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with him at all. Spirits, when they are attendant on man, put on all things of his memory, and his natural language as a consequence; and they speak with him by clothing their own thoughts with the words which they find in that storehouse of his natural acquirements. 66 'On the condition here stated by Swedenborg himself," says the editor, "it would be plainly impossible for any news (from the spiritual world) to be received." Why so? Men do not need a new language to learn and relate new facts, or to acquire and communicate new ideas. The "continual complaint preferred against spiritualism (which the writer seems to admit to be a just one) that they receive nothing new from the spiritual world," cannot be because they want words to communicate new information, but because they have none to communicate. Swedenborg's case is not, however, to be confounded with, or measured by, that of the spiritualistic medium. His condition was peculiar to himself; it was not ordinary, but extraordinary. Not only were spirits and angels with him, and spake with him, in natural language, but he was with them, and spake with them, and heard them speak with one another, in their own spiritual language. He was with them as one of themselves. This was his distinguishing privilege as a Seer, and that which gave him a "living" knowledge of the spiritual world, and enabled him to disclose its laws and wonders in his truly wonderful writings. Beyond proving the existence and nearness of the spiritual world, what has spiritualism yielded for the aid of human faith and practice? Accepting, with an unquestioning faith, its phenomena to be what spiritualists represent them, the most eminent mediums at their séances, with the assistance of their associate spirits, seem to do little else than

"Play such fantastic tricks before high heaven

As make the angels weep."

Those who are anxious to show how little reliance is to be placed on Swedenborg's information from the spiritual world, or who desire, like the spiritualists, to reduce him to the level of an ordinary medium, seem eager to lay hold of anything that promises to damage his reputation as a Divinely-gifted Seer. What more useful for the purpose than to discover and to proclaim that, according to his testimony, the apostle Paul and king David are in hell, and Louis XIV. and George II. are in heaven? Now the fact is, Swedenborg does not describe the final state or condition of any of these men. What he records of them relates to their condition in the world of spirits, or that region of the spiritual

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world which is intermediate between heaven and hell. He never, so far as we are aware, speaks of Paul and David as in hell. This has been inferred from some descriptions of their preparatory states in the world of spirits. For it is to be remembered that these scandals have their origin in what Swedenborg has noted in his Diarium, and that the last entry respecting David, for instance, is dated in 1748, several years before the time of the Last Judgment. But even had Swedenborg declared that Paul and David were in hell, and Louis and George in heaven, a careful reader of the "Diary" would have perceived that even this, considering the place and date of the statement, did not relate to their final condition. For in the Diary "heaven" and "hell” are sometimes applied to places in the middle state. In No. 228 of the Diary, he gives an account of being "let down to the unhappy in hell." He heard lamentations of this kind-" O God! O God! Jesus Christ, have mercy! Jesus Christ, have mercy!" He proceeds to say that they suffer ineffable torments. They were consoled with the assurance that the Lord is merciful, and that in His Word we read "that the prisoners will be brought forth from the pit." And he concludes by saying

"Moreover I desire to state this fact, that many of them have been raised from hell and torments into heaven, where they now live; and that it appeared to a certain one as though God Messiah embraced and kissed him."

We know, from the uniform tendency of the author in his published writings, that those who are in heaven and hell never change places; once there, they are there for ever. But we know, also, that in the middle state, before the last judgment, there were quasi heavens and hells. This is evident from Arcana Cœlestia, 699, where the very same circumstances are related,-where, in fact, the paragraph in the Diary is given in a condensed form, and what in the Diary is called hell, is here called the "lower earth," which every reader of the theological writings knows to mean a place in the intermediate region. At the time he wrote this part of the Diary, the author possibly knew no other than that what he sometimes calls heaven and hell were really so; thus, when he says (No. 220) This night, when I awoke, many things were shown to me which I cannot so well describe: it was a kind of revolution among spirits which I manifestly perceived, namely, many who were in the ultimate heaven were cast down, and many who were in captivity ascended;"—the heavens there, of which he speaks, were the imaginary heavens which passed away at the time of the last judgment; and hell there was the "pit" from which the prisoners were delivered. It will

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be evident, therefore, that by the judgment the condition of many was reversed. Prior to the judgment we find Swedenborg writing thus :-"Many of the good are kept in captivity, whilst the evil enjoy liberty." (D. M., 218.) Can there be any reason to doubt, therefore, that the apostle of the gentiles and the sweet singer of Israel were among the good, and that Louis XIV. may have been among the evil?

The editor's statements respecting our character as a body give us very little concern. We shall content ourselves with pointing out one instance, to show what kind of foundation his charges may be supposed to rest upon. His readers are told that "now and then a 'full receiver' wavers in his allegiance, criticises or questions some doubtful passage, but is instantly pecked at with such vigour and venom that unless resolved on utter rebellion he is compelled for very peace to be quiet." As a case in point, he states that Mr. Noble, when editor of the Intellectual Repository, opened in 1824-26, "An inquiry into the integrity of the Word," where he ventured to take exceptions to Swedenborg's assertion that the Hebrew text had been preserved immaculate by the Masorites; but had to suspend the discussion when he began to throw doubts on Swedenborg's accurate knowledge of the language.

