hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience" (Heb. x. 22), by the blood of the new covenant, or the divine truths of the Word of God, might partake of his flesh and blood, his divine goodness and truth, and incorporate these blessed principles into their very nature, or spiritual constitution, as the Lord said (John vi. 57), "As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father, so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me."

It was to represent this internal communication of sacred gifts and virtues by the Lord, and their reception and appropriation on the part of man, that the Holy Supper was instituted as a perpetual memorial representative of the Lord's glorification, and also of man's regeneration, and as a powerful means of advancing it. For Swedenborg distinctly and truly teaches that "the greatest power inheres in correspondences, because in them heaven and the world, the spiritual and the natural, are conjoined, and therefore that the Word is written according to mere [or pure] correspondences; wherefore it is the conjunction of man with heaven, thus with the Lord. The Lord, by this means, is in first principles, and at the same time in lasts, wherefore [church] sacraments [which are the holiest forms of all worship, and a substitute for all the representative ceremonies and rituals of former dispensations of religion] are instituted on the principles of correspondence, in which, accordingly, a divine potency resides" (Sp. Diary, pt. vii.). The Lord made his humanity Divine, and perfectly united it to the indwelling Father, by the successive incorporation of infinite principles of goodness and truth; hence He says, "I have meat to eat that ye know not of" (John iv. 32), and this divinely mysterious process of glorification was the exact pattern of man's regeneration, in which work man becomes, in his finite degree, freely and fully receptive of living principles of goodness and truth from the Lord, which induce upon him the divine likeness, conjoin him with the only source of all life, blessedness, and power, and open up to him a state of eternal advancement in wisdom, love, and use.

Again, in Ezekiel we read: "Thus saith the Lord God, Speak unto every feathered fowl, and to every beast of the field, Assemble yourselves and come; gather yourselves on every side to my sacrifice that I do sacrifice for you, even a great sacrifice upon the mountains of Israel, that ye may eat flesh and drink blood. Ye shall eat the flesh of the mighty, and drink the blood of the princes of the earth, of rams, of lambs, and of goats, of bullocks, all of them fatlings of Ba shan. And ye shall eat fat till ye be full, and drink blood till ye be

drunken, of the sacrifice which I have sacrificed for you. Thus ye shall be filled at my table with horses and chariots, with mighty men, and with all men of war, saith the Lord God" (xxxix. 17-20). And similar descriptions are in the Revelation, where John says, "And I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come, and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God; that ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, both small and great (xix. 17, 18). Without the inward life and spirit, how can the divinity, the holiness, the reasonableness and practical tendency of these passages be comprehended? But when that sense is perceived and acknowledged, and the signification of eating, drinking, and the elements of food is understood, they are no longer mysterious predic tions, but teem with lessons of infinite intelligence, are replete with the unfoldings of unchanging love, radiant with the beams of sacred glory, and are at once seen to be truly worthy of their omniscient Author. In a general sense we are taught by those words that the Lord has provided richest feasts of purest and holiest blessings and satisfactions in his Word and kingdom, for all who are prepared to partake of and appropriate them by faith and love. Every thought capable of elevation into the atmosphere of heaven, signified by the feathered fowls that fly in the midst of the firmament, and every affection inspired with the life of love and charity, signified by the beasts of the field that walk upon the surface of the ground, are freely and earnestly invited and entreated, by the yearnings of infinite love and compassion, to partake of all kinds and degrees of spiritual nourishment and delight prepared for the understanding and the heart, that man may worship the Lord in "the beauty of holiness," and obey his commandments with a cheerful mind, and consequently be replenished, strengthened, and renovated with "feasts of fat things and wines on the lees," the Lord's "sacrifice on the mountains of Israel," "the supper of the great God!"

