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.

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.

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." But 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

66

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 animals had their origin together with hell."

66

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

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.

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

race.

66

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.

66

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

GOD Himself is essential Substance and essential Form. He is also essential Life. But He can neither give to His creatures His essential Substance, 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.

"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.

66

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