called muses, either from the similarity of their intellectual origin, or because men, by inquiring of them, learned the things of which they before were ignorant.] For from the ancient churches they received the knowledge that the horse signifies the intellectual principle of understanding; his wings, the spiritual principle of spiritual truth; the hoof, what is scientific derived from understanding, or truth in the ultimate sense, where is the origin of intelligence; virgins, the sciences; a hill, unanimity, and, in the spiritual sense, charity; and a fountain, doctrine from which sciences are derived; and so in all other cases. [Minerva, the goddess of wisdom, is figured on some medals as drawn in a chariot by four horses. Mars, the god of war, is frequently described as rushing forth in a chariot drawn by furious war-horses; and Oceanus, also, who presided over rivers and fountains, was drawn by fabulous sea-horses supplied with wings]. Nor is there anything else signified by the Trojan horse than an artificial contrivance devised by their understanding for the purpose of destroying the walls. Even at this day, when understanding is described after the manner received from those ancients, it is usual to figure it by a flying horse, or Pegasus; so, likewise, doctrine is described by a fountain, and the sciences by virgins; but scarcely any one knows that the horse, in the mystic sense, signifies the understanding; still less, that those significatives were derived to the gentiles from the ancient representative churches.119-W. H. 4; A. C. 7729.

119 "The sun signifies the Lord as to his di- | The scientifics, which at this day are called vine love. But when the science of correspondences became corrupted and obliterated, the worship of the sun as an idol became almost universal. Many remnants of sun worship may be traced in the names of places, in many customs which we know to have existed, and in many which are still observed. We have Sunday, as the vulgar name of the first day of the week. From this arose the custom of making bonfires on the first night of May (Morris's Ireland, pp. 20, 23), and the aborigines of Ireland call the previous eve, 'La Bealtine,' or the 'day of Belen's fire.' The word Beltein is also a name given to a fair held in Peebles, in Scotland, at the beginning of May, and is said to signify the feast of the sun,' which was once observed at that season."-Lawson's Dis., p. 277.

philosophics, such as are those of Aristotle and the like, were unknown to them; this is also evident from the books of the earlier writers, several of which are written in such terms as signified, represented, and corresponded to interior things. That this was the case may be manifest from the following considerations, amongst others which might be mentioned, viz., that they assigned to Helicon a place on a mountain, and by it they meant heaven; that they assigned to Parnassus a place beneath on a hill, and by it they meant scientifics; that they asserted that a flying horse, which they called Pegasus, did there break open a fountain with his hoof; that they called the sciences virgins, and so forth; for they knew from correspondences and representatives, that a mountain denoted heaven, that a hill de"It is to be noted that the scientifics of the noted that heaven which is beneath, or ancients were altogether other than the sci- which is with man, that a horse denoted entifics at this day; they treated concerning the intellectual principle, that the wings the correspondences of things in the natural with which he flew were spiritual things, world with things in the spiritual world. ❘ that a hoof was the natural principle, that

The Hindoos attribute seven horses to the sun. The Oriental nations, who worshipped the sun, not only represented him as riding along the sky in a chariot drawn by the fleetest and most beautiful horses, to communicate his light and warmth to the world; but, when all idea of correspondence was lost, they consecrated to the sun the finest steeds and chariots, and, as the sun arose, rode to the eastern gates of their cities to pay their homage. The Jews at one time became infected with this species of idolatry; for we read that Josiah "took away the horses that the kings of Judah [his predecessors] had given [or consecrated] to the sun, at the entering in of the house of the Lord [or the court of the temple towards the east], and burned

ual and celestial things, because they may be applied also to confirm falsities, and likewise cast the mind into darkness when truths are confirmed by them, inasmuch as several of them are bare expressions, whereby confirmations are effected, which are apprehended by few, and concerning which even those few are not agreed. Hence it may appear evident how far mankind have receded from the erudition of the ancients, which led to wisdom.

The gentiles derived the above scientifics from the ancient Church, the external worship of which consisted in representatives and significatives, and the internal in those things which were represented and signified."-A. C. n. 4966.

