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ON THE DURATION OF THE EARTH.

These things being so, suppose now that the earth, the natural world, should be destroyed, what would be the consequence? The whole spiritual world would perish too. It would be like knocking away the foundation of a house, all above would tumble into ruins. That spiritual world, which, all silent and unseen as it is, is nevertheless near us and around us, and pressing upon us-that heaven, with all its beauties and all its joys, its brilliant lights, its sparkling atmospheres, and all its glorious sights and sounds, that "ear hath not heard, nor eye hath seen "—those happy angels, who once indeed were men like us, inhabitants of this lower sphere, but who having done their duty here, and dwelt their time upon the earth, are now elevated to that higher and purer and happier state, and there are rejoicing in all the delights of angelic love and wisdom, knowing, and with more to know, loving, and more deeply to love, enjoying, and with still higher enjoyment before them for ever-all these, but strike out the earth from existence, would be gone. Where are they? They were, but are not. Will a God of love and mercy suffer this? Then He will not suffer the earth to

be destroyed.

No!

Once more. It may be urged by some that, granting it is necessary, for the sake of the existence and increase of heaven, that an earth should exist, yet may it not be that, in accordance with the literal sense of Scripture, this identical earth, with its inhabitants, may be destroyed and "pass away," and a "new earth" be created to take its place? To this suggestion I would reply, in the first place, that it is not in accordance with Divine order that anything should be destroyed. The Lord is a creator, and not a destroyer. God is Love; and it is the essence and nature of love perpetually to benefit and to bless-never to injure, still less to destroy. There is no principle, therefore, in the Divine Being which can destroy. The only reason that anything is ever destroyed or perishes, is that it becomes separated from the First Cause, separated from that which perpetually preserves. So long as anything remains in its order, and is thus kept in connection and correspondence with its cause, and through that with the great First Cause, the Divine Himself—so long it will continue to exist. Now the earth is an inanimate being; and though indeed she moves, and goes flying through space swifter than any bird, and is for ever on the wing, yet she knows not what she is doing, nor why she is doing it; her Maker set her in motion, and bade her go on, and she goes. She has not, therefore, like man, any rationality and liberty, by which she can pervert her own order, and thus separate herself from the living principle which sustains and preserves her; nor is she, so far as we

ON THE DURATION OF THE EARTH.

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know, subject to influences independent of herself which tend to produce decay. Having, therefore, no destroyer, she must continue to exist, and still go on her airy way rejoicing, and still showing her beautiful face to the sun, her ardent lover, and, as she dances gaily round him, timing her graceful motion to the "music of the spheres."

But suppose, for the sake of argument, that this earth were destroyed, and another created in its place, what end would be attained? The new earth would only be the old one re-appearing. The one would be a facsimile of the other-identical, exactly the same, from the grain of sand on the sea-shore to the tallest oak in the forest; and the wind, as it came brushing among the new trees, would whisper to them as old friends, and never know the difference. For it is to be remembered

that the laws of creation are not arbitrary, more than any other Divine laws. They act according to fixed and immutable principles; immutable, because derived from the Divine nature, which is Itself immutable. The earth, with all things of it, is but an effect, whose cause is ever existing and ever the same. The natural world is only the ultimate of the spiritual world, and all things in the natural world are exact correspondences of things or principles existing in the spiritual world, from which they are derived. Whilst the cause is the same, the effect will be the same; so long as the spiritual world remains unchanged, the natural world must remain unchanged also; and therefore the new earth, which we have supposed as possible to be created, being, like the old one, the ultimate of the spiritual world, and exactly correspondent to it, would be necessarily identical with that earth which had "passed away." But, after all, to view the matter in its true light, is it not the real truth that this supposed case has actually happened, viz., that the old earth has passed away, and a new one been created in its place? It is true-not only that it has happened, but that it happens every moment. Yes! since you began the reading of this paper, the earth, with all things of it, has been created anew a hundred times.

Let me explain

myself. The New Church philosophy teaches us that "subsistence is perpetual existence;" or, in other words, that "preservation is perpetual creation." The common idea is, that in the beginning all things were indeed created by God; but that, having been once created, there was nothing more for the Divine Power to do, but, in some unknown way, to sustain and preserve them. Some of the ancient philosophers carried the idea so far, as to hold, that the Divine Being having formed the creation, "retired into a corner of it" (to use their phrase), and left it to take care of itself. But the revelations made to the New Church present a far different and loftier idea of the Divine character and operation.

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ON THE DURATION OF THE EARTH.

They teach us our absolute and perfect dependence on our Heavenly Father, even for each moment's existence. They teach us that the Lord not only was our Creator, but is our perpetual Creator;—that every breath we draw comes fresh from Him. The philosophy of the New Church teaches that nothing can exist for an instant, except in connection with the First Cause of its existence; that the moment it is separated, it dissolves, it perishes of itself, it is annihilated. And the reason it is annihiltated is, because it is not re-created. Annihilation, therefore, is simply non-re-creation; and preservation is perpetual recreation. Thus, the Great Creator is every instant doing what He did "in the beginning,"-creating a Universe.

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This great principle being established, now let us take up the question before us, and examine it by this new and brilliant light. The question was, Is the earth ever to come to an end?" But now we must alter the terms of it, and say instead-" Will this earth ever cease to be re-created?"—that is the true question. And I answer that the earth will cease to be re-created only when the Lord ceases to be a Creator; and He will cease to be a Creator only when He ceases to be Love: for it is the essential nature of Love perpetually to pour itself forth into beings out of itself, that is, perpetually to create. If, then, God is Love, and unchangeable, and eternal,-then the earth never will come to an end.

