taken together constitute the
earth on which man dwells. Thus it is that this
earth is his mirror, his exact exponent and rep
resentative ; thus it is that it becomes precisely
adapted to his wants and his use, and thus it be
comes his home. First, and nearest to man, is the
animal kingdom ; and it consists of beings who
live because they are the representatives of his
affections and his thoughts. On the other hand,
no affection or thought is without its adequate
representative, for in that kingdom we find the
innocent and useful creatures whom we gather
about our homes, the beautiful birds whose songs
of joy are hymns of praise to the giver of their
happiness, and insects, that breaking forth from
the graves they spin, spreading their radiant wings
and fluttering with delight from flower to flower as
if they were but winged blossoms, image the resur
rection of the soul ; — and not that only, but the
resurrection of our thoughts, that feeding for a
while on grosser knowledge, and then, it may be.

LIFE. 21
resting in silence and in darkness, at length break
forth, beautiful, and winged, and free, and soar to
wards heaven, in the light of unclouded day. And
with these representatives of what is good and
true, are mingled, as in the minds of men, the
fierce tiger, the cunning fox, the ravening wolf,
the crawling and venomous serpent, and the foul
and stinging insect ; all of which would rend away
the veil that covers man's heart, if he did not
love that veil, and cling to it with all his strength.
Below animal life is the vegetable kingdom ;
and this too represents, in its beauty and in its de
formity, in its fruits and in its poisons, and in the
very laws of its growth by which seed and plant,
leaf, blossom and fruit succeed each other, all
the varied elements of human life. Human affec
tion and thought are imaged here, in the bud which
conceals and guards its treasure, in the green leaf,
in the blossom which light has painted, and in the
ripened fruit which closes the circle and contains
the seed that is ready to begin it anevv. The time
will come when all these things will speak. Bound
less the instruction they will give, happy the ear
and the heart that open to receive it.
Below the vegetable forms, lies the mineral king
dom ; or rather the whole of unorganized matter,
including the airs and the waters, as well as the

22 LIFE.
solid earth. Here we reach the last and lowest
limit ; and on this plane also are similar analogies.
Perhaps this doctrine, of the descent of Life,
may be illustrated by a different example. Thus,
let us begin by the endeavor to conceive of God,
not merely as loving, but as Infinite Love it
self; to consider Love as being itself the very
divine essence and substance. This may be diffi
cult ; for in the present universal habit of sensuous
thought, we can easily conceive of loving, but not
of Love as a substance. But we may as well deny
that fire is a substance, because we know it only
as flaming, or burning, or melting. If we succeed
in believing that Love is a spiritual substance and
not merely a quality, and if we comprehend that
this in its origin and infinity is a divine substance,
then let us consider this, first, as manifesting itself
in God, in His infinite love for all his children,
and as being that which makes Him a Universal
Father. From Him this paternal love comes
into the will of man, and finds that an organized
spiritual form, made for the very purpose of be
coming a recipient of divine love. Being in
man, it there manifests itself as his paternal aflec-
tion, without which the earth would soon cease to
be inhabited. But it goes lower down. It enters
into all animals ; in the timid bird it manifests

LIFE. 23
itself as the tender love, which gathers its young
under its wings, and labors earnestly to feed them,
and makes the fearful creature fierce against all
danger, and willing to die to save its unfledged
brood. But it goes down yet lower. It enters
into the vegetable kingdom and there manifests
itself in the constant effort of the plant or tree to
nourish and perfect its seed, and so perpetuate
itself in its productions. Still lower in the world
of matter, it produces those efforts at crystallization
and arrangement and growth, which science has
just begun to lay hold of. One — everywhere —
in all the various forms of being which it fills, it
manifests itself everywhere, by an effort to the
same end, which varies in its appearance and
effect, not only in the classes of being but in every
individual being, according to the form, organiza
tion and quality of that being. And this may be
regarded as one simple illustration of a universal
law. For every afliection or desire in man or ani
mal, and every effort, tendency or activity in the
material world, exists primarily in the one Source
of being, and passes through all the stages of ex
istence, to the ultimates of being.
This lower world may indeed be regarded as a
world of effects, of which the causes are in the
higher world ; and as the causes manifest them-

24 LIFE.
selves in these eflicts, so the eflfects do therefore
correspond to and represent and signify these
causes of their being. Hence, all that we see
around us of dead matter, lives and speaks if we
will hear. Earth is but an opened book; her
mountains and valleys ; deserts gemmed with
islands of refreshment wherever springs break
through the sand ; fields, and rocks, and waters ;
the great sea and " the sky spread like an ocean
hung on high ; " all these are significant and in
structive, if we will let them be so. Poetry has
always known this. To her the beauty of nature
has always been only the transparent covering of
its inward life, and it has always been her delight
ful office to make that beauty eloquent. But sci
ence, the truest and highest science, will, in com
ing ages, invest with her own firmness and consist
ency truths that do indeed rest upon immutable
and universal laws, although hitherto seen only by
the poet. Seen indeed by him only in fitful
glances, like the gleams which for a moment
pierce a broad, cold cloud that darkens the whole
heaven ; and because so seen only, untaught rea
son, in the blindness of its pride, calls them mere
beautiful imaginations, even while they stir and
teach the heart with the power of living truth.

LIFE. 25
By far the most momentous inference from these
views of the Laws of Existence, is that which re
lates to the Bible, — the Word of God. For our
Father in heaven, besides creating all things and
beings through His Truth, reveals that truth to all
in the form of doctrine, that it may be a perpetual
light to their steps. This revelation is made to all,
but in various ways ; to those in the highest heav
ens, to all other angels, and to men on earth. But
the truth is ever the same. It is His own truth,
and therefore ever the same, always and to all.
Yet they who are in one state of existence need
very different instruction from that which is re
quired by others who are in a very different state.
How is this difference effected ; how is the adapta
tion of divine truth to all the states and exigencies
of angels and of men, produced ? Chiefly by means
of the law of correspondence. For the same Word
which is radiant with the manifestation of divine
truth to the angels, and always teaches them the
way of their own blessed life, descends to earth to
lead men to heaven. Here it was revealed through
men to men, and thus was made to assume a natu
ral appearance. It narrates external historical
facts, real or supposed, and refers to objects of
sense, and commands things of outward observ
ance, all of which exactly correspond to, and
3

26 LIFE.
therefore exactly represent and signify the higher
truths which the same Word teaches to the angels.
It is thus that the natural, literal sense of the
Word was formed ; it is thus that it contains with
in it spiritual and heavenly senses ; thus is the lite
ral sense made holy by the divinity within ; thus is
this sense exactly adapted to lead men along the
paths of goodness and truth, to that state wherein
they need and are willing to receive and able to
obey the higher senses which lie within the literal ;
and it is thus that these higher senses may be
brought within the apprehension of men who are
willing to learn and love them.
These internal senses are now revealed ; for now
the Son of God has, as he promised, " come in the
clouds of heaven with power and great glory." The
divine truth by which the heavens are created and
which fills them, is Heaven, and its clouds are the
literal and natural senses which are interposed that
the unprepared eye may not be blasted with excess
of light. The Son of God now comes, in these
clouds, for he now reveals the truths concerning
Himself, His laws, and His providence, which are
contained within the literal sense. He comes
with the Power of divine truth to build up a New
Church, a new Earth, a new condition of Humanity.
And with great Glory, for the sum and substance

life. 27
of all that the spiritual senses teach, is, that every
thing good and true comes from Him alone, and to
Him alone they give the glory.
Hitherto much of the Bible has been a sealed
book ; and but a small portion of the human race
has had access to it, for most of the nations were
supplied with the instruction they needed from
other sources. Far-descended traditions, forms of
worship and ritual, and books of religious doctrine,
have in various ways furnished the heathen with
instructions which guided to heaven all who were
willing to be led thither. But the Bible, illustrated
and glorified by the revelation of its concealed
treasures, will now go forth conquering and to con
quer. To every nation and in every tongue will it
go in the bright future on which the light of hope
and promise now rests, and to all it will carry
blessing and salvation. The remarkable efforts
which have been made within the few years since
the New Church was established upon earth, to
spread the Scriptures, at once indicate and assist
the new influences from heaven which are prepar
ing for the children of men, a new earth.
It is impossible to give a just impression of what
is meant by the internal senses of Scripture, ex
cept by examples ; and it is impossible to give
them in sufficient number and with sufficient ful
ness to effect this purpose within a brief space.

28 life.
It can only be said that the laws of correspondence
are exact and definite ; they constitute a science of
great precision and certainty. Swedenborg devotes
about twenty volumes to the explanation of three
books only of the Scriptures, and professes to do lit
tle more than open the way to their meaning. The
inner truths of the Word are indeed infinite ; and
through revolving eternities their successive devel
opment constantly gives new instruction and new
light to those who consent to receive it.
Another interesting result from these laws of
existence is that which explains the spirit-world.
The life which, flowing through angels into men,
and through men into nature, constitutes our world,
flows also out from angels all around them, and
constitutes their world. For they have their world,
real, varied, beautiful, and formed to contribute to
their happiness as ours ; or rather far more so,
because they are far more capable of happiness.
As it exists in the same way in which our world
exists, springing from the same causes and govern
ed by similar laws, it is like our own. Milton was
more than a poet, or rather he was truly a poet,
when he says, Though what if earth
Be but the shadow of heaven and things therein.
Each to the other like, more than on earth is thought !

life. 29
And Wordsworth, true to the same poetic instinct,
has the same idea in his Laodamia. He speaks of
the spirit-world as composed
Of all that is most beauteous, imaged there
In happier beauty ; more pellucid streams ;
An ampler ether, a diviner air,
And fields invested with purpureal gleams ;
Climes which the sun that sheds the brightest day
Earth knows, is all unworthy to survey.
But though these worlds are like, they also difler ;
and there are two or three points of diflerence
which should be noticed. One is, that here, the
living energies that give form to nature, are ulti-
mated or vested in material substance, which is
comparatively hard and gross. But there, life flows
forth into spiritual substance, which is yielding and
plastic, and more perfectly obeys the life which
creates it. Moreover, there, angels are together ;
for the societies of heaven are discriminated and
arranged with the greatest precision and order.
Hence the world about them is not mingled, dis
cordant, and conflicting, like this. Life is there
without decay ; beauty, and no worm to gnaw its
bud ; light and warmth, and all lovely and in
nocent creatures, breathing the bright, soft air ; and
a vegetable kingdom but faintly imaged upon earth
by those plants which have at once and in full

30 life.
perfection leaf and fruit and flower. If the thought
occurs that we should miss the sublimity of the
frozen mountain-top, the storm-cloud and fierce
lightning, and winter's wide expanse of unstained
snow, let us consider whether lessons of equal
sublimity and emotions of yet greater depth may
not be given, when all the elements of natural
beauty are evolved in infinite variety and a perfec
tion unimagined now. Moreover, because this spir
itual substance is plastic, and nearer in its own na
ture to the soul, it reflects the soul and all that is
within it more constantly and more perfectly. Here,
this correspondence is general ; the earth present
ing in its various forms an image of human nature.
There, this correspondence is particular ; adapted
to the societies of angels; and every angel has
about him a home, and all natural forms, which
perfectly represent himself. He sees there his own
affections, his own thoughts, in form and in activity ;
they grow as he grows ; they change as he changes ;
they are always himself in outward representation.
Into this spirit- world man enters at death. While
in this lower world his spiritual body was within
his natural body, giving it life and power and sense.
It was always his spiritual eye which saw, his
spiritual ear which heard, his spiritual senses which
took cognizance of all things about him. But while

life. 31
he lived in the material body, it was only through
the material organs of that body, that the eye of
his spiritual body could see and its ear could hear ;
and for that purpose these material organs were
exquisitely fitted to the spiritual organs which they
served as instruments. But when these material
organs or coverings fell off, the spiritual eye, the
true and living eye, does not lose the power of see
ing. It loses the power of seeing the material
things for which it once possessed a material or
gan, and acquires the power of seeing the spiritual
substances and forms which this material organ
had veiled. So it is with all the senses, and
with all the organs of the body. The man rises
from that portion of earth which his soul once
vivified ; rises with the spiritual body he always
had, and rises in full possession of all his senses
and faculties, into a world of spiritual substances,
of which his spiritual senses and organs now take
cognizance in the same manner as the material or
gans here perceive material things. In a word,
Death is Birth, and then man rises a man as be
fore, but in a new world ; yet, with all his organs,
limbs, senses, faculties ; and into a world like in its
appearances, and analogous in its uses, to the
world he has left.

32 LIFE. '
Besides the mediate influx from God, which I
have attempted to consider, every being receives
constantly an immediate influx. And it is rather
to this influx that creation should be ascribed ; for
it is this which calls every thing and being into ex
istence, and renders it capable of receiving the
mediate influx, of which I have spoken. Per
haps it is enough to say upon this topic now, that
whatever exists, receives its life in a twofold way.
One, and the first, directly from God, the source
of Life ; and this gives to it being and existence.
The other comes from God through all the in
termediate planes or degrees of being; and is
thus adapted to the state of every one, so as to
supply him with life, while it is also in the constant
endeavor to improve and elevate that state. I have
spoken of this, rather because so essential a truth
should not be omitted in a view of the laws of Life,
than in the hope that the brief statement I have
space for, in this Essay, can render it intelligible.
Thus far I have spoken of the life-influences
of the Divine, in their descent, in their progress
from within, outward. But they return to their in
finite Source. Always life, they stop nowhere.
Thus, when they have reached and created this
lower, material woild, they manifest themselves in
this by a constant eflfort to reassume an upward

LIFE. 33
flight ; and they begin to accomplish this by pro
viding sustenance and support for the vegetable
kingdom. Earths, stones, and waters, always acted
upon by the air and the imponderable fluids, are
always endeavoring to become more and more
adapted to sustain vegetable life, and to enter into
vegetable life, and so ascend in the scale of being.
This endeavor may seem to be arrested where deso
lation reigns, and an inhospitable climate is at war
with life, but still the work on the whole earth
is always going on. Thus the vegetable world,
which lives by the descent of the principles of life,
is nourished and preserved by the same principles
in their returning ascent; and in the vegetable
kingdom they are again active in making its whole
organization subserve the purpose of giving sus
tenance to the animal world which lies next above
the vegetable creation. Then this whole lower
world, all the existences below man, are fifled and
animated by the constant eflbrt to provide for him
a fitting dwelling-place, and food and raiment and
shelter. In the mind of man, the principles of
life have a form less removed from their divine
Original ; they become again, what they were in
their descent to him. Love and Wisdom ; — they
are in him, the wisdom which looks up to God, to
find in Him the only source of life and blessing.

34 LIFE.
and the love which leads that wisdom upwards,
the love of God, which now, as the conscious
and voluntary love of human beings, returns to
Him from whom it descended.
Nor is this all. Upon the earth the heavens
rest ; from it they are supplied, for none are there
who were not here or on some other earth. The
character is formed in this life which fits for hea
ven. Conscious of their blessedness, the angels
desire more than aught else to extend that blessed
ness ; to enlarge the heavens ; to make their inhab
itants more numerous and their home more per
fect. And the joy that is in heaven over every
sinner that repenteth, over every one who allows
himself to be led thither, gives a constant direc
tion to angelic endeavor, and a constant happiness
to angelic life.
To state the preceding views in a more con
densed form, it may be said, that, —
The various classes of being exist on diflferent
planes or degrees, which are measured and deter
mined by their distance from Him who is the
origin of being.
The existences upon every plane but the highest
having others higher than themselves, and upon
every plane but the lowest having others lower

LIFE. 35
than themselves, are all so created and formed by
the efllux of life from the Highest, (which passing
through and giving birth and form to all, impresses
itself upon all) that they all correspond together ;
the higher everywhere repeating itself in the lower,
and there accommodating itself in form, use and
manifestation to a lower and remoter life.
Every order or degree of beings is the medium
through which life and existence flow to those
below ; and in every order or degree of being,
there is a constant tendency upwards ; a constant
endeavor to provide support, sustenance, exercise
and happiness for those above.
It is this system of existence which ancient
mythology represented by the chain, which, fast
ened to the throne of God, fell in perpetual folds,
embraced the earth, encircled within one or other
of its golden links every created thing, and then
returned to Him from whom it descended. Or, to
refer to another and more appropriate symbol, the
laws of Existence, thus understood, realize the
ladder of the Patriarch's dream. It rests upon the
earth and its top is in the heavens ; and upon every
step of its infinite length, the angels of God are
descending and ascending forever and ever.

PROVIDENCE

PROVIDENCE,

It was the purpose of the preceding pages
to exhibit the laws of life, as they are manifested
in the creation and support of all that exists.
Closely connected with this subject, is one of yet
deeper interest. What are the laws of human im
provement ? What are the means by which the
progress of man towards heaven and towards God,
is made possible ? These questions I will now at
tempt to answer. And again we must go far back
towards the source of existence. Indeed, the great
Problem of Life presents three distinct aspects. It
calls upon us to know whence we derive life, and
how it is that the life we are conscious of is so im
perfect and impure ; and how such a life as this
may be cleansed, enlarged, and elevated.
Whence do we derive life ? We have already
said from God, who is Life itself and the only

40 PROVIDENCE.
Source of Life. Nor can it be necessary to reas
sert this ; for all who profess any religion acknow
ledge it to be in some sense, true. Still it is a
truth obscured by prevailing falsehood ; so obscur
ed and dimmed, that it would be extinguished,
if it were possible for any depth or darkness of the
clouds to blot out the sun. There is especially one
falsity shrouding this truth in these days in almost
all minds. It tells us that life was given to our
first parents, and is given only by transmission or
inheritance to their children ; or if it do not re
move the work of creation so far backwards, it
teaches that when a living soul was breathed into
each man, the gift of immortality to him was en
tire, and the work of creation completed, and could
neither be exhausted nor repeated. But there are
so many ways in which this falsehood may be ex
posed, that escape from it cannot be difficult. It
ascribes to the Eternal Present of divine power,
our Past and Future. It elevates Time, as the na
tions strove to build their tower in the plains of
Shinar, until it pierces the heavens ; and utter
confusion of tongue and thought is the result. It
brings down God to man only by a process of de
gradation ; only by imparting to Him our imper
fections. We construct a clock or other machinery ;
and admire our own skill, in proportion as the work

PROVIDENCE. 41
of our hands goes on the surer and the longer with
out our touch and presence. And so we think God
made man and built the world. But we forget that
our clock goes on, only because we leave it to the
constant operation of the constant activities of na
ture. For not even here, on this lower plane of
existence, is there anything which encourages us to
beheve that any effect can continue after the cause
has ceased to operate.
God is the one cause. He is the cause of all
causes. Exclude this truth from the idea of God,
and nothing is left. He is also a continual, a con
stant cause. There is a universal tendency which
leads us to limit Him as we are limited, and, re
versing the truth, create God in man's image ;
but if we reflect upon the divine nature with
any endeavor to resist this tendency, we shall
perceive that it must be His constant operation
which not only sustains, but is always impart
ing life, and, as an always present act, causes
all that is, to be. When this truth is clearly
seen by us, we have gained much ; for it is a
truth of great power. It touches the dead bones
which we call the laws of nature, and they live.
It comes with consolation and with hope, for it
comes to tell us that God is very near, and always
Himself present ; and that he has not delivered us
4*

42 PROVIDENCE.
over to lower agencies or lifeless laws, as his vice
gerents. When this truth becomes our own, and we are
able to acknowledge sincerely that life is the con
stant gift of God, another question presents itself.
What is the life He gives ? There can be but one
answer to this ; — the hfe he gives is His own life ;
and it is and must be from Himself. In a former
Essay I have endeavored to illustrate this truth.
But we cannot rest in this truth, because it lead's
directly to a question of great difficulty. How can
the life of God become that which our life is ; so
imperfect, so impure, so full of all that demands
change and improvement ; so directly and thor
oughly opposed to the will of God himself ?
To this question we have already given one an
swer. We have endeavored to show how the Di
vine Life comes to us through intermediate natures,
of which the series constantly approaches us, and
terminates in those who are like ourselves. This
answer, so far as it is intelligible, and understood,
may explain the fact, that Life, although pure in its
source, becomes in us such as we are. But why are
we permitted to become such ? This question too is
answered, when we understand, that freedom, free-
agency, is given to man and constantly preserved,
as the essential condition of his happiness. For if

PROVIDENCE. 43
we understand this, it is easily seen that freedom
to be good, must also be freedom to be evil, or else
it is not freedom. For liberty of choice, and free-
agency, imply of necessity the capacity and ability
to abuse and pervert them ; and this capacity be
ing exercised, has made man what he is.
Having already considered how man acquires his
actual state and character, and is still supplied with
life from its only Source, which life is modified into
an adaptation to his quality, — let us now look at the
means by which he may rise into another charac
ter and state. And if we can form any just idea
upon these two subjects, we may hope to discern
something of the reason why man has been permit
ted to fall into his present condition, and something
of the mercy which constantly keeps open a way
by which he may escape from it.
I would repeat, to prevent misconception, that I
can now attempt to give only the most general
view of a subject, so extensive and so difficult.
Let us begin then by inquiring, in what form do
the questions of the problem we attempt to solve,
present themselves to the mind. Perhaps it may
be thus. If we know that men live by means of
an influx, that, coming from pure and perfect
Life, becomes adapted to them, by passing
through intermediate beirigs, and thus by gradual

44 PROVIDENCE.
approach becoming such as they are, the difficulty
then arises how can men grow better ? And when
we know, on the other hand, that man lives also
by an influx directly into the inmost of his soul,
from Life itself, from Divine Life, the question
then occurs, how is it that man is so impure, so
imperfect, so full of affections which are oppo
site to divine affections ? The answer to both of
these questions is one. For that answer is, that
this influx through media, and this other direct in
flux, are both from one Source, both for one end ;
and must cooperate to produce that end. As we
assist this cooperation, we advance our own regen
eration ; and as we understand this cooperation,
so we shall understand what regeneration is, and
how it is effected.
Before this can be understood, some idea must
be formed of the three degrees of life which are
within every one. The internal and the external
man are not the soul and the body. They are
rather two natures, if we may so speak ; almost
two beings. Nor can this be illustrated better
than by appealing to every one's experience. Who
has not known what it is to be impelled in one
direction by vehement desires, while at the same
time, other affections above and within these re
strain and hold us back with a firm hand, and will

PROVIDENCE. 45
not let us go ? This is not a mere comparison of
arguments, or balancing the expediency of one
course against that of another. That exists by it
self. But beside it all, there is in every one's ex
perience that which, if he permits it, may give him
a consciousness, that he has within him truths,
aflections, principles, other and higher than those
of his external life. The common phrase which
invites the erring or the tempted to look within,
and ask of conscience what is right, is but one
expression of a universal truth. The external of
man is that part of his nature which is nearest his
conduct, his outward life ; on that plane are his
passions, his most apparent motives, his opinions,
and the plans and purposes which fluctuate with
circumstances; by this he comes in contact with
the world without; and these are the thoughts
and affections which are the first effects of sen
sation, or which lie just within the senses. The
internal of man is something more. There are his
principles of action ; there, whatever of reason he
may have ; there the great and permanent ends, —
whatever may be their quality, — which determine
and constitute his real character. Within this again
is his inmost ; and in the inmost of every man is
Life directly from God ; not so assimilated to him
that he can be conscious of it ; not within his reach

46 PROVIDENCE.
that he may pervert it ; and therefore not within
either his knowledge or his power.
The life and love which flow into man through
living media, conform to his state, so as to fill him as
he is, and whatever he may be, with life. These
media are good and evil ; the evil perpetually en
deavoring to make him like themselves ; the good
ever striving to improve and elevate him ; and both
together filling all his life, and so tempered by each
other, as to leave him in freedom. While this is
so, the life which flows in directly from God, and
is concealed within, perpetually seeks and endeav
ors to bring the states of conscious and voluntary
life into a free conformity with itself. In doing
this, it constantly uses and works through and with
the efforts of those who are the media of life to
the external. In this way are supplied and vivi
fied the constant means of human improvement
and regeneration.
Between these two, — life in the inmost of the
heart, and external life, — there is in the beginning
no conformity ; there is an active opposition. This
opposition produces conflict, a sense of internal
warfare, a want of peace, unless the divine and in
most life ceases its endeavor to bring the external
life into conformity with itself, because the opposi
tion to that endeavor is confirmed and absolute ;

PROVIDENCE. 47
and then there is the peace of the unhappy and
the lost. It is not meant that the good, or they
who are becoming good, have no peace, no rest.
Their prevailing state is one of warfare. The lan
guage of the Bible harmonizes with all human ex
perience, in declaring that all progress implies ef
fort, resistance, combat ; but there are intervals of
peace, — intervals, when the battle of that day is
won, and the wearied soldier rests and rejoices ;
intervals, when the climbing pilgrim has reached a
mountain-top, and while he breathes the sweet
freshness of its air, he looks back upon his nights
of darkness and his days of toil, and around upon
a world now glowing with beauty because the love
which fifls it is, for that hour, unveiled, — and up
ward to a sky, from which the clouds have melted
or else give back the sunshine in golden light ; and
forward, to the distant and loftier summits, where
peace has a more abiding home. These are inter
vals of refreshing rest and calm and quiet glad
ness. They spring from the cessation of conflict
between the life that lies latent in the inmost soul
and that which animates the external character.
This external hfe is not yet wholly obedient, wholly
conformed to the life within ; but for a while it is
quiescent, — for a while it yields so far as to give
rest to the soul, and a foretaste of the joy, the

48 PROVIDENCE.
measure of which will be full when the work is
done. And these states of peace give strength for
further endeavors, further conflicts. They come
again before the mind when hope is fainting, and
breathe into her the breath of life ; they come to
rebuke the fear that might else be despair ; to in
vigorate the efforts which begin to fail, to strengthen
the resolution when it wavers. They come to re
mind us that in the treasury of Divine Love there
is enough to compensate for all that we can do,
and all that we can suffer.
If we know that regeneration is produced by
the endeavor of the life within to bring into con
formity with itself the life of the external mind,
the next truth necessary to the comprehension of
this subject is, that this is done, and can be done,
only through the conscious and voluntary act and
effort of the man himself. It is not meant that
there is no progress unless there be a knowledge
of these truths and principles, and an endeavor
after improvement based upon them. Far from it.
But it is meant that there is no progress unless
where there is a conscious and voluntary endeavor to
conform to the will of God. And this is, in effect,
the same thing. In the laws of God, revealed by
Him to various nations and in different ways, but
always as rules of life, God reveals Himself. These

PROVIDENCE. 49
laws, in their purity, express the principles of His
own nature and hfe. They come down into lan
guage, and are variously modified to meet the exi
gencies and suit the disposition of the time and
people to whom they are given ; and thus they are
often mingled with much that is derived from the
state of those to whom they are addressed, because
it is thus that these laws may be made intelligible,
accessible, practicable. But within them all, as
that which gives them life and power and makes
them good, is the truth which describes the very
life of God himself; and therefore this truth is an
expression in words of the life which, by direct
influx from Him, fills the inmosts of all men. Thus
these laws are, in their essence, one with the in
most life of man. And they who endeavor to
obey them and to love them, to conform to them in
conduct and affection, do thus in fact endeavor to
bring their external and conscious life into con
formity and oneness with the life within ; and
these laws are given for this very purpose. The
disposition to obey them comes from this inward
life ; and the ability to obey them is from the same
source. While this disposition and ability are
always given, but without controlling the man's
own will, and so doing violence to his freedom,
and while they are given just so far as may be done
5

