Page images
PDF
EPUB

human race. Thus I admit the truth of Swedenborg's views within the limits of his own gift, while I believe there are many truths on which other seers may be illuminated above and beyond those limits, similar to the views above cited, which I do not state as decided convictions, but should be glad to see them noticed by your intelligent correspondents.

On the second advent of the Lord Swedenborg does not come up to the full sense of Scripture prophecy, nor yet to the requirements of this fallen world, on which Christianity has as yet scarcely produced an effect comparable to that of a drop in the bucket. I accept his revelation of the judgment in the spiritual world in 1757, and from it I infer that there will be a similar descent of the Lord in power and glory into this sphere of nature. Otherwise, what becomes of the many prophecies and warnings of our Lord and the apostles, of the sudden judgments which, like the deluge, will one day come upon the world,—of those who "shall be changed in a moment, caught up in clouds, i. e., in multitudes, to meet the Lord in the air"? &c.

In short, whoever regards the present condition of the world, and the utter inadequacy of the purest doctrine and the most sublime theology to effect man's regeneration, may find more reasons than can be found in Scripture to apprehend an external as well as an internal coming of the Lord.

CATHOLICUS.

REPLY.

As we have always desired that our correspondents should exercise the utmost scope of thought and of free rational inquiry in respect to the subjects discussed in this Periodical, suited to the objects for which it has now so long been established, we have inserted the above from our inquiring friend.

The first point which is supposed to relate "to truths beyond the system of Swedenborg," is the existence of certain geological animals of a supposed ferocious and venomous character as types of evil, and as correspondences thereto, ages prior to the creation and the fall of man, from which Swedenborg, contrary to Behmen, dates the origin of evil and of hell, and the consequent existence of ferocious and venomous animals upon the earth. Now, this supposition is contrary to facts, for it has not yet been proved that these animals, such as the ichthyosauri, or fish lizards, and others of that class, were either venomous or ferocious; it is true that they were voracious, but voracity is not, like ferocity, an evil quality. It is also true that they were of prodigious size, but magnitude does not, by any means, imply an evil nature. In order, then, to prove that these animals were types of evil arising from the supposed fall of angels, it is necessary to demonstrate that they had an evil and a noxious nature, or that they were either ferocious or venomous, or both.

Again, the tribe of geological animals called megatheria was herbiverous, feeding upon grass, herbs, and the foliage of trees. But this class is not ferocious, in the proper sense of the term: when attacked some of them might, in self-defence, manifest something analogous to ferocity, but not such as characterises the tiger or the wolf. Nor are they venomous. It is, therefore, quite a mistake to suppose that because these animals were of a huge size, voracious, and to our view hideous in their appearance, they were therefore of evil origin, and betokened the existence of either moral or physical evil.

An intelligent view of the order of creation, such as Swedenborg has given, will aid us in thinking rightly on this subject. God has created all things from "first principles by ultimates." He Himself, together with the spiritual sun in which He lives, is the very first principle from whom all things come, and the terraqueous globe is the ultimate or last principle, by which all things intermediate, especially in the vegetable and animal kingdoms, have been created. In the order of creation those things which are next to the ultimate first appear. Thus in the oldest substances discovered by geologists, which are the oldest limestones, are found the lowest forms of life, as tubipores, belemnites, amonocrites, nautilites, and worms. In argillaceous schists of primary formation are found the same, and in addition corallites, echmites. fishes, leaves, reeds, &c., which are higher forms of life. In the lowest secondary sandstone are found the preceding, together with still higher formations. Again, in the coal strata there are still higher formations both of animals and plants, and in the red marl or sandstone there are all the preceding, together with crabs, amphibia, and fishes. Thus there is a regular gradation of formations receptive of life from God, up to the Mammalia, and lastly to Man, who, as having a rational soul, consisting of spiritual and celestial degrees receptive of life from his Maker, can in acknowledgment and adoration refer all things to Him, and by faith and love be conjoined with Him, and live for ever in a state of continually increasing wisdom and happiness.

