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light of angelic wisdom, and therefore, the sooner they are rejected by our correspondent and by others who entertain them, the better it will be for their mental states.

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The assertion that "soul alone, not spirit, is attributed to Adam, and that in no Scripture is spirit or spiritual life ascribed to man before the fall," is indeed consummate mysticism, and yet this writer "is looking for truths beyond the system of Swedenborg." The entire narrative of that part of Genesis teaches, both according to Behmen and Swedenborg. how man became by regeneration the subject of spiritual life. It is said that at the beginning "the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters," to teach us that man could not possibly become ". a living soul" without being imbued with the spirit of God. Adam, or man, was full of this spiritual life prior to the fall. The first man Adam was made a living soul," implies that Adam, or the man of the most ancient church, by regeneration or by being imbued with the spirit of God, became a "living soul." "The last Adam a quickening spirit," evidently means that the Lord, by the glorification of His Humanity, became a quickening or life-giving spirit to all, for out of Him proceeds the spirit of Truth or the Holy Spirit, which gives spiritual life to all. "As in Adam all die," shows that as in fallen human nature all are spiritually dead, even so in Christ," or the glorified Human Nature in the Lord, "all shall be made alive." This plainly indicates that the Divine Humanity, or the Lord in "His glorious Body, in whom all the fulness of the Godhead dwells," is the one only source of spiritual life and salvation to all. And this great truth, seen but obscurely by Behmen, who has stated nothing clear and decided on the subject of the Divine Humanity, is brought most prominently out from the Word by Swedenborg, as the one only Fountain of life and salvation to the church and to the human

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What the writer intimates as his belief in the non-eternity of the hells, notwithstanding the plain declarations of Scripture and the teachings of Behmen and Swedenborg to the contrary, is much to be regretted, as it shows he is more enamoured with his own opinions than he is delighted with the Truths of God's Word. We will only remark that on this momentous point-the eternity of hell-Swedenborg has done what no other author could do, and what Behmen and other writers on spiritual subjects have not attempted. Swedenborg, by his doctrine that all intermediates are created and produced from first principles by ultimates, has shown in the most rational light how it is that both the heavens and the hells are eternal, and cannot be otherwise. But we cannot here enter upon the rationale of this question.*

As to the Last Judgment, of which, as our correspondent admits, Swedenborg has given the true exposition, we would advise him not to be looking out upon the mundane heavens for some mighty phenomena to appear in attestation of this great event, but rather to look with the eyes of his spirit or with his rational mind at the great changes which in a thousand forms are visible to the reflecting mind, and he will

* See this Periodical for April last (p. 170), also the Rev. J. H. Smithson's letters to the Editor of the Christian Weekly News, on the "Nature of Future Rewards and Punishments."

perceive greater proofs of the Last Judgment, and its consequent results, than any external phenomena could possibly evince.

The greatest work of Behmen is the Mysterium Magnum, in which he attempts to expound the mystical sense of the book of Genesis. Now, those who desire to form an idea of the great and luminous difference between these two writers in their exposition of Genesis, have only to compare the Arcana Calestia with the Mysterium Magnum, and they will find, that whilst the former is all light and clearness, the latter, although admitting a recondite or mystical meaning in the Divine Word, is, in its attempts to expound it, obscurity indeed. The former may be compared to the rays of the meridian sun, discovering all objects, so that everything is seen distinctly and clearly; the latter to the dim twilight after the sun is set, when objects cannot, at the least distance, be clearly distinguished,-when a horse cannot be distinguished from a cow, or a mansion from a barn. It is true that Behmen and Swedenborg agree, as our respected correspondent says, in the necessity of regeneration, of repentance, or the shunning of evil, as sinful in God's sight, and in the necessity of a life of holiness, as the means of salvation, in opposition to the doctrine of imputed righteousness, as taught by the dogma of justification by faith only, in condemnation of which they both unite, as anti-Christian, and as the curse and ruin of the Christian Church. Some remarks on being caught up in the air," &c., we must reserve for next month. EDITOR.

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THE ESSENTIAL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SPIRITUAL, AND NATURAL OR MATERIAL SUBSTANCE.

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GOD Himself is essential Substance and essential Form. essential Life. But He can neither give to His creatures His essential Snbstance, His essential Form, nor His essential Life. Yet, by means of discrete degrees, He can bring into existence substances and forms of two universal kinds, both derived from His own; not, however, from His essential Substance and Form immediately, but mediately, the medium being the first proceeding sphere flowing from His Divine Person, or His essential Substance and Form. This first proceeding sphere is the Sun of the spiritual world.

In this spiritual Sun, within which the Lord has His personal abode, is the end of all created things. For, according to the doctrine of discrete degrees, there are three things in every series, which stand in discrete relationship to each other, namely, end, cause, and effect. In each series of discrete degrees this threefold order is observed; so that no complete series consists of more nor of less than three. The most universal series of all in creation is that in which the spiritual Sun is the end, the whole spiritual world the cause, and the whole natural universe the effect.

"God" Himself "is a Man." "The first proceeding from His Love and Wisdom is a fiery spiritual principle," which is not "Divine by itself," but by derivation from the essential Divine, or the Person of God. This proceeding Divine is the Holy Spirit.

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"The heat and light which proceed from the Lord as a sun, by way of eminence are called the spiritual, and they are called the spiritual in the singular number, because they are one. "By virtue of this spiritual that whole world is called spiritual; all things in that world derive their origin and their name through that spiritual. That heat and that light are called the spiritual, because God is called a Spirit, and God as a Spirit is that proceeding." D. L. W. 100.