50 PROVIDENCE.
without impairing freedom, the influence from the
spiritual world, which gives us conscious thoughts
and affections, is always so modified as to place
the man in freedom to turn towards or from
the laws of genuine life. It is so modified, that
whosoever is willing to receive into his will the dis-
^position to obey those laws, and is also willing to
exert his ability to obey them, finds in the life
which forms his conscious being, no obstrucfion
which he may not overcome. It is not said that
he will find no obstruction. Evil spirits are there,
for that part of his character which is evil must
also be filled and vivified, and they and their se
ductive promptings must be resisted and overcome ;
sometimes with labor and pain ; but always with
success, if the effort be earnest and sincere, because
their injurious influence is so qualified, so met and
counteracted, as to leave man in freedom.
The law on this subject may be stated, generally,
thus. Man lives by influx of life from the Source
of life into the inmost of his being. He also lives
by influx from the same source through such me
dia as modify that life into fitness and conformity
with his own. Angels and good spirits are in part
these media. Their efforts are constant to make
him better than he is ; and the life which flows to
him directly from the Lord, constantly endeavors

PROVIDENCE. 51
to make these efforts successful, and bring the out
ward conduct into oneness with the purer life
within, so far as this may be done without violence
and in freedom. The man may compel himself;
and is then most free, when he asserts the sove
reignty of truth and of religion, and compels his
external life to obedience.
This statement may seem strange and para
doxical in many respects ; but chiefly in this. It
may suggest the idea that Divine Providence, in
operating thus, employs a circuitous and compli
cated, mode of effecting objects, which might be
reached more directly and more perfectly by the
mere will of Omnipotence ; and in so believing, we
may seem to ascribe to Him infirmity and lack of
power. We give one answer to this objection, when we
refer to the whole course of existence, to all the
varied life of the universe. We have everywhere
a proof that God acts by means ; we have no sin
gle instance of other action. All things that exist
exert an influence of some kind, greater or less,
nearer or more remote, upon all other things ; and
the various forms of being which constitute the uni
verse, are preserved from isolation and uselessness,
by this mutual and perfectly universal interdepen
dence. But while the objection may be silenced

52 PROVIDENCE.
by this answer, it is explained only when we re
member that this very law of interdependence con
stitutes the perfection of everything and the hap
piness of whatever can be happy. For, by means
of it, while Providence gives to each one and does
for each one what it needs, another is made the
medium of the gift, and so is in its own use and
happiness. Think but for a moment of depriving
any being we may place before the mind, of all in
fluence upon others, all efiect whatever upon man
or society, by example or otherwise ; and we see
at once that we take from that being all life, all
occupation, all wherein and whereby he now lives
and enjoys. If we do not kiU him outright, we
bury him alive. So far therefore as the objection
to the manner of regeneration we have attempted
to describe rests upon the apparent complexity of
the means, so far it should be answered by the
truth, that this complexity doubles the blessing, —
making it bless him on whom it falls, and them
through whom it descends ; and this law is in the
truest analogy with all the laws of the universe.
But a part of this objection rests upon another
ground ; upon the difficulty of believing that per
fect Love accomplishes its purpose of blessing,
only through the toil and suffering of those on
whom the blessing rests. That it is so, all expe-

PROVIDENCE. 53
rience and observation prove ; for not religion
only, but all philosophy teaches, that for all great
good a great price must be paid. To explain this
however, requires another consideration ; and that
consideration touches the need and use of individ
ual freedom.
Let us remember what it is to be regenerate. It
is, to love, consciously and freely, the will of God.
And how can this be if we have no freedom, or if
this freedom be violated ? We can undoubtedly '
conceive of Omnipotence as changing, at once and
by irresistible will, the whole conduct and motives
of a man ; but if we attempt to combine with this,
the thought that the man remains always through
this process and at its close a free man, we shall
find ourselves employed in reconciling contradic
tions. We are bringing together ideas which are
mutually destructive. To lead one by persuasive
means, which, in their constant gentleness, use no
force, impairs no freedom. But compulsion and
inevitable necessity cannot make any person choose
one of many things ; we may make him take, ac
cept, what we will ; but no choice is there, for
there is no freedom ; and because there is no
choice and no freedom, there is no willing recep
tion into the heart, there is no love, no happiness,
no heaven. Here then is the truth which explains
5*

54 PROVIDENCE.
the dealings of God with man, for it is the truth
which those dealings regard. Heaven is love, is
happiness, is freedom, for these are inseparably
connected. We might almost say that the prob
lem which every man's regeneration presents to the
Divine Providence, is the leading him from one
class of affections into others which are directly
opposite the first, without violating his freedom at
any single step, or in the final result ; and I sup
pose this problem to be solved, this work to be
done, in the manner and by the means of which
I have attempted, in the preceding pages, to give
a very general idea.
If we have a clear perception of these truths, and
hold them constantly connected, we have a key to
the mystery of human life. We may apply this
key to the occurrences of our own life, and under
stand the origin, the operation, and the use of
many events, perhaps of many sufferings, which
were otherwise shrouded in more than midnight
blackness. Let me re-state these truths or propo
sitions, or principles, in the simplest form in which
I am able to convey them. The first is this. Every
man lives by influx from the Lord, who is Life it
self. This influx of life reaches him in two ways ;
in one way through intermediate beings, the last of
the series approaching nearest to himself ; and this

PROVIDENCE. 55
influx being modified by this transmission, fills his
external character, his conscious thoughts and af
fections, with a life at once in correspondence with
his will and disposition, whatever they may be, and
yet constantly endeavoring to elevate that will.
An influx of life also reaches man directly from
God ; and this is pure unmingled Divine life. It
goes into the inmosts of his soul, and remains there
unseen, unknown, except in its influence ; and this
influence it constantly exerts in the endeavor to
bring the outward, voluntary, conscious character
into conformity with itself.
The second of these truths or principles is
this. The inmost life, in its endeavor to bring the
outward life into oneness with itself, never acts
with violence. It always regards man's freedom,
his choice, his will ; and this it seeks never to
break and crush, but to bend and lead, and gradu
ally renew the character. It would make the man
love now what he hated ; and this it would do in
such wise that he may do it as of himself, and re
tain his liberty and indulge his affections, even in
the work of changing his affections.
Take with us these two truths, and they reveal
the secret mercy which leads man through sorrow,
and through temptation, even to the very Source
of mercy.

56 PROVIDENCE.
Many are the enigmas which may thus be solved.
The success, prosperity, happiness of the wicked,
often stand in mournful contrast with the sorrows
and painful labors of those who would be good.
The world often gives to the one its honor, power,
and homage ; and to the other, poverty, depression
and contempt. How easily are these things now
explained ! God knows — He alone knows —
what manner of man each one is. He knows
whether ill success and pain and sorrow will check
self-love, and turn the thoughts from earth to heav
en, and vivify religious wishes, and bring forth true
humility ; and if this will be the effect of sorrow
and disappointment, they are permitted. But
where they would only exasperate, and anger and
despair would mingle in the heart like the fire and
hail which ran together alongthe ground of Egypt,
— then success and prosperity are given instead.
For God does not willingly afflict, and chastens
them only whom chastisement may improve.
Often too it happens, that they who cannot be
made with their own cooperating consent good,
may yet be restrained from deeper evil by affliction
and various suffering ; and then it comes to them
from the same mercy which gladly drops the oil of
gladness upon aU who in their happiness remem
ber Him, and can therefore be led to heaven by

PROVIDENCE. 57
the paths of peace. Yet none may hope that all
their ways will be pleasantness, and all their paths
peace. Our natural proneness to love self and the
world more than we love God and His will, being
universal, it may be said that none can be prepared
for heaven without passing through the dark valleys
where affliction dwells.
But nothing of this is or can be^t any moment,
to any person, accidental. The Providence of
God never remits its care, never abates its love,
never changes its purpose, and its wisdom never
fails. Because it is Infinite it fills and guides
alike the least and greatest things, and so dis
poses all as to promote His constant purpose.
The spirit of God is often compared in the Word
to the wind which bloweth where it listeth and we
know not whence it cometh nor whither it goeth.
Yet who can doubt, that the wind, alike in its
sport and in its fury, whether it brings refreshment
or destruction, moves in obedience to the physical
laws which God impresses upon nature. If the
storm lashes the ocean into fury or devastates the
earth, we are willing to listen as to the voice of
God and look with awe upon the putting forth of
his power. And yet how blind are we not to know,
how dull not to remember, that the soft wind of
summer, answering with its sweet song to the bird

58 PROVIDENCE.
and the insect and all the pleasant sounds of na
ture, and bearing away upon its gentle breath the
perfume of the blossoms, — is equally and wholly,
His instrument. His servant. So it is with the
wind of His spirit. No hair of our heads, no spar
row falls to the ground, without His cognizance
and permission — and for His purpose.
If we apply the principles we have been consid
ering, to those dispensations of Providence by
which churches have been established, we may
perhaps explain the fact, that they have come suc
cessively and have brought with them but partial
disclosures of Divine Truth. One would think
that if Truth were a good thing, it would be given
to man at once, in full and overflowing measure.
So it might be given. If it were the will of God,
all His creation would utter forth His Wisdom,
audibly, irresistibly. The sighing or the stormy
wind, the singing bird, and all the myriad voices of
nature might easily be made to declare His laws.
The burning lights of the sky would record them in
fire, and every leaf, tossed by the breath of autumn
to man's feet, would bring its written lesson. But
there is nothing of all this. The means which
God has chosen for His revelations are very differ
ent ; and the measure of His revelation to every

PROVIDENCE. 59
succeeding church seems carefully adjusted by
some Law, to some End. We have now the law
and the end disclosed to us ; for we may know
now that truth is given only in such form and mea
sure as may best lead man in freedom, to submit
his external and conscious life to the life within and
to the laws of that life. More than this is not
given, because it would do violence and thus pre
vent or retard a real progress. The truth given in
successive dispensations advances in quantity and
in clearness, for the very reason that every dispen
sation which produces its intended effect upon the
human race, thereby makes it possible for more
and brighter truth to be given safely. As this is
the law of Divine Providence to ages and to races,
so it is to individuals. The circumstances which
surround every person are so governed, opportuni
ties are so closed or opened, that the very truth
most useful to him is placed within his reach ; and
every truth received, obeyed and loved, opens the
way for more. Nor is there in this, more than in
any of God's laws, a motive to inaction or an ex
cuse for it. Whatever is given to man is given
through man ; and they who possess truth which
others have not, cannot without wrong, forget that
they have it, first that they may obey it, and next
that they may give it. And while they exert, tem-

60 PROVIDENCE.
perately and reasonably, all the means which God
has given them to diffuse the truth which He has
given them, they may be sure to be blessed as the
means of blessing in a greater or a less degree, and
He will guard them from becoming the means of
mischief. The remark is often made, and sometimes in
anything but a religious mood, that it depends upon
the accident of a man's birth, whether he be a
Christian, a Mahometan, or a Pagan. Undoubt
edly this is true ; excepting so much as is implied
in the word " accident," for there is no such thing
as accident. Every man born into this world in
herits the accumulated qualities and tendencies of
a long line of ancestry. Under whatever dispensa
tion these have been formed, to that they are adapt
ed, and that again is adapted to them. Thus he
who is born of Mahometan parents among a Ma
hometan people, for that very reason is born with
germs and tendencies which can be improved most
effectually by Mahometan truth. This is the gene
ral law ; and to its power must be attributed a large
par^t of the extreme difficulty with which what are
called "conversions" are made in foreign lands
#and national religions overthrown. It is however
only a general law. It is subject to many excep
tions and much qualification, and when well under-

PROVIDENCE. 61
stood contains nothing to induce one to abate a
jot of any wise endeavors to improve the religious
state of other nations. But into these details we
cannot now enter.
So too within a dispensation, or a church, there
are many varieties of faith and practice. There
are, for instance, those who practise and inculcate
asceticism. This belongs to all religions, although
it differs in form and in intensity in different na
tions and ages ; but everywhere are some devoted
to the hardest, harshest self-denial, and sometimes
self-torment. Something of this may be well for all.
There are some whose natural love of the enjoy
ments of sense, of taste, of art, and of the world,
is so strong that moderation is almost impossible ;
and when they are led to resist and suppress that
love altogether, others who err in blaming them for
seeking that path of safety, err equally in wishing
that all the ways of life and of improvement should
be deserted for that in which alone they themselves
find comfort and security. That which is the best
path for them, is not so for the whole world. There
is no one which is best fof the whole world. In our
Father's house are many mansions, and to every
mansion its own path leads.
Least of all should differences like these become
6

62 PROVIDENCE.
the grounds of self-conceit, or, what is worse, of
bigotry. Not only because Truth is not man's
own ; not only because the mere possession of
truth makes no man wise or good ; but because
the possession of the highest truth is not of itself
evidence of a higher state. This is well illustrated
now by the relative condition of the Heathen and
of Christians. We have Swedenborg's authority,
together with all the proof which can be derived
from exhibition of character, that at this moment,
there is among many Heathen nations, more of pur
rity, of benevolence and religion, more of what leads
to heaven and constitutes heaven, than in most of
the nations of Christendom. In general, it may be
well for all to know and to remember, that the pos
session of exalted truth justifies no conclusion as to
the actual moral state ; because it proves only that
truth of that order and degree is best adapted to
effect the measure of moral and religious improve
ment of which that individual may be capable.
The law of human regeneration founded upon
the constant endeavor of the life within, to bring
into conformity with itself the life without, implies
that all circumstances are so guided and controlled
as to promote this end. Man is never made to

PROVIDENCE. 63
sin ; but he is permitted to sin if he cannot be re
strained without violating his freedom. Even here,
however, the mercy of God faileth not ; for no man
is allowed to cast himself into an abyss so deep and
dark as to extinguish the hope, the possibility of
return. And this assurance offers comfort and
strength to those who are bowed down, not with
the sense of sorrow only, but with the far heavier
burthen of sin. Truth does not tell us that it is
better for us to sin ; it does not say to our evil pro
pensities, be ye indulged that ye may become the
means of good. For it is not good, but evil, and
only the spirit of evil, which says, under any cir
cumstances whatever, — Evil, be thou my Good.
I mean that there is nothing in these truths,
nothing in any truth, to comfort us while we sin,
or give new strength to the voice of the Tempter.
But if we turn away from our sins that we may
live, if we repent and do the work of repentance,
then we may remember, and then we should re
member, that we were not deserted of God, were
not where He was not, even in the hour of dark
ness when we yielded and sinned. " If I make my
bed in hell behold thou art there." What is the
law of Divine Providence in this respect ? The
passions and sinful propensities to which we yield
ed, could not have been stirred into activity with-

64 PROVIDENCE.
out the influence of those who live forever in such
delights. They are in hell; in bondage; and
could not have assailed and attempted us but with
His permission ; and He would not have permitted
it but for our possible good. If the question be
askedi how can this be, the answer is, that every
sinful propensity resisted, opens a way for the op
posite affectiofa of good to enter and be received
into the heart, and be loved and cherished there
and made our own. Therefore those evil pro
pensities are awakened which we may, if we will,
resist, and only those. Again, every sin committed
strengthens and roots the disposition to that sin.
But if it be repented of, the work of repentance
plucks the poison-plant out from the heart, and
when that sin is hated, the oppiosite good is loved.
If therefore we are conscious, not merely that we
lament the external consequences of our fault, not
merely that we fear its punishment in this world or
another, not merely that our pride is sorely wound
ed and we shrink from the blow of dishonor, — but
that we hate the sin and the sinful thought that led
to it, then it becomes our duty to hope that one
disposition, one propensity, one obstacle which
stood between the life of God in us and our con
scious, voluntary life, has been taken away. Such
is the law of Divine Providence. There are, who

PROVIDENCE. 65
pass through life with but few stains upon their in
nocence, few recollections to haunt the memory
with a dark presence, few apparent reasons for
beating the breast like the publican in the gospel,
and uttering the cry, have mercy upon me, a sin
ner. Yet it is not always upon them that the
highest blessing rests ; it may not be they who can
best understand and most deeply feel that Divine
Love which uttered the words of mercy, — They to
whom much is forgiven love much. We are all
filled with the seeds and germs of all that is evil.
It is these which constitute the chasm, the barrier,
between our inmost life, and our outward life ; and
as more of these are drawn forth into conscious
ness, resisted and so put away, the more freely
that life which comes directly from God may flow
from within and animate our conscious will and
thought. For it is to be known and well considered, that
it is not the eflbrt of the hfe within, to control, sub
due, enslave the life without. But to fill it, liber
ate it, make it a willing instrument, endow it with
new life and bless it with its own happiness. There
are two things which constitute angelic life and its
happiness ; one is the knowledge and perception
that their whole life, their every thought, affection,
faculty and power, are from God, and are His.

66 PROVIDENCE.
The other is, the consciousness that these things
have become theirs ; and that they five and work
and are happy, as of themselves, though from Him.
Hence it may be understood, that every one of our
conscious thoughts and affections which becomes
such that the inmost life is able to reach and fill it,
becomes also a means by which the happiness of
that life reaches us and comes into our conscious
ness, into our possession. It is the constant en
deavor of that life to bring into conformity and
correspondence with itself all of those thoughts and
affections, or as many of them as may be so regen
erated ; because in that proportion the freedom with
which it fills our conscious life is increased and the
blessings it bestows are multiplied.
Hence too it may be understood why regenera
tion makes us happy. The effect of it is, to make
the Divine Life, our life ; ours by voluntary adop
tion ; ours in freedom ; ours in willingness and
love. This life is love, and therefore it is happi
ness. So far as we are in self-love, we nourish
within us the central root from which springs
everything of evil. We cannot always trace back
to this origin all the evils we commit or of which
we are conscious. Their disguises are many ; they
lead us away in many directions ; but they all
radiate from one common centre, and that centre

PROVIDENCE. 67
is the love of self. And this love has its delights.
Bad men, and bad spirits who were bad men, en
joy them. But these delights differ from the bles
sedness of genuine love precisely as that differs in
its whole essence and effect from self-love. Only
the enjoyments of this last, — impure, transient,
disturbed and grovelling, — they who are unregen-
erate can know ; for the love which feels and con
fers a higher happiness has not yet penetrated to
their conscious perceptions and their thoughts.
This can be, only so far as their hearts are purged
from self-love and from pride, from sin and the pro
pensity to sin ; and therefore only so far can the life
within, from its latent, inward, unconscious condi
tion, come forth into free and manifested hfe, and
be felt as the source of a truer, higher happiness, as
happiness itself, as Heaven.
And there is another, a yet wider application
which may be made of these truths. Do they not
solve that which has been called the riddle of fife
from the days when the Sphinx was fabled to sit
by the wayside, with a countenance full of charms,
but armed below with weapons of destruction, pro
pounding her questions to all who passed and de
vouring all who failed to answer. So is Human
Life in all its ongoings ; in its whole course of so
cial or individual existence. Full of charms and

68 PROVIDENCEi
interests which absolswr the whole care and the
whole love of most men, and enwrap the heart as
with a veil of clouds ; but clasping with the em
brace of death those who fail to recognize and
pursue the true purpose of life. Who is there
that is capable of one thought higher than the low
level on which he walks, but has asked himself why
indeed he lives ? Is it only to learn this trade or
art or profession, and perform this or that labor,
and so get shelter, food and raiment, and then pass
away ? It is for all these things, but for them be
cause within them all lie the infinite purposes of
the Almighty. This life is discipHnatory and pre
paratory in no merely general sense. It is strictly
so, always, in every particular to all. Every one
may know, for the word of God and all reason and
religion are always ready to tell him, that his use
or employment, however humble and poor and op
posed to his taste and wishes, is given him because
it is precisely that which is best adapted to develop
and exercise those affections, which may here
after have the breadth of Heaven for their scope,
the works of Heaven for their employment, and
the happiness of Heaven for their effect. Vast is
the difference in earthly positions and occupations
in the eye of man. In the sight of God the only
difference is in the use which is made of them, for

PROVIDENCE. 69
there is no difference in the purpose for which they
are given. They differ, as men differ, because to
all they are exactly adapted. But they are alike
in this ; they are always just those employments,
by means of which, while man is heartily engaged
in them from love to his fellow-men and a wish to
love God and do his duty, his inmost life may be
bending and leading the thoughts and affections
which these employments excite, into conformity
with itself, so that it may prepare them to be filled
with the life of Heaven. The degree in which this
is effected depends upon the degree in which we
do the very duty which lies before us, from benevo
lent and religious motives, — or, to use better
words, from love to our neighbor and love to God.
In no man can this work be perfected. In no
man can the life which fills his inmost become ab
solutely one with his external life. But this work
was perfected in our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
The inmost of His life was not an influx from God ;
it was Jehovah Himself; and His external life was
the human nature born of Mary. That inmost
Life, through temptations which were admitted
to that human nature, and which were such as no
mere man could endure, through sorrows such
as no man could outlive, through combats passing

70 PROVIDENCE.
all human strength, glorified that human nature and
made it one with the Divine, and made it itself Di
vine. This was the whole work ; then was that
completely done and fuHy consummated, which
each one of us may do in our own degree and in
our own way — must do, or be lost. But because
it was all done in Him and in His Life, therefore
we are commanded to take up the cross and follow
Him ; and therefore we are permitted to hope that
at every step of our progress He is working with

He drank the cup offered to His lips ; He as
cended to His Father and our Father. If we too
drink, the bitterness of its taste will pass away,
and in His path we also shall ascend; and our
home will be near His home, and it will be eternal.

CORRESPONDENCE.

CORRESPONDENCE.

In former pages I have spoken of the corres
pondence between the world of matter and the
spirit-world ; nor could I say aught of Life, or of
Divine Providence, without recognizing this corres
pondence ; because only through it and by it have
spiritual causes operated to produce material crea
tion. And the same causes always operate in the
same way to preserve and perpetuate creation. All
the powers and activities of nature, all its laws, its
substances, its forms and changes, are at once the
effect and the mirror of spiritual energies.
But the effect of this correspondence which first
meets an inquirer into the doctrines of the New
Jerusalem, is that which is manifested in the Word.
He learns that this is written according to the laws
of correspondence ; that there is within the letter,
a spirit — within the body, a soul. That the sci-
7

74 CORRESPONDENCE.
ence of correspondence, being now revealed, inter
prets anew the Word of God, and discloses the
spiritual truths which lie within the literal ; and he
finds very soon, in the works of Swedenborg, in
sermons and other New Church compositions, pas
sages of Scripture so explained. The exceeding
beauty of many of these explanations delights the
imagination. The profound moral significance thus
given to many texts, which in the letter " profit
nothing," touches every heart that has any reli
gious tendency ; the emotion of surprise and the
charm of entire novelty make these explanations
yet more attractive. An earnest desire to read
in this way all the Scriptures is awakened ; and as
yet the inquirer knows no reason why he may not
learn to interpret them by the science of corres
pondence, just as he has learnt or seen others learn
to interpret them from their original languages.
The attempt is made ; but unexpected diflSculties
arise ; it is not found easy, and seems indeed very
difficult ; and the disappointment produces not
only a feeling of uncertainty as to what corres
pondences are, but perhaps a doubt whether they
are anything more than a mere ingenious fancy.
If such a person happens to have some acquaint
ance with "Phrenology," he may think of the
" organ of comparison," of which it is the office

CORRESPONDENCE. 75
and the delight to discern resemblances and analo
gies, and to construct parables and symbolic repre
sentations. Much of this has always been done ;
but more in those Eastern lands, where the Old
Testament and much of the New were written,
than elsewhere ; and he supposes the same faculty,
existing in a high degree in Swedenborg, may have
brought out many beautiful and striking results,
without disclosing new principles or a new science.
We have known readers to labor awhile under
these difficulties, from which they are gradually
relieved as they begin to understand better, the
grounds, principles, and results of the science of
correspondence. Some of the views and truths,
which may serve to make these difficulties press less
heavily and pass the sooner away, I propose to pre
sent, very briefly.
In the first place, then, I must repeat that the
Science of Correspondence rests upon and springs
from the Laws of Existence. The problem of
Being, presents its most difficult question to the
human mind, in the inquiry how God created and
creates, sustains and fills the world. The answer
is, — from Himself, and in such wise that all things
being linked together and to Him, are connected
by a mutual interdependence, and by definite rela-

76 CORRESPONDENCE.
tions. The inmost of all things, is Love. And
this in its various forms of affection, desire, and
purpose, produces thought ; and thoughts clothe
themselves in words. But the same power and
providence which, from its own Love, supplies
men with Love, makes the outward world also.
All the energies, tendencies and activities of the
outward, material world, are derived from the
same Love, and are images and forms which bear
its impress and reveal its nature and operation.
And not the laws and energies of nature only,
but the substances and forms of this outward
world, — all its material things, — are again ef
fects and images of the same Love, and of the
Divine Wisdom which springs from the Divine
Love as men's thoughts do from their affections.
Because the Divine Love is infinite and inexhaust
ible, and because it is guided by an equal wisdom,
it is able and disposed to come down even into the
lowest things of nature, and form there what is
needed for use ; and accommodate itself in every
stage of its descent, to all the subjects which it
forms and fills. Being everywhere one and the
same infinite thing, however variously modified,
all these subjects image it, reflect it, reveal it.
And hence and thus, God is All, in All.
One consequence of this is, that the whole mate-

CORRESPONDENCE. 77
rial world is representative and significant of the
inner world of spirit, mind and affection. And
this not generally only, but particularly ; not in a
loose, poetical, imaginative sense, but strictly and
most truly so, by its constitution and the very laws
of its being.
Another consequence is, that truths which relate
to character, conduct, motive and life, may be
imaged and represented by more external truths
which relate to the things of the external world
and have no apparent reference to duty ; and truths
which in express terms prescribe laws of conduct
of an external kind, may have within them, other
and higher laws of spiritual life. This is the way
in which the Bible — the word of God — is writ
ten. Not by the genius of man ; nor through a
thorough knowledge of the laws of correspond
ence ; but by Divine Inspiration. Because written
by Divine Inspiration, and for the purposes of
Divine mercy, it is so written that its external
truths are and forever will remain the basis of all
religious improvement and character, while, at the
same time, they contain a distinct class of higher
internal truths. This is eflfected by the laws of
correspondence, and it is in exact conformity with
those laws. Hence too, these j^internal truths are
in no sense a substitute for, nor are they to be re-
7*

