that, at the end of the last lecture, when he addressed his audience, saying that he thanked them for their attention, and hoped that should he come again he might meet with less prejudice, he was clapped." We have also seen three newspapers, the Cheltenham Free Press of June 11, and the Cheltenham Journal of June 13 and 20. The first gives a very fair report of the first lecture to the extent of a whole column of small print. The Journal of June 13, after giving the subjects of the course, quotes the Creed as contained in The Liturgy. Of the lecture on the Human Soul, it says, "it displayed none of the peculiar tenets of the New Church; it resembled more a well written essay on that important subject the reasoning was good, close, and convincing; and it struck us as being one of the best answers to the horrid atheistical doctrines now so unhappily prevalent, that we ever heard." It then gives an outline of the lecture. The Journal of June 20, devotes a column and a half of very small print, equal to about ten of our own pages, to a full and faithful report of the last two lectures. Thus, through the liberality of the editors, a much greater number of persons than attended the lectures, will have the substance of them brought before them. These reports, will in fact, serve much the same purpose as tracts. It cannot then be doubted, that some positive good will result from this attempt to extend the Lord's kingdom. We have not yet received Mr. Howarth's own report; and we are happy to state, that, at the time we write, he is lecturing in the Potteries. MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION. AMERICA. find We are pleased to that the American Magazine continues to notice the contents of each No. of the Repository. We wish to do the same, but have been prevented. The March No. opens with a long and very interesting address on the important subject of "Remains," by Samson Reed. We heartily recommend it. An historical account of the London Printing Society closes the number. In April, we have On Music, No. 3. Retrospection-Digestion, spiritually and naturally considered. Ethiopia, or the interior of Africa, in reference to the New Church. Thanks to a London friend, they learn what is going on in our Printing Society almost as soon as we do on this side of the water. They announce, as just published, Barrett's Lectures; De Charms's Five Lectures on the Fun.. damental Doctrines of the New Church; On the Credibility of Swedenborg, from the London edition, and Miss Gray's Juvenile Ballads. The May No. contains "Immutability," which we publish in our present No. This is followed by, "Double Consciousness," especially in reference to the Lord; a deeply interesting paper. "On the Propriety of the Ministry being clothed in garments corresponding to their official uses." "Swedenborg's doctrine concerning the order of the Church and the Ministry," very forcibly advocating a three-fold order. New societies have been formed at Pittsburg, at Rockport, Ohio, and at Canton, Ful.. ton County, Illinois. "A Letter to a Friend on Swedenborgianism," which was written by a London Friend, has been published there, and may be had here. NOTICES OF MEETINGS.-The Ninth Annual Meeting of the General Missionary Assembly of the New Church in Scotland, will be held on Friday, 15th of July, 1842, at Glasgow, to assemble at the Society's place of Worship, 104, Brunswick Street, at 5 o'clock, P.M. The 20th Anniversary of the London New Jerusalem Church Free School Society, will be held on Wednesday, July 6, at the Royal Brunswick House and Pleasure Grounds, Vauxhall Road. The children are to be on the grounds at halfpast 2, Tea will be provided at half-past 5, and the Chair is to be taken at 7, precisely. ON THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN THE FREEDOM OF A MAN, AND THE FREEDOM OF A SPIRIT; AND ON THE FREEDOM OF HEAVEN, AND THE SLAVERY OF HELL. THERE is a great difference between the freedom of a man in the world, and the freedom of the same man when he has put off the material body and become a spirit. The freedom of a man, is the freedom to choose between good and evil. It is suited only to the present stage of existence, because it is here only that man has the opportunity of building up himself in, or forming his character from, either good on the one hand, or evil on the other. When the opportunity to do this has come to an end by the death of the body, man's freedom, as consisting in the exercise of choice, has terminated. This freedom is not the proper freedom of man as an image of God; for in God there is no freedom of choice between good and evil. By a necessity of the divine nature, it is only possible to God to choose good, and impossible to prefer evil. The freedom of a spirit is the sense of liberty he feels in acting from, and according to, his ruling love, in which, during the life of the body, the man had confirmed himself, and which he had freely made to be the ground of his distinguishing quality and character. A good spirit or angel finds a sense of freedom, and thence of delight, in doing good only. All the infirmities of his external man are then finally shut up and at rest; so that if he still had the freedom of a man as formerly, to choose between good and evil, there would be no opportunity of exercising that choice, owing to the absence of opposing elements to choose from, good only being presented to a good spirit from his internal man, and not any evil from his external; and supposing even that it were then allowed to recal to activity the removed evils of the external man,-to act from them would be so opposite to his sense of liberty, originating in his ruling love of good, that he would shrink from doing evil, as from the most horrible and tormenting slavery. The liberty enjoyed by a good spirit, is the image of the divine liberty; for God is free to act with infinite delight only from divine love; and a good spirit is free to act with celestial delight only from charity, which originates from, and is the image of, divine love. In becoming the recipient of divine love by regeneration, the regenerate man becomes, at the same time, and in the same degree, a partaker of the divine freedom, and the delight thereof; but because the evils and infirmities of the external man remain open during the life of the body, this kind of freedom, proper to a spirit, is often suspended by the recurrence of states proper only to man's condition on earth, such as states of temptation, and of the activity of evil spirits therein, who delight to bring man into the bondage of sin. And since the activity of the freedom proper to man's spirit is thus liable to be impeded while he is in the body, in the same degree is the delight thereof diminished and clouded over. Indeed, the freedom of the spirit and the freedom of the man, are, to a certain extent, incompatible with each other; so that as the one accedes, the other recedes. Freedom of choice can only be exercised when evil is presented (and presented with allurement) as well as good; but the freedom which is the image of the divine