creation, as it were-something as widely remote from any previous theory as it is possible to conceive. This, I say, is a problem that asks solution. However wonderful the phenomena which Swedenborg has professed to make known to the world, he is himself a greater, on any other hypothesis than that which assumes the absolute truth of his illumination and mission. For let it be considered that he comes boldly forth and announces a system of verities founded upon the constituent elements of man's nature. It professes to deal with fundamental principles and to conduct us to the nethermost depths of our mental and moral being, and if it is ever received it must be upon the evidence accruing to it from this source. It challenges all philosophy to put to the test the truth of its psychological averments. Building itself upon the spontaneous intuitions of the reason, it refers every man to the tribunal of his own bosom to determine the truth or the falshood of what it alleges. How absurd would be such an appeal on the part of a man of sense, unless prompted by the most absolute assurance of the truth of his positions, and how infinitely more absurd the supposition, that such ground should be taken by a crazed monomaniac. Is this the manner of enthusiasts and impostors? Are they used to rest their claims on such a basis? Do they refer to and rely upon the internal evidence of their revelations? Do they not require credence on the strength of some outward testimony to the fact of their visions? Mohammed first palms upon his followers the figment of the angel Gabriel's imparting to him the leaves of the "perspicuous book," and then fabricates any doctrine he pleases as of divine authority. The founder of the Mormons proclaims the delivery to him of the golden plates, and then moulds the alleged copy to such a form of religious dogmas as may suit his corrupt purpose. In these and a multitude of similar cases, the mission of the man has first to be established by proof independent of his doctrine, and then the doctrine is received upon the strength of the mission. With Swedenborg all this is reversed. The proof of the mission comes after the proof of the doctrine, and springs out of it. You are not required to believe in the truth of his mission unless you see the evidence of it in the truth of his doctrine; and the field in which this evidence is to be sought is as wide as the intellectual and moral nature of man. It is upon this ground that the system. has been actually embraced by multitudes of minds of a high order of thought, and who would be fully authorized to spurn the imputation of being governed by anything else in their conclusion than the legitimate and constraining power of evidence. How, again we ask, is this to be accounted for, if Swedenborg's system is merely a mass of dreamy hallucinations which have only to be looked at to be turned from with contemptuous loathing? Are intelligent men-men of slow and cautious judgment—so easily led to surrender their own sanity to the insanity of another? Is there anything in Swedenborg's incredibilities more incredible than this? Why then is the world so apparently determined to blink a question most eminently deserving of its profound regard? How can it justify the neglect to weigh the merits of a system of developments presenting so many and so powerful claims to attention? The reasons which prompt an intelligent rejection of Swedenborg we desire above all things to see urged, because they would naturally array themselves against those which have led us to the reception of his disclosures. As matters stand, we venture to affirm that in all equity the advantage of moral posture is wholly on our side. We believe because we

have examined; our opponents reject without examination. Is it right, under these circumstances, that the blight of obloquy should rest upon us?

I have thus far disclosed the successive stages of my progress up to a point where I was prepared to welcome the general scheme of doctrines constituting the theology of the New Church. It came commended as a whole by a power of internal evidence which I would neither gainsay nor resist. But there was still one exception. I was compelled to make a reserve on the score of the internal sense of the Word. Even if there was a foundation in truth for the principle in the abstract, I could not perceive the necessity of making so much of it as I saw was continually done in the expositions of Swedenborg and in the writings and preachings of his espousers. My long continued study of the letter and my fixed habits of interpretation greatly indisposed me to a cordial reception of the general principle. The light of conviction, therefore, on this point was very slowly received, and it came at last mainly through the medium of the Memorable Relations-those remarkable developments which lay open so strikingly the spiritual constitution of our being. I was gradually compelled to yield to the evidence of the fact, that there is in all men potentially, and in renewed men actually, an interior faculty or prompting which spontaneously seeks in the Word a sense beyond the mere purport of the letter. I saw that if there is a spiritual nature in man, the development of which brings him into converse with spiritual things, then the real pabulum of his life must be extracted from the soul through the body of the inspired Word. The foundation principle of the whole matter, as well as its practical working is susceptible of an easy illustration.

Swedenborg remarks, that when man reads the Word and perceives it according to the sense of the letter, or the external sense, the angels attendant upon him and mingling in his thoughts perceive it in the internal or spiritual sense, for all the thought of the angels is spiritual, whereas the thought of man is natural. The natural ideas of man thus pass into spiritual ideas with the angels. Now let us suppose, in order to present the matter in its true light, that a parent puts into the hand of his child Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, and seats him at his feet to read the narrative aloud. The child is captivated by the story-he follows the Pilgrim with intense interest through all the varieties of his adventures, as if it were a veritable history, not thinking of any deeper meaning couched under the veil of the letter. But turn now from the reading child to the listening parent. How differently does he regard the whole. He does not rest in the letter. He penetrates the allegorical veil. He recognizes the career of the Christian in the travels, and trials, and conflicts of the Pilgrim. He sees a most beautiful array of spiritual truths under the imagery of the journey from the City of Destruction to the Heavenly City. In a word, he takes a spiritual sense from the very same language which conveys to the child only a literal sense.