78 CORRESPONDENCE.
garded as in the attitude of opposition to, the in
ternal truths.
A large part of the Word, especially of the Old
Testament, contains, in its literal sense, very littie
which has any discernible relation to conduct and
character ; and of this part it can only be said now,
that treasures of truths which have this relation are
here stored up. But the greater portion contains,
in the literal sense, truths, or facts illustrative of
truths, which are precisely those needed and best
adapted to improve the conduct and external cha
racter. It is not difficult to understand that one
truth and one kind of truth will operate beneficially
upon a person in one state of mind and in one
condition, and another truth upon a person in
another state and condition.
It is in this adaptation of truths, by various
means, that the mercy and wisdom of God are
manifested. Hence the vast diversity of religions ;
and hence the variety in the instruction and amount
of knowledge given to different individualsj in the
same church or professing the same religion. This
diversity depends upon differences of character,
which, for the most part, are beyond our perception
or comprehension ; and therefore, even if we have
a general understanding of the principles which
must govern and direct this adaptation, we cannot

CORRESPONDENCE. 79
always clearly comprehend the application of these
'principles to particular cases. But the principal
means of this adaptation is the difference and
mutual relation of the natural and spiritual senses
of the Word. Nor can it be difficult to obtain
some clear views of the ground of difference be
tween the external and the internal truths of the
Bible. We must, in the first place remember, that the
great purpose of the written Word, as of the Incar
nate Word, is, " to call sinners to repentance."
Therefore it addresses itself first, to sinners ; to
those who indulge sinful propensities and feelings
and have acquired sinful habits. It is perfectly
obvious, that with persons as yet buried in the
slough of sinfulness, motives of the most elevated
and spiritual character have little or no power.
Fear, and the hope of recompense, and caution
and prudence, are, in them, all that can be appeal
ed to successfully. The external truths and com
mands of the Word make this appeal. They re
quire the renouncing of sinful pleasures and the
resisting of sinful propensities, under fearful penal
ties and with magnificent promises. If they pre
vail ; if the command be obeyed ; then the whole
conduct is reformed ; then the various propensities
to sin are weakened by resistance ; new states of

80 CORRESPONDENCE.
mind and feeling grow up; new capacities of im
provement by new means are developed ; for the
mind can comprehend and the heart can feel new
motives. Then the time has come when these new
motives can be presented by means of new truths ;
and the new truths, which may supply new mo
tives, are the internal truths of the Word ; and
their relation to the external truths of the Word is
such, that an obedience to the literal commands of
Scripture is the precise and appropriate preparation
for listening to its spiritual commands.
In fact these commands may be called the same.
The literal truth of the Word is the same with its
spiritual truth ; but it is this truth brought down
into lower forms, in order that it may thereby be
adapted to lower states of thought and aflFection,
and elevate them ; and as these are elevated, the
truth rises also, and the faint light of morning
brightens into day.
In considering the intellectual difficulties which
oppose a thorough learning of the science of cor
respondence, its extent should be regarded. For
the spiritual truth of the Word, in its own nature
infinite, can be adequately expressed by corres
pondent natural truths, only because the corres
pondence between spiritual and natural things is
universal. This lower world is but a world of ef-

CORRESPONDENCE. 81
fects, of which the higher and inner spiritual world
is the world of causes. Every thing, every sub
stance, every energy, every law of nature, is the
effect of a spiritual cause to which it corresponds,
and of which it is the expression and image.
Hence the science of correspondence can never
be fully known, until the whole spiritual world,
and all the natural world, and all the laws of
mind and matter are fully known. That is, it can
never be fully known ; because the condition of a
healthy human mind, in this world and in the
other, is one of eternal progress and improvement.
More is continually learnt of the love and wisdom of
God as manifested in creation, and therefore more
is continually learnt of the science of correspond
ence. But it follows, also, that all pr<^ress in the
knowledge of this science assists all progress in
other knowledge ; and, on the other hand, if the
leading principles of this science are rightly appre
hended, all true knowledge promotes the better
understanding of them, and of their use and appli
cation. Besides the extent of this science, there are other
sources of difficulty. One of them is this. What
ever proceeds from the Source of being is in itself,
and in its origin, good ; and yet there is much
evil in the world ; because that which is good in its

82 CORRESPONDENCE.
origin and essence is abused and perverted by man.
Thus, Love, from Him who is Love itself, entering
into the will of man, becomes love, desire, affec
tion in him. But it becomes such desire or affec
tion as the character of his will may make it ; and
therefore love with evil men becomes love of self
and hatred of others. In the same way truth be
comes falsehood. And whatever in the natural
world corresponds to and signifies love or truth,
may also be used to signify their opposites ; and
sometimes the question, which of these is meant,
may present a difficulty, although generally and
almost always the context makes it clear.
Love and Wisdom, in their divine perfection
and infinity, are the Lord ; and heat and light are
their first and most general representatives in na
ture. For these flow continually from the sun,
which is the image of the Lord, and represents
Him in the work of creation. The whole material
world is dependent upon and governed by the sun,
and everything in it stands in a definite relation
to its heat and light ; and this relation corresponds
to the relation between spiritual things and Love
and Wisdom. Hence, as there is nothing in na
ture which does riot stand in its own definite rela
tion to heat and light, so there is scarcely anything
which may not be used to represent and indicate

CORRESPONDENCE. 83
Love or Wisdom in some of their forms or ope
rations. The difficulty of always distinguishing
these, of always discerning and applying aright
the laws of the science of correspondence which
relate to them, is similar to the difficulty we find
in comprehending and classifying the things of
nature, and acquiring a clear view of their natu
ral causes, laws and relations.
But there is nothing in this or any difficulty,
which diminishes the worth of the science of cor
respondence, or should operate as a reason for neg
lecting the study of it. It will be understood that
we have spoken of these difliculties, only in refer
ence to the endeavor to acquire a thorough know
ledge of the science. What is there of equal value
which does not demand equal labor ? But this
same science offers itself at once to the most sim
ple, as explaining much that was before hopelessly
dark, and as giving hfe and utility to many pas
sages of the Word which were but a dead letter.
Indeed, the science has never been wholly lost,
and cannot be. Some of its results are so obvious
that they force themselves upon every mind ; as
for instance, the analogy between Love and Heat,
and between Truth and Light. The very faculty
of comparison, of which I have spoken in the be
ginning of these remarks, has always found its

84 CORRESPONDENCE.
most delightful and elevating exercise in detecting
and exhibiting these analogies. Poetry is full of
them ; and the loftiest and purest of all poetry is
in the Bible, for the very reason that here the laws
6f correspondence exert their full influence. The
proper function of the imagination is not to delude,
or give to nothing the name of something. The
Creator of man gave him no faculty of which the
principal office is deception. We use our imagi
nation aright, when we look above the low plane
of sensuous thought, and bring higher truths down
within the reach of reason ; of reason in its child
like mood, loving to labor in the service of religion.
The oriental world, say critics and philosophers,
was always characterized by a disposition to figu
rative and parabolic expression ; and hence the
Bible is full of it ! But the Bible is God's Word ;
and its fullness of symbolic language arises from its
absolute conformity with the laws of correspond
ence. In the East, where, in the early ages of
the world, the science which discloses these laws
was well known, the remains of it, brought down
by tradition, and the effect of it perpetuated
through successive generations, have imparted to
the human mind in those regions, that peculiar
disposition. It is of some importance to discard from the

CORRESPONDENCE. 85
mind, the idea that the science of correspondence
offers a new translation of the Bible, to be learnt
as others are. It is not as a foreign tongue that it
is to be considered, for many reasons. In the first
place, it is not, as we have already said, all foreign.
In many passages, the symbolic character is mani
fest, and the spiritual meaning comes to the surface,
and is and always has been universally recognized.
There are very many others, indeed the greater
part of Scripture, where the internal meaning may
be distinctly discerned, after a little acquaintance
with the principles of correspondence and some
practice in applying them. Then, however, the
work only begins. Because the laws of corres
pondence are among the essential laws of creation
and existence, and because all creation images and
reflects the infinite attributes of -the Creator, there
fore the science of correspondence is itself infinite,
and progress in it will be eternal. Therefore
greater meaning, more fulness, variety and force of
meaning, will be discovered and constantly again
discovered in the most familiar passages, as they
are considered in connexion with others, and in
their relation to various laws of mind and of matter.
One thing should always be remembered in the
study of this science. It is not a merely natural
science. It is not one which stands disconnected
8

86 CORRESPONDENCE.
from the will and the life. No science, and no
truth, needs to be so disconnected ; for there is no
.knowledge of anything in the universe of God
which should not point the way and lift the soul
to Him. The time is coming when all the paths
of truth will be found leading upwards to their
origin. But other sciences may be so disconnect
ed. This cannot be. The one thing which it
teaches is the correspondence of the whole mate
rial world with the spirit-world ; and its applica
tion to Scripture gives moral instructiveness and
religious force to every passage.
We may understand, from its moral character,
why this science was withdrawn from the know
ledge of mankind. Recent investigations into the
intellectual condition of the ancient world, are
making it probable that those early times were il
lustrated by an amount of knowledge which, in
some directions, surpassed all we now know ; and
it is quite as obvious that this knowledge was most
peculiar in its character. The explanation of this
we have in the fact that the science of correspon
dence was once familiarly known ; that it was a
thing of common perception ; that the whole world
of matter was transparent ; a medium of light and
not its veil. Of the race of .man, as Wordsworth
has said of individual man, " Heaven lay around

CORRESPONDENCE. 87
him in his infancy." But as the heart became cor
rupted, and thence arose the danger of perverting
and abusing this knowledge, it was withdrawn, at
first into the secret sanctuaries of religion and the
concealed philosophies of earlier days ; there it
was for a while preserved and variously guarded,
and its revelations came down by a far-descending
tradition, more and more darkened and deformed,
as there was among men less that welcomed spirit
ual truth, until at length it was almost wholly lost.
It may seem difficult "to reconcile this decay and
loss of truth with the constant goodness of God.
Many pages would be needed to give an explana
tion of the fact and the reason for it. But that
such is the course of Providence is obvious and
certain. Why was Christianity delayed so long ;
why diffused so slowly ; why now is its reception
so hmited? Without attempting at this time to
answer the question, I refer only to the fact, as
positive proof that it suits the purpose of Provi
dence to delay and to measure his gifts of truth, in
accordance with some kind of preparedness, what
ever that may be. In the same way and on the
same grounds, truths once given may be with
drawn, and again re-given with greater brightness
and fullness, when unerring Wisdom sees that un
failing mercy may safely bestow them. That time

88 CORRESPONDENCE.
has come, and the science of correspondence is
now revealed again to man.
The fact that this revelation required, as its
condition, a state of preparedness in mankind,
may help us to believe that it requires, also, a state
of preparedness in individual minds ; nor need it
be very difficult to understand this. If this science
be studied from that love of knowledge, which has
not within it the love of applying knowledge to
its proper use, or if the ends and uses for which
knowledge is sought be not sanctified by religion,
if mental wealth be striven for as the aliment of
pride, and self-love, and self-reliance, the woe pro
nounced on those who " trust in riches " falls upon
it ; and where this must be, it is the mercy of our
Father which says again, " I have blinded their
eyes lest they should see." The very first, — the
earliest, and the chiefest preparation for this study,
is a preparation of the heart ; a cleansing of the
motives ; an earnest prayer for light, because light
reveals duty.
Nothing can be said more opposite to the com
mon belief than this ; nothing, which would seem
to most readers more absolute foolishness. All
around us prevails a settled conviction, that the un
derstanding alone is employed or concerned in the
investigation or acquirement of truth ; that nothing

CORRESPONDENCE. 89
but strong faculties, vigorously exerted, is required
as the condition of obtaining it. For there is an
utter forgetfulness and disregard of (founded upon
a total ignorance of what is meant by) our Lord's
declaration, that only as a little child can any one
receive the kingdom of heaven, and that He reveals
His truths to babes and sucklings. There can
be no better evidence or illustration of the prevail
ing condition of the human mind than may be
found in this disregard and ignorance. Natural
and sensual truth now fills the horizon of the men
tal eye, and spiritual truth has faded out of sight.
We have reached that period, or rather that
state of mind, denoted in the words of Israel to
Dan. The patriarch had gathered his children to
see him die ; and in few, but pregnant words,
he prophesied of each, what would " befall them
in the last days." Of Dan he says, " Dan shall
judge his people as one of the tribes of Israel.
Dan shall be a serpent by the way, an adder in
the path, that biteth the heels of the horse, so that
his rider shall fall backward." The twelve sons
of Israel, as afterwards the twelve tribes, and, stiU
later, the twelve apostles, represent, as a whole, the
whole church, or the whole mind of man ; and in
dividually they represent its distinctive elements.
Dan's portion and residence were at the extreme
8*

90 CORRESPONDENCE.
north of Palestine, whence the phrase, " from Dan
to Beersheba." His home was the coldest and the
farthest from Jerusalem ; and he represented the
sensuous reason, as it may be called ; or the dis
position and faculty of judging of things only by
the senses, and by reasonings resting directly upon
them. He corresponds to the apostle Thomas,
who, after the Lord had arisen and stood before
the disciples, could not believe, until " he laid his
fingers in the wound." Yet Dan was one among
the tribes, as Thomas was one of the apostles ; be
cause this faculty and disposition are good, and
have a most important office to perform. Hence it
is said, " Dan shall judge his people as one of the
tribes of Israel." But let him judge only his peo
ple, and let him judge them as one of the tribes of
Israel ; then this faculty, acting within its proper
sphere and in a proper spirit, keeps the mind
steady, and gives strength and clearness to convic
tion. Hence the apostle Thomas, when he did
believe, spake as none other of the apostles did ;
" Thomas answered and said unto him, my Lord
and my God." But in " the last days " Dan
shall become " a serpent," " an adder ; " for the
serpent is an animal which cannot leave the ground,
however agile and strong and able to penetrate
every crevice or recess. It is said of him, " Upon

CORRESPONDENCE. 91
thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all
the days of thy life ; " and he corresponds to and
represents sensuous reasoning in its perversion and
abuse. Paths are the ways by which men go for
ward, and truths are the ways by which the mind
goes forward, and paths correspond to and sig
nify truths ; and it is in these truths that this ser
pent now heth in wait. The horse which draws
or bears man along his paths, corresponds to and
signifies the faculty of making progress in truth,
and, as the chief of all, it denotes the understand
ing of the Word ; and it is this, which the serpent
now lying in wait in the paths of the mind, biteth,
so THAT THE RIDER FALLETH BACKWARD.
Perhaps it may be well to remark, that while the
great purpose of the science of correspondence is
to open the spiritual senses of the Bible, that is not
its only effect. This science being a thing of fa
miliar and universal knowledge in the earliest ages,
was preserved in subsequent times under the form
of tradition and mystery, as has been already said,
and it formed or at least greatly influenced the
fables and mythologies which have come down to
us. These were much corrupted, and have reached
us in a very imperfect form. Yet will they be
found capable of interesting illustration. As an
instance of this, the doctrine of metempsychosis or

92 CORRESPONDENCE.
transmigration may be referred to. It is found
almost everywhere. In Greece and Rome and
Egypt and the East, it is seen, and in forms more
or less disguised traces of it are discernible in nearly
all the religions of which we know anything dis-
dinctly. Differing somewhat in detail, it was always
substantially as follows. He who is not good,
passes at death into the form of some kindred ani^
mal, and thence into another and another, until
the circle of expiation being completed, he becomes
again a man, and a redeemed and happy one.
Now this doctrine was taught very earnestly by
Pythagoras ; a man whom we can sneer at only
when we can forget the vast influence he exerted
in his own day and through such men as Plato
ever since, and the golden truths still discernible in
the fragmentary remnants of his doctrines, and the
fact that the system of the universe established by
Copernicus was but a revival of his own, and the
many other indications of the extent and accuracy
of his knowledge. How then could he have taught
such a folly ? But are we sure that it is all folly,
that it contains no certain, no valuable truth ? Let
us ask if the science of correspondence can ex
plain it. Man, the microcosm, or little world, as
Pythagoras and Plato and so many of the an
cients called him, represents the universe. Thus,

CORRESPONDENCE. 93
all animals that ever were or can exist, live by vir
tue of the fact that they severally represent some
of the elements, faculties or qualities of the human
character. Goodness does not consist so much in
the absence of any of these, as in the presence
of all and their due subordination, and their har
monious performance of their several functions.
Among the prophecies which foretell the establish
ment of a true church among men, or, (for it is
the same thing) the establishment of a true church
within a man, are those which declare, that " the
wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard
shall lie down with the kid ; and the calf and the
young lion and the fading together ; and a little
child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear
shall feed, their young ones shall lie down togeth
er ; and the lion shall eat straw like an ox." He
is a bad man, in whom this order and harmony are
interrupted ; in whom some one has usurped a
supremacy and conquered the soul. Suppose that
such a man begins to reform, and is penetrated
with a profound sense of evil. He becomes aware
perhaps that he is lost and buried in foul and gross
gluttony, and in his remorse he feels that he is not
a man, that sin has transformed him, that he is no
better than a hog ! He says with the Psalmist, " I
am as a beast before thee ! " And he repents

94 CORRESPONDENCE.
and reforms and casts this sin away. Then he
discovers that his ferocity makes him a tiger, and
the same process again relieves him, and then it
may be he sees in himself the cunning of the fox,
or other and yet other faults which disfigure and
conceal his human nature. So he goes on, until
humility, self-acknowledgment, repentance and re
form have cast out the devils and restored him to
the power, the consciousness and the happiness of
manhood. Now we know that Pythagoras had an
inner and secret doctrine, never published, and
taught only in private to the initiated under the
most solemn obligation of secrecy. Is it too much
to suppose that these two doctrines, the inner and
the outer, had some relation to each other ? What
would he have gained by teaching the doctrine as
we have stated it above, to the gross and grovelling
world about him ? What better thing could he do
than to teach them the same truth in the lower
form of the metempsychosis, as he gave it to the
public ?
It is to be noticed that this doctrine in its lower
and grosser form is adapted to do for the lower
and grosser classes of minds, the very same good
which the same doctrine in its higher form is
able to confer upon minds, in a condition to re
ceive it and be subject to its influence. They

CORRESPONDENCE. 95
who would not resist gluttony, or ferocity, or low
cunning, because they disfigured their spiritual
humanity, might do so, if they were persuaded
that they must expiate these sins in the bestial
forms and life of the hog, the tiger, and the fox.
In this lower form, its influence upon minds to
which it was then fitted, would elevate those
which were capable of improvement into a capacity
of hearing and profiting by the higher. This would
be in exact conformity with the law which prevails
over the relation between internal and external
truth. On similar grounds I account for the uni
versal prevalence of the doctrine of metempsycho
sis, which Pythagoras himself derived from Egypt.
Apply this law to the. Bible, and we shall come to
the result already stated, that observance of the
precepts of the literal sense is precisely the way in
which we may be elevated into the purer atmos
phere, where the voice of an inner law may be
heard. So, too, there are applications of the science of
correspondence to the ancient classical mythology,
which often make it significant. Sisyphus and
Tantalus, and the like, are no longer the wild and
meaningless creations of fantasy, and we can un
derstand their permanence, and charm, and power,
amid the beautiful cultivation of the Greek mind.

96 CORRESPONDENCE.
Pegasus, the winged horse, again alights upon
Helicon, and opens a new Hippocrene, and again
Minerva tames his fire, and gives him to the
warrior who is called to do battle with the mon
ster Chimaera. But these things would carry me
too far, and perhaps it would have been better
not to have referred to topics which I have not
space to explain.
To Emanuel Swedenborg was revealed, and
by him was published for the instruction of man
kind, the spiritual sense of Genesis, Exodus, and
the Apocalypse. His works on these subjects con
sist of about eighteen octavo volumes ; and in
them very many passages from other parts of the
Bible are incidentally mentioned and explained.
In his other theological writings, which amount to
seven or eight volumes more, he treats often of
the science of correspondence and its principles.
Books have been written by others, intended to as
sist in the study of the works of Swedenborg ; and
on the plenary inspiration of Scripture that by Mr.
Noble, of England, is perhaps the best we have.
The sermons of the New Church are generally
explanations of Scripture. Let him, or her, who
would inquire into this science, apply to these books
and aids. Every single passage or text of Scripture,

CORRESPONDENCE. 97
which is so learnt and understood, leads to others.
When the mind is employed in the endeavor to
apply the principles of correspondence, it may
happen that a supposed meaning is not the true
one, and a better knowledge will correct the error.
As more and more examples of the spiritual mean
ing of the Word are understood, they will throw
light upon each other, and gradually lead to a
comprehension of the principles of the science of
correspondence. In this case, as in all others,
true knowledge will become the parent of know
ledge. The progress may seem to be slow ; some
times it will be toilsome and difficult ; but it will
be PROGRESS. And it depends only on the mind,
the motive, the purpose, and the heart of the stu
dent, whether that progress shaff be eternal.

THE HUMAN FORM.

THE HUMAN FORM.

It is seldom that the word " Form " is used
in any sense which would not be adequately ex
pressed by the word " shape." Indeed these words
are usually regarded as synonymous. But this is
an error ; and an injurious error so far as it limits
the idea of form to its lowest and most external
manifestation ; for shape is but one manifestation
of form. It is far nearer the truth to regard
Form as the mode of existence. We can under
stand it better by considering it in its relation to
its correlative idea, — essence. For this purpose
essence may be defined as what one is, while form
is how one is. Essence is that from which a thing
derives its quality and its power, while form is that
by which a thing manifests its quality and exerts
its power.
It is somewhat difficult for those who are accus
tomed to what has been called Philosophy, until
9*

102 THE HUMAN FORM.
quite recently, in England and this country, to ad
mit that essence has any reality. Because this
philosophy is the philosophy of sensuous thought,
and it rests upon the foundations which were laid
by Mr. Locke, in his Essay on the Human Under
standing, with admirable skill and consistency.
He proves, with all the force of demonstration, that
if reflection makes use of no materials but the facts
of sensation, and acknowledges no entities of an
higher order, it can form or recognize no idea of
essence ; and as sensuous thought admits of no
other materials, and acknowledges nothing more,
he concludes that essence is nothing. And it is
nothing within the range and scope of his system ;
for the idea of essence and whatever belongs to
this idea, transcends the faculty and function of
sensuous thought ; and it is therefore true, that,
viewed in this way, essence has no existence.
It is also true in fact, and as a conclusion of the
strictest logic, that essence has no separate and in
dependent existence whatever, because whatever
exists must have its own distinct form or mode of
existence. And it is also and equally true, that
form has no separate and independent existence,
because whatever exists must manifest outwardly
and bring forth into effect its essence, or its own
essential nature and use. Thus these two, essence

THE HUMAN FORM. 103
and form, must combine to make up the whole
of any real entity.
We repeat, that it may be difficult for those who
are accustomed only to a sensuous philosophy,
or are wholly unused to consider subjects of this
kind, to understand the relation between these
two things. It is, however, of some importance.
As soon as the words " Essence " and " Form " are
presented to any mind, a dim conception comes at
once of the superiority of essence over form ; and
a common use of the words " essential " and " for
mal " is expressive of the common sense of man
kind, and is built upon and implies this conception.
A negative and narrow philosophy, finding itself
wholly unable to remove the dimness of this
thought, imputes the darkness, not to its own eye,
but to the object. It finds, in the very blindness
which cannot discern the higher principles of mind,
good reason for denying their existence and de
nouncing the results to which they lead. But a
better philosophy takes us back to common sense,
and at once confirms its impressions, and defines
and illustrates them by the light of its own clearer
views and loftier principles. Such a philosophy
must recognize the soul, the destiny of man, the
laws of his creation and his life, the purpose of
his being, and his relation to its Infinite source.

