498 ASSYRIA AND ITS SIGNIFICANCE IN THE WORD OF GOD, regions of the world of spirits that are immediately connected with the church on earth, in that utter destitution of all rationality which there prevailed for so long a period, as is evident from that complete rejection of all rational thinking about the doctrines of truth which spread itself like a veil of blackness for so many ages over the world, and which, though broken in upon by the few early glimmerings of gospel light, soon closed in again, enveloping again the world in darkness. So intense was this darkness that men feared to exercise their reasoning faculty about religion,-submitting to be led in their way to another world blindfolded,-yielding to whatever authority circumstances had placed them nearest to. It was thus throughout the heathen nations; it soon became so through Christendom, and the Musselman's faith rests solely on authority. In reference, therefore, to those higher things for the sake of which, principally, it was given to men, the reasoning faculty had been long buried and forgotten. Learned doctors imagining themselves to be teaching Christianity,-a dispensation, really, of light from heaven,—held a doctrine to be a proper subject for Christian faith in proportion as it was contrary to all rational perception. The understanding was kept bound in obedience to such faith. Consistently, therefore, with such a universal and long-pro acted absence of rationality, the very remains of the ruins of Assyria lay buried and forgotten beneath the earth's soil. This long night was, however, to have its termination. The time was to come when this mental darkness was to be broken by the dawn of day,—when the second coming of the Sun of Righteousness should commence an endless day of spiritual light that shall never again decline, a day the brightness of which shall awaken into activity the mental eyesight, and call forth into healthy exercise the long-slumbering faculty of rationality, a day the light of which shall be real and lasting, because accompanying the vivifying heat of sacred love that will be for ever emanating from this living Sun. This coming radiance has already brightened the horizon with its cheering tokens. The dark and evil barriers between man and heaven have been removed from the mid-world. The eye of truth is penetrating the long-established falsities and abominations that the night had engendered. The early movements of its reforming power are producing simultaneously useful discoveries and inventions, ameliorations of social evils and destructions and desolations, detections of error, and rejections of truth, disturbing the peace of slavery and exciting liberty to arms, dispelling ignorance and superstition, and giving to thought and rationality a freedom that gets used for opening the door to licentiousness. The powers of heaven are AS ILLUSTRATED BY THE NINEVEH SCULPTURES. 499 now contending with the powers of hell for the human heart and understanding; nor will the warfare cease until heaven has conquered, and the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our God. It is in the commencement of this new energy to bring up out of the dust, where it has been so long sleeping, the human mind and God's rational creation, and set it among princes, that man is beginning to remember his original endowment of a rational faculty, and to lament the perversion, debasement, and oblivion to which it had become subject; and consistently with this remembrance or spiritual discovery, the long-concealed and forgotten ruins of Assyria are found and dug from their hiding-place to shew us, in the condition of these representatives in their latter day, what that rational principle had become to warn us of the danger of perverting so important a faculty that is now being resuscitated for the purpose of our becoming spiritual in our understandings and heavenly in our hearts. The mercy and wisdom of the Lord, by the operations of life in the spiritual world flowing into the region of natural life, occasion the wonderful analogies that may often be seen between the spiritual states of men and outward occurrences in the natural world. That such things should be is not difficult to understand when the proximity and connection of the two worlds are known. That the new dispensation requires the resuscitation of the rational faculty, is clear to everyone who reflects upon the intellectual character of its doctrines and revelations. It is not by any blind assent to dogmas uttered by authority that a New Church faith can be formed; the understanding is to be enlightened, that it may see and inquire on, and learn perpetually. The principles of truth are to be seen, their consistency discerned, and their harmony felt. The laws of righteousness are not to be looked at and observed as a set of rules prescribed by authority, and enforced by penalties; they are to be understood as wisdom's description of goodness,—indeed, as infinite wisdom's account of infinite goodness, so that the righteous man may be recognised as the image of the Lord our righteousness. The infinite Jehovah's manifestations of himself are to make him really known;-the harmony of his glorious attributes is to be seen;-the developments of his love and wisdom in the operations of his power are to be investigated; the constitution of humanity, as natural, spiritual, and heavenly;-the order of the natural universe as the outward type of all things human, heavenly, and divine;-the written Word, as full of divine wisdom in every expression, and as an entire form of divine truth, describing in its spiritual sense the whole works of redemption and regeneration;-the spiri 500 ASSYRIA AND ITS SIGNIFICANCE IN THE WORD OF GOD, tual world, its nature and laws;—the Divine Providence, ever operating, and in all, even the minutest things and circumstances, among the evil consequences of man's degeneracy, to bring out of evil the greatest possible amount of good. All these things are for the exercise of the rational faculty, and its endless developments in the Lord's New Church. But although all this, yea, all wisdom, is provided for the development and elevation of the rational principle, it is all for a still further purpose,it is that the life of man may become heavenly,—that love of a heavenly character may be the motive power in all that his heart cherishes or his hands perform,-that he may wisely love and wisely do, that the influent life that supplies all his desires and impulses, may be received and used according to pure wisdom,-that he may learn to discern between the evil and the good, and between the different degrees and kinds of these, and how to regulate in reference to them his various affections, propensities, partialities, attentions, and gratifications. The supplies afforded to his awakening rationality are also to be received and used with a due regard to a well-ordered development of this faculty, otherwise it will miss of realizing the intended good. It has likewise to be preserved in its proper relation to other faculties and principles of the mind, that it be neither neglected nor too exclusively attended to. Without the rational faculty man would be no