This then will unfold the genius of Swedenborg's doctrine of the internal sense of the Word. The angels are to man precisely what the parent is to the child; and when that child becomes a man, and in like manner reads the Word, it may be that that same parent, now a disembodied spirit, may be present at the reading, and feed on the interior purport of what is read, just as he did when listen ing on earth to the story of the Pilgrim as read by his child,

It is no sufficient objection to this, that the view presented makes the spiritual sense to be adapted rather to the reception of angels than to that of men. This is essentially true, and it is only because the angel is really wrapped up in the inner or spiritual man that this man is capable of rising in his understanding of the Word above the plane of the literal sense. The regenerate spirit is an angel of light temporarily imprisoned in clay.

From this I think it can easily be conceived that all my objections to this реси. liar feature of the scheme should have been effectually done away; and so in fact they were. Nothing now resists the most assured and cordial adoption of the system as a whole. Upon the most deliberate and careful survey I am unable to discover in it a single point at which it lies open to the assault of a fair logic or a sound exegesis. Relying upon internal evidence for the enforcement of its claims, I am not competent to perceive in what respect it fails in its demands upon my credence. As to that department of the system which relates to Swedenborg's intercourse with the spiritual world-his converse with the angels for twenty-seven years-the question is settled in my own mind by a very summary process. I first determine the intrinsic naked possibility of the fact itself. Does the psychological nature of man admit of its having taken place? But how can I doubt on this head when the Bible is full of testimonies to the fact of prophets and apostles having been admitted to such converse? Still it may be possible in general without being probable in any particular case. The next question then is that of probability in the case of Swedenborg. What reasons does he give me for believing that this privilege was accorded to him? Can my calm reflection perceive a sufficient occasion for such a disclosure, at such a period, and through such an instrument? To this the answer is, that according to him the revelation in question is connected with the Second Advent of Jesus Christ, not in person, but in power and spirit, or, in other words, in the glory of the spiritual sense of the Word, which is the essential Truth and Divinity of the Word. I examine this point as a pure question of prophecy, and I find myself brought irresistibly to the conclusion, that if such an event is ever to occur, it must occur at about this age of the world, the space of forty, fifty, or eighty years making no essential difference in the count of time in regard to an era of such magnitude. If so, I recognize the highest probability of a new influx of light from heaven of precisely the nature of that which shines from Swedenborg's pages; nor can I be at all shaken from the firmness of this conviction by any course of argument which shall refuse to consider the merits of the prophetic position. If the nature of the Second Advent be not what I have now intimated-if it be not now transpiring-I feel emboldened to demand that the world be informed, what is its true nature, and what its true epoch. These are questions that cannot always be blinked. The mass of Christians will not always be content with the virtual position of their teachers, that the very central theme of all New Testament prophecy was given for no other end than to be a perpetual puzzle for faith, and therefore of no practical moment to mankind.

But, secondly, as to the instrument; I find no objection to Swedenborg considered in this character. He was confessedly a man of pre-eminent talents and pre-eminent moral worth. If some one was to be selected for the purpose, why

not he? No man has ever lived who was more amply endowed with all the requisites for such a function.*

And then, lastly, when I look at the essential nature and genius of his revelations, I find them replete with internal evidence of truth. They incessantly build themselves upon, and refer themselves to, certain grand principles of physiology, psychology, and general philosophy, in which my clearest reason cordially acquiesces; nor can I conceive the possibility of any other man's reason dissenting from them when once rightly understood. But I can too easily conceive of the operation of causes which shall keep men in ignorance of their real character. I affirm, however, that the internal evidence of truth is amply adequate to sustain their pretensions, and this no man can deny who knows not what that evidence is, and this again he cannot know without having examined it. To one who has, and has appreciated its weight, the testimony of external miracles will be of very little account. Miracles in support of a divine revelation can never supersede the necessity of internal evidence. They compel attention-they prove the trust-worthiness of the messenger-but they do not demonstrate the intrinsic truth of the message. This must shine into the soul by its own light.† Still the perpetual rejoinder to every plea in behalf of Swedenborg's spiritual disclosures is, the want of evidence. Multitudes will admit of portions of them that they are very beautiful, and perhaps of most of them, that they are marked by a certain kind of plausible philosophy, but then it is objected, "How can I be assured that they are true-that they are not a mass of fictions, speculations,

