complish this divine work, nor gift with the blessedness of arranging our whole man, from head to foot, into Heavenly order; without which arrangement being made, we can never become elevated to the Heavenly place, so as to be consociated with the blessed angels, who are all so arranged in themselves.

"The work necessary to be done on our part, is, that of repentance; not that we would in the least wish to insinuate, that man can repent of himself; still, he must exert his powers, in which he is momentarily upheld, to do it as of himself; and if he continually implores the Divine aid, at the same time, is found watchful against his besetting sins, guarding as much as possible against the appearance of evil, the Lord will give strength equal to the day, he will bring through the waters and through the fire, and cause the soul at length to triumph in his Holy Name, without whom the Christian can do nothing of good, nor has he any power against his evils.

"As man thus does the work of repentance, sincerely before his God, in putting away the evil lusts and false delights of his natural man, the Lord regenerates the internal; and as regeneration proceeds, the man becomes inverted from the order in which he stood by nature, until, by the Divine mercy and grace of the Lord, he is completely arranged in all the parts of his spiritual man into the order of Heaven; the love of the Lord above all things will constitute his head: the love of his neighbor (at least as himself) will form his body; the love of the world the legs; and the love of self the feet. Nay, this latter love shall become even as the ashes under the soles of the feet; and all reasonings from that love shall be accounted as that accursed dust which is the serpent's food: the serpent which beguiled our first parents representing this sensual principle, and the fallacious reasonings therefrom.

"This inversion from the order in which we stand by nature, into the Heavenly order, after the similitude and likeness of our Heavenly Father, is of the Lord alone; for man knows nothing of the Lord's operations to effect this inversion of his state; it is all a secret Divine work carried on in the INTERNAL of man; the operation of which, in no case, coming within the cognizance of the man himself, whom the Lord is so reducing to order, and in mercy kept hidden from the man; for however, it may be lawful and profitable, to view the Lord, in the back parts, it is not so in the face; for the Lord will have the glory of our salvation from first to last; he will be a whole Saviour. And, was man now to know and sensibly feel the Lord's guidance and direction upon his internal man, he would mix his own propriety or selfhood with the divine operation, which would destroy the effect of the whole, and render the Lord unable to save him to eternity.

"This Divine blessing of becoming arranged into Heavenly order, according to what we have been declaring, takes place in a progres sive manner. None of the Divine works (as regeneration, purification, sanctification, and illumination) are effected in their fulness at once; so far otherwise is the case, that the little done for us in time, by the Lord, with respect to these Divine works, are only a prelude to, or as it were, laying the foundation for the pursuing these grand and wonderful works in a continuous and enlarged scale to eternity.

"Before the arranging of the man into Heavenly order, the inverted order in which he stands by nature, is first to be destroyed, which can only be done by little and little; for this reason, amongst others, man's life-his spiritual life, or the life of his spirit, by nature, is in this order; and, was that all to be broken at once, he would be destroyed, body and soul; for his spirit would be left without life, from whence life flows into his body. Therefore, the Lord, in mercy, does not drive out the Canaanite from the Land, but, by little and little, lest the man should be devoured by the beasts of the field. The Lord, therefore, does not suffer to come or bring all the evils of our nature, into our sight at once, because it would overwhelm us; it would be more than the spirit could bear. We first see our external evils, their nature and quality, and afterwards our internal evils are placed before our eyes, in order that, as our spiritual strength increases, we may press on in the spiritual warfare. It is only as evil loves are cast out in this warfare, that Heavenly loves can become elevated in the Soul, until, by a constant perseverance in opposing of our evils, inward as well as outward, the love of the Lord above all obtains the most elevated throne in our hearts, to whom all other loves and principles are willingly subordinate."

Speaking of a fourth particular, involved in the Divine Benediction pronounced in his text, which is conjunction with the Lord our God, the preacher goes on to observe

"We must have our eye of love fixed on him in Divine human form. It is impossible to be conjoined by love and faith to a person of whom our mind can form no conception; that we might, therefore, have a fixed and stable foundation for our love and faith, that we might have our God ever in our mind's eye, Jehovah was pleased, under the Old Testament Dispensation, to manifest himself in a human form, appearing to the patriarchs and some of the holy men of old, as in the form of an angel; and at length to work out our redemption and salvation, came down personally upon our earth, in an assumed Humanity. God was manifest in flesh, and having become glorified therein, he took it up into, and therein ascended above the Heavens.

"The Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, therefore, is the only God of Heaven and earth, with whom the Man of the Church can become conjoined by love and faith; because he is the visible Jehovah to the eye of the mind, in whom dwells the invisible, as a soul within a body. The true and faithful Christian will cheerfully make him his all in all, believing in the truth of that which the apostle Paul has declared, that in him dwelleth bodily all the fulness of the godhead.

"That he retained the Divine human form after his ascension to glory, we may learn from John's Revelations; for he declares, that he appeared to him as the Son of Man, whose countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength, his head and his hair as wool as white as snow, clothed with linen down to his feet, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle, Saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, the first and the last; the first in his Divinity, the last in his Humanity; and in these united, the Who is, the Whe was, and the Who is to come, the Almighty.

"This is the God whom the angels adore, whom they fix all their love upon, whom they place all their confidence in, who makes all their Heaven, and to whom they unceasingly ascribe, as is most justly due, all the power, glory, praise, and dominion for ever. And did the man of the Church below determine to know, to love, to worship, and obey no other God, save Jesus Jehovah only, the happiness and joys of angels might, in some small degree, be experienced on earth; because in this case, the angels of Heaven and the men of the Church would form one in heart and soul, whence reciprocal benefits would be derived, and the whole conjoined to the Lord. The Church below with the Church above, would, together, form the Lord's body. She would experience, ever new, all the joys of the Bride, the Lamb's wife, whilst he showered down and dispensed from his ever loving hands, all the blessings which a Heavenly, yea, a Divine Bridegroom can bestow.