104 THE HUMAN FORM.
It cannot but discern, that whatever exists, be it
spiritual or material, of the highest or the lowest
worth, exists by virtue of an inherent and indis
pensable quality upon which its identity is founded,
and which determines what the thing is ; while
it also exists in some particular mode, which is
exactly suited to its true quality, and by means
whereof that may come forth into action and influ
ence, and perform the function for which it exists.
If the true relation between essence and form be
apprehended, it will be seen that essence creates
and determines form ; or rather that the essence of
a thing is that whereby and for which the creative
Providence creates and determines the form ; be
cause the form is but the appearance and instru
ment of the essence, or its way of coming forth into
existence and action.
This truth, like most others of importance, forces
itself upon our recognition, and is always, however
dimly, seen. Thus, when it is proposed so to ar
range a society as that it may perform its destined
use, it is not unusual to speak of its form and of
bringing it into form, although the society cannot
have a shape like any single thing. The common
phrase of bringing irregular or incoherent matters
into " form and order," implies an identity between
form and order, which is far nearer the truth than

THE HUMAN FORM. 105
the more common identity of form and shape.
So too, it is very properly said, that our thoughts
are the forms of our affections, and again, that our
thoughts form themselves into words. But still
this truth is so imperfectly seen, that we are apt to
suppose it has no real existence. We say that in
expressions hke those, we are only using figurative
language ; and then we think that we have no real
truth, until we descend far down, to the notion
that there is no real form, but shape ; for we do
not know that we are then descending from the
truth itself which is in the higher regions of the
mind, down to its shadow, which lies upon the
earth. What we commonly call Form, is but the aspect
which a thing bears when presented to our senses,
or rather when our senses present it to our mind.
This is the shape or the physical or material form.
It is that whereby our senses take cognizance
of the thing which exists in its true and more in
ternal form. Indeed we usually limit this to the
testimony of two of our senses, — the touch and
the sight. Thus a rose is grateful to our sense of
smell ; and it requires but very little thought to
be certain, that it must be the peculiar organiza
tion of the parts and atoms of the rose, which
produce its peculiar fragrance. For this is just as

106 THE HUMAN FORM.
certain, as that the shape and colors of the rose
give to it its beauty. Yet when we speak of the
form of the rose, we commonly mean only so
much of its form as the eye perceives. The same
thing is equally true of whatever gratifies, or af
fects the ear or the taste ; although, as I have
already said, we commonly limit our idea of form
not only to the disclosures of the senses, but to
two only of them.
I have said that physical form, or shape, is that
whereby our senses of sight and touch take cog
nizance of a thing. And it may not be useless to
consider why our senses are given us ; especially,
as an answer fo this question is obvious and easy.
It is important to our well-being, that we should
be able to know the existence, and recognize the
presence, of many of the infinite variety of sub
stances which compose the world about us. There
fore we have senses, and these substances are so
adjusted to our senses, and our senses to them,
that we perceive their presence and existence.
This perception of them, we call them ; and the
aspect under which they are perceived, or the tes
timony of some of our senses concerning them,
we call their forms.
But there are also very many of these sub
stances, not so revealed to us. They are latent :

THE HUMAN FORM. 107
some are always invisible and intangible, others are
so under ordinary circumstances. Gravity, elec
tricity, the ethers, and all the forces and finest
substances of nature are of this class. Science,
by observation and deduction, discovers a part,
and, as it improves, discovers more, and willingly
acknowledges their immeasurable importance in
the system of the universe ; and yet, of all these
things we usually say, they have no form. Al
though it is not only true that they must have
form, but probable that they are the agencies by
means whereof all grosser things are shaped.
There is little harm in this, for the human mind
must begin, as the child's mind begins, with sen
suous thought and knowledge ; and for this degree
and mode of thought they have no form. But the
mind ought, in its growth and development, to
rise, and constantly to be ascending above the
lowest plane ; and the progress in this direction
has, as yet, been feeble and uncertain. Still,
though the growth of the mind upwards should
be continual and constant, it should be like the
growth of a tree, whose roots are firmly fastened
in their native soil.
The plane of sensuous thought and perception
must forever remain the basis of all true know
ledge, all sound beUef, all wise and beneficent ac-

108 THE HUMAN FORM.
tion. That we should not know this class of
truths alone, or that we should not suppose it to
stand alone, is important to the mind's progress ;
that we should not deny, or forget it, is essential
to its sanity. For it is but a false philosophy and
a false rehgion, which will allow the feet no stand
ing-place, and the heart no home.
In this case, as in many others, one extreme
has produced another, and the opposite extreme
of wrong is not often right. Ardent minds, shud
dering at the darkness and pained by the fetters
of the prison-house of sensuous philosophy, have
broken forth and lost themselves delightedly in
the misty mazes of " Transcendentalism," and
other similar illusions. Symptoms of the repro
duction of an ancient Gnosticism are visible around
us. Rejoicing that thought is unchained, men
forget that it is unguided ; and it leaves the solid
earth, upborne by the wings of fantasy ; its home
is the pathless air, and its fruit is nothingness.
Not very imperfectly is this fallacy typified by the
popular error in eastern countries, where they sup
pose the Bird of Paradise never alights, and lives
only on the wing. They deem her beauty and
her name too glorious for the earth. But they
forget that they thus doom her never to know the
refreshment of rest amid the sheltering foliage,

THE HUMAN FORM. 109
nor the joy of brooding over her young, in their
still and steadfast nest.
I have said that this error is but the opposite
of another ; and both may be best illustrated by
again comparing the mind to a living tree. The
falsity which believes in nothing beyond the plane
and power of sensuous thought, molelike, burrows
in the ground, and is blind to the lovely sky and
the blessed sun, and believes that the roots upon
which it feeds in damp and darkness are all the
tree, all that fives, all that is. But the opposite
falsity would sever the living plant from its sus
taining roots and cast it upwards, as if it could
grow in the air, or live when sundered from its
means of life. The truth, equally remote from
both these falsities, tells us that the roots, the
stem, the branches, and their ornament and fruit,
all are necessary to the perfect and healthy tree.
It traces the fostering sap from the rootlets, far
below the surface, to the green leaf and the ripened
fruit ; it knows that the roots, forever at rest in
their silent darkness, differ from the branches that
answer in graceful motion to the wind, from the
bright redundant foliage, from the varied beauty
and fragrance of the blossom, from the fruit which
gratifies the taste and sustains the life of man, —
only as sensuous thought and knowledge differ
10

110 THE HUMAN FORM.
from the loftier, purer, and brighter perceptions of
a Reason which acknowledges Religion as its light
and life. But it knows also, and never forgets,
that all these things are indissolubly connected,
all indispensably necessary. All necessary, all for
ever necessary to us, to all of us, by the very
constitution of our nature. And therefore it knows
also, that as this world is adjusted to our senses,
and our senses to this world, while we live here,
so, when we go hence, we shall find the spirit-
world adjusted to our spiritual senses, or the senses
of our spiritual body, in a similar manner, and
for a similar use, and from a similar necessity.
And therefore, there as here, we have a home ; a
world beneath, and above, and around us, cogniz
able by our senses, adapted to our wants, capable
of administering to our eternal progress in good
ness and in wisdom, full of all the means of use
fulness and improvement, and therefore of angelic
happiness. Visible form, or shape, including the more in
ternal organization, of which we become aware by
research and observation, are but the outer appear
ance of the true form ; because that is, abstractly
considered, only the mode of being. But the
visible, external form corresponds to and repre
sents the true internal form. By this it is not

THE HUMAN FORM. Ill
meant that there is an inner shape, of which visi
ble shape is the image ; but that the order, beauty,
and adaptation to use of the true form, are repre
sented and revealed by the visible form, because of
the correspondence between them. Thus, when
more is known of the soul of man, it will be seen
that its faculties, proportions, functions and enjoy
ments all exist in their own form, and are all re
presented by the corresponding visible form, which
is its instrument and clothing. When this relation
is seen, it will be readily believed that the soul
without a body is naked, useless, joyless, nay
impossible ; — that it must therefore have its spi
ritual body in the spiritual world. And this body
must be in the image of the material body, be
cause the material body being already in perfect
correspondence with the soul, and so its perfectly
adapted envelope, a spiritual body not in its image
would be less perfectly adapted to be forever its
dweflingand its instrument.
The truth revealed through Swedenborg teaches
that the soul exists now and here in its own spirit
ual body, of which the material body is but the
temporary covering, which is cast off" at death ;
that during this life this material body is at once a
medium whereby the spiritual senses perceive ma
terial things, and a veil which prevents those senses
from perceiving spiritual things.

112 THE HUMAN FORM.
If, however, we would know the central truth
on the subject of Form, — that from which all
others flow, and by which they may be illustrated,
it is this; that God exists in a Perfect Human
Form. To those who are startled by this assertion, it
may be useful to reflect upon the source of human
life and character. If they have already realized
that God alone is the source of being ; that all
being, theriefore, flows primarily from Him, they
will begin to perceive that the humanity of man
implies a divine humanity as its source. It is not
the body and hmbs, nor the senses, nor the speech,
which constitute man. They all belong to him,
but only as coverings and instruments of that
which truly makes him, man ; of his love and his
wisdom in all their various forms of affection and
thought, and all their various effects in life and
conduct. Now, Love and Wisdom in their divine
perfection, and their infinitely diversified opera
tion, constitute God ; and, on a lower scale, and
derived from Him, in their finite and imperfect
reception and manifestation, they constitute man.
On this lower scale and in their imperfection they
constitute our Humanity, and in their infinite
source and perfection they constitute that Divine
Humanity, from which our own is the derivation

THE HUMAN FORM. 113
and effect, and of which it was made and is the
image and likeness.
The human form as it exists in us, is, first, the
mode of being which springs from our essential
nature, and is perfectly adapted to it ; and, next,
our visible form, our human shape, which again
corresponds to and reveals our true and inner
form. Our outer form, or body, is twofold ; spi
ritual, adapted to the spiritual world, and material,
which is adapted to the material world. But in
both worlds our inner form puts on the outer form,
that in it and through it, its due relations with
others like itself, and with the world about it, may
be established, and its proper uses performed.
The human form of God is His divine mode of
being, of which ours is the correspondent and re
vealed image. For as Love and Wisdom in their
perfection constitute God, and in Him have their
appropriate and perfect mode of Being, which is
His Divine Form, so in their imperfection they
constitute us and our form : and this last is the
express image of the former, because it is from
Himself that God created man in his own image
and likeness.
When our Father comes before the thought,
for prayer, and worship, and love. He comes there
as our Lord Jesus Christ, Jehovah God. And
10*

114 THE HUMAN FORM.
when He appears to the senses of men or angels,
and when he has so appeared in former times, we
are taught by Swedenborg that He is and was mani
fest to sense, by filling an angel with His presence,
so fully, that the individual nature of the angel is
latent and inactive. An angel, so filled with the
Divine, is called in Scripture the angel of the Lord.
As in the third chapter of Exodus it is said, " The
angel of the Lord appeared unto him (Moses) out
of the midst of a bush ; — and God called unto
him out of the midst of the bush, and said, I am
the God of thy fathers ; — and Moses hid his face ;
for he was afraid to look upon God." The word
translated "angel," both in Hebrew and Greek,
or in the Old and New Testaments, signifies one
sent. But His constant presence in the heavens,
is as the Sun of heaven. Its heat flows and is
perceived as heat, but the essence and inmost
of this heat is Divine Love. Its light flows and
is perceived as light, but the essence and in
most of this light is Divine Wisdom. Through
this Light and Heat He creates and preserves
the visible spiritual universe, as, through the heat
and light of the suns of this lower world. He
creates and preserves the earths of the material
universe. The angels ever see this Sun. They
do not call it Him, nor think it Him, nor worship

THE HUMAN FORM. 115
it in His place. But they know that within it
and always acting through it. He is, a Man, a Di
vine Man, from whose Divine Humanity their own
is contijiually derived. As a Divine Man they
worship and they love Him ; and it is their con
stant effort to bring men into that love and wor
ship, without which there is no beginning of
angelic life on earth, and no preparation for it.
Form is more and higher than shape. Form
belongs to all things of necessity ; it is the con
dition of existence, and without it there can be
no existence. But shape is for our senses, and
for the sensuous reason, which is the proper basis
and ultimate of all thought ; it is the aspect or
manifestation of form. It is that manifestation
which brings the thing within reach of our senses,
spiritual or natural, for it is they which recognize and
measure shape, and thus aid and support the mind.
Let it not be supposed, however, that shape is
nothing, or a delusion, or a weakness. For shape is
the revelation of form in those things of which the
senses take cognizance. And the truths we learn
by means of shape, the impressions it gives, the
feelings it excites, are not to be cast off as so many
errors, but used as the means of progress ; used
for the information they perpetually give of the
form which lies within.

116 THE HUMAN FORM.
Shape, the senses, and all their faculties, and
all they tell us, are but the appointed means by
which we may here and hereafter recognize per
sons, and discharge towards them our various
duties, and also so use the outer world as to
stand upright upon it, and possess it as our own,
and grow into our destined stature. For be
tween mind, on the one hand, and the objects of
thought and perception on the other, forever lies
the world of sense and shape. And this world is
capable of two effects. It is, according to our con
stitution of mind and the use we make of it, a veil
and a thick darkness, or a world of transparent
media, exquisitely adapted to the perceptive faculty
on the one hand, and to the highest objects of
perception on the other. This adaptation is pos
sible and is effected, because, between whatever is
within and whatever is without, between the whole
world of thought and intellectual life and the
whole world of sense, there is an exact and con
stant correspondence.
Let us then hold fast to the great truth, that
God ever remains Infinite in Form, filling all
space without being subject to the limitation of
space ; and yet never forget, that His Form is
truly and perfectly Human in the strictest sense
and in all particulars. We may surely understand

THE HUMAN FORM. 117
that something would be wanting in us, something
without which our eternal progress and never-end
ing approach towards Him who is Perfection, would
be checked and limited, if the germs of all human
perfection were not in us. But how are they in
us, whence come they, if not from Him ? Taken
all together they constitute Him ; and our visible
form, which is the correspondent and exponent of
our inner form, is also the correspondent and expo
nent of His Divine Form. For everything in us,
even to its least and most recondite fibril, proceeds
from its prototype in Him, and in us images forth
its origin in the Divine Humanity.
It is important to understand, that the corres
pondence between internal things and external, is
in no sense arbitrary ; for many results flow from it
of great moment, not only in a philosophical point
of view but in more practical relations. By virtue
of their correspondence, internal things actually
become their own proper externals ; that is, inter
nal things by coming into manifestation and adapta
tion to us, become externals ; and again, externals
are but internals, which have assumed an outward
aspect and condition. This is true of form as an
internal thing and shape as external, just as it is
true of the spiritual sense and the natural sense of
the Word. The effect of this, in relation to the

118 THE HUMAN FORM.
Word, is, that these two senses do not contradict
each other. The knowledge of the spiritual sense
gives higher truths, opens and elevates the mind and
supplies new motives and means of progress. But
he who has only the literal sense has also the
means of making progress in the same direction.
And when he who has learnt and loved and obeyed
the commandments of the literal sense, acquires in
this life or in the other, the spiritual sense, he does
not discover that he has been in an error and mis
led ; nor does he see one jot or tittle of what he
had before pass away. But in the boundless trea
sures which he discovers within it, he finds new
cause for loving it, and new and infinite cause for
loving Him who gave it to him. So it is with the
relation of form to shape, of the world of reality to
the world of appearance. As we have already
said, our senses are given us as a means of holding
intercourse with each other, and of recognizing
and using the world without us. And shape is
forrn which has become adapted to a portion of
our senses. Although it is most true, that, to com
prehend the inner laws of being, the nature of the
divine operation and the arrangement of heaven,
we should know something of the true relation of
shape to form, and arise above the level of merely
sensuous thought, — it is also true that we are not

THE HUMAN FORM. 119
to regard the senses as deceiving us in this matter.
They tell us not what is false, but only a lower and
more partial truth. Still it is the appropriate truth
for the beginning of the mind's progress. It is
needful and wholesome truth ; not to be cast away,
but to remain as the footstool on which we stand
while we look abroad on the clear air and up to
the outspread heaven.
Nor are we to feel as if they were wholly in
the wrong who do not rise above these sensuous
thoughts. Far better is it to remain in them
than to have no firm footing. Far better to
stand still upon the earth, seeing only the fields
we humbly till, than to rise and be lost in cloud
and mist. Hence, they who, believing that God
is a Divine man, so worship and love him, with
out knowing more of the attributes of a Divine
Humanity, are in a far healthier and happier
state of mind than they who reject this great
and simple Truth, and regard God only as a
diffused Essence, as Being without Form, as that
which the mind can in no way contemplate, and
therefore as that which the heart cannot love.
Recently, and in this neighborhood, it is a pre-
vaihng form of thought, to regard the Divine Be
ing as in fact and reality, wholly impersonal ; and

120 THE HUMAN FORM.
to consider the truth that He is a Spirit as exclud
ing the possibility of His having Form. They
who, really holding this opinion, give themselves
up to it, and are contented with it, are they
who are content without loving the author of
all good, and are willing to have a reason why
they should not try to love Him. But there are
those who hold to these doctrines in words, and
even perhaps in their conscious thoughts, who
yet, in the deeper region which these falsities
have not darkened, feel that God is a person,
and so give to Him their affections. It is not
one jot more certain that only a man, a person, can
love, using the word in any proper sense, than it
is that he only who is a person, a man, can be the
object of love.
It might be supposed that views of the external,
visible world, which regard its appearances as an
accommodation to the senses, would produce in
the mind a painful and embarrassing feeling of its
unreality. But I hold that its appearances are
adaptations of realities to sense.
There is no affinity between the philosophy
which may be gathered from the works of Swe
denborg, and that bewildering logic which has
endeavored in most of the cycles of human opin-

THE HUMAN FORM. 121
ion, and in the hands of Berkeley almost success
fully, to destroy the reality of material objects.'
This world is indeed the solid basis, the ultimate,
of all existence. Shake it, and every sound doc
trine of religion or of philosophy, trembles. The
eflfect of the principles I have endeavored to state,
is not to disturb this reality, but to penetrate to it
through the veil of appearance. If we would
know the effect of this upon the mind, let us con
sider some not very dissimilar instances, which
already exist. Thus we know that the sun is
central and steadfast, and that the earth journeys
around him and around itself. But we see the
solid earth motionless in space, while the sun rises
and sets to mark the day and night, and ascends
towards the zenith in summer, and with a low and
slanting beam gives the cold light of winter. But
our knowledge, in this instance, infficts no harm
upon the appearance to sense, while it is eminently
useful as the foundation of astronomy, and the
application of its problems to navigation, and other
departments of science and art. So will it be,
but in a far greater ratio, when the truths which
lie within sensual phenomena are discovered
Upon all the works of God we shall then see His
words written. The phenomena of nature will
' See the note at the end of this Essay.
11

122 THE HUMAN FORM.
then become the steps, the solid and enduring
steps, by which the soul will rise from matter to
spirit, from science to religion, from nature to
God. And yet the beauty, magnificence, and sub
limity of creation will lose no charm or power,
and we shall walk upon the earth with a tread as
firm as if we walked in ignorance.
Just so, too, it is in the spiritual world. Because
the soul, or spirit of man, must live within a body
or have no personal distinctness and identity cog
nizable to itself or others, and because the em
bodied spirit must have a world around it and
senses to recognize and use that world, all these it
has eternally. But the truth is known. The ori
gin and nature of the spiritual objects of sense
are known. StiU, this knowledge lessens in no
way the enjoyment and use of the things of sense,
but heightens them, even while the thoughts and
affections are soaring far above. For it glorifies
the outward world into oneness with the world
within. Perhaps it may be well to state, in a condensed
form, the principles we have endeavored to illus
trate. They are these. God is Man, perfect. Di
vine Man. He exists in Form, because so must
every being. And His form is perfectly Human.
From Him man exists and lives ; from His Huma-

THE HUMAN FORM. 123
nity that of man is derived. Form assumes
shape, to meet, by means of sense and sensuous
thought, the exigencies of life. Within these
shapes and forms lies the creative inffuence of
the Divine, in all its infinite varieties of Love and
Wisdom ; and the outward things created by and
from the things within, correspond to, represent,
and indicate the things within.
Innumerable and vast the inferences from this
doctrine, and the instructions which it yields. Let
me endeavor to suggest a very few of them.
As God is Man in a divine human form, that
form is perfect, and perfectly adapted to be the
instrument of love and wisdom. As man is
made in the image of God, and made to be a reci
pient of the love and wisdom which are the hfe
of God, and to live by receiving into himself those
elements of divine life, so his form is after the
divine type, and his shape, or body, is the corres
pondent and image of that form and type. It
is also true, that the whole Heavens are in that
form ; for in the sight of God they are as one
man ; and this is true also of the larger societies
which compose the heavens, and of the lesser so
cieties which compose the larger, and so down
through the vast series, untU we come to the indi
vidual man.

124 THE HUMAN FORM.
This seeming paradox may appear more intelli
gible and more reasonable, when we consider not
only the principles from which it springs, but those
practical and positive results to which it leads.
For although this truth may indeed seem a para
dox, when stated as above in all its length and
breadth, yet something of it has always been ap
parent, always operative upon men's actions, and
always implied by expressions in common use.
Thus the word " head " is often employed to in
dicate command and sovereignty ; the heart, the
eye, the arm, the hand are used in like manner ;
and pages might be filled with similar iUustrations.
The truth itself may be stated in its most general
form, thus. Every weU-constructed and well-order
ed society is in the human form, and every society
which is in the way of improvement and progress
tends to this form. This is true in some degree on
earth ; in the degree in which the mixture of good
and evil here, and the constant change and fermen
tation of all things, permits it to be true. In the
heavens it is perfectly true. For all who are there
are gathered into societies, and every one takes his
place in his own society, according to his use and
function. And the uses and functions of all the
members are correspondent and analogous to those
of the diflferent members of the human body.

THE HUMAN FORM. 125
This is true in general, as of the head, the heart,
the lungs, and other viscera, and the Hmbs ; and
it is also true in every particular, down to the least
fibre and the finest fibrils of which the fibres are
composed. It is easy to see and admit this, in general and
in reference to the principal members of the body ;
but our ignorance and sensual habits of thought
make it very difficult to see that the same thing
may be true in the least particulars. We may be
aided, however, by reflecting upon the origin and
purpose of human life.
Man is created by God, from His Infinite Love.
He therefore creates man in such wise as to give
him the utmost degree of happiness ; and to this
end creates him so that he may not only be the
object of the divine love and wisdom, but the
actual recipient of that love and wisdom, and
the blessedness that attends their exercise. He
creates him with a will and an understanding;
with a will into which the divine love may flow
and abide, and an understanding into which the
divine wisdom may flow and abide. The will, by
itself, is only a capacity of loving ; but it has and
feels no love, nor desire, nor emotion, until the di
vine love flows into it, and fills it, and becomes in it
such affection or love as the form and character of
11*

126 THE HUMAN FORM.
the win cause it to become. So the understanding,
by itself, knows nothing and thinks nothing, being
only a capacity of knowing and thinking. Into it
the divine wisdom ffows, and remains, and is de
veloped, so far and in such manner or into such
knowledge, and belief, and thought, as the form
and character of the understanding may deter
mine. Now, the Divine Love and Wisdom in the
Lord are One, — but a one composed of infinite
particulars. As one they ffow forth from Him ; in
man they become immediately two, as love and
wisdom or affection and thought are two. And
not only so, but the indefinite varieties among the
human family (having now no reference to those
who pervert this inffuent love and wisdom by a
life of wilful evil,) are produced by the fact, that
in every man some of the infinitely diversified par
ticulars of the inffuent divine life are prominent
and predominant over others. In this way, and
on this ground, one man differs from another. But
because all these infinitely varied elements in their
divine original and their essential unity constitute
a perfect Human Form, no one of them is with
out or beyond that form ; for each possible ele
ment of life or character is derived from that per
fect Human Form which, with others, it consti
tutes, and to the perfection of which each one is
essential.

THE HUMAN FORM. 127
Therefore every man who receives that life, and
in whom any one of its elements prevails, must be,
as it were, within that form ; that is, he must be
governed by a principle of life, which, in the
Divine, helps to form somewhat that is human.
His character and functions must be such as may
be represented by something correspondent in the
human form, and by the use and function of that
correspondent. Because all the elements of the
Divine Life, though infinitely varied, are yet es
sentially One, so all who receive these elements of
life and live from them, are, when conjoined by
their mutual affection and operation, a one, which
is representative of the Divine One, from which
each and all derive their being. Each represents
and embodies some element of the Divine Life ;
and he stands to his neighbors in the same relation
in which his element of life stands in the Divine
Form to those other elements of the same life
which they embody and represent. And as these
elements of life constitute, in their original and
perfect union, a perfect one, so all those who sev
erally receive, embody and represent them, do,
when taken together, constitute a one, which re
ceives, embodies, and represents the original and
primal One.
For if the divine purpose in the creation of man.

128 THE HUMAN FORM.
was to produce a being capable of great and abiding
happiness, so the end and purpose of human life
may be said to be the reception of divine life, and
the exercise in freedom and in blessedness of that
life, in some of its forms of love and wisdom. Now
some of these elements and forms of life would be
inadequately received, if there were not those who
could receive them as ruling elements of their life,
and have their characters, their uses, and functions,
and their happiness determined by them; and
thereby be made their representatives, their living
forms. Because the Divine Love and Wisdom as a One
is infinite, and infinite because it embraces and in
cludes infinite particulars,, therefore the number of
the human race upon all the earths is boundless,
and its variety inexhaustible. From the beginning,
and until that end which will never come, and
through all the immeasurable universe, men have
lived and are living and will live, and no two of
them have been or can be alike in all particulars.
Yet, although no two men ever were or can be
precisely similar in all respects, all are ahke in this,
— that they are all human ; all are types of some
what in the Divine Humanity ; and each one of
them is human in the sense, the manner, and form,
which are his own, and not another's.

THE HUMAN FORM. 129
Hence, all may live and work together. All
may be as one in the sight of Him who is their
common Father ; for, precisely as in the human
body, although the difference between one part
and some other part is as great as can be imagined,
yet every one is precisely and perfectly adapted to
all the rest. So perfectly adapted, as to be neces
sary and indispensable ; for every part of the hu
man frame, even the noblest, would have something
less to do, (and in doing consists happiness and
health,) something less or diflferent to be, — if every
other part and portion of a part which belongs to
human perfection were not present and connected
with the rest.
It is therefore obvious that the condition of the
whole, of all the human race considered as one,
must be constantly and eternally improving. For
every man who is born and becomes regenerate,
and takes his place in the heavens, fills a place
which was before him unfilled. It may be humble
or lofty, small or great, but it is his own. Because
he fills it, something of the Divine Form which was
before represented only subordinately and in gene
ral, becomes now more fully and precisely repre
sented by a more adequate correspondent. There
fore that element of the divine life ffows forth and
is received more fully ; its use, and good, and bles-

130 THE HUMAN FORM.
sedness are brought forth in greater clearness and
fulness ; and the Heavens as one, as one Man, the
child of the Almighty, is created more completely
into the image and likeness of our Father.
Nor is this all ; for it foUows as obviously that
with the growing perfection of the whole, grow the
perfection and happiness of every one. Because
they all constitute one universal man, the strength,
health, and happiness of all become that of each.
Precisely as in the human body, where by the
wholesome action of the whole frame, and its uni
versal health, the proper vigor, peace and comfort
of each part are promoted and secured. As these
increase and expand in the whole, so they do in aU
the parts. A truth, which like every other uni
versal truth, is true first, on the greatest scale, or
in the heavens as one man, and then by derivation
true in particulars and individuals.
As the heavens grow in their perfection, the
earths receive through them more fuUy of the di
vine life, for the heavens are the mediums through
which that life passes; and thus improvement,
eternal progress, is the constant law of the uni
verse. Every man who passes into the other world,
takes a place in some one of the societies of that
world. If in heaven, the society to which he be-

THE HUMAN FORM. 131
longs, and his place and function within it, are de
termined by the peculiar good which he does and
loves to do. This place is not arbitrarily assigned
to him or chosen by him. It is, as it were, of his
essence ; it belongs to him by his nature. He
may, in the exercise of his freedom while here,
become qualified to fill that place, and perform and
enjoy its heavenly uses, or he may become qualified
to fill only its opposite in the hells. It is to be re
membered, also, that the energy with which he
discharges his duty and enjoys its blessedness, the
warmth of his love for that usefulness, and the
clearness of his perceptions of the truths which be
long to it, may vary indefinitely. They do vary
according to the measure of the development of
his internal powers and affections by regeneration,
which is a work that not only admits but requires
his cooperation. Thus, while what may be call
ed the quality of his happiness is determined by
the essential character of his will and under
standing, we may regard the amount of it as also
dependent upon his own exercise of his own
freedom. While in this world, every man receives life
through the heavens as the medium between him
and God ; and more particularly through that so
ciety to which he is most akin, and still more

132 THE HUMAN FORM.
particularly through those members of that so
ciety who are individually nearest to him. As,
while he lives here, his state is often changing, so
he changes the spiritual associates who are the
especial media of life to him. For it is resem
blance and conformity which bring them together
and keep them together. These changes are de
termined by his progress upwards or downwards.
They are, by the infinite providence of God, such
and so adjusted as to lead him to his final place
through means and influences compatible with his
entire freedom. They prepare him for that place,
in such wise and so far as, in the exercise of that
freedom, he is wiUing to be prepared.
There are practical results from these views of
great value. Thus, if we look at the human body,
and ask what constitutes its highest health and
greatest vigor, we shall see that it is the absolute
prevalence of neighborly love among its parts and
members. For every part of the human body
works for all the rest, and not directly for itself.
The brain secretes its nervous fluid, and sends it
in a stream of life to give sensibility and motion to
the whole body. The heart impels its current of
living blood even to the extremities, and the lungs
are busy in purifying and vitalizing this blood for
the service of the whole. The stomach and vis-

THE HUMAN FORM. 133
cera are always employed in elaborating and pre
paring the means of life. The limbs move the
body where it would go, and procure for it the
means of nutriment. The eye sees everything
but itself, and the senses generally take notice of
all things but themselves. Yet every part and
organ lives and flourishes, because for it all the
rest are unceasingly employed. As long as order
and health prevail, no part appropriates anything
to itself or works in any way for itself, excepting
so far as to secure for itself the full power of doing
its proper work for others. In this condition and
in this law of the human body, we have a vivid
picture of the true order of human life. We may
learn here what self-love is. When we see that
the moment any part diminishes its labor for
others, or begins to appropriate to itself more than
its capacity of usefulness requires, that moment
disease begins ; and if this selfish indulgence con
tinues, disease leads on to death ; — when we see
this, self-love stands unveiled ; for we may see in
this, its evil, its destructiveness, its true nature.
Because God is Love, and His Divine Form is the
perfect form of love, and man is created in the
image and likeness thereof, therefore the body of
man is the living image of the love of the neigh
bor, and is the exact opposite of self-love. There-
12

134 THE HUMAN FORM.
fore it is the one condition of its health and vigor,
that, from the crown of the head to the sole of the
foot, no self-love should be found in it. The mo
ment this infernal poison enters and acts, disease
comes with it and grows with it, until death ensues.
In the body, love is the only law of life ; self-love
the one law of death ; and this is so with .the
body from no other cause than that it is so with
the soul, of which the body is the image.
Let us now see how it is with the societies of
heaven, each one of which is also a Man. In them
every individual has his own place and function,
and is respected in that place. There is subordi
nation, and command, and obedience ; aU perfect,
prompt, spontaneous, as the command of the brain
and the obedience of the hand and foot ; so per
fect and so spontaneous, that it may not assume
the aspect nor bear the name of command and
obedience. There is no more thought or feeling
of arrogance and pride, or envy or humiliation,
than exists among the members of the healthy
body. The highest feels and knows, and is glad
to feel and know, his perfect dependence upon the
lowest. And this feeling is reciprocal and univer
sal, because the union which binds them together
is not disturbed by any conflicting affection.
Nor is there in this doctrine anything which

THE HUMAN FORM. 135
lessens or limits the variety or the resources of
human action or enjoyment. True it is, that the
good man can do nothing which is not human,
and which does not work in with what others are
doing, so as to make a human form of the whole.
But it is not less true, that this human form is
from a divine Original, which is not only a perfect
humanity, but an Infinite Humanity, containing in
finites within itself. Hence it can never be ex
hausted ; hence it is, and always will be, impos
sible to conceive of any human faculty or taste or
tendency, which, if it be not tainted with self-love,
may not find within the limits of an Infinite Hu
manity work to do, which shall employ its utmost
strength in perfect freedom, and give back the re
compense of happiness.
From this view of heavenly society, let us de
scend to earth, where its image ought to dwell.
Precisely in proportion as influences from heaven
are dominant upon earth, order and subordination
and command and obedience will coexist here also
with freedom. They will join to produce mutual
respect and all the happiness that belongs to a
brotherhood of love. Law itself will be but the
form and instrument of liberty, and order its effect.
There will be none so low, that the highest needs
him not and owes him nothing ; none so humble

136 THE HUMAN FORM.
that any may look at him with pride. None so
high and none so low, as to give room for arro
gance or humiliation ; because no person can be
so feeble or so poor, that he has not a duty to per
form, which, being performed, makes him one with
the highest and the greatest. This would be the
perfection of social and political life ; and the. ap
proach to this will always measure the progress of
society. In the whole universe of God's creation, Love is
the rule, the order ; and self-love is the exception,
the disorder and disease. In man self-love is pos
sible, because it is the abuse of that freedom which
is given to him that he may freely love to love.
Because self-love thus exists and acts in man, its
baleful impress is to be seen in all the disorder of
creation, — in the angry tempest and desolating
volcano, the deadly cold of winter and withering
heat of summer, the ferocity of the brute, and all
the suffering which mingles its tones of wailing
and despair with the sweet voices of nature. All
these things are here, because the world without
mirrors the world within. But if we would know
with clearness and precision the operation and
effect of self-love, we may discern them, as has
been already said, in the disorder and disease of
that human body which was made to be the image
of the divine form and divine order.

