His teaching relative to governments was to have a general application. As to the church, he saw that in various countries there were ecclesiastical establishments, and that the people attending their places of worship were in a low condition. They could not govern themselves from the Lord alone. They needed to be governed by ecclesiastics, who should restrain their evils, and punish them if necessary. Hence there were ecclesiastical courts; there were pains and penalties; men did penance by standing in white sheets, and by exposure in the stocks. But since then these things have been changing, because order can be maintained in churches without them. Among Romanists we see in a striking manner the use of priestly authority, for a priest can quell a mob, when the civil officers can do nothing; and in various other ways he can restrain evils in his flock. Such priestly rule is most useful among men in a low and depraved condition.

But suppose we admit that our author's teachings are meant for the New Church as a separate denomination. The reasons for this ecclesiastical ruling are still in force, because it only applies to cases where people are so low and vicious that they cannot be kept in order without it.

The reader must now see the consistency of Swedenborg's teaching relative to the priesthood and priestly government. Like as kings and magistrates, prisons and punishments, must cease when men can live in order by self-government from God alone, even so priests must cease to be governors in ecclesiastical matters when church members can govern themselves. In this case priests and all others must become servants one to another. The church will then be in that normal state which he refers to in the passage where he says of the priesthood that it "only serves, and as it serves is to be honoured."

In using the terms priest and priesthood, in this paper, it is not to be understood that such names should be substituted for those of ministers and ministry. They are simply used here in a generic sense, as Swedenborg himself has used them.

Nothing can be more out of character in a Christian minister than claiming honour, dignity, and power in the church. If Swedenborg has said that priests are to receive honour, he has certainly not said that they are to claim it. No doubt he wished them also to deserve the honour they receive, and the way to deserve it is to practice the doctrines they preach. It is to shun self-exaltation; to be meek and lowly; to want not the name of Rabbi, nor the chief seats in synagogues; to be full of love to others; to be intelligent and useful; to be brethren among brethren, or servants among the servants of God. Such men will always be loved, and if loved then honoured too, and honoured in a proper way.

Swedenborg says "Love honours, and honour cannot be separated from love."-C. L. 331.) Also he says that in heaven "no one is esteemed except according to good and truth." (H. and H. 407.)

It is but due to say of our ministers, that as a body we believe they have but little sympathy with Argus and his papers. They have no difficulties with the Conference or with societies. Even the changes complained of originated with some of them, because they saw it would be useful to make them. They are at peace with their brethren the laity, and want no controversies such as Argus has raised, which are uncalled for and needless. In view of some of his assertions, they may say-Save us from our friends.

There is much remaining to be said against what is in the papers of Argus, but at present we have written at sufficient length. Our principal aim in this paper has been to shew that the New Church is not to have a ruling priesthood.

SERVUS.

ASSYRIA AND ITS SIGNIFICANCE IN THE WORD OF GOD,
AS ILLUSTRATED BY THE NINEVEH SCULPTURES.
A Course of Lectures recently delivered by the Rev. T. Chalklen.
(Continued from page 454.)

THE BABYLONISH PRINCIPLE IN THE CHURCH.

THIS Babylonish principle is so contrary to the heavenly spirit, that the Lord will not acknowledge it as at all belonging to his church, yet his church in its low condition may be captive in Babylonhis church, as represented by Judah, not as represented by Israel. They whose understandings are occupied about religious truth can hardly be brought to such submission, their danger is from Assyria; but such as are the subjects of religious feelings, and whose simple minds do not enter into subjects of faith, being principled rather in obedience, even Babylon can be a safe refuge for them, until the descending light of heavenly truth shall disclose her abominations, and call upon them to come out of her, that they partake not of the plagues that must come upon her. We may see this profane principle abounding more in one portion or denomination in Christendom than in any other, but it does not exist exclusively in any; perhaps no association of Christians exists altogether free from it. They whose doctrines call forth their rationality into superior exercise have reason to beware of introducing among them this spirit of Babylon, lest it should increase,

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and at length take the more humble-minded into its captivity. And those who feel no tendency to this have also to take care that their rationality becomes not perverted; for perverted reasonings, as we have before observed, will induce insanities and follies, and bring on the destruction of the rational principle, and thus leave the influences of a profane self-love unchecked, or Babylon to set up its dominion, for in these ways Assyria can become the country of Babylonian dominion.

The Scripture record does not give an account of Babylon's destruction. Daniel tells of its being taken by Darius, the Median, on the night of Belshazzar's impious feast, and speaks likewise of Cyrus, the Persian, as the sovereign of Babylon. The prophecies foretell it, and describe its desolation in striking language:-" Babylon shall become heaps, a dwelling-place for dragons, an astonishment and a hissing without an inhabitant. Her cities are a dry land, wherein no man dwelleth. Thus saith the Lord of hosts, The broad walls of Babylon shall be utterly broken, and her high gates shall be burned with fire." According to the historians, Cyrus, after his defeat of Babylon, made it his winter residence, and the third capital town of his kingdom; but in consequence of a revolt, the walls and gateways were broken down, and the population soon decreased so greatly as to make it necessary to supply it with women from the surrounding country. At the time of Diodorus and Strabo the greater part of Babylon lay in ruins, and there were cornfields within its ancient precincts. Other cities, in places not too distant, were partly built of materials taken from the ruins, so that it became indeed a waste. Thus was ancient Babylon destroyed. Equally complete shall be the downfall of spiritual Babylon prior to the full establishment of the New Jerusalem. "A mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with violence shall that great city, Babylon, be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all."