On account of this signification of two persons or things, when associated in the Word, the Lord sent forth the seventy disciples by "two and two" (Luke x. 1), to preach the glad tidings of redemption and salvation in his name. For the whole essence of the Gospel may be regarded as the love and wisdom of the Lord; nor, unless these divine principles are unitedly received in the will and understanding

of man, can the Gospel become to him "the power of God unto salvation" (Rom. i. 16). There must be a reciprocity of action and reaction established between the infinite will and the finite will, and between the infinite understanding and the finite understanding by the process called regeneration, if the human mind is to become a coherent one, and live forever in conjunction with its Maker. Thus both the love and wisdom emanating from the Lord must be received, and, as it were, reflected back again to their divine source. To receive and retain a given truth in the understanding only, is to combine it with erroneous persuasions and with selfish affections in the will, thus to profane and defile it, and destroy its virtue. He who does this induces upon himself a state of hypocrisy with its direful torment. Hence such impure associations are so strictly forbidden in the Word by a variety of laws, made obligatory even in their literal acceptation in the representative economy of the Jews, and the infringement of which subjected aggressors to severest penalties. But in their inward meaning these laws and penalties are filled with instruction of the most solemn import. Without some internal significancy and capacity of application to the human mind, such laws and penalties cannot be seen in rational light to yield any wisdom worthy of the supreme Lawgiver. For this reason, then, it is, that we are forbidden to sow with divers seed, to plow with an ox and an ass together, or to wear garments woven of mingled woollen and linen yarn (Deut. xxii. 9– 11); for a truth received in the intellect must be yoked or united

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One would imagine that no serious person | could read the Mosaic law, and believe it to be inspired of God, without perceiving that, in every particular, it must have been designed for holier purposes, and to convey a loftier morality, than what appears on the surface of the letter; and that it could be only in its inward and heavenly sense that the Lord Jesus says of it that "not one tittle thereof should fail" (Luke xvi. 17).

"Moses," says Origen (Adv. Cels., i. 18), 'never wrote anything which had not a twofold meaning. If in this spiritual sense we say that God promulgated the law, then it appears a code worthy the Divine Majesty; but if we rest in the letter, and understand what is written in the law as the Jews and common people do, then I blush to say that God gave such laws." "Nor was this principle, that we must put such a sense upon the words and facts of Scripture as is worthy a divine production, peculiar to Origen only; but it was also adopted by Augustine and many others of the fathers."-Bretschneider's Apol

ogy for the Modern Theology of Protestant Germany, by Evanson, p. 53.

In reference to the same subject, Origen further says (in Levit., cap. vii., in Num., cap. xvi., xxi., et in Matt., cap. xxiii.) that “he is a high-priest unto God who holds the (spiritual) science of the law, and understands the reasons of every mystery, and who is acquainted with the law both in the spiritual and literal sense;" but that "all those who literally expound the law are vain preachers." For "they truly make the law an Old Testament who understand it in a carnal manner; but to us, who understand and expound it spiritually and in its evangelical sense, it is always New." 81 Dr. Townley considers that these heterogeneous mixtures, whether of garments, seeds, or animals, were evidently forbidden to prevent idolatry; or according to Thomas Aquinas (Prim. Sec., qu. 102, art. 6), out of hatred to idolatry, because the Egyptians made mixtures of this nature, in seeds, animals, and garments, to represent the different conjunctions of the planets.

to its own proper and corresponding principle of goodness in the heart, if it is to be preserved from profanation, and thus to be successfully employed, not only to promote our usefulness in this world, but our preparation for a heavenly state.