THE HUMAN FORM. 137
Little reflection and experience are needed to
know, that in the social world self-love is the source
of mischief. So true is this, that society is obliged
to protect itself by forms of courtesy and politeness,
which simulate forbearance and benevolence, and
without which men would fly from each other like
the wildest of the brute creation. But, although
artificial politeness can disguise or repress selfish
ness so far as to make human association practi
cable, and although habits of courteous demeanor
are of great value because they exert a strong in
fluence upon the feelings and make them less harsh
and savage in their selfishness, nevertheless it is
not from this source that the soul can draw a heal
ing medicine. It must seek a purer spring, a deeper
well. If it would be cured of the disease of self-
love, it must drink of the living waters of religious
truth. And all genuine truth is indeed religious,
for it always seeks to reascend to its divine source.
While common sense teaches the expediency of
mutual love ; and all just views of the moral world,
of the duty and destiny of man, confirm, illus
trate and elevate the lessons of expediency, I have
endeavored to exhibit that other confirmation and
iUustration which may be derived from the consi
deration of the human form. Nor would it be
difficult to construct on this basis an exact and
12*

138 THE HUMAN FORM.
rigid demonstration of the law of charity. We
need assume, for the groundwork of the argu
ment, only that God is Love and Wisdom, and
that He creates man from Himself. It follows
that He so creates him that He may give him of
His own love and wisdom, because this being the
greatest good that He can give him, is that which
infinite Love would desire to give. And as His
own Divine Form must necessarily be the perfect
Form of His own perfect Love and Wisdom, the
form of a man, mental and bodily, must ba in
its image and likeness, that it may be the best
adapted to receive, appropriate, and exercise the
same elements of fife. This form must, there
fore, be in the whole and in its parts, in its laws,
and order, and operation, an image and reflection
of the laws, the form, and order of love. We
may perceive this in the mental and moral con
stitution of man, by reason ; and we may discern
it in his material and physical constitution, by the
senses and their experience. Nor is there any
other difference between these two modes of the
manifestation of the same truth, excepting, that
down in the lower plane of physical life it is open
to sensuous observation, and to that exact and de
finite knowledge which is comparatively easy in
that degree of thought and perception.

THE HUMAN FORM. 139
Let it not be supposed that the New Church
claims the discovery of this analogy. It is of the
mercy of God that a truth so universal and so
powerful could not but force itself into sight and
recognition. But we may now see the origin of
the analogy, and pursue it to its results, and con
nect this truth with its kindred, and bring the
scattered rays of light into union and harmony.
Among the interesting legends of antiquity, is that
of Menenius Agrippa. Whether modern criticism
has succeeded in making it a legend only without
fact ; whether such a person as Menenius ever
quelled a Roman rebeUion, or soothed the angry
jealousy of an infuriated multitude, by the fable
of the body and its members, are questions of
little moment. For it is beyond question, that the
fable has always been remembered and repeated,
and its instructiveness recognized.
The instruction derived from this source, may
be universal, embracing all topics within its scope
and influence ; and it wiU be eternal to those
who receive it, forever new, and ever growing
with the capacity of receiving it. For the myste
ries of the bodily organization of man are with
out end. Science may go on to discover within
the least fibrils of to-day, others yet more deli
cate to-morrow. More may be continually learnt

140 THE HUMAN FORM.
of the functions and the laws of the parts and of
the whole, in sickness and in health, in decay or
growth ; but the whole will never be known, for
upon it is impressed the seal of the Infinite.
The body is the adequate image of the soul.
Whatever may be learnt of it, in the present days
of cloud and of a night which is drawing towards
the morning, or in the coming ages when the light
whose upward ray is now scarcely discernible shall
have brightened into the splendor of unclouded
day, whatsoever can be learnt of the human body,
that knowledge will reveal somewhat of the mind,
the soul, the life within.
And the stream of knowledge will flow on ; its
waves rejoicing as they swell with ever-growing
affluence, and roll o'er sands of ever brighter gold,
and bear the waters of refreshment to the living
plants upon their shores. And among those plants,
forever drinking in those waters, are the trees of
God, whose leaves are for the heahng of the na
tions.

NOTE, p. 121.
As it is possible that this book may fall into the hands of
some one who loves the study of philosophy, I would sug
gest to him, what indeed if he has diank of ils earlier foun-

THE HUMAN FORM. 141
tains he must know, that the distinction of " form" and
" essence," and an investigation of their attributes, lies near
the centre of the ancient philosophies. In these days we
are so much wiser than Plato and Pythagoras, one risks
something by alluding to them in terms of respect. It may
be safer to come down to modern times, and speak of Kant.
I do not pretend to understand the whole of his system, and
its exceeding difficulty has indeed — with other causes —
deterred me from a very careful study of it. But I regard
it as the greatest movement in philosophy that has occurred
for centuries, and much of the light which it casts upon
mind can be denied or unseen only by ignorance. The dis
tinction, which he did not invent, bat restored and illus
trated, and has made permanent in all philosophy, that
between the subject and the object of thought, is of great
importance. The subject is that which — subjacet — under
lies all faculty or power, while the object — objacet —
lies as it were against faculty or power, and is perceived
by them and acted upon by them. The subject of sight is
the eye, which supports and possesses the faculty of seeing,
while the object of sight is anything towards or upon which
that faculty is exerted. We contemplate or consider a thing
subjectively, when we regard it as within us, as ourselves, as
a part of our identity, or as a German would say, as a por
tion of our Me. We consider it objectively when we look
at it as external, abroad, separate from us, and at a greater
or less distance. Thus we may say, that it is the great end
of Providence, that man should be not only the object of
divine love and wisdom, hut the subject of them. My prin
cipal purpose, however, in speaking of this distinction is to
refer to what is not so much a conclusion, as a fundamental
axiom, of the Kantian philosophy, and of the many which

142 THE HUMAN FORM.
have sprung from it ; namely, that we can know nothing
whatever either of the subject or the object of thought or
perception, as they exist in themselves. We know them only
relatively, and as they affect each other. Thus of the sub
ject, our Me, — we can know nothing but that it has a capa
city of being affected and acted upon in a certain way, by
the objects all around us. And of any object, we can know
only that it is a something vrhich acts or reacts upon and
affects our Me in a certain way, producing certain sensations
or emotions. What it is that sees, or what it is that is
seen, we do not and cannot know, because our knowledge is
necessarily limited to the impressions which the thing with
out us produces upon us. And this axiom is sound and
indisputable, within the limits of that system. Vast were
the efforts, and various and strange the means, used by the
ancient philosophers to escape from this conclusion ; but
they did not escape. Now, however, he that will apply to
the incontestable principles of ontology, the doctrine of the
New Church, respecting the source of all being and the
manner in which the ultimates of existence are fashioned
and vivified by Him from Himself, may find that Religion is
the true key to Philosophy ; that they are indeed one. I
cannot but hope that the reader who regards this remark
merely as the ebullition of my blinding love for the doctrines
of my church, will not be so convinced of this as to let the
suggestion pass wholly unheeded, if his taste or pursuits lead
him to the study of philosophy.

RELIGION,

RELIGION.

The origin of the word Religion is not certain,
but it is supposed to be derived from Latin words,
which signify to bind again. If so, from the
very elements of its composition we may infer,
that religion seeks to bind again that which has
fallen away or broken loose ; to re-bind man to
God ; to re-attach him to the Source of all Good,
by a chain whose links are love, while the hand
which binds it round the heart knows no touch but
that of mercy. Religion is a universal fact, inde
finitely varied with ages and races ; falsified, until
it represents itself in idols of grotesque deformity,
and darkened until neither the light of truth nor
that of hope glimmer in its abysses. Still religion
is everywhere. Its universal presence is often noticed, and often
explained somewhat vaguely by the demand of hu-
13

146

RELIGION.

man nature for supernatural thoughts, and hopes,
and fears ; by our innate propensity to look beyond
nature for protection and assistance, when death
impends, and the blows of calamity have fallen, and
everything which belongs to earth fails or assails
us. But there is an explanation more simple, di
rect, and adequate. Man lives that he may as
cend to heaven ; this was the end which God pro
posed in his creation, and holds in view in his
whole care of the inward and outward life of every
individual. For this universal end, religion is the
universal means ; and therefore, in some shape
or other, it is offered to the mind of every man.
The end or purpose of the divine government is
always the same ; it cannot change with time or
place, or circumstance. But men vary, and there
fore the means by which this end is sought are
also varied. Hence comes the variety and diver
sity of religions, or rather of the aspects under
which religion presents itself to men. It is made,
by Him from whom it comes, to take the form and
offer the motives, and enforce itself by the sanc
tions, which are best adapted to the race of men to
whom it is given ; and this necessity of adaptation
is the first cause that its difference, in different pe
riods and nations, is almost as boundless as the
difference among men. But another cause may

RELIGION. 147
be found in the various ways and degrees in which
men have falsified and perverted their refigion.
It is the free gift of God ; and from heaven it
descends a heavenly gift. But when it reaches
earth, it assumes a dress which may veil its splen
dors, and fit them to a diseased eye. Then, in the
hearts and minds of men, it is gradually mingled
with the corruptions which it finds. Constantly
in conffict with them, it is assailed and wounded.
Always combating with errors, they, day by day,
stain, distort and poison it, until its beauty is soiled,
and its strength becomes weakness, and its life de
cays, and its words no longer have power to save ;
then it passes away, and another is given in its
place ; and hence the succession of churches which
marks the history of the human family. Nor can
this be avoided, because the freedom of the hu
man mind, is the supieme and absolute condition
without which religion can do no portion of its
proper work, and that condition must be preserved,
although the abuse of this freedom necessarily
leads to the perversion of religion.
The true and constant purpose of religion is two
fold ; and it may be stated with precision and cer
tainty. It is, that men should be good, and should
give the glory of their goodness to God. This is not
the purpose of religion now only, or here, or under

148 RELIGION.
this form or that, but always and everywhere.
Nor is this the purpose of rehgion by the arbitrary
appointment of its Author ; but it follows by irre
sistible necessity from the constitution of His na
ture and of our nature.
It is the essence of love to wish to give some
thing of its own to another. God is love — is
perfect, infinite love. Therefore it is His constant
and universal desire to give to man something of
His own, something of Himself — to give him Him
self; that is, to give him Love. This was the Di
vine desire, from which man was created ; and
from this Divine desire, man was so created that
he might receive of the Divine Love, and appro
priate it to himself, and live by it as his own love
and life. But this love is the love of goodness, of
everything good, and of that only ; and therefore
in proportion as a man loves what is good, he an
swers the purpose for which he was created, be
cause in that proportion he permits God to give
him of Himself. Therefore it is the first purpose
of religion, — which is the divine means whereby
the divine ends may be accomplished, — to make
man good. But selfishness is the opposite of love,
and of good. A disposition to love self, and to
give to self what belongs to another, is the exact
opposite of the disposition which it is the purpose

RELIGION. 149
of religion to produce and conjoin. And the great
est possible injustice and selfishness consists in at-
tribu/ting to oneself that goodness which comes
as the free gift of Him who alone is Good. It is
therefore the purpose of refigion, not more to make
man good, than to make him know and acknow
ledge that this is the work of God. Indeed, these
two things are one ; because genuine goodness in
any man must necessarily exclude the thought that
he is good of himself and of his own proper power,
since it must necessarily exclude selfishness and
injustice. There is yet another reason for this
conclusion. Wisdom is the thought and form of
love ; and because God is Love, He is also Wis
dom ; and if He seeks to give to man of Himself,
he must seek to give him wisdom, or truth, in the
degree in which man can receive it. He works for
this end, too, by means of religion ; and therefore
religion must oppose the perfect falsity that man is
or can be good of himself, and must strive to teach
and enforce the opposite truth.
I have dwelt upon this purpose of religion, —
one, although capable of being seen under a two
fold aspect, — because when we have in our minds
a definite and just view of this purpose, we have a
standard whereby we may measure the character,
condition, and operation of aU churches, in all
13*

150 RELIGION.
their periods of morning, noon, or night, and
judge of their mutual relation and inffuence, and
understand their succession in the order of time.
If we apply this test, we shall discover in every
religion somewhat which leads towards this pur
pose, and somewhat that leads away from it. We
shall find some elements of its divine original, and
some of the perversions which result from man's
endeavor, to provide for its requirements substi
tutes more agreeable to unregenerate human nature.
Thus, from the very earliest ages, and among all
nations before the Christian era, sacrifices of some
kind were in use. These, in their origin and
primary use were rites, which served as aids of a
pure religion. To " sacrifice," means to make a
thing sacred ; and to offer a thing in sacrifice to
God, originally meant and was known to mean, an
acknowledgment that it came from Him and was
His. Everywhere at first, as in the ritual of the
Jewish Church, only things useful to man and
without blemish, were made the subjects of sac
rifice. These all had their distinct meanings, by
the laws of correspondence, which were once
familiarly known, and of which the memory has
never wholly passed away. The fruits of the
earth, oil, and the finest wheat, the dove, the
lamb, the ox, all are representatives. They all

RELIGION. 151
exist from spiritual causes. These causes are affec
tions and truths. The objects themselves may be
regarded as these affections and truths, brought
down into the ultimate substances of nature ; and
these their inmost causes they represent and sig
nify. To those in the earliest ages, who, in the
light and purity of an unsullied nature, saw in aU
the brightness and beauty of earth only the shadow
of the glory of heaven, these objects were as
living mirrors. They constantly suggested that
which they constantly represented. They 'were
offered to God, in acknowledgment that they were
His, and were received from Him. Hence the act
of sacrifice was a useful act ; the lamb, the oil,
the wine, were offered to God, as a confession that
the things they represented were his gifts ; and
the offering was useful, because it tended to keep
fresh in the memory and in the heart, one of the
great laws upon which all religion and all true
goodness must ever rest ; and hence again, in
some form or other, it was a part of all rehgions.
But the human nature, for which this was given
and to whose instruction and elevation it was
adapted, stood necessarily in opposition to it. And
this opposition produced not an abolition of the
practice, but a perversion of it into its precise op
posite. The evil tendencies of a corrupt nature

152. RELIGION.
laid hold upon the rite which warred against them,
and made it their captive, their prey, their instru
ment. As early as the remotest historical ages,
sacrifice was, perhaps everywhere, regarded and
practised as a substitute for goodness ; as a vi
carious offering to God, instead of that goodness
which His love offered to man and urged him to
receive. This is almost the only idea of sacri
fice which we find in the world. Out of it grew
countless horrors and abominations. As a sub
stitute it would more avail, as it was more pre
cious ; and hence, after men had thrown their trea
sures upon the fires, they cast their children into
them, and at length iheir brethren. More and
worse than this, not life alone, but all that gives it
worth and beauty, were offered up ; and prostitution
became, and to this day in some countries is, an act
of worship. Out of this falsity, or in connexion with
it, grew up the appaUing monster penance. There
is quite enough left on earth to tell us what this
was, and what it did. By the side of the temples
where women worship by public sin, and throng
ing round the fires which reduce to ashes the dead
husband and the fiving wife, are those who would
force their way to heaven by self-imposed and
long-continued agonies. In its beginning, and in
its essence, their religion tells them to beware of

RELIGION. 153
the lusts of the flesh ; and they think they obey,
or rather they do obey these precepts, as they have
come down through generations of corruption,
when they gash their flesh with burning knives,
and waste it away in torments. This terrible mis
take was systematized ; it gathered collateral falsi
ties about it, and built a monstrous structure which
it called religion. So firmly was this cemented
by the evil passions of human nature, that it cum
bers the nations with its vast fragments even in our
own day. Who has not heard of the car of Jug
gernaut ? And even that appalling horror is but
the lingering remnant of a false religion, of which
the pictures of ancient eastern literature give, pro
bably, a true representation. A prevailing theme
therein, is the successful ambition of the ascetic,
who, like the Kehama of Southey's Poem, forced
from the reluctant gods by his terrible penances
a share of their divine power, not only against
their will, but in despite of the prescience which
told them it was to be used against themselves.
When we look upon pictures so painful and
abhorrent to all our customary feelings, we turn
away with wonder that human nature could ever
have assumed so horrible an aspect, — and with
gladness that we have nothing within our own ex
perience or observation which could assist us to
comprehend a depravity so monstrous.

154 RELIGION.
But there are two modes of contemplating this
subject, which may not be without their use.
One, will explain it, and show how it arose from
the eternal conflict between the unchangeable pur
poses of a true religion, and the essential princi
ples of that human nature which it is the function
of religion to regenerate and heal. The other
will, perhaps, show that the same conflict con
tinues now, and has again destroyed a rehgion,
and again represents itself all around us under
analogous falsities. We have not the temples of
Juggernaut. For the imagination of such a one as
Kehama, the poet was driven to eastern traditions.
But the dreadful falsehood so pictured, was no
casual thing. Its roots were as deep as the abysses
of human depravity. It towered to a height,
which wearied even the wing of fantasy made in
sane by sin. And its far-reaching shadow darkens
our own horizon.
The purpose of religion is to make men good.
It is a necessary thing, because the untaught and
uninfluenced nature of man is not good ; univer
sally necessary, because this is true of all men.
Between religion, therefore, and that nature which
it comes to change and re-create, there is a direct
antagonism. Religion and nature not only oppose
each other, but have power over each other. And

RELIGION. 155
because the essential principles of both remain
ever the same, although their aspects and mani
festations vary very much in different ages and
periods, so their influence and operation upon each
other must be always essentially the same, although
varying in form and appearance.
If we remember that the one purpose of reli
gion is to make men good ; and that it is this
purpose which human nature at once needs and
resists, we may easily see, that the one, the general
way in which man must escape from religion,
must be by substituting for its requirements some
thing which may take the place of goodness. For
although the nature of man opposes religion, it
cannot destroy this gift of God. It comes from
its Divine Source with sanctions too mighty ; it
speaks with too much power, to be wholly disre
garded. A nation of men professing indifference
to religion, has never existed, and cannot exist.
All that human nature can do, in its most viru
lent and most successful efforts against religion,
is to falsify and pervert it, and thus escape its
requirements. Hence, it learns that religion de
mands the giving up of that we value most ;
and it gladly builds the altar, and lays amid the
fires its food, its treasures, on condition that it may
retain what it loves far more, its selfishness and

156 RELIGION.
impurity. This delusion grows and ripens, until
man befieves he acquires a right to sin, by a
bargain with the sinless, which religion sanctifies.
And then the power of refigion is directed into a
channel which leads away from goodness. That
power may yet remain, vast, awful, overshadowing
the earth like a cloud. But the chief evidence of
its power is in the torments it infficts, the destruc
tion it enjoins, until whole hosts are sacrificed, as
in Mexico, and the doorways of the temples of the
gods are but the narrow beds of streamlets of hu
man blood.
Just so, too, it is with the idea of penance, or
self-inflicted punishment. The sense of remorse
is painful. But the voice of religion cannot be
mistaken, when in its uncorrupted tones it de
nounces sin. As the sinner hears it call upon
him to fast — to fast from his wicked indulgen
ces, to abstain from envy and covetousness, and
the crimes they breed, — he strives, perhaps, to
obey, but not enough to overcome his evil im
pulses. He yields, and when the hour of sin has
given way to that of remorse, he inflicts upon him
self some punishment as a compensation for that
pain, — the pain of resistance — which he did not
bear in the hour of temptation. The truth de
mands repentance ; but penance is far easier. It

RELIGION. 157
is thus he endeavors to assuage the pangs of an
awakened conscience. With every repetition the
habit is confirmed ; with every new instance it be
comes more common ; until the habit assumes the
sanctity of religion, and is universally established.
Then religion, which asks only self-control, is un
derstood to demand self-punishment ; and with
this human nature is satisfied. Let it sin to-day,
when pleasure calls and passion urges, and it is
wiUing to pay the debt by the scourge or sackcloth
to-morrow, and thus purchase at a cheap rate, the
gratification of its lusts, and the quiet of its con
science. Because this dreadful falsehood has its roots
in the kindly soil of unregenerate nature, it grows,
and spreads its branches in every direction, and
bears a fruit more monstrous than itself. There
soon comes the idea, that penance will do more
than pay for sin. That it has a power of its
own ; and if there be no sin for which it dis
charges the debt, or if there be more penance than
enough to balance the account, it gives a merit
whose claim cannot be disputed, and rends from
the unwilling deities a portion of their omnipo
tence. Thus is the work consummated. For
when the abuse of religion has reached this point,
14

158 RELIGION.
its use has passed away, and slowly or suddenly it
abides its doom of death.
The perversion of aU truth, perhaps, never
reached this extreme, or took just this form among
the Jews. That pecufiar people had a peculiar
safeguard in the written Word, which exactly de
fined their religious rites and ceremonies. But it
is an instructive fact in the history of this nation,
that when they fell into idolatry, they adopted
many of these horrors from the surrounding na
tions. Thus we read in Jeremiah, " Behold I will
bring evil upon this place, the which whosoever
heareth, his ears shall tingle. Because they have
forsaken me, and have estranged this place, and
have burned incense in it unto other gods, whom
neither they nor their fathers have known, and
have filled this place with the blood of innocents.
They have built also the high places of Baal, to
burn their sons with fire for burnt-offerings unto
Baal." But to return to that most corrupted condition
of religion which we have described, and which
prevailed among many, if not most, of the nations
of antiquity. Many records of this we have, and
much indisputable evidence, even without the
painful traces which exist in our own times. Nor
need they be without instruction ; for they should

RELIGION. 1 59
help us to penetrate the disguise under which the
same influences have been at work, and the same
effects produced even to the same final result, in
the Christian religion and the Christian Church.
This church was for some centuries humble
and persecuted. During this period of adversity,
it retained a high degree of purity and truthf
But after three hundred years of humility and inr
tegrity it ascended the throne of Constantino, and
no sooner was it allied with the powers of the
earth, than the stains of earth were seen upon its
vesture, and the poison began to eat into its heart.
The emperor summoned the Council of Nice, to
put an end to the controversy which had arisen
between Athanasius and Arius, and this council
established the Tripersonality of God and the doc
trine of Imputative Faith ; and about the year 400,
St. Augustine earnestly and eloquently advocated
the doctrine of Justification by Faith alone, through
elective grace. He was a good man, if it is possi
ble for any evidence to prove such a fact. And
he brought forward his doctrine to encounter and
defeat the heresy of Pelagius, who taught the suffi
ciency of man to his own salvation. The church
had power enough to overcome this heresy, though
not to extirpate it, and adopted the doctrines
of Augustine as the means. And soon these

160 RELIGION.
doctrines were seized and used by the irreligious
tendency of human nature, and upon them was built
a substitution of faith for charity ; of believing
aright, in the stead of doing good and being good ;
and this was the first step taken by Christianity
towards its consummation. As in earfier churches,
sacrifice, ritual and penance had taken the place of
the requirements of religion, so now, naked faith,
mere belief, began to assume the same place, and do
the same work of permitting men to be irreligious
under the name of religion. But this doctrine never
reached its height in the Catholic church. Still other
substitutes were sought and found. Substitutes of
a lower, more sensual, more grovelling kind, and
therefore better suited to the nature of man in that
day. The forms of heathen idolatry were adopted,
with changes barely sufficient to disguise and adapt
them to their new circumstances. Saints were
worshiped, and their altars hung round with votive
offerings, as had been the gods of Greece and
Rome. It is said the statue of St. Peter, in Rome,
which is worn away by the kisses of adoring mul
titudes, is but an ancient statue of Jupiter. This
fact would symbolize and illustrate with great ex
actness, the way in which Christianity was made
to adopt from heathenism, the means of escape
from religion. So, too, the whole doctrine of pen-

