ishment and misery, such infernal marriages, alias adulteries, can be productive of no sensations which have not misery in their centre. Whether these can yet be so delightful as to outweigh all the other miseries, with which, as we shall see in the sequel, the inhabitants of hell are pursued, and to make hell a place to which "our paupers may go on speculation," let the reader judge. The foregoing statements include the essential doctrine of Swedenborg respecting marriage and adultery, and the continuance of the former, in an exalted state, in heaven, and of the latter, in a restricted state - so restricted as not to differ from what some would call "lawful marriage". - in hell. All that has been so extensively circulated against those doctrines, as sanctioning impurity, is gross, unfounded slander. Assuredly, the "whoremongers," that "have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone,"* will not cease to be such when cast there. It is divinely declared, that "he that is filthy shall be filthy still." It is also declared, that "he that is holy shall be holy still."+ Consequently the holy love of marriage shall exist in heaven. If the plain testimony of Scripture, the most obvious deduction of Reason, and the most decided convictions of the intelligent and pious, be sufficient to determine this question, no question, it appears, from what has been adduced above, can be more conclusively decided. The Lord himself is a Husband, and heaven is a marriage. Of such marriages as originate in the marriage of goodness and truth, the Truth itself God Incarnate declares, that they shall never be put asunder; and all who by living near to heaven, like Mrs. Fletcher, or by the occasional illapses of a heaven-descended intelligence, like some of the great poets, have been qualified to judge of the subject correctly, have here set, to their seal, that God is true. *Rev. xxi. 8, 30 † Ch. xxii. 11. HEAVEN SECTION VI. AND HELL; AND THE APPEARANCES IN THEM, ANC IN THE INTERMEDIATE REGION, OR WORLD OF SPIRITS. PART V. Other Circumstances in Heaven, Hell, and the World of Spirits, differing from what is usually conceived. Out of the important truths established in PARTS II. and III. of this SECTION,- That all the inhabitants of the spiritual world were originally men in the natural world, That man, after death, is no less a real and substantial man than before,and, That all the circumstances in which he then finds himself are outward expressions of his inward state; - there cannot but arise a great variety of circumstances, in the other life, differing from what is usually conceived. While all real angels and devils are regarded as beings of a totally different origin and nature from man; and while man himself, when divested of his natural body, is viewed as a mere shade or phantom; no distinct conceptions respecting the circumstances in which such imaginary beings exist can possibly be formed; and from the merely negative imaginations thereupon assumed, circumstances which are perfectly natural and rational when all the inhabitants of the spiritual world are known to be real men,men by origin, men by nature, and substantial men still, though no longer invested with an earthly body, will be deemed repulsive and incredible. Such is the great truth, of the existence of a marriage-union in heaven, and of an opposite connection in hell; which, nevertheless, I trust, has been shown to the rest on solid grounds, both Scriptural and rational. It being my desire, in this Appeal, to meet all the principal or most plausible of the difficulties raised by our adversaries, I will now notice the chief of the other general circumstances, attending the state of the inhabitants of the other life, which have been made subjects of obloquy and derision; and I trust it will still appear, when it is known and borne in mind that the inhabitants of the other life are such different beings from what has been groundlessly assumed, that nothing is stated respecting them. by the illustrious Swedenborg, but what is reasonable and probable, being agreeable to the nature of beings who are all of the human race, who are real and substantial human beings still, and who are placed in outward circumstances corresponding to their internal state. I. The first circumstance that we will here notice, because it has been represented as supremely ridiculous, is That spiritual beings partake of food:- if not to keep them in existence, (since, certainly, they never can die), to keep them in the consciousness and satisfactory enjoyment of their life. With respect to the Scripture-testimony on this subject, we have noticed above that it would evidently appear, from the circumstance of Ezekiel and John's eating a roll or book when they were in the spirit, having no senses or faculties in action but those belonging to the spiritual body, and from their tasting what they ate, that eating and tasting are faculties belonging to the spiritual part of man as well as to his natural part; and that if they could be performed by prophets, while in the spirit, they must equally be proper to the spirit itself, when living as a real man after death. Accordingly, we find the Scriptures mentioning explicity the food of angels, and the bread of heaven. The Psalmist, when speaking of the Israelites being fed with manna in the wilderness, says, that they "had given them of the corn of heaven," and "man did eat angels' food ;"* and in another Psalm, " He satisfied them with the bread of heaven."