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and deadly as the fabled Upas-tree, and makes the world desolate around him. They destroyed integrity, because man, when the heaven within him is shut up, is not whole but partial. They destroyed wisdom, because evil dominant in the heart ever infects the intellect with folly and untruth, since wisdom is no fitting servant for self-love-wisdom rebukes it, and self-love will not suffer rebuke, but casts fair wisdom out.

But, though a rightly guided reason may lead us, with no uncertain step, to the causes that produced the fall of man, still it is to the Word of God that we must make our final appeal. That is the Infinite expressed, and before it the finite and fallible reason must bend for teaching. What, then, say the Scriptures as to the causes which produced the departure of humanity from its pristine integrity? How shall we learn their lesson? Nature has no intelligible word to utter, no vision of sublime order to reveal, to him who approaches her like one deaf and blind, from false theories and preconceptions. So neither can the Scriptures deliver to us their highest wisdom, unless we approach them guided by true principles of interpretation. It was shewn, in a former Paper, that in the Word of God there is a soul of celestial wisdom and spiritual truth, to which the letter is as the outward body and form. And as the body is made to give expression to the soul, so the letter of Scripture is such as we find it in order fitly to clothe the inner wisdom it contains. Nay, in many parts of the Sacred Volume the letter is not given at all, either as a record of facts, or as a repertory of spiritual truth, but simply to lead us to that soul of wisdom that lies beneath the surface. Because men have failed to recognise this principle, many parts of the Word are regarded as obsolete and worthless, and others as uttering irreconcileable contradictions to scientific and even to high moral truth. And he who rejects the principle that, in many places, the letter of Scripture exists only for the sake of the spirit, and not for its own sake at all, destroys, it may be unwittingly, the foundation of that unlimited reverence demanded for the teachings of the Divine Word.

For if it be maintained that these early chapters of Genesis, say the first eleven, do contain a history of things actually done, not all the ingenuity of all the Biblical critics and commentators will extricate us from the labyrinth of difficulties in which we are enclosed. In the first place, if the Mosaic account of the Creation be literally true, the geologists are wrong; and if the geologists be right, then must the Scriptures give up their claims to infallibility. But Science, built up with labour and with patience, appeals to the silent but unquestionable evidence graven deeply in the world, from the primary rock up to the latest alluvial deposit, and maintains the truth of its conclusions in the

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face of this evident antagonism. And in spite of all the efforts that have been made to distort the letter of the Scripture into conformity with these conclusions, the broad, plain statement still remains, that in six days God created the heavens and the earth. Nor would it be difficult to find internal discrepancies in the literal record of these early chapters, as contradictory in themselves as are the record of the Creation and the Flood to those truths which Modern Science has made familiar to us all.

But to teach Science, or record the outward facts of human history, is not the work of a Divine Revelation. Man can do these things. But to declare God and Heaven, and the growth of the human soul, as it rises from chaos and darkness to order and light,—to teach the erring, to deliver the slaves of sin,-to strengthen the weak,-to cheer the sorrowing,—to pour courage into the heart of the spiritual soldier, as he fights against many foes for the liberty of righteousness;—these are the works of a Divine Revelation. To accomplish these things, God has spoken. The early chapters of Genesis are, then, something more than a record of external events.

To the man of the Golden Age the outer universe was an open book. He saw the grand link of correspondence that binds this beautiful world to its spiritual prototype, and to Him who created both, and saw in all its objects and phenomena an expression of His creative love and wisdom. While the physical uses of outward things were not despised, he saw in them, also, a spiritual lesson. And since he saw the relations that connect the natural with the spiritual world, it was not difficult for him to employ the types and symbols of the former, in such order and connection as to express spiritual truth. Hence, to him the creation of the world, proceeding from chaos and darkness to order, light, and beauty, was the fitting symbol of the gradual growth of the inner world of the soul, until it assumed the image and likeness of God.

The primeval condition of mankind was thus fitly symbolised by the Garden of Eden, with its trees, pleasant to the sight and good for food, and the rivers that fed their fertility and beauty. And in the fact of man being placed in that garden to dress and to keep it, was seen the inculcation of his highest duty, to maintain in its innocence, integrity, and wisdom the god-like nature with which he had been endowed. He saw that so long as man lived from the central tree of life,—from the love and wisdom that dwell so richly in his interior nature, and subordinated to these, self and the senses, he lived in the order of Providence, and fulfilled the purpose of God in the creation. He saw in the predominance of self and the senses, the destruction of true order

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and of the happiness of Eden. That state was pictured to him by the tree of knowledge of good and evil, to eat of which was death.

Now these early chapters of Genesis stand wholly distinct in character, style, and subject from all that succeeds them in the Sacred Scriptures. And we are taught by one who was specially illuminated as to the true nature of the Holy Word, that from the posterity of the men of the Golden Age, Moses received what he records concerning the Creation, the Garden of Eden, the Deluge, and all that precedes the Call of Abram. Since, then, these chapters are intended to convey not natural but spiritual history, and are wholly composed of the types and symbols drawn from the external world, it follows that the law of Correspondence, according to which they were written, is the law also of their interpretation. G. P.

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BISHOP COLENSO ON THE PENTATEUCH.-No. II.

(Continued from page 80.)

We have observed that the Bishop of Natal is strong on the negative side. He is positive on what the Bible is not, but very weak on what it is. He tries the Divine Record by scientific, by historic, and by critical tests, applied to the letter only; and finding it imperfect, considered in regard to these tests, he concludes that it is not DIVINE, but a collection of human compositions, more or less permeated by eternal truths, of the presence and the purity of which each man's reason and conscience must be the measure and the judge. This is certainly to deny the Bible to be a Divine Revelation in any precise sense of that expression, and this on the warranty of tests which, by the discernment and confession of the Bishop himself, are totally inadequate to decide upon the question.