RELIGION. 161
ance was received and incorporated. In our own
day, it is seldom carried to great excess, although
a part of the Roman church, wherever that exists.
But the monks, in the lonehest retreats, macerating
their bodies with watching, and fasting, and the
scourge, and enthusiasts chmbing to the top of a
loftly pillar and abiding there for years, remind us
of the self-tormenting penances of the east. One
of the doctrines of the Roman church is quite re
markable in this respect ; it is that of Supererogation.
This teaches that saints and the very good, may,
and actually do, acquire more merit by good works
and penances than are needed for their salvation,
and the surplus forms the treasury of the church,
which she can bestow upon those who need for
giveness. Connected with this doctrine was the
sale of " indulgences " and other abuses, which
were the immediate causes of Luther's revolt.
How close the analogy between this doctrine and
the eastern notion, that penance and good works
may more than save, may draw down divine power
and make the man superhuman ! It would be easy
to illustrate this topic at great length ; to accumu
late evidence in proof of the fact, that human na
ture had confronted and attacked Christianity, and
wrought upon it changes and effects singularly
analogous to those which had been exhibited in
14*

162 RELIGION.
earlier ages as the result of the conflict between the
religions of those days, and the human nature which
it was their office to heal and elevate.
And so the work went on. I need only allude
to the worship of saints and relics, to support the
assertion that the Catholic church became emi
nently idolatrous. Indeed, idolatry and penance
grew and strengthened themselves and spread, un
til the poison tainted the springs of life ; and then
the church died. Always, in every period of Christ
ianity, as doubtless in every the darkest period of
every corrupted church, there were individuals
who saw and loved the truth, and strove to stay
the plague. They were the salt that preserved the
dying church from rapid and offensive decay ; and
had they not been there, fire from above and from
below must have swept the doomed nations from the
earth ; like the Sodom and Gomorrah where no ten
just men could be found. Always there were Cath
olics, who, loving the church as the bride of the
Lamb, as the mother of their souls, endeavored, by
whatever efforts and at whatever peril, to enlighten
its dark places, and cleanse it from idolatry. Al
ways there were the simple-minded and good, mul
titudes we hope, who so passed through their church
to heaven. But the work went on, because human
nature was battling against the religion which re-

RELIGION. 163
quired of it the relinquishment of self and sin. And
at length evil had the mastery, and reigned.
In Luther's day, some three centuries ago, oc
curred what Papists caU the great Schism, and
Protestants caU the Reformation ; but to which we
can give very readily neither name. It was not
a schism or division, because there was no true
church to be divided. And we can call it a reform
ation, only in so far as it restored the use of the
Bible ; because, while it swept away the idolatry of
saints and relics, and the delusions of penance, it did
not replace in their stead those principles of a true
religion which they had expelled, but placed there
the dreadful doctrine of salvation by Faith alone.
Born long ago, coeval indeed with human nature
or with the eternal strife between it and religion,
the doctrine of Faith alone, the doctrine that if we
think and profess what is true, we may do what
we will ; the doctrine that belief will suflice as
well as practice, that it is as good, nay, that it is
better, — now grew into its full stature. The Re
formers placed it in the centre of their religion. It
stood there with all its deformity undisguised, aU
its power to wound and slay, unmitigated. It
stood there, as the abomination of desolation, in
the very sanctuary of the temple.
To those unacquainted with the history of reli-

164 RELIGION.
gion, and accustomed to look upon whatever is
brought before them, with the careless eye of in
difference, — which often loves to call itself char
ity, — this may seem a harsh judgment. But there
is evidence enough to justify it, though it would be
a mournful task to array the proof in all its woful
fulness. Let it suffice now to refer to the horrors
of the Anabaptist sway at Munster, and of An-
tinomianism wherever it threw off" aU restraint.
If these things are to be regarded as convulsive
spasms of falsehood and of sin, from which no gen
eral conclusions should be drawn, let us think of
Luther's own saying, which is of late years coming
into a new celebrity, that " the church must rise
and fall with the doctrine of Faith alone ; " of Cal
vin's System of Faith, of the creeds and symbolic
books and articles of the Synod of Dort and other
similar ecclesiastical bodies, and even of the articles
of the Church of England and the Westminster Cat
echism. And who can then deny that the doctrine
of Salvation by Faith alone is the very essence of
Protestant Christianity ?
The difficulty of judging aright of the quality
and influence of this false, doctrine, is increased by
another circumstance. The Lord deals with a
religion or with a church as with an individual, in
this respect, that His infinite love never fails or

RELIGION. 165
wearies. Over the evil He watches, to mitigate
their evil and its consequences as far as may still
be possible. The same divine mercy from which
a religion descended, sleeps not as the shades of
evening gather about its decline, and still cares
for those to whom and for whose good it was
given. He cannot do more to preserve it in its
purity, than may be compatible with the preser
vation of human freedom. But when corruption
has stolen upon it, and its truths are perverted,
and its good influences changed as the ivy changes
the sweet dew and the pure rain into poison, stiU
His mercy is unchangeable. Then all is done
that can be done to lessen the mischief. The fal
sities are covered, or qualified by admixture with
such truth as may yet be possible, so that their del
eterious influence is diminished, and the simple
seekers after good may be led where they would
go, even through these tortuous paths. Hence
there has perhaps never been a perversion of reli
gion so absolute and extreme, that it presented
itself under no aspect in which the traits of its
original beauty could be discerned ; nor was there
ever a church so falsified that none could go
through it to Him from whom it came. Thus the
doctrine of salvation by Faith alone, though when
seen in its nakedness it is a mere falsehood and

166 RELIGION.
one of profound malignancy, yet, as it is actually
taught and preached, it is often, perhaps generally,
disguised and ameliorated. Good men, who clung
to it because they believed it to be religious truth,
have labored to bend and soften it, and connect it
with a good life, in such wise as to make it lead
towards, instead of from, vital religion ; and Divine
Providence labored with them. Hence, there are
doubtless many who hold this doctrine, and many
it may be hoped who preach it, who would be
startled and shocked if they saw it in its true and
odious deformity. But with them, whatever they
may say and whatever they may think that they
believe, faith is not alone. They are rebels, un
conscious rebels against the doctrine and church to
which they adhere ; because they are faithful to
Him against whom that church has rebelled. It is
not therefore of such as these, or of their necessa
rily confused and inconsistent doctrines, that I speak.
But of the bare and undisguised doctrine of salva
tion by faith alone, as it stands in the authoritative
creeds of Orthodox Protestantism, no less can be
said, than that it is the repetition of the sacrifice^
penance, and idolatry of earlier fallen churchess;
and like them, a substitute for the requirements of
religion, devised and loved by the corrupt human
nature which hates these requirements and will

RELIGION. 167
not hear or obey them. Nor is the whole truth
told, until it is added, that this falsehood, not like
those of an older time, tangible, sensual and exter
nal, but reigning in the heart, — is even much
worse than they.
Immediately around us there is something more
than this ; there is a kind of Protesting against
Protestantism ; — and we call it Unitarianism.
There are traces of it in many parts of Christen
dom at this moment ; but its chief seat and centre
are in our own immediate neighborhood. It is diffi
cult to speak of this as I should. Early and cher
ished associations invest it with a charm, which is
not diminished by the personal worth of many who
profess it. Yet nothing can be clearer than the
judgment which must be pronounced upon it,
when it is brought to the standard of essential and
vital religious truth. It denies and denounces the
idolatries of former times as earnestly as Protest
antism, and with them the great falsehood which
Luther and Calvin substituted for them. But it
also denies and disregards that essential element of
religion, without which there is no religion. It re
fuses to give the glory to God. It makes goodness
to be man's duty, because man has in himself, and
of himself, the full power of goodness. It rests on
man, and not on God ; its basis is not the constant

168 RELIGION.
mercy of the Lord, but " the dignity of human
nature." Here, too, not only all that was said of the
way in which the doctrine of Faith alone is tem
pered and modified, is equally applicable, but a
specific distinction may be drawn. The late Pres
ident Kirkland, a name to be uttered with love
and reverence, — and let not the recollection of his
meridian brightness be dimmed by the thick and
heavy darkness which gathered about his way to
death, — said to me, about twenty years ago, in a
conversation on this subject, " There are two kinds
of Unitarians, and they are very different. There
are some who cannot comprehend the orthodox
doctrine of the Trinity, and are shocked by that of
Faith alone, and therefore deny these doctrines. I
am one of these ; but I believe there is in the
Bible, and in Jesus Christ, and in God's dealings
with man, a great mystery which I do not pretend
to understand, nor expect to understand, in this
world. But there are Unitarians who go much
farther, and who have a system of faith about all
these things which satisfies them, and they think
they understand, and that we ought to understand
the whole. I do not agree with them." I cannot
now give all his very words ; but of the substance
of his remarks and of much of his language I am

RELIGION. 169
very sure ; for there were circumstances attending
the conversation, and personal applications of it,
which fixed it indelibly upon my memory. I have
ever since regarded Unitarianism as negative with
some, and positive with others. And we need not
look far to find those who, in the midst of its
denials, give every evidence of an earnest and
constant desire to do all their duty, to cultivate
religion in their hearts, and walk humbly before
God. But the question, what is positive Unita
rianism, remains untouched by such examples.
It is diflicult to say anything of Unitarianism,
which may not be rejected at once by one or
another of those who profess that system, because
it has so little which is distinctly its own. Strictly
speaking, a denial of the Trinity, and a belief in one
God, and that Jesus Christ is not that God, is the
whole creed of Unitarianism. So much of this as
is denial, is intelligible and clear enough ; but that
part of it which is belief, may range from the
pantheism of Spinoza, through all possible modes
of regarding the deity. One thing only appears
to be excluded ; and that is a belief in a personal
God ; a belief of Him in any sense which can
satisfy a clear understanding, and an earnest heart.
And yet, this is the very belief which must be
regarded as the centre and life of religion. It
15

170 RELIGION.
was to make this belief clear and permanent, that
our Father bowed the heavens and walked among
men, clothed with our nature, as one of us. It
was to justify that belief, and make it eternal as
the life of the angels who live by it, that He glo
rified that human nature and made it divine, even
with his own Infinite Divinity. Previous to His
coming, the fact that He was to come, was that
towards which all prophecy, all hope, aU truth,
looked. And since his coming, it is in this fact,
and in the glorification of His Divine Human, that
the whole heavens find the source and seal of
their blessedness. This subject we cannot pursue,
because it would lead us to that Doctrine of the
Lord, which involves all truth as well as all mys
tery ; which offers to the humblest and simplest
mind, plain truths, full of guidance, strength, and
consolation, and yet grows with the capacity of
comprehension and the sincere love of truth, and
connects itself with the loftiest thoughts and all
sound knowledge of men and angels, transcend
ing them all, ever stretching upwards to guide the
soul in its eternal ascent, ever widening all around
to fill the whole horizon of human or angelic con
sciousness, and glorify the universe of mind and
matter with His unbounded presence. The Doc
trine of the Lord was revealed in his own Gos-

RELIGION.

171

pels ; but tempered there by the clouds with which
the Divine mercy moderated its effulgence. In
these clouds of heaven, He has now come. He
has come in the Spirit ; by disclosing the spirit of
His Word ; by the revelations made from the new
heavens for the new earth which is now forming
beneath their influence. We can only refer them,
who would understand this doctrine, to the works
of Swedenborg ; here we have but aUuded to it,
because it would seem that a system of belief which
rejects the divinity of the Lord, cannot admit a
personal God, and therefore cannot give to Him
the glory of all goodness.
It may be asked how it was before Christianity ;
and the answer is obvious. All nations believed
in a personal God, or gods ; their temples, idols,
statues, traditions, and mythology, prove this be
lief, and kept it alive. Mingled with a thousand
errors, as this heaven-descended truth then was,
it was better than nothing, than utter darkness.
Better than a system which is strictly a system of
natural religion ; in other words, a system of reli
gion of the natural man ; in yet other words, a
religion which would make man moral by appeals
to his pride, and bribe him into goodness by the
promise that all the credit, and the merit, and the
reward, should be his of right.

172 RELIGION.
As far as we may judge of a system so little
defined, and so little capable of definition, we may
say that Unitarianism acknowledges God as the
source of life and power ; holding that He created
man and gave him certain faculties, and laid upon
him duties to which those faculties were adequate.
Nor is there anything in this to be condemned as
false. But it differs greatly in theory, and far
more in inffuence and effect, from the whole truth.
For that tells us at every moment, that God is
with us then ; at every moment creating us ; at
every moment giving us his law, writing it upon
the willing heart, opening to His Word the willing
ear, showing to the willing eye the path of duty,
and by his present and continual inffuence impart
ing a disposition to obey, with no other limita
tion or restraint than is necessary to leave us in
freedom to choose whom we wiU serve. The
truth tells us, that the same wisdom which pre
scribes the law, flows with perpetual influx into the
mind, and enables it to perceive and understand
the law ; that the same love from which the law
proceeded, as a means of happiness, flows into the
will and becomes there, if permitted, a disposition
to obey the law and a love of the good for the
sake of which the law is given. Therefore the
truth tells us to be humble ; to know our own

RELIGION. 173
weakness, our own sinfulness ; to know whence
comes to us any and every disposition to resist
evil and do good ; to know that this support, this
help, is ever ready, ever solicitous of entrance,
ever uttering those words of mercy- : Behold I
stand at the door and knock ! But the door of
entrance is opened by us, only when in humifity,
and in sincere acknowledgment of our own noth
ingness, we turn away from self and towards our
ever-present Father. Nor does it seem that feel
ings like these can be compatible with a sys
tem which believes only abstractions, which offers
to our worship a being whose infinity is not
brought within the reach of human apprehension,
and to our love, only the undefined idea of a vast
something which made the world, and impressed
upon it the laws of nature, and bade it go forth
into being and abide its destiny.
The Lord alone is Love, is Life, is Being, in
Himself ; and aU love, and life, and being are
derived from Him, not once and at their begin
ning, but always, incessantly, and as the perpetual
condition of existence. From the whole heavens,
as one man, there goes up without ceasing a voice
of praise and of acknowledgment. Every angel,
whatever be his occupation or his blessedness, has,
deep in his heart, a profound conviction and a
15*

174 RELIGION.
clear perception, that all which he has of truth or
of love is His perpetual gift ; and that it is the
perpetual giving of Himself. In this conviction
and perception lie the foundation and assurance of
their blessedness ; by them it is measured ; and
on earth, they indicate the path, the only path to
heaven. He who does not learn this truth, and
learn to love it here, goes into the other world un
taught and unprepared for heaven.
It is not so difficult to lead a moral life, for the
lusts and passions, which tempt to sin, are resisted
by many selfish and worldly motives ; the " laws
of nature " rebuke them ; and expediency lends to
virtue a powerful aid. But a moral life is not
enough. If morality only overlies sensuality and
selfishness, death rends the veil away. If the
devils are cast out by their prince, it is only for
his own ends that he does this work. If, there
fore, the first question is, whether the life be good,
a great question still lies behind ; and that regards
the quality and origin of the goodness. In this
respect, the constant habit of sincere acknowledg
ment, that all our goodness is from its only source,
becomes unspeakably important. We cannot day
by day, hour by hour, and at every moment, of
fer up to God a polluted sacrifice. If we begin
by shunning evils, because they involve loss of

RELIGION. - 175
honor, or property, or pleasure, we shall gradually
reach the higher state, in which we resist them as
sins against Him, if we continually confess that
the power of resistance comes from Him. Then
our evil tendencies are not merely silenced and
disguised, but suppressed ; and when we reach a
world where hypocrisy is impossible, we shall be
welcomed by those who have already aided us in
the work of regeneration ; and they will join us
in the eternal endeavor to complete that work.
But the perception and acknowledgment which
are needed for this result, must be difficult, not to
say impossible, where there is a studied and con
stant rejection of that work of Divine mercy, of
which it was a principal object to make that
perception and acknowledgment possible and ef
fectual. I cannot leave this topic without confessing that
its weight and solemnity oppress me. I feel pain
fully my inability to comprehend it in its true worth,
and the inadequacy of my words to present it even
as I perceive it. What else is it than the life of
heaven ? To receive from the Lord of His Love
and Wisdom, and to render them again to Him in
acknowledgment and in love, these two, as one,
constitute all there is in heaven of life and joy, and
all there is on earth of heaven. We have in this

176 RELIGION.
an unfailing and universal standard of character. It
measures the bliss of the archangel nearest the
throne ; and through aU the realms of heaven, down
to this lower world, and in all the stages of pro
gress here, the same unerring test is applicable.
We have the command to love the Lord our God
with all our soul and all our strength, and to love
our neighbor as ourselves. We may view this as
a command, but we shall err if we look upon it as
the command of one who stands aloof, content with
promulgating his law. It is not so. The same
Divine Love which uttered those words, is ever
striving to enter into our wills, and become the very
love which these words require. And these words
should teach us, that there is no genuine love of
the neighbor which is not derived from and filled
with a love to the Lord. If we would have and
cultivate in ourselves that love of the neighbor
which is the beginning of heaven, and which binds
all in heaven into oneness, with the cords of love,
we must endeavor, first, most, and always, to have
and cultivate in ourselves a love to the Lord. And
woe to the heart upon which falls the withering,
blasting touch of Wilful Denial. For him our Lord
and Father came down to earth in vain ; for him
He comes again in the Spirit, in His Word, in all
the influences which breathe from His heavens, in

RELIGION. 177
all the providences which gather about our cradle,
and watch our going forth and coming in through
all the ways of life, and hover on angel's wings over
the last struggles of mortality ; all, all in vain.

The New Jerusalem differs from the churches
which have preceded it, not in declaring that man
must be good and give the glory of his goodness to
God. For this has been the constant declaration
of all true religion. But this truth is now revealed
with far more of its original splendor. It stands
now, not isolated ; not claiming its own department
of thought and of affection, and leaving broad
realms of knowledge and of motive independent
and uninfluenced. But it is revealed as the centre
of a system of universal truth. When it shall pre
vail among men, religion will be at once the whole
earth on which man stands, the sky which holds
all being in its wide embrace, and the sun whose
winged messengers of heat and light fiU earth and
sky with life and beauty. From it wiU proceed
principles which will lead to all possible improve
ment of the will or the understanding, and science,
and art, and virtue, and happiness, will come back
to it with their willing homage. The prophecies
of the Scriptures, which tell us that when Jerusalem

178

RELIGION.

is restored, all nations wiU flock thither with their
riches and their glory, and that all the kings of the
earth will bring to her their tribute, mean precisely
this. And Jerusalem, the city of God, is now re
building ; or, in the only appropriate words, " That
great city, the holy Jerusalem, is descending out of
heaven from God, having the glory of God ; for
the glory of God lightens it, and the Lamb is the
light thereof. And there shall in no wise enter
into it anything which defileth, or worketh abomi
nation, or a lie ; but they which are written in the
Lamb's Book of Life."

THE NEW JERUSALEM.

THE NEW JERUSALEM.

If I have succeeded in giving to the readers of
the preceding Essays, any idea of the doctrine of
Degrees, — of the three degrees which belong to
all existence, because primarily in the Source of
all existence, — it will be easier for me to illus
trate the character and office of the New Church,
by a reference to the churches which have imme
diately preceded it. There is a distinct relation
between this Church, the First Christian Church,
and the Jewish Church, which being understood,
illustrates them all.
The Jewish Church was estabfished in Judea,
and Jerusalem was its capital and head, its Holy
City. It was there, also, that our Lord was born
in the humanity which He assumed ; there His
earthly life was passed. His miracles wrought, and
His instruction given ; and from Jerusalem, as a
16

182 THE NEW JERUSALEM.
centre, came forth the Christian religion. The
Apocalypse of St. John, which relates, in its spir
itual sense, the decfine and death of the First
Christian Church, and the birth and establishment
of the Second, describes this as a " New Jerusa
lem." Thus these three churches have this point
in common ; they all refer, in one way or another,
to the Holy City of Judea.
Let us first endeavor to explain this ; and, be
ginning with the remark, that the object of all re
ligion, and therefore of every church, is to incul
cate and produce goodness, we may infer that one
way to comprehend the character of a church, is
to determine the character of the goodness it seeks
to teach and to confirm.
Now all the various kinds of goodness, which
differ among individuals indefinitely, may be classed
under three heads ; or, in other words, there are
three generic kinds of goodness, which form a reg
ular series, being successive in their order of de
velopment, and in the degree of their elevation ;
and these three are entirely distinct, one from the
other. In the works of Swedenborg, and in the
language of the New Church generally, these three
are called, as has been said in former Essays, natu
ral good, spiritual good, and celestial or heavenly
good.

THE NEW JERUSALEM. 183
Natural good is the first and lowest form of
goodness. It is the good of external life only.
It is such good as a man may do without religion,
or such as he may do when moved by the terrors
or the hopes of a religion which does not leave
the earth. This was the good of the Jewish
Church. In many of the passages in which Swe
denborg speaks of the Jews, he uses the phrase,
Jewish or Israelitish Church ; but in most of them
he denies that it was a church, and calls it merely
the representative of a church. It was, in fact, a
church, or not a church, according to the aspect
under which it is viewed ; precisely as natural
good is or is not good, according to its origin,
character, and effect. He who obeys the laws of
God and of man, merely from a refined selfishness,
may lead a life of entire external good ; and in
speaking of it under some points of view, we
may call his fife a good life. Yet there is no
genuine goodness in him ; and his life, accurately
speaking, is only the form, the representative of a
good life. Just so it was with the Jewish Church.
It was the exact representative of a perfect church.
Its foundation was, in the first place, the ten
commandments, which prohibit aU evil ; and, in
the next place, the ritual law. The rites and cere
monies of the Jews, their tabernacle and temple,

184 THE NEW JERUSALEM.
and' aU things that belong to the observances
of their worship, and the facts of their history
as related in the Bible, were, in every particu
lar, representative. That is, they indicated some
things true or good, some things of a moral qual
ity, some things of internal life, which were re
quisite to the complete expulsion of evil and es
tablishment of good ; or, in other words, to the
complete regeneration of a man ; or, in yet other
words of the same meaning, to the formation of a
true church within a man. Hence they are, in
their spiritual sense, of eternal obligation ; and
therefore our Lord said, " Verily I say unto you,
no jot or tittle of the law shall pass away."
But the Jews were unacquainted with the mean
ing and purpose of the things they were com
manded to do ; for if they had known what lay
within them, their character was such that they
would have profaned them. From such a nation
no other church could be formed than a merely
natural church ; and thus they were exhorted to
obey on merely natural, earthly grounds. The
motives held out to them were all from this side of
the grave ; to their eyes no light from the life be
yond its dark precincts streamed across the gloom.
Bread and oil and wine, earthly dominion, pros
perity and peace, were aU that was promised them ;

THE NEW JERUSALEM. 185
and captivity, pestilence and famine all that were
threatened ; and this, too, was because higher mo
tives would not have suited a people capable only
of merely natural good. The dominion, prosper
ity, and peace, the bread, the oil, and the wine,
the captivity, the plague, and the famine, which
allured or terrified them, and which did indeed
reward and punish them, and the Holy City which
was the centre of their worship and national exist
ence, — all had infinitely higher meanings than they
knew of ; but their literal, earthly senses were all
that were suited to the Jewish mind, because that
was a merely natural mind.
We may thus understand what is meant by the
repeated declaration, that the Jews were " a cho
sen people." Good men, in every age, have been
disturbed and pained, that such a people as the
children of Israel should have been " chosen" of
God as the objett of His peculiar favor. But it is
now made known /or what they were chosen. It
was for a use which required a peculiar people, but
not a peculiarly good people ; nor were any pecu
liar favors intended for them or granted to them.
They were, by hereditary character, a singularly
natural people; or, as it may be otherwise ex
pressed, a singularly external people. They were
less disposed than any other to see or know, oi;
16*

186 THE NEW JERUSALEM.
wish to know, or be moved and influenced by,
truths which were more than sensual. Their char
acter was earthly, and altogether earthly. They
alone among men had a religion given them, en
tirely, or with few exceptions, without spiritual
sanctions ; and it was no harm to them, but their
greatest good, because they were incapable of
receiving anything more. The precepts of refi
gion, armed with the terrors and promises which
they could feel, protected them, as far as possible,
from the evils of idolatry, and required of them
that external goodness of which alone they were
capable. The land of Canaan, which was to become the
Holy Land, was at that time filled with nations or
tribes of the most depraved character. There,
the Philistines and others, represented, in their
ruling affections and the principles of their life,
(and signify wherever mentioned in the Word) the
principles hostile to all good, which infest the na
tural man. These must be extirpated, before
genuine good can be received into the heart and
life. These nations, therefore, the Jews were
commanded to attack and destroy with merciless
severity ; for this formed a part of the representa
tive and significant history of this representative
of a church. The savage cruelty of the Jews

THE NEW JERUSALEM. 187
was permitted, because it was their natural dispo
sition. It was not checked, because so far as the
Jews were concerned, it could not have been
without doing violence to that freedom which is
always regarded by Divine Providence. So far as
the heathen were concerned, they had reached a
fulness of wickedness, which made it well that
they should cumber the earth no longer. So far
as the whole race of man and the whole future
were concerned, a series of facts thus took place
externally, which being recorded by inspiration,
describe the eternal conflict between good and
evil, and in their spiritual meaning, give with infi
nite fulness and detail, instructions to all who tread
or ever shall tread the painful path, the strait and
narrow way, of regeneration.
For all these purposes the Jews were " a pecu
liar people, chosen of the Lord." And they were
chosen because they could perform these uses,
while at the same time they were brought under
the influence of a religion better suited to them
than any other which could be given.
God is Infinite ; and in all His Providence hath
respect to the Eternal ; and the religion thus given
to the Jews, and in its external form thus adapted
to them, has in its bosom truth and good for far
higher states and qualities ; even for the highest.