better than a beast, but rationality alone is not a man. It holds an important place in the spiritual constitution, but it has its proper place. Let those who are treating it as their pet faculty beware lest, by their unwise favouritism, they spoil it, and so turn the intended blessing of so distinguishing a gift into a curse. It was rationality gloried in and exercised for its own sake that Assyria, as the enemy of Israel, represented;-it was rationality turned insane and puerile that Assyria in its downfall represented ;—it was rationality lost and forgotten that the ruins of Assyria, buried in the desert, represented; it is the new rationality just awakening into life, and called forth to the light, the existing ruins of a debased and destroyed rationality, that is represented by the leading nations of Europe discovering and bringing home for review the remains of Assyria;-it is the new ⚫ rationality restored to orderly conjunction, both with lower and higher principles in the Lord's Church, that is represented by the prophecies that appear to foretell the restoration of Assyria. In Isaiah xix. we read" In that day shall there be a highway out of Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrian shall come into Egypt, and the Egyptian into Assyria, and the Egyptians shall serve with the Assyrians. In that day shall Israel be the third with Egypt and with Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the land; whom the Lord of hosts shall bless, saying, Blessed AS ILLUSTRATED BY THE NINEVEH SCULPTURES. 501 be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel mine inheritance." In chapter xi. it says "There shall be a highway for the remnant of his people, which shall be left from Assyria; like as it was to Israel in the day that he came up out of the land of Egypt." The former of these two passages points out the mutual relation of the three principles represented by these three nations, when restored to an orderly condition;-" In that day there shall be a highway out of Egypt to Assyria." The scientifics or knowledges of the natural degree, shall be made such a use of as to call into exercise the rational faculty, and to aid its development; instead of being contented with the accumulation of external knowledges in the memory, or remaining in Egypt, the reasons of things shall be inquired into. The organising operations of living principles observed, shall be referred to the rational thought; the doctrines and precepts of religion will be regarded as worthy subjects to employ the reason about, thus a highway shall be found out of Egypt into Assyria, and the Assyrian shall come into Egypt. The reasoning principle shall willingly employ itself about external truths, and the Egyptian shall come into Assyria; the knowledges of the natural degree shall be elevated into rational light; then shall the Egyptians serve with the Assyrians. Both these principles shall be used, and conjointly so, in contributing to the perfection of the spiritual mind;-In that day shall Israel be the third with Egypt and with Assyria." Israel, or the spiritual principle, instead of being supplied externally for its use with knowledges merely from the scientific principle of Egypt, shall have them enlightened, beautified, and made more suitable for its use by having come through Assyria; thus Assyria becomes the intermediate between Egypt and Israel, or Israel becomes the third with Egypt and with Assyria,—the three nations whom the Lord would acknowledge as his people, and on whom his blessing should be pronounced. The rational principle, Swedenborg tells us, is intermediate between the spiritual and the natural. By exercising the mind upon things of the natural world, the natural principle is formed. It is the possession of a rational faculty that gives man the ability to do this; by this means he can store his memory with all kinds of natural knowledge, become acquainted with natural facts, and also with all such natural forms as are assumed by spiritual truths when expressed in natural language. All these knowledges stored in the memory are the scientifics, and the faculty of acquiring them is represented by Egypt. No one, while remaining in the natural world, can become spiritual without such knowledge. This necessity is represented by Abraham's 502 ASSYRIA AND ITS SIGNIFICANCE IN THE WORD OF GOD, and Isaac's going down to Egypt,-by the children of Israel's dwelling in that country, before being led into the promised land,—and by the Lord, when a child, being taken into Egypt. When the influence of these natural things prevents the mind from being elevated towards spiritual truth, its condition is represented by the bondage in Egypt. When these scientifics are regarded as the highest truths to be acquired, then the mind is worshipping the idols of Egypt. The reason why the animals with the bodily senses in many instances more acute than in man, still remain in their primitive ignorance, and observe not the facts around them, except so far as the necessities of their bestial natures may require, is, because they are without that faculty which man because of his spiritual nature is endowed with. It is not that man uses his rational faculty in acquiring these knowledges or scientifics; but it is a faculty derived therefrom, and one that is lower in his nature, which serves him in this respect. To become wise in the spiritual degree, man must go up out of Egypt, must ascend to a higher region, where the rational principle must be exercised both about spiritual and natural truths; looking up to the spiritual and down upon the natural; preserving, scrupulously, the distinction between the two, and yet so conjoining them, that every spiritual truth shall have its own proper natural truth for its basis and security. As it is the business of the spiritual understanding to receive as its truth what the rational principle in its exercises pronounces a favourable judgment upon, and as all spiritual things that can be submitted to its judgment come into its court in the assumed forms of natural truth, it is necessary that the rational principle should be twofold— spiritual and natural, for then spiritual truths will not vanish out of its sight for the want of being seen in some definite form, nor will the assumed natural forms be mistaken for the real spiritual truths through the want of spiritual discernment. We may define the rational principle, therefore, as consisting of a spiritual rationality and a natural rationality. By the natural part, or rather degree, of this intermediate faculty, men may become learned, clever, able to wind their inquiring way through the labyrinthine mazes of science and natural philosophy, and even to reason extensively and acutely about religious truths; but if the spiritual-rational be not exercised, the reasoning will be all about forms, regardless of their essences, or about external appearances, heedless of internal realities; consequently, though much of the outside world may be minutely known, the laws of life by which it all exists and moves will be unrecognised, and the imagination will be resorted to for explaining the causes and ends of the existences and phenomena of |