+ Now though the corn and bread of heaven might be equivocal expressions, and might only mean, corn or bread rained down from heaven; yet in the expression angels' food, if that is the proper translation, there is no ambiguity; it literally implies that angels have food of some kind; and this determines the other expressions- the corn and bread of heaven, to mean the same thing, the food of the inhabitants. Those then who would abide by the letter of the Word in far more incomprehensible statements than this, cannot consistently deny, that, if the letter of Scripture is to decide this question, there is literally bread in heaven, which is the food of angels. The same would appear from the Lord's declaration, that "many shall come from the east and the west, and fromthe north and the south, and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and * Ps. Ixxviii. 24, 25. - † cv. 40. Of which there seems no reasonable doubt. The word rendered angels literally signifies the strong or mighty ones, and is applied to angels in Ps. ciii. 20. As the manna is meant, which was rained down from heaven, - by the mighty ones, whose food it is called, must certainly be meant the inhabitants of heaven. Accordingly, it is rendered angels in the principal of the ancient versions. Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven;"* for the word here translated sit down, properly means, to recline at table, as was practised by the ancients at their meals. We also read of eating of the fruit of the tree of life.t Such being the language of Scripture, Milton takes it literally, and applies it to the angels. Of this author much the same remark may be made as was offered abovet respecting Young. When writing from the erroneous doctrine which he had imbibed, he often falls into great absurdities (of which his work on Christian Doctrine, lately discovered, affords more extraordinary examples than even his Paradise Lost); but when writing from common perception, and admitting the exercise of enlightened reason he frequently offers the most beautiful sentiments and most important truths. Under the influence of such perception and reason, he makes the angel Raphael say to Adam: "Food, alike, those pure Intelligential substances require As doth your rational; and both contain Within them every lower faculty Of sense, whereby they hear, see, smell, touch, taste."§ So in his description of a great day of assembly in heaven, he introduces a feast: "All in circles as they stood, Tables are set, and on a sudden piled With angels' food, and rubied nectar flows In pearl, in diamond, and massy gold.— They eat, they drink, and, in communion sweet, Quaff immortality and joy; secure Of surfeit, where full measure only bounds Excess; before the all bounteous King, who showered With copious hand, rejoicing in their joy."|| The same author represents the appetite for food among the infernals to be at times made an occasion of punishment, leading them eagerly to devour fruit of fair appearance but loathsome substance: "They, fondly thinking to allay Their appetite with gust instead of fruit With spattering noise rejected: oft they assayed, And Watts, in sober prose, suggests a similar thought, “ What" Wine Matt. viii. 11. Rev. ii. 7; xxii. 2. || Ib. 631, &c. Pp. 300, 301. pain, to the drunkard, and meat and other dainties to the glutton."* Addison, also, in a beautiful paper in the Spectator,† supposes that in heaven all the senses will be gratified, not excluding, though not expressly mentioning, that of taste. "I have only," he observes, "considered this glorious place with regard to sight and imagination; though it is highly probable that our other senses may here likewise enjoy their highest gratifications," &c. In some form then, and as applied to some purpose or other, our greatest writers have entertained the belief, that food is not unknown in the spiritual world: when proposed by them, it is read as a sublime thought or reasonable suggestion: why then, when read in Swedenborg, is it turned into ridicule ? But whatever of the ridiculous might be thought to attach to such a circumstance, will altogether vanish, when it is known, that the food which they thus eat is but an outward appearance, expressive of that food which supports the life of their minds. What is truly spiritual food, but that which nourishes the mind? Hence, how common is it to draw a metaphor from the subject in common discourse; to talk of our intellectual appetite, to speak of knowledge as mental food, and to call the communication of kind feelings and elevated sentiments in conversation "The feast of reason" "The flow of soul." The true nourishment of angels, then, is nothing but that goodness and truth which is continually imparted to them from the Lord; and of nothing else do they think when engaged in taking the spiritual substance which is furnished them for outward food. This is purely a development, in outward form, of the spiritual gifts with which their minds are continually recreated. But as the mind is not anything except there be some substantial form in which it may exist, so that the form of an angel, though the express image of his mind, is something distinct from the mind itself; therefore, as the mind requires to be continually nourished and fed by the communication to it from the Lord of affections and perceptions of goodness and truth, or love and wisdom, so does analogy require that the personal form, in which the mind dwells, should be nourished, and kept in order for acting as the proper instrument of the mind, by corresponding means. But the latter is never separated from the former in the idea of an angel: and throughout the spiritual world, it is only as the spiritual nourishment of the mind is received from the Lord, that the other food is afforded; because this is merely the outward image of * Works, Ed. Leeds, vol. vii. p. 261. † No. 580. |