"To your interrogation, Why from a philosopher I have been chosen to this office?' I give for answer, to the end that the spiritual knowledge, which is revealed at this day, might be rationally learned, and naturally understood; because spiritual truths answer unto natural ones, inasmuch as these originate and flow from them, and serve as a foundation for the former. That what is spiritual is similar unto, and corresponds with what is human or natural, or belonging to the terrestrial orb, may be seen in the treatise on H. & H. n. 87 to 102, and 103 to 115. I was, on this account, by the Lord, first introduced into the natural sciences, and thus prepared from the year 1710 to 1745, when heaven was opened unto me. Every one is morally educated and spiritually regenerated by the Lord, by being led from what is natural to what is spiritual. Moreover, the Lord has given me a love of spiritual truth, that is to say, not with any view to honor or profit, but merely for the sake of truth itself; for every one who loves truth, merely for the sake of truth, sees it from the Lord, the Lord being the way and the truth. See John xiv. 6. But he who professes the love of truth for the sake of honor or gain, sees truth from his own self hood, and to see from one's self, is to see falsity. The confirmation of falsehood shuts the church, but a rational confirmation of truth opens it; what man can otherwise comprehend spiritual things, which enter into the understanding? The doctrinal notion received in the Protestant church, viz. that in theological matters, reason should be held captive under obedience to faith, locks up the church; what can open it, but an understanding enlightened by the Lord ?”Hobart's Life of Swed. p. 44.

It is however to be known that the receivers of Swedenborg's doctrines do not refuse to submit his claims to the test of miracles, if converse with the dead, and cognizance of what is transpiring at a given time in a distant part of the world, be conceded to be miraculous. They will pledge themselves to produce well-attested and indisputable evidence of both these kinds of facts in regard to Swedenborg. But they make no account of them as a substratum of their own faith, which rests on vastly higher grounds, and they do not plead them for the conviction of others, because they know that although they cannot be denied, yet they will not be believed in their true character. It will be taken for granted that they were capable of a purely natural solution, provided we knew what it was. On the same grounds the miracles of Christ were rejected by the great mass of those who were eye-witnesses of them. There is no greater delusion than to suppose that men yield easily to the evidence of miracles, however genuine and wellauthenticated. A much greater miracle is necessary to make them believe that they are miracles. In nothing has Swedenborg shown a deeper insight into human nature, than in what he has said of the non-efficacy of miracles as an evidence of moral truth.

and dreams? What evidence does Swedenborg afford of their truth other than his simple assertion? And can I rest my faith in such a matter on the bare ipse dixit of any man? I find no such revelations in the Scriptures, and consequently what a risk of dangerous delusion must any one run who gives his credence to such strange and unsupported relations ?"

What shall be said in reply to this? We could deal with the objection if we knew what would be admitted as evidence. Will it be said that a person professing to come to us with tidings from the other world, must be clothed with the power of working miracles, in order to make good his claims? But the miracles will no more be believed to be miracles than the asserted facts to be facts without the miracles. The presumption against both as supernatural events is equally strong and invincible. The force of evidence is altogether relative to the moral state of mind of the person to be affected by it. As a general fact, will a man believe anything of this nature which he does not wish to believe?--which goes counter to all his previous notions, prejudices, philosophy, faith ?--in a word, which involves the admission that he has been wrong in many of his most dearly cherished opinions? Yet we are ready to grant that the promptings now adverted to usually operate rather by preventing the access of evidence to the mind, than by resisting it when presented, and that all obstacles to the entrance of the light of truth are intrinsically superable. But it must be by looking the evidence directly in the face, and if that evidence is internal, it must be contemplated as such. No one has a right to demand any other evidence of the truth of Swedenborg's disclosures than that upon which he relies, and which alone he affirms to be adequate to beget belief. To ask what evidence he gives of the reality of his visions other than that which is involved in the character of the visions themselves, is like asking what evidence Euclid gives of the truth of his Geometry, apart from the axioms, postulates, and demonstrations of which it consists. A man says to you as a mathematician, "How am I to be satisfied that Euclid has embodied such an amount of truth as you affirm in his propositions? What evidence of it have I but his word and yours?" Though the objector has never studied the work himself, yet he scruples not to call upon you to make known the evidence of its truth in some other than the only possible way. Is it not obvious, that if he is ever convinced on this head, it must be by the same process by which you were yourself convinced? In the lack of personal study of the science, what would five hundred signs and prodigies from heaven avail to his conviction? They might prove that Euclid was an honest man and worthy of credit, but would they endow his mind with the intelligent perception of the train of reasoning which went to make out the truth of a single proposition ?*

I would not intimate by this that the certainty of Swedenborg's revelations is exactly of a mathematical kind, any more than is that of the Gospel history.

* Swedenborg thus writes to a correspondent:-" To your interrogation, whether there is occasion for any sign that I am sent by the Lord to do what I do? I answer, that at this day no signs or miracles will be given, because they compel only an external belief, but do not convince the internal. What did the miracles avail in Egypt, or among the Jewish nation, who nevertheless crucified the Lord? So if the Lord was to appear now in the sky, attended by angels and trumpets, it would have no other effect than it had then. The sign given at this day will be an illustration, and thence a knowledge and reception of the truths of the New Church; some speaking illustration of certain per sons may also take place."-Hob. Life of Swed. p. 44.