188 THE NEW JERUSALEM.
It is, therefore, an infinite and everlasting religion ;
and the Scriptures which contain it, are the Word
of God. In whatever stage of being they are who
seek His face, to these Scriptures they go as the
panting hart to the water-brooks, and find there
the ever-flowing river of life. They who are
highest among the angels of His presence, who in
their purity, and wisdom, and love, are nearest
Him, find their intenser light and their most fer
vent love kindled and fed by the same Word which
comes down to our dark earth, to teach the igno
rant, to heal those sick with sin, and bind up the
broken heart.
When the Jewish Church had come to the time
of its end, our Lord, whose name is Emanuel,
God with us, came down to earth in a new way
and form ; He assumed our nature, was born of a
virgin, lived and taught and did the works of God
among men ; and by His divine life on earth, and
by His Gospels, which were written under His full
inspiration. He established Christianity.
I endeavored to explain the Jewish Church,''by
showing that it inculcated natural good. To ex
plain the First Christian Church, we must consider
the nature of spiritual good.
He who begins the work of improvement, be
gins by obeying. He learns the laws of religion,

THE NEW JERUSALEM. 189
sees what things they prohibit, and them he
avoids ; and what things they require, and them he
endeavors to do. To this obedience he is moved,
according to his character, by various motives.
But he makes a step decidedly in advance of the
first or lowest, when he seeks to know what is
right and to do what is right, because he loves to
know and to do the truth. For this is a step
towards spiritual good. He might have acted be
fore, just as he acts now. Fear, or hope, may
have led him to a perfect obedience, and if the
fear which moved him was the fear of God, it was
the beginning of wisdom. But if he before avoided
the evils which beset him, because God would
punish them, and now avoids them because the
truth tells him that they are sins against God,
though his outward life be not altered, yet has
he become a better man. From one good he
has advanced to a higher good. From a natural
man he has become, or is becoming, a spiritual
man. The First Christian Church was a Spiritual
Church. The first miracle which our Lord wrought
was declaratory and descriptive of the change from
the one church to the other. This was the mira
cle wrought at the marriage in Cana of Galilee,
recorded in the second chapter of John. Water,

190 THE NEW JERUSALEM.
wine, and oil, signify throughout the Scriptures,
natural truth, spiritual truth, and heavenly truth.
Had I space, it might be interesting to illustrate
the grounds and character of this correspondence,
and its bearing upon the natural qualities and uses
of these substances : but I must content myself
with stating it. At this marriage, wine being
wanting, our Lord took the vessels filled with wa
ter, " after the manner of the purifying of the
Jews," and converted them into wine. Thus He
began his work by doing symbolically, what the
whole work was intended to eflfect, so far as it re
lated to the First Christian Church. He did the
same thing, when he said, " Ye have heard that it
was said by them of old time. Thou shalt not kill ;
and whosoever shaU kiU shall be in danger of the
judgment ; but I say unto you, that whosoever is
angry with his brother without a cause shall be in
danger of the judgment : and whosoever shall say
to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the
council : but whosoever shall say, thou fool, shall
be in danger of hell fire. Therefore if thou bring
thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that
thy brother hath aught against thee ; leave there
thy gift before the altar, and go thy way ; first be
reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer
thy gift." Here, too, by these words, and all

THE NEW JERUSALEM. 191
similar words, he converted the water of purifica
tion of the Jews into the wine of Christianity.
It was said, that he who is in natural good may
not alter his life when he comes into spiritual
good. This is possible ; because perfect natural
good is a perfect external. But it is, nevertheless,
true, that the higher motives of spiritual good
open the mind to higher and clearer truths. They
supply us with more universal principles of con
duct ; with rules of life which rest upon a basis
at once broader and firmer, and which enable us
to detect and to resist the promptings of evil in
their more obscure and insidious forms, and there
fore they have far greater power over the life.
The difference between the instruction and com
mands of the Old Testament and of the New Tes
tament, may serve to illustrate this. In general it
may be stated, that while the Law delivered to the
Jews prohibits, in its literal sense, all sinful acts,
the law of Christ forbids every look, or thought,
or feeling, which may lead to sin.
But if spiritual good be far more than natural
good, there is yet something higher, far higher than
this ; and it is heavenly good. Obedience to the
Divine Law is good, if it be sincere, however low
may be the motive which prompts that obedience.
And an endeavor to conform to the truth from a

192 THE NEW JERUSALEM.
love of the truth, is still better, and it opens the
heart to still higher influences. Better yet, and best
of all, is the doing good from the love of good.
When this is the established condition of the mind,
there is no more of effort, no more of conflict ; for
in their stead has come the peace of God. In the
wholly unregenerate man, impulses to evil, wrong
ful desires, selfish motives and lusts, compose the
web and woof of life. With them he contends
when he endeavors to obey the commandments ;
and if he advances so far as to resist them from
a love of the truth which forbids them, from a
sense of right, the conflict is yet more severe.
That truth upon which he calls reveals to him
more of himself; it shows him daily and hourly,
that self is an ever-present foe, wearing every dis
guise, calling itself by every name, assuming the
voice of every virtue. If he be faithful to the bet
ter influences which guide him upwards, his war
fare is incessant ; whether hope and joy bring upon
the mind the brightness of day, or sorrow and hu
miliation cover him with darkness, he must still be
watchful and steadfast against an enemy whose
name is legion. But, if this warfare be accom
plished, if the victory be won, that enemy retreats
and is silent and powerless. Then is the good
which the truth requires, loved for its own sake ;

THE NEW JERUSALEM. 193
he need no longer call upon his reason to control
his will, for his will itself is regenerated, and while
he does only what he loves to do, he leads a life of
purity and safety. The innocence of infancy has
come back filled with the wisdom of maturity, and
with the blessedness of them who see their Father's
face. Such is heavenly good. To be imagined here,
and that but faintly ; to be seen only above. Earth
is as yet too full of evil to become the abode of hap
piness like this. And yet this is the end to which
all goodness would lead, towards which it strives.
As there are three distinct kinds of good, so, as
I have already said, there are three heavens. In
the one, are those who in this fife rose no farther
than to seek and know the good of an honest
obedience, and this is called by Swedenborg the
natural heaven. In the next are they who have
ascended so far as to love the truth of God's words,
and sincerely endeavor to obey them ; and this is
the spiritual heaven. In the third and highest,
from which, or rather through which from the
Lord, the others derive all life and happiness, are
they who love, earnestly and sincerely love, the
good which His law inculcates, and deplore the
opposing evils within them as their worst enemies
and sorest pains ; and this is the heavenly or celes-
17

194 THE NEW JERUSALEM.
tial heaven. They are in it, — not who have com
pleted the work they had begun on earth — but
who have so learnt to love good and to hate evil,
that they have entered upon this eternal path.
Having stated that the good of the Jewish Church
is natural good ; while that of the First Christ
ian Church is spiritual good ; I may now add, that
the good of the Second Christian Church, called
in the Word the New Jerusalem, is heavenly good.
It should be remarked that the Jewish Scriptures
or the books of the Old Testament — the Law
and the Prophets — do indeed teach and inculcate
all good and the highest good. This they do
everywhere in the spiritual and heavenly senses ;
and not unfrequently in the literal sense of passages
where the internal senses come to the surface, and
the letter is translucent and shines with their light.
But nevertheless, as a whole, it taught to the Jews
and required of them only natural good. They
might well have believed, — and they now whose
minds adhere exclusively to the literal sense of
those Scriptures, may believe, — that natural good
ness, or mere obedience fulfils their law.
So of the Gospels. In their literal sense they
sometimes command and enforce the highest good.
Where our Lord tells His disciples to love the Lord
with the whole heart and the neighbor as oneself,

THE NEW JERUSALEM. 195
He laid bare the inmost secret of the heavens.
But as a whole it is stiff true, that it teaches and
requires only spiritual good. It appealed to mo
tives far higher than belonged to the Jewish dis
pensation ; it placed the eternal above the tran
sient ; it drew its sanctions from that other life
which it brought forth to view ; but, it is stiU true,
that in its literal sense, it makes religion rest upon
the basis of reward and punishment. The New
Church has the same Scriptures. The Word of
God is her's as it was theirs, and more, far more.
She clings to the literal sense as the law of life, as
the foundation on which the very heavens rest ;
but the Word is transfigured before her, and its
, face shineth as the sun ; for to her are given also
the spiritual and heavenly senses, and in them she
finds only Love.
To illustrate this position at any length, would
require an examination of all religious doctrines ;
for there is no one of them which is not presented
now as it has never been before. But to do this
work, or any large portion of it, is obviously im
possible. And even if I selected but one, if it
were of sufficient worth and significance to illus
trate the whole, wider space and a very difierent
mode of treatment would be requisite to do it jus
tice. And yet as all that I can do, I will endeavor

196 THE NEW JERUSALEM.
to present a very few of the doctrines which are
deemed central in all religions, somewhat as they
are viewed in the New Church. For this purpose
I win select, — The Doctrine of the Lord, and
The Doctrine of Forgiveness of Sins, and of Re
wards and Punishments.
Among heathen nations the idea of God was and
is very obscure. Idolatry of some kind is univer
sal ; and the popular belief generally regards God
as a mighty man, subject in a greater or less degree
to human passions and infirmities. In ancient
times, there probably prevailed among most na
tions, a distinction similar to that which we know
to have existed in Egypt, and thence derived, in
the earlier philosophies, and in the Eleusinian and
other mysteries ; that is, a distinction between the
inner and the outer doctrine, between that which
was secret and that which was published. And
there are traces of very just and clear ideas of the
Godhead, to be found in the fragmentary records of
most of the earlier religions. But to the children
of Israel, Jehovah was revealed. He stood before
them, defined and illustrated by His own Word.
Still only the letter of that Word was for them ;
and that letter represents him as a jealous God,
avenging iniquity, uttering terrible threats, and true
to His promise of punishment. Clouds and dark-

THE NEW JERUSALEM. 197
ness were round about him. In the literal sense
of the Gospels, these features are softened. God
is there represented as our Father in heaven, who
loveth all, and maketh His sun to rise, and His
rain to fall upon the good and the wicked. StiU
He calls upon men to be good, that they may es
cape the worm that never dies, the fires that are
never quenched. The suffering Lazarus may hope
to rest upon Abraham's bosom when the rich man
is tormented in hell. It is still, as it was before,
a religion based upon promises and threats ; and
they are but the more powerful because they are
drawn from a life that knows no end, but the more
awful because they mingle with the "shadows of
the valley of death. This was as near an approach
to the truth, or rather it was the truth as little
veiled, as was good for that age and church. In
the New Jerusalem, the Lord is revealed as Love
alone. In His essence immutable, but in His man
ifestation and in His operation exquisitely accom
modated to the wants and capabilities of all races,
ages and individuals.
The idolatry of the world had reached an ex
treme in the days of Moses, which required the
establishment of a religion among men which
should declare most distinctly and most emphati
cally the Unity and Spirituality of God, and sur-
17*

198 THE NEW JERUSALEM.
round this central truth with the most powerful
sanctions. But at the close of the Jewish Church,
the powers of hell had gained such an ascendency
upon earth, that even within the shadow of the
temple of the Most High, they could take posses
sion of the very bodies of men. Death was at war
with life, and gaining the victory. The destruction
of the race, soul and body, was impending ; and
to meet this great exigency, and avert more terrible
calamities than had ever fallen upon mankind, our
Father in heaven assumed our nature, and dwelt
on earth as a man among men. And not for this
cause only. In the condition of the Jews and of
mankind at that period, a reason may be found for
the precise time of the occurrence of this infinite
event. But its effect, its good was also infinite and
universal. Having assumed our nature by being
born of woman, he had therewith all the tendencies
to sin, which, by a lengthened inheritance, had, in
the fulness of time, filled and composed that na
ture. These tendencies, all the evil influences of
all the hells were permitted to awake and excite ;
" he was tempted as we are tempted ; " but never
sinned, and always by His Divine power overcame
all evil, and thus so reduced into obedience and
subjection the powers of hell, that the powers of
heaven again brought man into freedom, and gave

THE NEW JERUSALEM. 199
to him full power of turning whither he would ; —
of rising or of faffing. And this was the great Act
of Redemption.
These victories over evil were perfect and were
constant. The Gospels speak only of the tempta
tions in the wilderness, in the garden, and on the
cross.' But His life on earth, from the cradle to the
cross, was one incessant and profound temptation,
one constant, perfect victory. By this victory evil
was expelled from His human nature ; as it passed
away, good from the Divine within, took its place,
and thus, by a gradual process, the external was
made one with the internal, the human was made
divine ; and in this Divine Humanity He dwells
forever. We are commanded to follow Him in our re
generation ; because the regeneration of man must
be an image of the glorification of our Lord's hu
manity. It can be effected only in the same way ;
only by the resisting of evil through the strength of
God within. But with man, it can go no farther
than regeneration, nor can that work be perfect ;
in our Lord Jesus Christ the work proceeded until
the human became absolutely divine, absolutely
one with the Divine within. To this result this
work cannot go with man ; but in this direction it
must go ; and at every step the Lord is with us.

200 THE NEW JERUSALEM.
Because tempted as we, tempted as the whole hu
man race ever were or ever can be, — He walks
with every man in the darkest paths of danger and
distress, and from the treasures of His own Di
vine Human experience, gives always and to aU
who will receive, sympathy, and help, and the bread
of life. For He is Perfect God, and He is Perfect
Man. " Philip saith unto him. Lord show us the Father
and it suffices us. Jesus saith unto him. Have I
been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not
known me, Philip ? he that hath seen me, hath
seen the Father ; and how sayest thou then, Show
us the Father ? " And how else could the Fa
ther be seen but in the Son, and as the Son pre
sented Him to view ? It is written that no man
can see God and live. And it is plain that no
man, no finite perception can be adequate to the
perception or comprehension of his unaccommo
dated Infinity. But that He might be seen and
known among men. He came and dwelt with us,
speaking as no man ever spake, doing the works
which no man ever did. And now He has come
in the revelations which disclose the inner truth and
good, the wisdom and the love of His works and
words. They may now be seen in the light of hea
ven ; in their own light. And they are thus seen

THE NEW JERUSALEM. 201
to be divine and infinite ; ever opening new wis
dom as the mind forever expands to comprehend
it, ever wider and warmer in their love as the heart
grows larger to receive it. It may be now seen,
that to the thirsty and to him perishing with hun
ger, they offer the water and the bread of life,
while to angelic life in its highest exaltation, they
are support and nutriment and the means of eter
nal progress.
The mystery of a Divine Humanity is great.
But we are not left without a key that may unlock
it. In the Gospels our Lord speaks often, as if
other than the Father, and far from the Father.
He prays to Him for strength ; he calls upon Him
in agony. But often also he speaks of Himself
as one with the Father ; as the Father Himself.
There is a seeming contradiction in this ; a mys
tery which it is hard to fathom. But these differ
ent words were uttered in the course of that glori
fication, of which all regeneration is an image ;
and in all regeneration there is also an image of
the same contradiction, the same mystery.
No man can begin this great work without dis
covering that his external nature resists his inter
nal nature, and must be made to obey if there is
to be reform. Thus he finds that he is, as it were,
two men ; one external, one internal. In the ex-

202 THE NEW JERUSALEM.
ternal man there are lusts, passions, selfishness ;
and in the internal man there is reason, and con
science, and religious principle ; and these rebuke
the former. Sometimes, in moments of struggle
and resolute resistance to urgent temptation, the
conflict is as great as it could be between any two
parties. The external man feels the excitement
and seduction of the evil which tempts, and feels
also its own weakness ; and calls earnestly upon
the internal man, upon the conscience and the
reason and the religion within, to awake and
save. If they do awake and save, if the temp
tation be overcome, that disposition to evil is
weakened and suppressed ; the conflict termi
nates ; in its stead, there is, at least for a season,
peace and tranquillity ; the external is glad that it
chose good rather than evil ; the internal is glad
that the truth and right prevailed ; and in their
gladness and peace they are one. In this separa
tion and conflict on the one hand, and in this con
junction and unity on the other, we have an image
of the two states of the Lord. It is a very exact
image, because it is the very effect, and, as it may
be called, the reproduction of the Lord's experi
ence. Infinitely less in degree, it is, nevertheless,
a true image in its own degree, and therefore the
less is explanatory of the greater. So is it, also,

THE NEW JERUSALEM. 203
even to the end. With the Lord, that end was
the perfect glorification of the Human, which was
thus made perfectly divine. With man it is only
that measure of regeneration to which he may at
tain. But this regeneration consists of the unity
of the internal man and the external man in good.
Just so far as this goes, just so far there is peace ;
just so far there is the absence of all the elements
and means of conflict ; just so far there is good
within in the form of truth and exceffent desires
and purposes, and without, in the form of good
conduct and a pure life. This good, descending
from God into the inmost of the mind, and thence
coming forth into goodness of life, is one through
out its course ; and unites into one man the exter
nal and internal, which evil had divided, and con
joins this man with the Source of Good. Then is
His will done in earth as in heaven ; in the earth,
or lower and visible regions of the mind and life,
as in their heavens. Then is the sabbath of the
soul. We are no longer led into temptation, but
delivered from evil without temptation, because
we have given ourselves up to God, and the king
dom, the power, and the glory are His alone.
Hitherto, the Lord has labored with us and within
us, through the six days of our internal creation,
from the first hour when His Spirit brooded over

204 THE NEW JERUSALEM.
the heaving waters, to that in which man was made
in His image and likeness. Now He rests from His
labors, not that His life-giving influence and ope
ration ceases, but it is no longer a labor, because
it is no longer opposed and resisted ; and He hal
lows this day.
As the First Christian Church adopted and em
braced the Jewish Scriptures, so the New Jerusa
lem embraces these two churches, and all other
forms and modes of truth and good. Considered
in reference to them, she has her distinctive prin
ciples ; but these are not exclusive of theirs, nor
opposed to them. AU modes and all degrees of
goodness will find her their nursing mother. Ear
nestly desirous to lift up all to the highest plane of
spiritual life, she still offers her hand, her help, her
light, her love, to all upon the lowest step of the
ladder of life, whose faces are turned upward by
the wish to ascend.
In no true doctrine of the Lord is there found
anything of vengeance, anything of offended mer
cy, anything of punishment, to satisfy the demands
of vindictive justice ; nor is aught else found there
but love. Not the heavens only, but earth and hell,
are pervaded, penetrated and governed by this es
sential element of the Divine Being.
Religion has, hitherto, required obedience under

THE NEW JERUSALEM. 205
the threat of punishment. The degree and nature of
this punishment, and the means of avoiding it, have
been very variously presented, and have constituted
some of the principal differences between religions.
Mistakes and perversions, on this point, have led
to infinitely diversified forms of idolatry and pen
ance ; but differ as they might, they agreed in this,
that they were viewed as means of propitiating an
angry God. The literal sense of the Gospels, in
many passages, calls us to repentance and reform,
that we may flee from a wrath to come. This
view of the relation between God and man may be
characterized, not as false, but as imperfect and
partial ; and yet as the highest and purest for which
mankind was prepared ; as that which they re
quired to turn them from evil, because it was more
powerful than anything else which could be pre
sented to them. In taking this view of it, we
must be careful not to confound the truth as it was
accommodated by Providence to men, with the
direful perversions of it wrought by sin and fool
ishness. There was nothing in any revelation, or
in any dealing of God with men, which ever justi
fied the terrible idolatries of earlier ages, or the
milder idolatry which has made Roman Catholi
cism but a new form of heathenism ; or the doc
trine of Protestantism, that one person of a Divine
18

206 THE NEW JERUSALEM.
Trinity suffered infinite punishment to satisfy an
other divine person, and that faith in the sufferer
imputes to the believer his righteousness, and im
parts the benefits of his satisfaction. These are
men's devices, not God's gifts. From the day of
that Nicene Council, says Swedenborg, which es
tablished over the Christian church a tripersonal
Trinity and the doctrine of imputative Faith, the
corruption and decay of the Christian church
began. And yet the New Church teaches that there is
a Hell, as there is a Heaven ; or, rather, many
hells and many heavens. But as heaven is not a
reward, so neither is hell a punishment. Both are
the free, unfettered choice of those who have them.
Both are the modes of life, which they who lead
them love. Both are the modes of life, to which
the character and will formed here lead. Both are
but the growth of the seed that is sown in the
fields of hfe.
The very effort to state in few words a doctrine
like this, to the elucidation of which a volume
might well be devoted, is somewhat embarrassing.
But I will endeavor to do this.
God is Love. He therefore seeks to give to
His children the best thing He can give or they
can receive. This best thing is the free love of

THE NEW JERUSALEM. 207
good ; for from this flows His own perfect blessed
ness and all inferior happiness. It must be free ;
this is the primal and continual condition ; for
take from love the idea of freedom, and you take
away its essence, its life. li free, that is, if man
is free to receive it, he must be free to reject it.
And, therefore, some do receive it, and some do
reject it. They who receive it, find it the source
of all blessing, and are in heaven, and are angels.
They who reject it, choose in its stead the love
of self and of evil ; and they are in hell, and are
devils. But are they, then, without the infinite
mercy of God ? Not so ; not so in the least
degree. They are permitted to live as they love
to live ; they are allowed the delights they desire ;
with no other qualification, no other restraint, than
is necessary to prevent their making each other
more miserable. They wish to do this, and they
are prevented. Never punished for the sins they
have committed here, and never punished for their
love of a sinful life, because punishment for these
causes must now be ineflectual, they are punished
only as it becomes necessary to prevent their mo
lesting and tormenting each other. They are still
the objects of His constant care and mercy ; of a
love so vast, that no sin can exhaust it ; so pure
and perfect, that no created mind can for a single
moment imagine it.

208 THE NEW JERUSALEM.
The worm that never dies, and the fire that is
never quenched, are not literal torments. Nor
are they conscience and remorse, and a sense of
their condition ; for their conscience is suffocated ;
they cannot feel remorse, and their condition is
precisely what they love. The worm and the fire
are their lusts and evil affections ; these are not
permitted to die, or be extinguished, because they
are their life, their joy. They are in their heaven ;
in the only heaven they can appreciate, or desire,
or imagine, or enjoy.
The Lord condemns no one. He who occupies
a place in hell, seeks that place because it is suited
to his life, and is permitted to occupy it, by the
mercy which provides for him all the means of
happiness he may enjoy, and protects him as far
as possible from suffering. No one goes to hell
whom the Lord can preserve from it, consistently
with the man's own freedom. No one goes there,
who has not so resisted the divine influence as to
have confirmed himself in the evils which that in
fluence resists. Hence we may understand one
delightful doctrine of this church. It assures us
that all who die in infancy and childhood, become
angels. At their tender age, and before the full
development of reason, they could not extinguish
its light, or seal their hearts against the entrance

THE NEW JERUSALEM. 209
of mercy. They arise from the dead body, still
infants, or children ; and grow to maturity in that
world as in this ; and during that growth are
nursed, and educated, and prepared for heaven.
Yes, the babe who dies upon his mother's breast,
wakes in the arms of an angel-mother, and never
learns the sad lessons which, in the world he has
left, so soon soil the opening blossoms of life.
The beloved child, that leaves the circle his inno
cent happiness filled with gladness, forgets not in
his new home his sweet smile ; all beautiful things
cluster around him, and his soft bright eye reflects
their beauty ; and the lovely brow where joy and
hope sat together, expands into the fulness of man
hood, unruffled and unstained.
There is yet another doctrine connected with
this subject, which may be mentioned. None, or
very few, go from this world altogether good or
evil. The best man carries with him some false
persuasions, some dispositions to evil, not yet sup
pressed. The worst man conceals his depravity
from the world, and perhaps from himself, by
many false pretences. From this inconsistency
there comes conflict. It is well for both classes that
they should be better prepared for their final des
tiny. For this purpose they pass a time, which va
ries greatly with different persons, in a state which
18*

210 THE NEW JERUSALEM.
is intermediate between heaven and heff. Into
this men enter at once, upon rising from the dead
body. As they carry with them their common
thoughts and affections, they are at first sur
rounded by a world quite similar, in all particulars,
to that they leave, so that they scarcely perceive
the diflference. There they are instructed and dis
ciplined ; not, as upon earth, for the purpose of
changing the ruling principles of the character,
but to develop, confirm, and liberate them from
opposing qualities. While this discipline is going
on, they are neither angels nor devils, but good or
bad spirits. They are said by Swedenborg to be
in the " World of Spirits." A very large propor
tion of his relations of things heard and seen by
him when his spiritual senses were opened, relate
to this world, and describe its scenes, and doings,
and inhabitants.
Let me now speak of the different evidence on
which the three Churches I have considered, rest ;
for the diflference in this evidence grows directly
from the essential difference between them, which
has been already stated.
The Jews were an external people. Among
them an external church, or the external of a true
church, was to be founded ; and as its witnesses.

THE NEW JERUSALEM. 211
aU the visible powers of the elements were sum
moned. The plagues of Egypt ; the terrors and
the consolations, and all the miracles of fear and
mercy which attended the forty years of wander
ing; the trumpet voices, the thunders and light
nings, and earthquake, and thick smoke of Sinai ;
these were the appropriate witnesses that Jehovah
had come down; and through the eyes and ears
of that people, they endeavored to reach their
hearts. Next comes a true, a spiritual church, intended
for spiritual men. It was far higher than the
other, as long as that other was understood only
in its literal sense, because it was, in fact, a reve
lation of a sense which lay within that letter. It
calls upon men to obey the truth ; to compel their
lusts to be silent before the voice of truth, the
sense of right. It awakens, instructs, and invi
gorates that sense of right, to which it appeals.
What, therefore, are the appropriate evidences of
this religion ? They are such as may convince
and persuade ; but they do not come clothed with
terror, or with angry power. They were not
thunder and hghtning, nor earthquakes, nor trum
pet tones, pealing from the horrors of thick dark
ness, nor destruction in any form. But they were
miracles of love, of power exhibiting itself in

212 THE NEW JERUSALEM.
mercy. They were words of a higher authority
than ever before clothed human utterance. They
were works which, with calm omnipotence, con
fronted hell and bade the devils flee, and the
stormy soul and the stormy sea be still. They
were works and words of the very utmost power
as evidence ; but of none as threat or earthly ter
ror. They were all that his mind could ask or
can ask now, who seeks only a reason for his faith,
sincerely willing to see that reason, devoutly wil
ling to cherish and obey that faith which it illus
trates and confirms.
Again, another church, a New Church, is to be
established, and the former has passed away. It
appeals, not to the mind of man, but to his heart ;
or rather not to the mind first, but to the affec
tions, and through them to the mind. It awakes,
invigorates, and purifies all the love he has for
good ; it oflfers to make this more ; to guide it, to
gratify it, to bless it. And what is its evidence ?
If we remember that it appeals only to the love
of being good, and the hatred of self and sin, and
only where there is this love and this hatred can
it be present, only to them can it speak, we shall
see, that it could not possibly admit of any other
evidence, than the fact that it is able to strengthen
and illuminate the affections and principles to

THE NEW JERUSALEM. 213
which it appeals. In other words, any evidence
other than the perception of its reality and its
powers, would be no evidence to them to whom it
comes ; no evidence to help forward the work
which it comes to do. Here, on its own ground,
its evidence is plenary and perfect. He who
seeks this Church for any other purpose than to
become better and wiser than he is, seeks it for a
purpose which does not belong to it, but is with
out and below its sphere. He who seeks it for
this purpose, finds in its every word that which
he seeks. It reveals to him the true relation of
God to man, of heaven to earth. It opens the
mysteries of life, and glorifies duty into love. It
shows him whence goodness is, and what it is,
and pours the light of a revealed wisdom upon its
long pathway from the source of good, through
all the heavens, filling them with light and joy,
through the mind of man, bringing that into one
ness with the heavens, through the realms of na
ture, coming forth as the laws of the material
universe, forming all things into shapes which
mirror its higher creations in the universe of spi
rit. His eye is opened by his wish to see ; and
in the instinct of animals, the growth of plants,
the energies, and forces, and forms of matter, he
sees the One Life, which seeks to fill his own

214 THE NEW JERUSALEM.
heart with itself, that he may be one with the
whole, and rest forever under the brooding wings
of Universal Love. His ear is opened by the
wish to hear ; he listens to that Hymn of praise,
which all the voices of nature are ever singing,
which mingles with the sweetest tones of the heart,
and is in harmony with the music ever sounding
from all the spheres of being. What, to him,
would be the Sinai of the Jews ? What, to him,
a miracle which opened the eye or the ear of a
disordered frame ? Miracles as much above these,
as the soul is above the body, are all around him,
ever before him ; and weff he knows that they are
ever pressing to repeat themselves, upon his own
eye, and ear, and heart.
It may be useful to remark that the appropriate
evidence of any dispensation, is necessarily ineffec
tual and insufficient with those who are able to
judge of it only in the spirit of one that has passed
by. Thus the Jews expected their Messiah with
an intensity of hope which has no paraUel in the
history of mankind. Yet, when he came, they
rejected him and crucified him. It was because
they supposed that his reign would be but a resto
ration and confirmation of former glories. They
expected from him dominion and prosperity like

THE NEW JERUSALEM. 215
that of their early kings, increased a thousand fold.
And therefore they looked for magnificent displays
of power as the first signal of his presence. They
thought that the wonders of Sinai would be re
peated with augmented splendor ; that the advent
of Shiloh would convulse the world. Wofuffy
were they mistaken. At this distance we wonder
at their obstinate incredulity. We think they re
sisted the force of evidence, which, to an open
mind, would have come with resistless power.
But we judge of this in our own mood and not in
theirs ; they saw and disbelieved, because they
were Jews, and Jews only.
The very same thing is repeating itself now.
Perhaps the most common remark respecting the
New Church, is that which denies its reality be
cause a dispensation of Divine Truth can be proved
only by miracles, and must therefore be proved by
them, and this Revelation appeals to no such testi
mony. If, instead of this it were said that every
Revelation must be established by sufficient evi
dence, this would be true. And the next step for
a fair and rational mind, would be to the conclu
sion that the evidence of every Revelation must be
specifically appropriate to that, and to no other.
This results not from Divine order only, but from
Divine mercy. They who are so thoroughly im-

216 THE NEW JERUSALEM.
bued with the spirit of a church that is passing
away, that the dispensation which comes to take
its place must needs be nothing to them, are pro
tected by the very feeling which prompts them to
demand a repetition of the evidence, which was
once appropriate and is not now. This is a gene
ral law ; and its application to the New Church
admits of many illustrations. Look at the effect of
miracles upon the mind. Those of Sinai over
whelm it and beat down all resistance. Those
which attended the First Christian Church were of
a milder character, but still they compel belief. It
is this circumstance which not only makes them
inappropriate, but would render them injurious at
the present epoch. The New Church can be re
ceived only in freedom, and with the full and de
liberate assent of the reason. It can be seen only
by its own light. That desire for moral and spirit
ual purification to which it appeals, permits and
prompts the reason to investigate its claims, and
perceive its means of purifying the heart and ele
vating the mind. If there be this perception, no
other evidence is wanting ; or, rather, external evi
dence would be injurious, because it would pre
vent the wholesome discipline of adopting the
truth for its own sake. And where there is not
this desire and the perception that springs from it.

