and Babel, and of other Assyrian cities, and the land of Shinar, all occurring in the 10th Genesis, in which are given the generations of the sons of Noah, by whom are signified churches, or successive states of the church, called the Ancient or Noahtic Church, and their branchings into various and distinct associations. The rational principle has its region between the internal and external of the human mind, as Swedenborg shews; and here these places, significative of the rational principle and what relates thereto, have their origin ascribed to Nimrod, the grandson of Ham, which name is given between the names Shem and Japheth, Shem signifying internal worship, and Japheth external. That this ancient church should have branched out in succeeding generations into many varieties, as is denoted by the successive multiplications in the Noahtic family, and that each ramification should have had its own characteristic, differing from all the rest in something relating to its doctrine or its worship, was not in itself any indication of its decline, but was, I apprehend, a necessary consequence of its extension. A perfect human figure is the result of a great variety of forms well harmonized together, and can never be produced by any accumulations of parts all shaped according to one uniform pattern. We may look at Rome to see the monstrous effects of the unwise attempt to establish and maintain throughout a church such unnatural uniformity. Let the various receptions of truth, and these expressing themselves in corresponding varieties of worship, be kept alive by the spirit of universal charity and good will, and they will all beautifully combine to form a universal church, which the Lord will regard as worthy of being acknowledged as his own bride.

The Noahtic church did not, however, continue in its integrity. It fell away from the purity of its first love, self-regard was suffered to encroach upon the just claims of God and the neighbour in the heart. In consequence of this declension, its interior wisdom became corrupted into magical arts, and its outward worship into idolatry. The branch churches which were successively formed, as signified by the progeny of Noah, became characterised by the perversions and falsifications of those good and true principles which would otherwise have marked them; hence, in what is mentioned of Ashur or Assyria and Nineveh in this genealogy, something is to be observed indicative of a departure from its primitive condition. Of Nimrod, named as the founder of the kingdom, it is said—“He began to be a mighty one in the earth, and a mighty hunter before the Lord, and that the beginning of his kingdom was Babel or Babylon." We may understand from this, considering the generations of Ham as representing the different degrees

and varieties of man's thinking principle, that that faculty of thinking by which the reasoning processes are performed began to estrange itself from the established authority of divine truth, and seek for wisdom of its own invention, and to exercise its new power of false reasoning in subduing other things to its dominion. That branch of the ancient church with whom this state of the reasoning faculty predominated existed probably as a distinct nation or nations, whose descendants were afterwards the Assyrians of Scripture, the case being similar with the other branches.

If this idea be correct, we may think of the ancient church as consisting of various families or nations, each characterised by some one of the principles belonging to a spiritual church. We may think of these families or nations retaining their respective marks, after having become by successive perversions an utterly fallen and rejected church; and therefore, that when Israel was raised up to represent a New Church, these stood as the representatives of those false and evil principles which the New Church has to contend with, and to overcome. Among them was Assyria, which had become the representative of a perverted rationality. The human mind while in a state of divine order has its reasoning faculty in a healthy and active condition. The truths of the kingdom of God find a welcome admission, because they can be rationally understood. The exercise they give to this faculty occasions delight, because of the ability to appreciate their worth, joined with a ready yielding of the life to their transforming excellence. The heart that is animated by love to the Lord and the neighbour cannot help rejoicing in the possession of rational powers, and finding pleasure in using them for the investigations and discoveries of truth, because every newly-seen truth reveals another feature in the character of Divine perfection to love and to imitate. But the human mind disordered by sinful loves and practices has a diseased rationality. This faculty may not lose its activity; the many emotions of self-love may afford a continued supply for its excitement, and occasion a variety of delights to accompany its exercise; the wish to be esteemed a clever reasoner, the real desire to be such, because of the power thereby to subdue others to a man's own purposes; the being able to persuade oneself by reasoning that our fancies are wise and worthy; that our preferences and antipathies are just, or that the doctrines we believe in are true, are all competent for furnishing a man's reasoning faculty with abundance of both work and reward, even where its abnormal condition is such as to unfit it for the recognition of a single truth of a spiritual kind.

True rationality, therefore, may have altogether departed from a

church or a people, while yet reasonings of every shade of ingenuity and subtlety may abound. Yea, the reasonings in such a case may be more assuming, aggressive, and unyielding, than the reasonings of a sound spiritual mind; but the true and the false rationality are to be distinguished by the character of that which animates them, their motive, or end. Reasonings that favour the self-love of man in preference to the love of God and the neighbour, especially when they do so in the name of religion, belong to a fallen and corrupt church; the rationality of a true religion harmonizes with the divine law and the prophets, that hang altogether upon the two commands, to love God and the neighbour. The former are the Assyrians, in a state of alienation from God's Israel, if not gathered in hostile array against them. They are the offspring of that conceit or self-sufficiency which, disdaining to continue humbly following divine instruction, strikes out a way for itself, proudly seeking for difficulties and dangers in the employment of its intellectual powers, that it may glory in the greatness of its own strength, and by the achievement of its victories establish for itself a dominion and name that should bring the things even of heaven itself into subserviency;—a mighty hunter before the Lord beginning a kingdom in Babel, whence springs up the tower that aims at reaching heaven, going forth, also, taking possession of Assyria, and building Nineveh and other great cities.