These degrees of formations for the reception of life from God must not be considered as running one into another by continuity, which is the fallacy of the work on The Vestiges of Creation, &c., but each higher degree is perfectly distinct and separate from the lower, and has within it something peculiar and characteristic which the lower degree does not possess. This is the case from the lowest formations to the highest, which is man, who, especially as to his spiritual formation which is within his natural form or body, is the end of creation, in which God rests from His work, and pronounces everything He has made to be very good."

66

Thus all formations respect the end, that is, man for whom they exist, and the end for which man exists is the formation of an angelic kingdom or of heaven, in which all creation terminates in glory and happiness, or in the fullest reception and manifestation of which finite forms are susceptible of life from God. Thus the finite is the image of the INFINITE, and from the finite, properly understood, we can form an idea correct, as far as it goes, of the INFINITE. But as man has what animals have not, a rational soul, consisting of a spiritual and celestial degree

receptive of life from God, he requires other knowledges and truths and influences than what nature can supply for his development and formation, called regeneration, for heaven. Hence the necessity of God's Word, as a Revelation from Himself, in which those spiritual knowledges, truths, and influences are conveyed to man, without which he could no more be formed for heaven than a seed could be formed into a plant or a tree, without the sunshine and the rain from heaven.

As all things have been formed from the very lowest to the highest in respect to man, as the end for which they exist, it follows that the lowest formations have relation by correspondence or analogy to his corporeal and sensual principles, which are the lowest, in his constitution. Thus the lowest formations in which life would appear have relation to his corporeal, the next higher formations to his sensual, the next to his natural, in which the rational is somewhat developed, which is the purely natural as distinguished from the lower degree. The highest formations correspond to his spiritual and celestial degrees, as also developed in the natural. We say in the natural, because everything in the natural world is correspondent to something in the external of man, who as a microcosm is an image of the macrocosm, or of the great world around him. And as the natural world is created to be as it were a theatre, representative of the Lord's kingdom, so everything in man's external is by creation formed to be a representative of something in his internal, which, when man is regenerate, is also a kingdom of God," (Luke xvii. 21.) the image in miniature of the kingdom of heaven itself. Again, as creation is an outbirth from God-for, says the Apostle, "all things are out of God," (Rom. xi. 36.) so all things from lowest to highest have supremely a relation, by correspondence, to Him. Thus the lowest formations have relation to the divine corporeal in God; for that God has a divine corporeal principle, called "flesh and bones," is declared in Luke xxiv. 39. From eternity God had this principle in potency, but by incarnation He assumed it actually, and glorified it. These primary formations, therefore, are the types of divine corporeal things in God, from whom they have come. God has also a divine sensual principle represented by the "brazen serpent," (John iii. 14.) which is its type. All things, therefore, even the very lowest, are representative of things in God as well as of things in man, who is created to be the " image and likeness" of God.

66

The doctrine of Forms teaches us how to think of these primary formations, some of which, on account of their prodigious and monstrous appearance, have been construed by our correspondent and by others into the forms of evil. But this is by no means the case. They are not necessarily the forms of evil. A corporeal essence must have a corporeal form corresponding to it. This form is the most remote from the proper human form, but it is not on that account a form of evil. It has, indeed, senses, but in a very imperfect condition, nevertheless emulating and putting on as far it can the human form, and this because man, to whom it bears a relation, and because God, from whom it comes, are in the human form. But every feature of the forms of these lowest animals will appear to those who do not understand the subject hideous and monstrous, and as the form of some evil, but not so to those who have a

knowledge of the philosophy of forms as corresponding to their instincts and essences. The celebrated Cuvier did not see anything monstrous and revolting in these forms, but he beheld with admiration their wondrous adaptation to the instinct or essence of the animals, and to the conditions in which they lived. Hence the higher the essence the more noble the form which manifests the essence; and this up to man, who having an essence or soul higher than that of any other created subject, will have by correspondences the noblest form, which is human, and supremely, God, who has the highest Essence, has also the highest, or the divine Form itself, (Phil. ii. 6.) which is the Divine Human. Thus all things in creation have a relation not to the Deity, as an abstraction of which we can form no idea, but to the divine Humanity of God, of which we can form an idea; and this is declared by the Apostle in Col. i. 16, 18:— 'By Him," that is, by Jesus Christ, were all things created that are in heaven and that are in earth," &c. To judge, therefore, of these primeval animals, that because they were prodigious in their forms they had an evil nature, is to judge fallaciously indeed.

