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THE TEMPLE OF SOLOMON.

Our Lord's age at the time of opening this principle corresponds with the number which expresses the fulness of these gifts, and accordingly we find that Joseph, the Levites, and David, all in various respects eminent types of the Lord, commenced their government and ministration at the age of thirty. Forty, the other dimension of the sanctuary, expresses a state of temptation and combat, and is most applicable to the temptation on which our Lord entered immediately after His manifestation, (Matt. iv. 1-11.) it is significative in general of those states of temptation and victory whereby hell was vanquished and man redeemed. (Matt. xxvi. 36-46; Isaiah xix. 30; Eph. iv. 8; Heb. ii. 10, 14, 15.) The vail denotes our Lord's ascent into the highest or inmost degree of His humanity (as the porch signified His ascent into the spiritual degree), and the union in Him of divine truth and good of all genera and species-the completion of the fulfilment of all righteousness, the commencement of which was signified by His baptism. Access is now re-opened into the Divine Presence and the connection restored between heaven and humanity. (Ps. xxxv. 10–13; Matt. xxvii. 51; Eph. i. 10, 11, 13-18; Heb. vi. 19, 20, x. 20, 21, xii. 22, 24.) The substance of all these texts is, that in the Lord's perfected and glorified humanity, signified by the vail, communication with heaven is re-opened. The sacred emblems of the oracle have in their correspondence to our Lord's completely glorified humanity a still higher significance. Aaron's rod represents His humanity as now made the essential truth (ever combined with charity)—the light of life. (John xiv. 6; Rev. iii. 14 ; John i. 4, 9, viii. 12.) The manna represents it as the essential good-the bread of life, (John vi. 31, 35,) while the ark and cherubim represent both, under a still more comprehensive and universal idea, the complete union of the Lord's humanity with the Logos or Divine principle, so that He is the Word in first principles and in last-Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end-the Almighty. (Rev. i. 8.) And as His ascent into the spiritual degree was signified by the circumstances of His baptism, so His ascent into the celestial degree was pre-signified by His transfiguration and other theophanies or divine appearances. (Matt. xvii. 1-5; Dan. x. 5, 6; Rev. i. 12-18.)

This exaltation of faith and charity to higher powers is what is so beautifully described by the prophet as the light of the moon being as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun sevenfold. This is the state of "fathers," the third and last in John's classification; and the intuitive and all-comprehensive character which the Christian's knowledge of the eternal Logos now assumes, animated by the "sweet

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influences" of love divine, may well be described as knowing Him that is from the beginning. (1 John ii. 13, 14.) In fine, this is a state of perfection (signified by the dimensions of the oracle 20 by 20, a perfect cube) arising from the complete union of the external man with the -internal, even to the celestial degree. (John xvii. 23; 2 Cor. iii. 18; Col. iii. 10, 11.) It is, in a word, the celestial morning-"a morning when the sun riseth-a morning without clouds; as the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain." (2 Sam. xxiii. 4.)

Well, then, has the Temple of Solomon been designated by the great Hebrew sage Aberbanel, "A book of divine wisdom." J. B. W.

THE BENEFIT THAT THE LORD OBTAINED FOR MAN
BY THE ASSUMPTION AND GLORIFICATION OF HIS
HUMANITY.

(ADDRESSED TO A FRIEND.)

MY DEAR SIR,-In your letter of the 16th July, you say "I should be glad to know what you consider to be the advantages obtained for man in respect to his 'Remains' by the Lord's incarnation, for I calculate there must have been advantages by the Lord's taking to Himself His great power." To which I reply, whatever might be the benefits arising out of the Lord's assumption of Humanity, and the stupendous work which followed that assumption, man could not be made more than free, nor could he be made good except by the exercise of his own voluntary power; freedom being necessary to human existence under all circumstances.

I apprehend that all the advantages obtained by the Lord's incarnation were in relation to man, and were for his benefit. The first of which was the power to subjugate the hells, and restore to order the world of spirits: by this man's spiritual liberty was preserved, to which I shall advert more particularly presently.

In order that it may be seen what the benefits were which were obtained for man by the Lord's incarnation, it will be expedient to know what the state of mankind was previous to that event. The state of the Jews at that time may serve to show the condition of mankind in general; for though all were not as bad as the Jews, yet they were all approaching to that state, and must certainly have arrived at it, had not their downward course been arrested. From the first origin of evil mankind had been falling continually deeper and deeper into sin, and though all had not made the same progress, yet they were going in the