It is in accordance with such an interpretation of the doings of Nimrod that the Assyrian excavations have revealed indications of a proud, warlike, and conquering people. We noticed in our former lecture that these characteristic indications were truly representative of the qualities of a genuine rationality, regarding them in a general way; but these qualities could only have been so represented by a people far gone from that good and righteous state which really comports with such a rationality. It is, therefore, to be expected that in sustaining their representative character, such a people would exhibit traits symbolic of features belonging to the depraved and perverted states of the reasoning faculty, so that in the book of divine revelation we should find them made use of as the type of that kind of rationality which exercises its perverted powers as the antagonist of truth, or the enemy of the Lord's Church. The earliest mention in the Word of Assyria as the enemy of Israel occurs towards the latter end of the historical part, in the 15th chapter of 2nd Book of Kings:-While "Menahem reigned over Israel in Samaria, doing evil in the sight of the Lord, departing not from the sins of Joroboam, the son of Nebat," the Sacred History informs us that Pul, the king of Assyria, came against the land. Menahem, however, by exacting money from

the wealthy men of his kingdom to the amount of a thousand shekels of silver, and giving it to the Assyrian king, induced him to turn back, it appears, without having fought against them. Syria is sometimes confounded with Assyria, but this is rather a careless error, since we read of Ahaz, king of Judah, applying to the king of Assyria, for aid against the power of the king of Syria. Syria was the country situated between the Euphrates and the Tigris, and known at an early period by the name of Aram Naharaim, or Syria between the two rivers. It also bore the name of Padan-aram, or Champagne Syria, and was called Mesopatamia by the Greeks. But Assyria lay on the eastern side of the River Tigris, by which, therefore, it was divided from Syria. The nations with whom Israel at various periods of its history had to contend were generally the conquerors, whenever that nation was rebelling against its Divine Lawgiver, and had fallen into idolatry; and on the other hand, whenever the worship of Jehovah was maintained, it stood invincible against the armed hosts of its enemies.

It was so in reference to the Assyrians. The Israelites had been separated into two kingdoms, Judah and Israel. The kingdom of Israel had departed from serving the Lord according to the law of Moses, and given up themselves to the idolatries and abominations of the heathen, ever since their revolt from the house of David. The king of Assyria coming against them when they had withdrawn themselves from the Divine protection by their alienations, was able to overcome them, which he effectually did, and carried them away captive out of their own land into Assyria. The kingdom of Judah, however, had not so entirely turned away from the God of their fathers. They had, under the reign of some of their kings, forsaken the Lord, and bowed down to strange gods, and were, doubtless, not well purified from their idolatries when the good king Hezekiah reigned over them, and restored the religious worship which his father, Ahaz, had wickedly put down. In his reign, Sennacherib, king of Assyria, came up against Judah, and took the fenced cities, and levied a heavy tribute upon the kingdom. But afterwards, Hezekiah feeling confidence in the God of Israel, whose worship he had restored, refused submission to the Assyrian yoke. This brought upon Judah a great host under Rabshakeh, the servant of Sennacherib, who came in bold defiance of the God in whom Hezekiah was trusting, boastingly confident in the strength of their hitherto unconquered forces. The Lord's promise was given to defend Jerusalem, and to save it, and that night, without a battle, 185,000 were destroyed in the Assyrian camp, and Sennacherib returned to Nineveh, and was slain by his own sons. further contests are recorded between Assyria and Judah until Babylon

No

had become the sovereign power, and Judah had altogether apostatised from its Divinely-instituted worship. Then came the king of Babylon against the city, now divested of its Divine protection, and took it, and carried away the people into captivity.

These narrations will be found replete with instruction in spiritual matters, if the leading significations are preserved in their interpretations. Israel signifies a Spiritual Church, that is to say, a church whose principles are of the spiritual degree; a church whose inward moving power is a genuine love, such an interior regard to the Divine Will as will lead to an unreserved surrender of all things to the service of the Lord, yielding up all claims of the selfhood in favour of the revealed laws of righteousness and truth; a church whose doctrines are the gifts of heaven, not the inventions of men, that looks above the region of natural wisdom for spiritual light, and beyond the capacities of the natural mind for the endowments that are to distinguish it as the beloved of the Lord. The two kingdoms of Judah and Israel into which that people was divided, will relate in their signification to the two component principles of the church: Judah to what appertains to goodness and the will, and Israel to what belongs to truth and the understanding, or rather, Judah represents those things or portions of the church in reference to which the will is regarded before the understanding, and Israel those which look first to the understanding and thence to the will. These two being no longer united into one, but separated and in mutual hostility, and Israel departing, in consequence, from the worship of the true God, denotes the declining state of the church, when its faith accords not with true charity. The apostacies of Judah denoting a falling away from genuine charity, into a spurious or hypocritical one, and thence into the love of evil, their kings represent the predominating or governing truths in respect to each. Those of them who observed the ordinances of God signifying these truths, held consistently with righteousness, and the evil-doing kings the truths perverted to suit the purposes of a disobedient heart.

(To be continued.)

TRUTHS BEYOND THE SYSTEM OF SWEDENBORG.

To the Editor.

Sir, It is the fate of certain great authors, whose mastery of their subject enables them to present it in a logical and systematic form, to impose on the judgment of the reader. The aspect of totality and com[Enl. Series.-No. 61, vol. vi.]

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