LECTURE VI.

IN regarding the subject of Assyria as affording useful instruction in the Science of Correspondences, and endeavouring by means of the many points of interest it presents to elicit information useful both to our understandings and our hearts, we have been led to consider the origin of Assyria as one of the principal representative nations treated of in the Holy Word; to look at the combined testimony of the literal sense of the Word and of the exhumed sculptures,-to the fact of its being a proper representative of the rational principle, and by its moral decline becoming a fit representative of a perverted rationality; and we

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have been led also to place its progress literally as the enemy of Israel, and spiritually as the antagonist of the Lord's Church, in its oppositions respectively, its conquests, and its own degradation, overthrow, and devastation. And we have also taken a summary glance at Babylon, as the successor of Assyria, its ambition, domination, and downfall. So far as we have been able to investigate these things, we have not only recognised the relation between certain spiritual principles and certain nations or kingdoms, but seen likewise that the condition of the nations, through the progress of their history, bears analogy to the successive influences and operation of the spiritual principles. So much has this shewn itself to be the case, that we are warranted, I think, in regarding the spiritual things and processes represented as the causes of the representatives and their successive conditions, especially as we know that nothing can transpire in the natural world but as the effect of some spiritual cause. When, in reference to any subject, we are in a position to see to some extent the spiritual causes in their connexion with the natural effects, we are qualified by our knowledge of the spiritual, to extend our judgment in respect to the natural, and also on the other hand, by what we know of the natural, are able to arrive at some further conclusions respecting the spiritual.

On the subject of Assyria we have been enabled to gather information of both kinds, and have experienced the aid that each has afforded for a better understanding of the other; and we are now, by observing what has happened to Assyria, able to elicit further truths belonging to the spiritual part of our subject. Not only did Assyria, like many other kingdoms, fall and perish after having sustained a long-continued distinction in the earth for power and magnificence, but the remaining ruins of its cities, shunned by all but the wild beasts and birds of desolation, hid themselves from the eye of man beneath the soil of the desert, as if to bury in oblivion all remembrance of their vanished pride and glory; and even on the pages of history there was scarcely written an epitaph to tell the world that this once mighty nation had ever been. It is true, that its name was to be found frequently repeated in the sacred books of divine inspiration. Some small portion of its history was related, and abundance of prophecies testified to its importance as a representative of some principle in close affinity with the church of the Lord, but otherwise it was almost blotted out from the memory of man. And now, after twenty-five centuries have rolled by, and disbelievers in Holy Writ were about to class Assyria with the fabulous imaginations of mythical lore, we see its self-told history sculptured by its own artists, and written by its own chroniclers on its own

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marbles, that have been liberated from their long seclusion, and brought to us and placed in our national depository for all men to read.

To what spiritual cause must these things be attributed? If Assyria in its prosperity, and opposed to Israel, represented the rational principle in a perverted condition, the influent life of those peculiarities, in their character which rendered them such a representative must have come from this represented principle, as it then existed in reference to the church, either in the natural or the spiritual world. Similar must the case have been in reference to Assyria's downfall. The perverted rationality becoming altogether insane and powerless as to all matters of religion, would be the spiritual cause, the operation of which, among representative things, would find its termination or basis in Assyria's downfall. And thus, again, would it be in reference to the long disappearance of the Assyrian cities. The exercise of the rational principle even in its perverted condition having ceased in respect to religious truth, passive obedience to priestly domination having taken its place, and such a state of things continuing long, would result in the long disappearance of those cities. And still, again, the renewal in religion of rationality of a new character, not resembling the former, yet having an affinity to it, would, among its other representative manifestations in the natural world, occasion the discovery of the long lost remains of the ancient representative cities, not to build them up again, but as instructive mementoes of past perversions to be for ever avoided.

It may, perhaps, be objected to this idea of the spiritual causes, that we have not evidence that the supposed states of the church existed as appear to be required in these cases. It certainly is not very obvious that they did so in the natural world; yet we cannot easily judge of this matter, for notwithstanding Israel was not in the exercise of the rational principle, being only the representation of the spiritual church, we are not certain that no branch of the fallen ancient church was in existence by whom the perverted rationality was exercised about its doctrines. If, however, the whole of the ancient church had fallen into a state too grovelling and sensual even for exercising a perverted rationality, those in the world of spirits immediately in connexion with the Assyrians, might be in such a perverted use of their reasoning powers as would find its analogy and basis in the Assyrian character. So, again, in the world of spirits; there might have been in the lowest degree of spiritual life and worship such as would be brought into bondage by false reasoners there. The corresponding natural state to theirs would be that of the Israelites in bondage to Nineveh. The long disappearance of the Assyrian cities, therefore, may have its spiritual correlative in those [Enl. Series.-No. 71, vol. vi.]