freedom, is only felt in fulness when evil is either entirely absent, or, if presented, is perceived as altogether without allurement, being regarded with absolute condemnation and unmixed abhorrence, and, consequently, it is in a state of rejection. Not until man has laid down the freedom of a man, can he enter in fulness into the freedom of a spirit. But hitherto we have been considering the freedom of a spirit standing in its true order; that is, the freedom of an angel, and which is felt as the most perfect freedom, being "the glorious liberty of the children of God," because the Lord graciously vouchsafes to an angel the fullest sense of freedom in acting from holy love, so that he experiences, in a degree unknown on earth, that the Lord's service is the most perfect freedom. In order to his realizing this blessed state, it is given to him to feel as if he acted altogether from himself, and, at the same time, interiorly to perceive that he acts entirely from the Lord. If this feeling existed without this perception, he would take merit to himself and perish; and if this perception existed without this feeling, it would destroy all sense of freedom, and thence of happiness. In an angel, therefore, the freedom of the spirit is altogether unrestricted, and flows into a thousand channels of unspeakable delight. Quite the opposite is the freedom proper to the spirit as it exists in disorder, in an evil spirit or devil, because his state and mental organization is altogether opposite to that of an angel. An evil spirit finds delight only in doing evil, or in acting from the evil love which on earth he allowed to rule and freely chose to be his ruling love, whence came his distinguishing quality and character during the life of the body. He can only act from evil, for good and evil are no longer presented for his choice. And here it may be observed, that a good man, when he exercises his free choice in a state of temptation, has evil presented to him for his choice as a thing not homogeneous, but extraneous and foreign to him; while a wicked, or merely natural man, having formed his character from evil, so as to have made only evil his own, when good is presented for his choice, it is presented to him as a thing not his own, or not homogeneous to him, but which he may make his own, by putting away the evil which he had previously made his own. An evil spirit, then, having refused the offer of receiving good on these conditions, when he comes into hell, has no good in him, and, therefore, has no longer the power of choice between good and evil, and must remain in evil for ever. But, as before observed, the freedom of an evil spirit as consisting in the delight of doing evil, is the opposite to that of an angel, and is, consequently, utterly opposed to the divine freedom; and hence it is, that no evil spirit can abide in heaven, and that divine mercy has provided a place out of heaven, called hell, wherein an evil spirit may find less torment than he would experience if in heaven! Order requires that the tendencies of infernal spirits should be restrained; and, consequently, the infernal freedom of an evil spirit is continually under restraint, which makes hell to be no place of freedom at all, but, on the contrary, a place of eternal slavery! Every one feels liberty in acting from, and gratifying his love; but he feels slavery in being restrained from such gratification, and in being compelled to act according to the love or will of another. All delight is from love, and all pain from the opposition and violence which is offered to love. All in hell are compelled to forego the exercise of their own individual freedom. Having refused, during the life of the body, to acquire the capacity of heavenly freedom, which consists in acting as one or in unison with the Lord, and being made thereby partakers of His sense of freedom-(the conscious effect of which is like that of acting from themselves, and as if from good in themselves) -evil spirits are compelled, through all eternity, to give up their freedom, and act from, or according to, the will of God, as from the will of another, who is in opposition to themselves, and, consequently, to their freedom, and to the delight of it, from all exercise and delight of which they are thus for ever cut off. Such is the slavery of hell! The wicked in this world often appear to be quite happy, because the freedom of their evil love cannot be restricted internally, without depriving them of that freedom of choice belonging to them as men, without which they cannot be reformed. Their freedom to do evil could not be entirely restrained from within, without the freedom to do good being taken away from them in the same degree. Hence it is, that the wicked often appear overflowing with happiness, although such happiness is evidently of the grossest kind. Thus the Psalmist says, "I was envious at the foolish, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. They are not in trouble as other men; neither are they plagued like other men."-But what is the consequence of this apparently enviable distinction? It is thus impressively stated in the words which next follow. "Therefore pride compasseth them about as a chain; violence covereth them as a garment.-Their eyes stand out with fatness; they have more than heart could wish ;"—(but, alas! this only adds to their wickedness, for) "they are corrupt and speak wickedly oppression, they speak loftily, they set their mouth against the heavens, and their tongue walketh [arrogantly] through the earth;they say How doth God know? and, Is there knowledge in the Most High?-Behold! these are the ungodly who prosper in the world." (Psalm 83.) Very different, indeed, is the lot of the godly in this world, for the Lord himself has thus declared to his true followers: "In the world ye shall have tribulation." Again: "Whom I love I rebuke and chasten." The wicked are not spiritually afflicted, because evil, the ground of spiritual affliction, is no affliction to them; but the good are afflicted by the presence of evil, because the evil, by which they are tempted, they hate above all things. But what is the final issue? How emphatically this is declared in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus: "But Abraham said [to the rich man in torment] Son, remember that thou in thy life-time receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things; but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented.” When the wicked come into hell, their lust to do evil rages in them; but because of the restraint upon them from the divine influx through heaven, operating to preserve and to compel to the observance of order, their love to do evil is like a consuming fire pent up in them. This is implied by the words of the selfish rich man in hell, “ I am tormented in this flame!" The "good things," which in their life-time the evil receive, are the foul delights arising from the unrestricted freedom which they then experience in acting from, and according to, their ruling love of evil; and which is left unrestricted (except by |