"Both the heat and light of the spiritual world in themselves are alive; but both the heat and light of the natural world in themselves are dead; for the heat and light of the spiritual world proceed from a Sun which is pure love, and the heat and light of the natural world proceed from a sun which is pure fire; and love is alive, and the Divine Love is life itself; and fire is dead, and the fire of the sun is death itself; so it may be called dead, because it has nothing of life in it." D. L. W. 89.

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The substance, then, of the spiritual world, and of all things therein, is substance in which the life from the Divine is received internally, while the substance of all things in the natural werld, and of the sun of nature itself, is substance 'from which all life is abstracted." So that life from the Divine only acts upon the substance of the natural world, not inwardly in it; wherefore all natural substance is called dead; and the term "material," in this universal sense, is applicable to it all; the universal origin and condition of the inertness of all that is material, being, that "all life is abstracted" from it.

"The sun of the natural world is pure fire, from which all life is abstracted; but the sun of the spiritual world is fire containing divine life. The idea of the angels concerning the fire of the sun of the natural world and the fire of the sun of the spiritual world is this; that the divine life is internally in the fire of the sun of the spiritual world, but externally in the fire of the sun of the natural world. From this it may be seen that the actuality of the sun of the natural world is not from itself, but from the living power proceeding from the sun of the spiritual world; wherefore if the living power of the latter sun were withdrawn or taken away, the former sun would perish." D. L. W. 157.

As was before stated, the most universal series of discrete degrees in creation is that in which the sun of the spiritual world is the end, the whole spiritual world the cause, and the whole natural 'universe the effect; and it is from and within this most universal series that all created beings have their existence, and the ground and condition of their being. It is here that is to be seen the essential difference between substance which is spiritual and substance which is material; the one is living

and the other dead. But the spiritual, which is called living, is not so called because it has anything of essential life, or of the divine, in it; but because it is derived from a living sun, and so is adapted in its essence to receive life from that sun internally into the very ground of its being. Not so the substance of the world of nature. This is derived from a dead sun, and so is not adapted to receive any life into the ground of its substantiality; but only to be acted upon by life existing in forms constituted of substance that is spiritual, But this action is not an action of life existing in the realm of nature, but of life existing in the realm of spirit, operating by correspondence, and therefore discretely, into the world of nature. When, therefore, it is said that life acts upon the substances in the world of nature, it is meant to be affirmed that because they have a dead origin, and therefore dead essences (so to speak), life cannot, by the operation of the law of correspondence, be communicated to them as substances, but only in appearance to subjects formed of them; which subjects are, by the action of life from the spiritual world, so formed as to correspond to, and bear the image of, the essential things in the spiritual world, which these subjects, formed of dead substances, manifest in the world of nature. And because they constitute the stoppers of the action of life, they seem to live; and are, when we speak according to appearances, called living.

Thus we say our bodies live, but this is only true in appearance; every particle of the bodily substance has a dead origin, and cannot, because of the operation of the essential law that gives it being, be made alive really. For, whatever new qualities or properties are, or appear to be, acquired by created substances, when they enter into the organization of created beings, must all necessarily be in subordination to that universal series of discrete degrees from which they, as created substances, derive their existence. Otherwise their very existence would be dissipated, and it would be tantamount to saying that created beings could be formed of nothing; because the divine law which gives existence to created substances would be suspended, and therefore creation itself, in relation to such substances, would be undone. For instance, whatever material substance be taken into the constitution of a man, or a horse, by being assimilated from food, cannot thereby be changed from material to spiritual, or from dead to living substance; it is dead substance still, interiorly viewed. And consequently, when the life of the soul of the man or the horse discontinues its action upon it, the whole becomes a carcase of dead matter. It falls back into its original condition,-a proof that it had not put off its subordination to the fundamental law of its being.

Matter, then, must for ever remain matter, unless that fundamental law be dissipated which stamps its nature upon it. So long as it exists within the universe which is governed by, and derived from, a dead sun, its nature must be dead. Hence we find that the body of the most lively and energetic man, and the coldest and hardest stone, are contiguous one to the other,—a proof that they exist upon the same common plane,— that the one is material as well as the other. But, if only one instance can be produced in which this fundamental law of nature is seen to be dissipated, it will be seen that, in such case, the living body and the cold stone will no longer be the common subjects of the same world of nature. And we are told that if the living power of the spiritual sun were taken away, the natural or dead sun would perish; from which it follows, that even dead nature owes its being to the activity of the living sun. I am quite aware that our author makes a distinction in some parts of his writings between natural and material things. But this distinction has its origin in the degrees into which the substances of the natural world are divided; which, however, are homogeneous one to another. He applies the term natural to the things which are interior in nature, and the term material to those which are ultimate. But this distinction does not affect the conclusion above arrived at.

Here I am led to notice some of the statements and conclusions contained in a paper headed-"On Matter and Natural Substance," contained in the last two numbers of this Periodical. This paper is from the pen of our intelligent friend S. S., with many of whose previous papers I must own to having been much pleased and instructed. He is capable of viewing subjects of New Church doctrine and spiritual philosophy from a deeper ground than many of his brethren. But in the present case, I am forced, by the interests of truth, to differ from some of his statements, and also to state such difference in a controversial form. But I do so in the full assurance that however we may differ in our thoughts and conclusions, that will not affect our relations to each other personally, in any such manner as to cause ill feelings and bitter expressions to be given forth by either of us in reference to each other.

At the commencement of his paper he says-" To conclude that the substance of any form is the same as it was before it was organized into a form, is to judge from the eye. and not from the mind." Now who can say that the substance of the body of a living man appears to the eye to be the same as the food which is spread upon his table? Yet if the above application of Swedenborg's words be correct, it should appear so. But in this case the judgment of the eye is just the reverse.

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