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THE BENEFIT THAT THE LORD OBTAINED FOR MAN

same direction; and of all other people the Jews had become the most external. There were many people then existing who were better than they, still all were hastening to the same consummation, and must eventually have arrived at the same end, had not the Lord stopped their progress by the divine intervention of the assumption of Humanity, and the redemption of mankind. The Jews had made greater progress in perversity and degradation than most other people, and on that account were selected by the Lord as fit materials out of which could be constructed the representative of a church; the only remaining means by which He even could be held in connection with mankind in the world. It was because the Jews had sunk deeper in the scale of humanity, and become more external than any other people, they were called a peculiar people; and it was by reason of their having become void of all genuine good that they were the Lord's chosen people-chosen, not because they were better than others, nor because they had obtained a special favour from God, but because of their capability of being adapted to the end for which they were chosen, which capability a better and more enlightened people did not possess; that capability was grounded in their destitution of goodness and truth, for being void of these, and still retaining the formalities peculiar to the religion of their time and country, they could be formed into the representative of a church, in which there was not anything but what was formal; but with which formal things, by reason of their divine arrangement, communication could exist between heaven and the world, or between angels and mankind. This communication was the lowest that could possibly exist; consequently when that could be sustained no longer, all communication between angels and men must necessarily cease. At the time the Lord made His advent into the world that communication was beginning to be cut off; therefore, had not the Lord come to open new communication between Himself and the church, mankind must have perished. At that time the Jews had arrived at the very extremity of human nature; they had fallen as low as they could and still exist in society as men.

Another idea with respect to the Jews, and mankind in general, before the incarnation, is—that they were incapable of being elevated out of their depravity by regeneration; therefore, that some other provision should be made, in order that mankind might exist, was indispensable. At such a crisis, the Lord condescended to make His glorious advent into the world, by conception in and by birth of a virgin, in the person of Jesus Christ. Swedenborg states respecting the Jews—“They have

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an hereditary principle which could not be eradicated by regeneration, because they did not admit it." Again, in the same section-"That they had such an hereditary principle, and that they could not be regenerated, is very evident from all those things which are related of them in the Word," &c., A.C. 4317. And again, in 4314, it is said"Goods and truths were altogether destroyed in that nation." If this be seen to be the case, then the indispensability of the Lord's incarnation will be admitted; and it will be seen at the same time that the supplying of the means by which mankind could be elevated out of that state, would be the greatest possible benefit that could be realized, and this was realized by the Lord's work of Redemption.

Another benefit which accrued to man, as the result of the Lord's incarnation, was the preservation of his probationary state in this world. This is a benefit which cannot be too highly estimated; for by the securing of this, the means of possessing heavenly happiness was retained. Without a probationary state, even if his existence had been continued in the world, man must have passed into the spiritual world wholly perverted, and have been placed in the midst of evil spirits there, and would have been made the slave of devils, and a miserable inmate of the infernal regions. Thus would he have been irrevocably lost; and this would have inevitably followed the preponderance of the influence of hell, had the Lord not stemmed the torrent of evil by the assumption of Humanity, and in that Humanity subjugated the hells, and restored the world of spirits to order. Here, then, are two inestimable benefits which are indispensable to the existence of mankind, and which were procured for man by the Lord's taking to Himself that great power."

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But allow me to add, that "the great power" which the Lord took to Himself did not involve the possibility of saving man unconditionally, or independently of his choice and voluntary action; but it was the power of holding him in a state of freedom, in which he might be capable of exercising his two great constituent faculties, viz., volition and rationality, and by virtue thereof be saved if he would, but not whether he would or not. The power by which a man is held in a state of freedom, is no less than that by which the infernal legions were subdued, and by which they are held in eternal subjection.

Before proceeding further I must remark, in order that the great benefits which were procured for man by the incarnation may be comprehended, and to some extent appreciated, that from the fall of the Most Ancient Church to the time of the Lord's assumption of Humanity,

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man was entirely dependent upon spirits in the world of spirits, he receiving his life through them as mediums. And that the subject may be clearly seen, it will be necessary to observe that man is a subject of two kinds of life, immediate and mediate. Immediate life is received directly from the Sun of Heaven; it is imperceptible and void of all quality, and is alike in all, and it is this by which both angels and devils live for ever. But mediate life is from spirits, who are so many mediums between the source of life and mankind, and it has a quality in agreement with the spirits whence it flows, each one being an individual source of quality. Both immediate and mediate life flow into man involuntarily; the latter is perceptible, but the former is not. Mediate life is perceived as affections and thoughts which are produced in the mind without man's concurrence and previous knowledge; yet though presented in the mind without his consent, it is, nevertheless, that life which he is to live, and without which he would be void of all will and thought, consequently of all human existence. From man's very nature he is necessitated to partake of the mediate life which is present with him, and he becomes the quality of that which he chooses and appropriates. By man's turning himself away in disobedience from his God, he forfeited his immediate reception of life" the tree of life"-and made himself subject to the "tree of knowledge of good and evil;" and ever since he has been necessitated to eat of its fruitand happy for him that he can eat of the fruit of the knowledge of good as well as that of the evil!

Now, it will be plain, that man receiving all the life of which he was conscious, and which contained quality, from spirits in the world of spirits, that he could receive from them only such as they possessed; and as they were such as had passed out of this world, they would be of a similar quality to those who were in the world; and as man at that time was exceedingly depraved, even to the predominance of evil in both soul and body, the spirits in the world of spirits would be the same. The life which flowed from the good spirits would be of the most external kind, and could only excite to the obedience of that truth which man possessed, which was of the lowest possible degree. But evil having gained a predominance in man in the world, it was also dominant in the spirits who were in the world of spirits; and when this was the case, man's freedom was about to perish, and there was imminent danger of mankind becoming an universal wreck. For nothing could be plainer than the fact, that if man received his life only through spirits in the world of spirits, his supply would be limited, and

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