"Thus have we endeavored, briefly, as our time would admit, to illustrate the nature of real blessings, which, once given from the Lord, last through time into eternity. In general, it is, in giving to love him above all things, and our neighbor as ourselves in particular, it is to be enriched with spiritual and Heavenly good-to be made fruitful from the affection of spiritual truth-to be arranged and disposed from head to foot into Heavenly order; and, lastly, to be conjoined to the Lord himself. These blessings are never-fading, substantial, and eternal. These are the good things which the Lord invariably gives to all of his faithful sons and daughters who walk uprightly, far preferable to all natural blessings, the utmost mortals can boast; but, which enumerated Divine blessings, when received, will cause the natural good things to be enjoyed in a more comfortable manner; because whatever is possessed thereof, whether little or much, will be received and enjoyed by the faithful, with a contented mind, and a heart filled with submission, gratitude, and humility, ever considering, that they are under the guidance and immediate care of him, who can withhold no real blessing from those that love him and keep his commandments."

OF THE HOLY SUPPER IN THE ROMISH CHURCH. The worship of Roman Catholics, considered as a Church, is in many respects similar to the worship of the Jews, being merely external, without any thing of spiritual life in the internal. But in one respect the Catholics have committed a greater enormity than the Jews ever did; that is, in depriving the laity, or common people, of the privilege of reading the holy WORD, whereby they might become ac quainted with the interior things of the Church, and of religion. This circumstance, however, notwithstanding the wickedness of the priests in thus endeavoring to establish their dominion over souls, by keeping the people in gross ignorance, was permitted to take place by the Divine Providence of the Lord, for several wise purposes, the prin

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cipal of which is, that the people might not be capable of profanation; for without a knowledge of, and belief in the internals of the WORD, of the Church, and of religion, profanation cannot take place, seeing that no one can profane that of which he is ignorant. For the same reason it is said in Scripture, of the Jews, that "the Lord blinded their eyes, and hardened their hearts, that they might not see, and be converted, and healed."

It is of the Divine Providence of the Lord, that in the celebration of the Holy Supper in the Romish Church, the bread and the wine should be divided; and the bread, which is representative of the Lord's flesh, be given to the people; while the wine, which is representative of his blood, is drunk by the priest alone; when yet it is the blood that gives life to the flesh, just as wine does to the bread, For as bread without wine yields no nourishment to the body, so neither does the good of love, signified by bread, without the truth of faith, signified by wine and blood, yield any nourishment to the soul. It is also of the Divine Providence of the Lord, that the priest should drink the wine; for thereby is signified the nourishment of the soul by Divine Truth alone, without the good of love; and yet this affords no true spiritual nourishment, but is only productive of external sanc tity without that which is internal. In this case the wine, separate from the bread, signifies truth falsified; and its being drunk by the priests alone, denotes that the truths of the WORD are perverted by them, and applied in confirmation of their wicked lusts: whereas its being refused to the people, implies that they are kept in ignorance of the truth; while the bread that is given them, separate from the wine, denotes that they are principled merely in natural good, and not at the same time in that which is spiritual. That this is actually the state of the Romish Church, generally speaking, both in respect to priests and people, will appear plain to any person who has light sufficient to discern the difference between the pomp of external ceremonies and the simplicity and purity of internal spiritual worship. But we trust there are many individuals of that persuasion, who begin now to have the eyes of their understanding open to the light of truth, and will not long submit to have the bread and wine divided in the Holy Supper; but will judge and act for themselves, in this, and in other concerns, as every rational and free agent ought to do.

TO THE EDITORS.

GENTLEMEN,

I was much pleased with the anecdote in the last number of your Magazine, concerning the existence of seven primary planets in our solar system, so plainly asserted by SWEDENBORG in his Treatise on the Origin of the Earth, published in the year 1745. A few evenings since, conversing with a friend on the same subject, we were led to examine into some other of the writings of this extraordinary man; and in the first volume of his philosophical works, part 3, where he treats of the universal chaos, it afforded us additional pleasure to find that seven primary planets were there likewise mentioned, and actually delineated. This important and valuable work, in 3 volumes folio, was printed under the author's own inspection, part at Leipsic, part at Dresden, as early as the year 1734; and is replete with solid reasoning, deep investigation, and unaffected piety. The witlings and superficial observers of the present age have hitherto been pleased to consider this astonishing author as an enthusiast and a madman; and even grave divines have not hesitated to pronounce his wonderful discoveries to be no other than waking dreams, or the reveries of a disordered imagination. But, Sirs, it must afford pleasure to sincere lovers of truth, to perceive the time arrived, when wisdom is justified of her children. For my own part, I am firmly persuaded, with many others, that the philosophical, as well as the theological principles of this illuminated author, stand unrivalled, and will bear the test of the strictest examination. I regard him also as a divinely-inspired herald and messenger, commissioned to proclaim the most important truths to mankind; and doubt not but his works will be the delight and admiration of succeeding ages. AMICUS.

We have also received a letter to the same effect, as the above, from another Correspondent, B. C. accompanied with the following remark:

"A French author of some fame, the late Mr. De Buffon, had himself taken notice of the same seventh planet much before Mr. Herschel; but then it was in a work which he took almost word for word from SWEDENBORG, without mentioning his name; so that SWEDENBORG has, in all respects, the honor to be the true discoverer of that number of primary planets."