Like Mr. Godwin, in the "Essays and Reviews," who contended that a Divine Revelation could really not have anything to do with Geology, and then, by shewing the Geology of the Bible was not correct, concluded that the early chapters of Genesis were not a Divine Revelation, so Bishop Colenso declares that matters of history and science are not the subects proper for the Word of God, and yet gives his attention wholly and solely to investigate its history, and to object to its science. Yet this inconsistency is a happy one. When we read such paragraphs as those subjoined, we cannot but look at the Bishop with feelings corresponding to those expressed by our Lord to the rich young man of the Gospel, and say "Thou art not far from the kingdom of God."

We long to help him to that Divine Science of Correspondences which would enable him to see, in what appears to him questionable Geology and defective History, "food for the inner man, supplies of spiritual strength and consolation, living words of power to speak to our hearts and consciences, and wake us up to daily earnestness and duty."

Let us hear what he says himself upon this point, and then we shall wonder how he can hesitate and stop short of accepting that message the Lord has sent us all from heaven-the revelation of the power and glory of the Internal Sense of the Holy Word, that light of the soul which is given for those who go to the Word and entreat its Divine Author, Himself the Word in its highest essence, to disclose its inner power and beauty, in the petition the Word itself has taught us-"Open Thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of Thy law." (Psalm cxix. 18) Let us hear the Bishop:

"Meanwhile, in order that we may give due honour to the Bible, as containing a message from God to our souls, it is surely necessary that we take ourselves, in the first place, and teach others to take, a right and true view, both of the contents of the Book, and of the nature of its Inspiration. Then, instead of looking to it for revelations of scientific and historical facts, which God has never promised to disclose in this way, by sudden supernatural communications, without the use of human powers of intellect, and without due labour spent in the search after truth, we shall have recourse to it for that which God has there in His Providence laid up in store for our use,-food for the inner man, supplies of spiritual strength and consolation, living words of power to speak to our hearts and consciences, and wake us up to daily earnestness of faith and duty. That very Book of Truth will then cheer us with the assurance of Divine help and blessing, while we engage ourselves devoutly aud faithfully in such a work as that which now lies before us, and diligently exercise the best faculties of the mind which God has given us, in searching into the true origin and meaning of the Bible narrative, and its relation to other facts of science and history. And this may be the step which God in His Providence calls us to take in the present age, in advance of the past generation, with reference to the subject now before us. In the time of Galileo it was heresy to say that the sun stood still, and the earth went round it. In far later times, the days of the childhood of many now living, it was thought by many heresy to say that the fossil bones, dug up within the earth, were not the signs of Noah's flood, or to maintain that death was in the world, and pain and multiplied destruction of living creatures by fire and flood, millions of years before the first man had sinned. Yet all these are now recognized as facts, which cannot be disputed, which our very children should be taught to know. And good men will even set themselves down to wrest the plain meaning of the Scriptures themselves into a forced conformity with these admitted results of modern science." (Part i., par. 181, 182.)

"I assert, however, without fear of contradiction, that there are multitudes now of the more intelligent clergy, who do not believe in the reality of the Noachian deluge, as described in the book of Genesis." (Part ii., Preface, p. 27.)

Nothing can be better than this statement of the Bishop of the true method of dealing with the Divine Word, to consider the letter only as

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the vehicle of supplying food for the inner man.

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When it has the form

of Geology, it is not to teach that science, but through that form to describe the formation of heaven and earth in the inner man; when it has the form of History, it is not to teach history as an end, but through history, whether externally true or only parabolically so, but under the historic form, to describe the soul's pilgrimage, its progressions, and retrogressions, its conflicts, its defeats, and its triumphs, and, through this wonderful Word, to be a Divine Light and Power for all spiritual wayfarers in every clime and age.

But when we come to the Bishop's application of his own rule, nothing can be poorer than his performance. He ignores the Divine Element in the Word altogether. He says the Deluge was not a real (literal) Deluge, but he never attempts to say what it was, and leaves the impression that he regards it only as a fabrication. He says, indeed,

"In short, the Elohistic narrative may be regarded by us as a series of parables, based, as we have said, on legendary facts, though not historically true, but pregnant with holy instruction for all ages, according to the views of a devout religious of those days." (Part ii., par. 505.)

If the Bishop would only go to the messenger by whom the Lamb has Himself opened the Book and taken away the Seven Seals thereof, Swedenborg, he would give him the Divine Sense of every phrase and expression of every one of those Divine Parables which are so dark and so unsatisfactory to him now. We trust he will be humble enough and true enough to go there; we know he has the means.

But we return now to his difficulties. They are chiefly arithmetical. He cannot make out just seventy souls who went down with Jacob into Egypt. He cannot see how these could become two millions, including 600,000 men capable of bearing arms, in 215 years, the time of Israel's sojourn in Egypt. He objects to the possibility of conveying the directions respecting the Passover to the whole two millions of people in one day, which he assumes to be the time given. He declares it impossible for the people to have subsisted, and especially their cattle, in the wilderness. He conceives that cattle could not be found for the Sacrifices commanded, and especially for the offering of turtle doves on the birth of each child. The offering of so many sacrifices by so few priests, and the carrying of the parts rejected out of the camp daily, a distance of not less than six miles, are things the Bishop considers quite inadmissible. The sanitary regulations for such a multitude, he takes it, could not possibly be carried out; and lastly, the numbers involved in the destruction of the Midianites are quite incredible.