In order to represent to us more significantly the above twofold characteristic of the Lord's divine proceeding, as consisting of infinite love and infinite wisdom in indissoluble union, there are, both in the Old and New Testaments, two terms or names conjoined, as, Lord God, Jehovah God, Jesus Christ, the Lord-God and the Lamb, the Father and the Son, etc., which names are not, as might be supposed from the mere appearance of the letter, appellations referable to some distinct duality and individuality of person in the Godhead, a supposition equivalent to the monstrous and intolerable idea of more gods than one; but they are designed to mark the distinction recognized by human thought in the one true God, between divine love and divine wisdom, or, what is the same thing, between divine goodness and divine truth, the two essential constituents of Godhead coëxistent in the divine Mind, the ground of infinite perfection, and the abode and source of all the attributes of Deity. Reason testifies that it cannot be otherwise. The terms Lord, or Jehovah, Jesus, and Father, generally signify, in the Holy Word, some quality of the essential divine principle of love or goodness; and the terms God, Christ, and Son, for the most part signify some characteristic of the other divine principle of wisdom or truth, according to the subject or state under consideration. How immeasurably above mere reasoning and views which are dependent on the bodily senses do such enlightened conclusions and instructions as these elevate the soul, freeing it at once from all cavil, doubt, and inconsistency, directing its undivided adoration to the one true and holy God of heaven and earth--the Lord Jesus Christ, in his own glorified Human; and because He is thus infinite love or goodness itself, and infinite wisdom or truth itself, the apostle Paul bears this most explicit testimony respecting Him, that "In HIM [the Lord Jesus] dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily." The Father sends forth the Son, as heat sends forth light; and as heat and light are one in the sun, so love and wisdom -the Father and the Son-are one in the glorious person of the Lord Jesus Christ, the "Sun of righteousness."

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82 The Hebrew word Jesus, when translated | The Hebrew word Messiah and the Greek Into English, means deliverer and saviour. I word Christ mean anointed, and hence king.

CHAPTER XI.

THE THREE DEGREES OF LIFE, THE TRINAL DISTINCTION IN GOD, AND THE THREEFOLD CONSTITUTION OF THE HUMAN MIND AND THE HOLY WORD EXPLAINED, AND THEIR MUTUAL CORRESPONDENCE ILLUSTRATED.

WE

E have seen, in the former chapter, that the will and understanding of man are the two primary constituent powers of the human mind. Yet man is not a complete image of his Creator until he brings forth the ends of his will and the causes of his understanding into their proper effects, namely, words and works; these, therefore, form a third essential constituent of his nature. By virtue of possessing and exercising this power, fixity and identity are imparted to all the interior principles of the mind and life. Now, the three corresponding principles of the Divine Mind are, the infinite will of God, comprising divine ends, the infinite understanding of God, comprising divine causes, and the eternal activity of these two principles, in perfect union, comprising all divine effects. In the Sacred Scriptures the all-begetting principle of love, proceeding from the divine will, is designated "the Father;" the all-producing principle of wisdom, proceeding from the divine understanding, or "the Word made flesh," is denominated "the Son;" and the eternal energy and activity of these two principles, now proceeding from the Lord's glorified Human in perfect union, are called "the Holy Spirit." Thus

83 In the ethical philosophy of the ancient Egyptians, the first principle of the mind is said to have been intellect, the second will, and the third, which was the joint efflux of these, concord, or harmony of action.-See Serle's Hor. Sol., p. 331.

"Plato had no doubt of a great mystery being concealed in Moses' account of the three men who appeared unto Abraham." --De Sacrificiis et de Abrahamo, p. 367, cited in Morhen's Notes to Cudworth's Int. Sys., vol. ii., p. 327.

"The three names of the Deity mentioned in Sacred Writ, I Am (Jehovah), God (Elohim), and Lord (Adonai), are referred by Philo to the three divine natures [or essentials] into which he divides the Deity."-Ib., p. 329.

"The Platonic hypotheses seem to be really nothing else but infinite goodness, infinite wisdom, and infinite active power, not as mere qualities or accidents, but as substantial things, all concurring together to make up one ciov, or Divinity."-Ib., p. 408.

The inscription on the great obelisk of the Major Circus was, "the great God, the Begotten of God, the All-resplendent."

Heraclitus mentions an inscription which was a triad: "First God, then the Logos, and the Spirit with them; but all these united by nature and uniting in unity."

"The esse of an angel is that which is called his soul, his existence is that which is called his body, and the proceeding from both is that which is called the sphere cí