London.

O. P. H.

CORRESPONDENCE FROM ABROAD.

SWEDENBORG AS A MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF NOBLES IN THE SWEDISH DIET.

"Nihil est præclarius quam de republica bene mereri.”—Cicero. SWEDENBORG passed the last period of his long earthly life occupied with deep studies, pious and holy meditations, and supernatural, heavendirected contemplations. But he did not abstain, however, from other intellectual occupations or worldly business in general. From his youth he had been a lover of liberal arts, as poesy, eloquence, music, and especially of horticulture. Near his little house in Stockholm he had caused a large garden to be elegantly arranged, in the fine summerhouse of which he dwelt with pleasure, and composed many of his learned works. Even in his advanced age, he took a vivid and strong part in the deliberations concerning finances, statistics, and politics in the Diets, and between them. On those matters he wrote many Diet-memorials. Some of these have been translated into English, French, and German, and inserted in the journals of the New Church. Others are still in

SWEDENBORG AS A MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF NOBLES, ETC. 35

manuscript, or only published in Swedish. All these documents prove what a lively interest Swedenborg took in every matter and question which, in his time, was under public consideration and the determination of the Swedish States.

In his younger years Swedenborg had been witness of all the miseries, into the depth of which the sovereignty of Charles XII. precipitated the Swedish nation. Though an admirer and favourite of this monarch, he could not be blind to the desolation and distress, the carnage and ruin, which a war of eighteen years, with dear-bought victories, bloody defeats, decimated armies and provinces, and ruined finances, accompanied by plague and famine, had heaped upon the unhappy country. He could not persuade himself that any conquered standards or other trophies, placed in the Swedish armouries or under the temple-arches of Stockholm, could recompense the loss of home and life of multitudes of the oppressed people. In such circumstances of the time, who can wonder that Swedenborg was a warm defender of the free constitution of 1719, which set bounds to the sovereign king's will and caprice, saved the realm from dissolution, and restored to the people liberty and equity? There is in Swedish history a period of about half a century, known by the name of "the time of liberty." That period commences with 1719. In this year, after the death of Charles XII., his sister Ulrica Eleonora mounted the throne. The absolute power which the States had delegated to her father, King Charles XI., for the purpose of curbing and checking the rich and powerful nobility, was repealed. In the constitution of 1719 the Senate and States regained a very enlarged power, which they retained for more than half a century. By a revolution in 1772, after the death of Adolph Frederic, his son Gustaf III. took the first retrograde step to abridge this power and restore absolute Sovereignty. Swedenborg's political career is to be found between these two epochs, 1719 and 1772. In the former he was ennobled, and made a representative of the Swedenborg family in the Diet; in the latter he quitted his seat in the House of Nobles, when death closed his eyes to the gloomy aspects which an altered form of government .presented, menacing the liberty of the Swedish people. Thus, properly speaking, Swedenborg was a man of the so-called "time of liberty." He loved and pleaded for its free constitution with a fervor animi, whereof all his Diet-memorials are evident and splendid testimonies. It appears, therefore, not to be foreign to the life of the great Author and Seer to show what part he acted as a member of the first State or House. We must here make some general remarks about this matter, and also give a few short extracts from his very long Diet-memorials, which will throw light on his character as a politician.

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SWEDENBORG AS A MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF NOBLES

There were, during the so-called "time of liberty" in Sweden, two renowned political parties. They both claimed to be defenders of freedom and independence. From the symbols of this independence, the hat and the cap, the one was called "the hat-party," or the Hats, and the other "the cap-party," or the Caps. These troublesome and turbulent men strove and struggled in every Diet or Parliament against each other, being almost always of quite opposite political and national views and designs. What the Hats had decreed in one Diet, the Caps for the most made their whole endeavour to undo in the other, and so vice versa. Their clandestine machinations and open dissent and discord formed the dark night-side of the otherwise so light and happy days of freedom. Generally the Hats spoke loudly and acted indefatigably for the alliance with France, and the Caps for the alliance with Russia. Their representative men at the Diet were not seldom influenced and corrupted by French or Russian gold. At the Diet of 1765, the French Minister distributed among the members of the four States-noblemen, clergymen, burgesses, and peasant-proprietors-two million livres, and the Russian Minister also a considerable sum, in order to further their political purposes and plans in Sweden.

As for Swedenborg, he seems to have been more inclined to the politics of the Hats than to those of the Caps, because he always advised and spoke for the alliance with France. Nevertheless, he was far

from belonging exclusively to either of these two odious parties. There were, even at that time, among every class of the Swedish people, just, impartial, noble-minded persons, who, quite above partial interest and motives thence derived, only had the public good as objects of their not infrequently warm and zealous ditamina. To these good citizens, the juste milieu of that time, we are entitled to refer Swedenborg. These honest men agreed now with the Hats, now with the Caps, in political principles or national ideas, but never in plots, intrigues, or extravagances. Thus Swedenborg agreed with the Hats in encouraging manufactures and mechanical arts, commerce, and agriculture, but he resisted their prodigality, profusion, and almost unlimited debt-system, which he foresaw, sooner or later, would end in national bankruptcy. Like the Caps, he would amend the circulating medium, and advocated order and economy in the application of the public revenues, but he would not, like them, by an extreme frugality and parsimony, depress commerce and manufactures. Like the Hats, he was a warm defender of the alliance with France, but he did not therefore approve their unhappy politics, which had occasioned two wars, cost immense sums of money, and caused a considerable loss of men and a more considerable

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