Now, let us hear Mr. Noble's own testimony on this matter. In one of the last of his articles on the integrity of the Word, he says:

"We have all along been sensible that in undertaking to show that there are some occasional variations in the different copies of the Sacred Scriptures which have providentially been handed down to us, and that the reading contained in the common text is not always the true one, we were engaging in a task with which some might be displeased. If such has been, in any case, the result of our labours, we are not surprised; and we too much respect the principle from which such a result proceeds the desire to be able to believe that every copy of the Scriptures, or at least the copies generally referred to as standards, are in all respects immaculate-to be offended in return with those who may be offended with us for taking from them this flattering persuasion. We have no reason, however, to conclude that they who may be dissatisfied with us on this score are numerous; on the contrary, we know that many have expressed the highest satisfaction at the solidity with which, as they kindly think, we have been enabled to meet all the points of our argument."

So what Mr. Noble highly respected in the few, the writer turns into a bitter and sweeping charge against the whole body! Nor has the assertion that Mr. Noble had to suspend his labours any better foundation. In his concluding article he speaks of the importance to the New Church of right views on the subject as "the reason we have treated of it at so great a length;" and we know, from other sources, that Mr. Noble

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carried the discussion as far as he originally intended. But the alarm which his articles very naturally created in some minds did not arise from his having cast doubts on Swedenborg's accurate knowledge of the Hebrew language, which he never does, but from his having maintained that no one known copy of the Scriptures is free from verbal errors— errors that have been introduced by the mistakes of transcribers. In these articles Mr. Noble admits, indeed, that Swedenborg was mistaken in supposing that the Word had been preserved in its purity by the labours of the Masorites; but he justly places it among the notions he derived from the natural world, to which such matters belong, and not, as the editor imagines, to the teaching of ignorant spirits, whose influence he mistook for divine inspiration. But Mr. Noble, however, expresses his conviction that Swedenborg, though technically wrong, was substantially right; since there is every reason to believe that the Word has been preserved in its integrity as to every particular, not indeed in any one copy, yet in all copies taken together. He expresses his belief also, that the Divine Providence will, by the labours of future scholars, aided by the light of the internal sense, or by some more immediate instrumentality, restore the true readings of the sacred text, and from many imperfect copies, produce one complete and perfect copy of the Divine Word.-EDITOR.

P.S. Since these remarks were in the printer's hands, we have seen the editor's article in a separate form, with new matter introduced,— intended, no doubt, to render it a more complete refutation. The new objections we can do little more than record.

We may pass over the discrepancies between the Adversaria, or notes on Genesis and Exodus, and the Arcana Calestia, since the editor himself has anticipated our reply that when the author wrote the Adversaria "he was emerging from darkness to light." But concluding that this plea might be set up, the editor has "a case for which no such apology can be offered." The case is this:-In 1757, Swedenborg heard a voice from heaven telling him to apply himself to a work he had begun on the Apocalypse, and finish it within two years; and in the Last Judgment (n. 42.) he promises the work within that period. But it was six years after this date before it was published. The charge, of course, is that "the command from heaven he did not obey; the promise he did not keep." We confess to not being able to see the irresistible force of this grand argument. An angelic injunction is not a Divine command; a human promise is not an absolute decree. In fact, every such com

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mand and promise is conditional, even when no condition is expressed. Nay, every human promise is only expressive of a fixed intention; for no human being can absolutely pledge himself for the future which he cannot foresee. He may not be here; circumstances may be changed. Yet the author did prepare a work on the Revelation for the press; and on its title page was found the very date 1759. He could, then, have done what a command and a promise seemed alike to require he should do. He did not do it. The work thus prepared, though not entirely finished, was laid aside, and another and smaller work was commenced, and published in 1766. He has left no record to tell us the reason of this change, and the cause of the consequent delay. It is perhaps useless to conjecture. It is remarkable that the unfinished work leaves off at the words "See thou do it not,"—the words addressed to John by the angel when he fell down to worship him. Had these words struck the expositor of the Revelation, that in acting under the pressure of an angelic command he was practically rendering to a dependent being, like himself, a homage which was due only to God? This may be all too superstitious. It is enough for us to know—and the character of the author is a guarantee for the fact that he had a reason, and that a sufficient one. But supposing our author had published the work within two years, would our friend have received it as a message from heaven? Not he. The fact is, he disbelieves the book, and only makes use of the circumstance of its delayed publication to damage the reputation of its author.

But there is another objection relating to these two works. They do not agree in all particulars. The fact is, every work of any depth and value, and foremost among them the Bible, contains some conflicting passages. Affirmative men call these apparent discrepancies; negative men call them absolute contradictions. Affirmative men, being peace-makers, in literature as in society, try to reconcile differences; negative men, being peace breakers, try to keep them at variance. Affirmative men endeavour to understand an author, in the hope that he will thus reconcile his own differences; negative men seem, at least, as if they did their best to misunderstand an author (whom they do not like) that, being his enemy, they may make him an enemy to himself.

We advise our friend to try his hand at the work of reconciliation; and if he bestow half the labour and ingenuity which it has cost him to find so many discrepancies, we promise him that he will find no "irreconcileable contradictions" in Swedenborg.