THE NEW JERUSALEM. 217
miracles would be the more injurious, because they
would compel the belief of truths which would
afterwards be neglected or renounced. Not only
are there no miracles to compel or facilitate belief,
but there are obstacles in the way of new inqui
rers, which we cannot, at times, but lament. We
do not always remember that it was mercy, not
anger, which excluded our first parents from Par
adise when they were unable to obey its laws, and
guarded the entrance with a sword of flame.
Rationality and freedom, led by a love of good
for its own sake, are the appropriate guides to the
gates of the New Jerusalem. All other motives
and means only prompt us to " cfimb up some
other way." It is a profound conviction of this,
which has helped to lead the members of this
Church, in their fear of proselytism, to go perhaps
to the opposite extreme of doing less than a love
of the neighbor should prompt them to do, of
being less earnest and active than they should be
in diffusing a knowledge of the truth. At least, it
has brought upon them a frequent charge of cold
ness and indifference, a part of which may be
deserved. The absolute universality of the truths of the
New Jerusalem, expose it to a singular diversity of
accusations. With some, especially in Germany,
19

218 THE NEW JERUSALEM.
it has been a fashion to caU it a merely " math
ematical " religion, because Swedenborg was him
self one of the first mathematicians of his age, and
the system which he reveals is precise and defi
nite in its principles and conclusions, and uses a
rigorous logic, and tests its truths by the univer
sality of their application. By others it is called a
" beautiful imagination," which is constructed of
no better material than mere fantasy, and takes
captive only those minds which fancy rules. The
answer to both of these objections is, that it is at
once in the highest degree mathematical, and in
the most beautiful way imaginative. There are
some who love to present it, or to perceive it, under
one aspect, and some under another ; and it is ready
to give all what they ask ; it is glad to come and
offer its gifts to all in their own homes. For it re
veals to mankind, that between reason and imagi
nation there is no discrepancy, no antagonism. All
the powers of the mind are brethren ; and it is
only error, — never truth, — which kindles hostility
among them.
It has been also said, that there is nothing new
in it ; that every one of its doctrines may be found
somewhere, in some one or other of the religions
which have dwelt upon earth ; and the vast and
various learning of Swedenborg is supposed to ex-

THE NEW JERUSALEM. 219
plain this fact. In this, also, there is some truth ;
for every religion was the gift of God, given be
cause it contained some saving truths. But these
truths were partial, imperfect, and isolated. Now,
however, they have come together. The central
principles which confirm and illustrate them aU,
and give to each the strength of the whole, are
now brought within the reach of the human intel
lect. The scattered gems are gathered, and set as
in a golden crown, where every one is brighter for
the light of all the rest ; and the crown is placed
upon the Head of Him who is Himself the Head of
the Church, the Source of all Being and all Good,
Lord over all.

APPENDIX.

[The following account of Swedenborg, condensed from the Penny
Cyclopaedia of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge,
may be found interesting.]
Swedenborg, EiflANrEL, (the second child and eldest son of Jes-
per Swedberg, bishop of Skara in Westrogothia, and of Sarah Behm,
daughter of Albert Behm, assessor of the board of mines,) was born
at Stockholm, on the 29th of January, 1688. _ Of his childhood and
youth there is no record, excepting that his mind was early occupied
by religious subjects.
Bishop Swedberg bestowed great care on the education of his son,
which he received principally at the University of Upsala. He
was uncommonly assiduous in the study of the learned languages,
mathematics, and natural philosophy. At the age of twenty-two,
he took his degree of doctor of philosophy, and published his first
essay. In 1710 Swedberg came to London. He spent some time at Ox
ford, and lived afterwards for three years abroad, chiefly in Utrecht,
Paris, and Griefswalde, returning to Sweden in 1714, through Stral-
sund, just as Charles XII. was commencing the siege of that city.
In 1716 Swedberg commenced his ' Daedalus I^perboreus,' a pe
riodical record of inventions and experiments by Polhem and others,
and of mathematical and physical discoveries of his own. In the
course of 1716 Swedberg was invited by Polhem, the great Swedish
engineer, to repair with him to Lund, to meet ChEirles XII., who,
without solicitation on Swedberg's part, and while he was yet at the
university, appointed him assessor in the Royal Metallic College of
Sweden. The 'Dsedalus Hyperboreus ' was completed in 1718, in which
year ' Swedberg executed a work of the greatest importance, dur
ing the memorable siege of Frederickshall, by transporting over
mountains and valleys, on rolling macliines of his own invention,
19*

222 APPENDIX.

k:

two galleys, five large boats, and a sloop, from Stromstadt to Iderf-
"'ol, a distance of fourteen miles. Under cover of these vessels, the
_cing brought his heavy artillery, which it would have been impos
sible to have conveyed by lanti, under the very walls of Frederick-
shall.' (Sandal's Bulog'.) Swedberg's next literary works were,
1 . 'The Art of the Rules,' (an introduction to Algebra, of which a
full analysis may be seen in the ' Acta Literaria Sueciae', vol. i. p.
126 to 134) ; only a part of this work was published : the manuscript
portion, according to Lagerbring, contaias the first account given in
Sweden of the Difierential and Integral Calculus ; 2. ' Attempts to
find the Longitude of places by means of the Moon.'
In 1719 he was ennobled by Q.ueen Ulrica Eleonora, under the
name of Swedenborg. From this time he took his seat with the
nobles of the Equestrian order, in the triennial assemblies of the
states. In this year he published three works in Swedish : 1. ' A
Proposal for a Decimal Arrangement of Coinage and IVIeasures, to
facilitate Calculation and suppress Fractions ; ' 2. 'A Treatise on
the Motion and Position of the Earth and Planets ; ' 3. Proofs de
rived from appearances in Sweden, of the depth of the Sea and the
greater t'orce of the Tides in the earliest ages.' Occasional papers
by him appeared in the ' Acta Lit. Suec' for 1720-21. Two of these
have been translated into English.
In the spring of 1721 he again went abroad, through Denmark to
Holland, and published the six following small works at Amster
dam : 1 . ' A Specimen of Principles of Natural Philosophy, con
sisting of New Attempts to Explain the Phenomena of Chemistry
and Physics by Geometry ; ' 2. ' New Observations and Discoveries
respecting Iron and Fire, with a new mode of constructing Stoves ; '
3. ' A new method of finding the Longitude of Places, on Land or
at Sea, by Lunar Observations ; ' 4. 'A mode of constructing
Docks/^ ' 6. ' A new way of making Dykes ; ' 6. ' A mechaniced
methnd for Testing the Powers of Vessels.' From Amsterdam he
went to Aix-la-Ghapelle, Liege, and Cologne, and visited the mines
and smelting-works near those places. He arrived at Leipzig in
1 722, and there published, in three parts, ' Miscellaneous Observa
tions on Natural Objects, particularly Minerals, Fire, and Mountain
Strata.' At Hamburgh, during the same year, he published a fourth
part, ' On Minerals, Iron, and the Stalactites in Baumann's Cavern.'
This work, like those which precede it, shows a rare power both of
accumulating facts and applying principles. We learn from it that
Swedenborg, among his other employments, was officially appointed
to visit, and to propose for selection the parts of the Swedish coast
which were best fitted for the preparation of salt ; on which subject
the ' Miscellaneous Observations ' contain an admirable business
like memoir. Swedenborg made the last-mentioned tour princi
pally to gain a practical knowledge of mining. At Blankenburg he
experienced great kindness from Louis Rudolph, duke of Bruns
wick, who defrayed the whole expense of his journey, and at his
departure presented him with a golden medallion and a weighty sil
ver goblet. After being abroad a year and three months, he returned
home, and in the course of 1722 he published anonymously, at
Stockholm, a work ' On the Depreciation and Rise of the Swedish
Currency ; ' and at the end of the same year he entered, for the first

APPENDIX. 223
time, on the actual duties of the assessorship, the functions of which
he had been unwilling to exercise, before he had perfected his know
ledge of metallurgy. For the next ten years he divided his time
between the business of the Royal Board of Mines and his studies.
In 1724 be was invited by the consistory of the university of Upsal
to accept the professorship of pure mathematics, vacant by the death
of Nils Celsius, ' because bis acceptance of the chair would be for
the advantage of the students, and the ornament of the university ;'
but he declined the honor. In 1729 he was admitted a member of
the Royal Academy of Sciences at Upsala. In 1733 be again tra
velled into Germany. It seems from his posthumous ' Itinerarium,'
(edited by Tafel, Tubingen, 1840,) that he visited Berlin, Dresden,
Prague, and Carlsbad, and, arriving at Leipzig at the end of the year,
put to press a great work he had just completed. During the print
ing of this work he spent twelve months in visiting the Austrian and
Hungarian mines.
Swedenborg's ' Opera Philosophica et Mineralia ' were published
in 1734, in 3 vols, folio, at Dresden and Leipzig ; his patron, the Duke
of Brunswick, at whose court he was a visiter, defrayed the cost
of the publication. This large work consists of three distinct trea
tises. The first volume is called ' Principles of Natural Philosophy,
consisting of new attempts to explain the phenomena of the ele
mental world in a philosophical manner.' The ' Principia ' is an
attempt to construct a cosmology d priori. The second and third
volumes are together called the ' Regnum Minerale ; ' the second is
on iron, the third on copper and brass. They treat of the methods
employed in all parts of Europe, and in America, in preparing and
working these metals. In the same year, and at the same places,
Swedenborg published ' An Introduction to the Philosophy of the In
finite, and the Final Cause of Creation; treating also of the Mecha
nism of the Operation between the Soul and the Body.' This work
connects his cosmology with his physiology.
Swedenborg's reputation was now established throughout Europe,
and Christ. Wolff, and other foreign literati, eagerly sought his cor
respondence. On the 17th December, 1734, the Academy of Sciences
of St. Petersburg appointed him a corresponding member. In 1736
he again travelled, and in 1738 visited Italy, and spent a year at
Venice and Rome. The journal of his tour, from 1736 to 1739, is
in MS. in the Academy at Stockholm. At this time he no doubt
applied himself particularly to anatomy and physiology, of a mas
terly acquaintance with which he gave evidence in his ' Economy of
the Animal Kingdom,' a large work in two parts, 4to., which he pub
lished at Amsterdam, in 1740-41. The first part treats of the blood,
the arteries, the veins, and the heart, concluding with an introduc
tion to rational psychology. The second part treats of the coinci
dence between the motions of the brain and the lungs, of the cortical
substance of the brain, and of the human soul. In 1741, he became'
a fellow, by invitation, of the Royal Academy of Sciences of Stock
holm. He still continued earnest in the pursuit of physiology, and
in 1744 published the 'Animal Kingdom,' parts i. and ii., 4to.
The first part of this work is an analysis of the abdominal viscera ;
the second of the thoracic viscera ; the last part treats of the skin,
of the senses of taste and touch, and of organized forms in general.

224 APPENDIX.

His system is an elevated and original system of animal geometry
and mechanics. These great works were regarded by him as only
the commencement of a work in which he designed to embrace the
entire circle of physiology and psychology.
At the beginning of 1745, Swedenborg published in two parts,
4to, 'The Worship and Love of God.' 'This book is a sublimation
of Swedenborg's scientific system, with a correlative statement of his
psychical doctrines, in which both are blended, and clothed with the
narrative form ; it is the link between his physiology and a class of
doctrines which was yet to come.
A number of unpublished scientific MSS.,wriiten by him previously
to this period, and which are preserved in the Royal Academy of
Sciences, at Stockholm, manifest his industry, and the largeness of
his designs.
He anticipated Dr. Wallaston's suggestion of the spheroidal com
position of crystals, as well as the atomic theory of Daltou, and even
some of its details, as when, g;eometrically predicting the composite
nature of water, he assigned to it the equivalent of 9.
Swedenborg was in his fifty-eighth year when he published the last
of the foregoing volumes, and from this period he assumed a new
character, of which he gave the following account : — 'I have been
called to a holy oflice by the Lord, who most graciously manifested
himself in person to me, his servant, in the year 1745, and opened my
sight into the spiritual world, endowing me with the gift of convers
ing with spirits and angels.' However repulsive such statements
are to the generality of mankind, they are not a priori objectionable
to those who admit the inspiration of the seers and prophets of the
Bible : after such an admission of the supernatural, each particular
case of the kind becomes a simple question of evidence. 'The event
above alluded to, happened to Swedenborg in the middle of April,
1745, at an inn in London. From this period, Swedenborg entirely
forsook the pursuit of science, nor does he once allude, in his works
on theology to his former scientific labors. He still however took
part in the proceedings of the Diet, and in that of 1761 he is stated
by Count Hopken to have presented the best memorial on the sub
ject of finance.
He returned from London to Sweden in August, 1745, and imme
diately devoted himself to the study of Hebrew and the diligent
perusal of the scriptures. He continued to discharge the duties of
the assessor of the Board of Mines till 1747, when he asked and ob
tained his majesty's permission to retire from it; adding also two
other requests, which were granted — that he might enjoy as a pen
sion the salary of the office ; and that he might be allowed to decline
the higher rank which was offered him on his retirement. The
materials for the subsequent part of Swedenborg's biography are
exceedingly scanty. He was now either actively engaged in writing
his theological works, or was travelling in foreign countries to pub
lish them. When he was at home he had a house in the environs of
Stockholm, with a large garden, in which he took great delight. He
frequently resided in Amsterdam and in London. The highest per
sonages in Sweden testified to the consistency with which he main
tained the assertion of his spiritual intercourse. On one or two
occasions, they say, he gave proof of his professions. Baron Grimm,

APPENDIX. 225
after describing him as ' a man not only distinguished by his honesty,
but by his knowledge and intelligence,' says of one of these occurren
ces, ' This fact is confirmed by authorities so respectable, that it is
impossible to deny it ; but the question is, bow to believe it.' (itfto.
Hist. Lit. et Anecdot., &c., par le Baron de Grimm, torn. iii. p. 56,
ed. Lond., 1813.) De Grimm spoke of it precisely as he might have
spoken of one of the miracles of the New Testament. Immanuel
Kant sifted another of these stories to the bottom, and declared that
' Professor Schlegel had informed him that it could by no means be
doubted ; ' and added, ' they set the assertion respecting Sweden
borg's extraordinary gift beyond all possibility of doubt.' {Darstel-
lunff des Lebens und Charakters Immanuel liants, Konigsberg,
1804.) Swedenborg however laid no stress on such proofs, ' because,'
said ne, they compel only an external belief, but do not convince the
internal.' During his latter years, Bishop Filenius and Dr. Ekebon
instigated a prosecution against him in the consistory of Gottenburg,
whence it was transferred to the diet. Dr. Ekebon denounced his
doctrines as ' full of the most intolerable fundamental errors, seduc
ing, heretical, captious ; ' and stated furthermore, that ¦ he did not
know Assessor Swedenborg's religious system, and would take no
pains to come at the knowledge of it.' Swedenborg came out of
these trials with safety, unaccused by the diet, and protected by the
king. Towards Christmas, 1771, while in London, he had a stroke
of the palsy, from which he never perfectly recovered. A report has
been circulated that he recanted his claims during his last illness ;
but this is a mistake. M. Ferelius, minister of the Swedish Luthe
ran church in London, who visited him on his death-bed, and admin
istered the sacrament to him, wrote as follows : (the 31st March,
1 780,) to Professor Tratgard of Greifswalde : ' I asked him if he
thought he was going to die, and he answered in the affirmative :
upon which 1 requested him, since many believed that he had invent
ed his new theological system merely to acquire a great name (which
he had certainly obtained,) to take this opportunity of proclaiming
the real truth to the world, and to recant either wholly or in part
what he had advanced ; especially as his pretensions could now be of
no further use to him. Upon this Swedenborg raised himself up in
bed, and, placing his hand upon his breast, said with earnestness,
" Everything that 1 have written is as true as that you now behold
me; I might have said much more had it been permitted me. After
death you will see all, and then we shall have much to say to each
other on this subject.'" (Ferelius, Ueber Swedenborg-'s Ende, in
Tafel's Zieftem.) Swedenborg died at London, in Great Bath Street,
Coldbath Fields, on the 29th of March, 1772, in the eighty-fifth year
of his age. His body was buried in the Swedish church in Ratcliff
highway. The following is a list of his theological works : — 1 , ' Arcana Coe-
lestia,' 8 vols. 4to., London, 1749 to 1756; 2, 'An Account of the
Last Judgment and the Destruction of Babylon ; ' 3, ' On Heaven
and Hell , ' 4, ' On the White Horse mentioned in the Apocalypse ; '
6, ' On the Earths in the Universe ; ' 6, 'On the New Jerusalem and
its Heavenly Doctrine,' 4to., London, 1758; 7, ' The Four Leading
Doctrines of the New Church — on the Lord, on the Holy Scriptures,
on Life, and on Faith ; ' 8, ' A Continuation of the Account of the

226 APPENDIX.

Last Judgment ; ' 9, 'On the Divine Love and Wisdom,' 4to., Am
sterdam, 1763; 10, 'On the Divine Providence,' 4to., Amsterdam,
1764; 11, ' Apocalypse Revealed,' 4to., Amsterdam, 1766; 12, 'De
lights of Wisdom concerning Conjugial Love, and Pleasures of In
sanity concerning Scortatory Love,' 4to., Amsterdam, 1768; 13, 'On
the Intercourse between the Soul and Body,' 4to., London, 1769;
14, 'A Brief Exposition of the Doctrine of the New Church,' 4to.,
Amsterdam, 1769 ; 15, ' True Christian Religionj' 4lo., London, 1771.
Asa specimen of Swedenborg's interpretation of the Holy Scriptures,
the reader may consult the ' Apocalypse Revealed ; ' for a concise
view of his alleged experiences, the ' Heaven and Hell ' may be re
sorted to ; for a view of that part of his system which relates to the
creation and government of the universe, we recommend the perusal
of the ' Divine Love ' and ' Divine Providence ; ' for his doctrine
concerning the relation of the sexes, and its eternal origin and perpe
tuity, and for his code of spiritual legislation on marriage and dir
vorce, see the ' Conjugial Love,' one of the most remarkable of these
works ; finally, the student will find a compendium of the whole of
the theology of the New Church in the ' "rrue Christian Religion,'
the last and perhaps the finest of the writings of Swedenborg. The
whole of these works, originally published in Latin, have been trans
lated into English, and some of^ them have passed through several
editions, both in England and in America. The translations are
contained in about thirty octavo volumes.'*
Swedenborg's Theological MSS., which are preserved in the Royal
Academy at Stockholm, are very voluminous. The following have
been published : — ' Coronis ad Verarn Christianam Religionem,'
4to., London, 1780; ' Apocalypsis Explicata,' 4 torn. 4to., London,
1785, 6, 8, 9 ; ' Index Rerum in Apnoalypsi Revelatarum,' 1813 ; ' In
dex Verborum, &c. in Arcanis Coelestibus,' 18X5; 'Doctrina de
Charitate,' 8vo., London, 1840; 'De Domino,' Svo., London, 1840;
'Canones Novee Ecclesiae, 8vo., London, 1840; ' Adversaria in Li-
bros Veteris Testamenti,' fasc. i. and ii., Tubingen, 1840-41. Among
his yet unpublished papers is that called his 'Diarium,' an unre
served record of his experiences, ranging over a period of sixteen
years. The first two volumes of this extensive work are missing,
but the third and largest is in the possession of the ' Society for
Printing and Publishing the Writings of E. Swedenborg, instituted
in London in 1810;' and whenever it is published, itmay afibrd
some data for that which is at present unattainable, a theological bi
ography of the author.
Swedenborg did not lay claim to inspiration, but to an opening of
his spiritual sight, and a rational instruction in spiritual things,
which was granted, as he said, 'not for any merit of his,' but to en
able him to convey to the world a real knowledge of the nature of
heaven and hell, and thus of man's future existence. According to
Swedenborg, heaven and hell are not in space, but they are internal
and spiritual states, so that intromission into the spiritufd world is
only the opening of an interior consciousness. The outward face of
* All of these works may be purchased at Mr. Clapp's Bookstore, 10
School Street, up stairs.

APPENDIX. 227
the spiritual world resembles that of the natural world in every par
ticular, and man's spiritual body appears precisely similar to his nat
ural body ; but the difference is, that all the objects of the spiritual
world represent, and change with, the spiritual slates of its inhabit
ants ; the magnificent objects in the heavens being actually deter
mined according to the good afiectious of the angels ; and the terri
ble appearances in the hells being an outbirlh of the evil and falsity
of the infernals. Heaven and hell are from mankind, and all angels
and devils have once been men, either on ihis or other planets, for all
the planets are inhabited, since the human race, and the formation of
heaven therefrom, is the final end of creation. The Satan and Devil
of Holy Scripture is not a person, but a collective name of hell. "The
'last judgment mentioned in the Gospels,' does not mean the destruc
tion of the world, which, like every divine work, has respect to infin
ity and eternity, and will endure forever, but ' a judgment in the
spiritual world, since all who die are gathered together there, and
since it is man's spirit which is judged.' This judgment commences
for every individual immediately after death. Judgment is carried
into efiect on a church when its charity is extinct, and faith alone re
mains ; and such judgment is attended by a plenary separation of
the good from the evil, that is, by a formation of new heavens and
newTiells, and followed by the institution on earth of a new church.
The judgment on the First Christian Church took place in the year
1757 (so Swedenborg informs us,) and was witnessed by him in the
spiritual world, after which commenced the descent from the new
heaven of the new church and its doctrine, signified by the Apocalyp
tic New Jerusalem. The particulars of the faith of this church on
the part of man are ; — 1, * That there is one God ; that there is a
Divine Trinity in Him ; and that He is the Lord God and Saviour
Jesus Christ. 2, That saving failh consists in believing on Him.
3, That evil actions ought not to be done, because they are of the
devil and from the devil. 4, That good actions ought to he done,
because they are of God and from God. 5, And that they should be
done by man, as oy/ii7?ise?/; nevertheless, under the belief that they
are from the Lord, operating in him and by him.'
Swedenborg was a methodical man, and laid down certain rules
for the guidance of his life. These are found written in various
parts of his MSS., as follows: — '1, Often to read and meditatejon
the Word of God. 2, To submit everything to the will of Divine
Providence. 3, To observe in everything a propriety of behavior,
and always to keep the conscience clear. 4, To discharge with fidel
ity the functions of his employment and the duties of his ofiice, and
to render himself in all things useful to society.' On these precepts
he formed his character. Count Hopken, prime minister of Sweden,
says of him, ' T have not only known Swedenborg these two-and-forty
years, but some time since frequented his company daily : 1 do not
recollect to have ever known any man of more uniformly virtuous
character.' Sandel says, ' He was the sincere friend of^mankind,
and, iu his examination of the character of others, he was particularly
desirous to discover in them this virtue, which he regarded as an in
fallible proof of manv more. As a public functionary he was up
right and just ; he discharged his duty with great exactness, and neg
lected nothing but his own advancement. He lived in the reigns of

228 APPENDIX.

many princes, and enjoyed the particular favor and kindness of them
all. He enjoyed most excellent health; having scarcely ever expe
rienced the slightest indisposition. Content within himself and with
his situation, hjs life was m all respects one of the happiest that ever
fell to the lot of man.' Swedenborg was never married. He was
about five feet nine inches high, rather thin, and of a brown com
plexion ; his eyes were of a browniSh-grey , nearly hazel, and some
what small. He was never seen to laugh, but always had a cheerful
smile on his countenance. 'Many would suppose,' says Ferelius,
' that assessor Swedenborg was a very eccentric person ; but, on the
contrary, he was very agreeable and easy in society, conversed on all
the topics of the day, accommodated himself to his company, and
never alluded to his principles unless he was questioned ; in which
case he answered freely, just as he wrote of them. But if he ob
served that any one put impertinent questions, or designed to trifle
with him, he answered, in such a manner that the querist was silenced
without being satisfied.'

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