66

66

A word as to the voracity of these huge animals may here be said. There is in creation a certain order in which things are arranged; this order, as discovered by science, is an arrangement into genera, species, and individuals. The individual, or the particular, as the first element of the entire series which constitutes the species and the genus, is first formed, and this successively; an arrangement of these individuals forms a species, and a conglomeration of both individuals and species forms a genus, in the same manner in which particulars form a general. Thus generalization consists in forming one comprehensive idea out of many particulars which enter into its composition. The greater the number of particulars, the more perfect, comprehensive, and luminous is the general idea. Thus our minds are developed and furnished with ideas according to the order of creation in which God arranges all His productions. This is true natural logic, as distinguised from artificial, which, if it teach not according to this order, is but of little use to man. For the sake of illustration-a child learns to read in a way similar to that in which the human mind learns to think. The child first learns the letters and then the words, which are the particulars of the sentence which, as a general, comprises them all. The child learns the letters and words one by one, or successively, and he pronounces the sentence as a whole, or at once, which is simultaneously. There is throughout creation successive order and simultaneous order; and things have not only been created, but arranged according to this order. The animals which, as types of the genus to which they belong, comprise all the species and individuals which enter into its composition, are of a larger size. Thus the whale is the type of a genus comprising many species and innumerable particulars. It is also a law of order that the general shall subsist upon the particulars which enter into its composition. It feeds upon them, and thus sustains itself. *Deprive a general of its particulars, and it dies. Thus the ichthyosaurus, as the type of a genus, fed upon the particular things which entered into the composition of the genus of which it was the type. The whale, in like manner, as the

type of a genus, feeds upon the particulars which, as herrings or other fish, enter into its composition. Hence the "whale corresponds (says Swedenborg) to the scientific principle in general." But we are not to conclude that because the whale is monstrous in its form, and feeds upon other fish, like the ichthyosaurus of the primeval ages before the creation of man, it is therefore a form of evil, and that it has an evil nature.

66

But

We consider, then, that these primeval animals are by no means to be considered as forms of evil, either on account of their appearance or on account of their voracity as feeding upon other animals adapted to their nature and subsistence. These geological monsters, therefore, are by no means to be considered as the embodiment of infernal evils from a race of mighty but fallen human spirits, who have never existed in human flesh." Still less do they "indicate a great contest between God and Satan commenced ages before the creation of man." these forms, however monstrous they may appear to us, were perfectly according to the order of God's creation, as corresponding to the corporeal and sensual, or ultimate degrees of life, which are the first plane or platform on which, as shewn above, forms of life appear. Nor does the fact, "that they were armed with fearful weapons to kill and to torture their victims," prove that they were forms of evil. It is a mere assumption that they tortured their victims. This cannot be proved. The weapons which appear to our correspondent "weapons of torture," were no doubt most adapted to put them speedily to death, and thus to avoid torture. The whale does not torture its victims. That the type of the genus does, in the order of creation, feed upon the species which enter into its composition, as particulars enter into the composition of a general, was shewn above. Thus man, who is the universal type of creation, may feed upon all things in the animal and vegetable, yea, in the mineral kingdom also, which he finds conducive to his nourishment and his health, which is not the case with any animal.

Instead, therefore, of these facts of the geological ages referring to "truths beyond the system of Swedenborg," we sincerely think that Swedenborg's is the only system that can rationally explain them; and that when our correspondent comes up to a knowledge of the truths which are in this system he will think so too; and will, moreover, see the truth of the author's declaration, that ferocious and venemous

[ocr errors]

animals had their origin together with hell."

As to Behmen, to whom our correspondent alludes, we can say as the result of our studies of that mystic author, that there are other errors besides "the mutilation of his angels in order to abolish the distinction of sex in heaven, the existence of angels prior to the creation of man, and the origin of matter as the consequence of their fall." These we conceive to be errors of the greatest moment, totally destructive of all true thinking and intelligence respecting God's creation, and of the order which He in His infinite wisdom has, from first principles to ultimates, introduced into the created universe. That these errors have no foundation in Scripture has been often demonstrated in these pages.

With these errors in the mind it is impossible to dwell in the

« EelmineJätka »