'Royalty and government were, from the earliest times, distinguished by symbolical insignia."-Jones's Lect. on Fig. Lang. of Scripture, p. 260.

a fountain was intelligence, and that the three virgins, who were called Charites, were the affections of good, and that the virgins, who were named the virgins of Helicon and Parnassus, were the affections of truth. In like manner they assigned to the sun horses, whose meat they called ambrosia, and drink nectar; for they knew that the sun signified celestial love, horses the intellectual things which are thence derived, and that meats signify celestial things, and drinks spiritual. By derivation from the ancients also, it is still a custom that kings, at their coronation, should sit upon a silver throne, should be clad in a purple robe, be anointed with oil, should wear on their heads a crown, and carry in their hands a sceptre, a sword and keys, should ride in royal pomp on a white horse, under whose feet should be hoofs of silver, and should be waited on at table by the most respectable personages of the kingdom, besides other ceremonies; for they knew that a king represented the divine truth which is from the divine good, and hence they knew what is signified by a silver throne, a purple robe, anointing oil, a crown, a sceptre, a sword, "Symbols [in the Sacred Scriptures] are keys, a white horse, hoofs of silver, and being often borrowed from the lower parts of crewaited upon by the most respectable person-ation, such as animals, mountains, seas, rivages. Who at this day is in possession of this knowledge, and where are the scientifics which teach it? The above ceremonies are called emblematical, from an entire ignorance of everything relating to correspondence and representation. From these considerations it is manifest of what quality the scientifics of the ancients were, and that those scientifics led them into knowledge concerning things spiritual and celestial, the very existence of which also at this day is scarcely known. The scientifics which succeeded in place of the above, and which are In a Brahmanic legend, a fish is repreproperly called philosophics, rather draw sented as instructing Manu in his first incar the mind away from the knowledge of spirit-nation in all kinds of knowledge.

"In their representative processions, the Chinese still carry, at the end of long silver rods, figures in silver of strange animals, hands, scales, fishes, and other mysterious things."-Bernier: Pinkerton's Coll., vol. viii., p. 201.

ers, and the like. And the signification of them is founded (according to the notions which the ancients had of their natures, magnitudes, uses, etc.) upon the principle of affinity and similitude."-Bictero's Signs of the Times, App., p. 219.

Swedenborg has expounded the entire Book of the Revelation, sentence by sentence, in two admirable works, entitled, Apocalypse Revealed, two vols., and Apocalypse Explained, a posthumous publication in six volumes.

the chariots of the sun with fire" (2 Kings xxiii. 11). Nor is this recorded in the Word merely for the sake of the history, but in order to teach us that all spiritual idolatry must be renounced and forsaken, that the soul may become the chosen temple of Jehovah's presence and blessing, and that man may "worship Him," as the Sun of Righteousness, "in spirit and in truth."

The signification of other animals might be as distinctly proved as that we have been considering. Let it be admitted, then, that there is a correspondence between animals and the principles constituent of the mind, both in this world and in another, and we shall at once perceive the reason why animals were seen in the spiritual world in the visions of the prophets and apostles, many of which were unlike any existing in this world, and why the prevailing dispositions of the mind are, in the Word, called doves and owls, lambs and wolves, sheep and dogs, etc. We shall then read a lesson of holiest wisdom in the divine promise that believers should "take up serpents" (Mark xvi. 18), and "tread upon serpents" (Luke x. 19). We shall see how, in the regeneration, the varied affections and desires of the mind, with their delights, spiritual and natural, rational and sensual, are brought under the benign, the peaceful, the harmonious influences of the Lord and heaven, in which "The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice' den." "The wolf and the lamb shall lie down together: and dust shall be the serpent's meat" (Isa. xi. 6–8; lxv. 25); also why it is promised that "a man shall nourish a young cow and two sheep" (Isa. vii. 21); and why, again, they are pronounced blessed "who sow beside all waters, and send forth thither the feet of the ox and the ass" (Isa. xxxii. 20). You will at once understand, too, that the covenant which God is said to make with beasts and birds and creeping things of the earth, means his eternal covenant with man's immortal soul, or with all the affections and thoughts and faculties of both the internal and external mind, represented by the various orders of animals. Read the following inspired passage with this exalted view, and without further explanation you will find it filled with beauty, sublimity, wisdom, and life, worthy of Him who is its Divine Author. "In that day, I, Jehovah, will make

a covenant for them [my people] with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven, and with the creeping things of the ground: and I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness, and in judgment, and in loving kindness, and in mercies. I will even betroth thee unto me in faithfulness, and thou shalt know the Lord" (Hos. ii. 18-20).

When the affections of the heart rise towards the Lord, and manifest themselves in the exalted love of the neighbor, and when the thoughts of the understanding find their true and permanent abode in the same elevated and heavenly principles, they derive their internal character and quality from the Lord, and are said to be known to Him,—that is, acknowledged as proceeding from Him; then, in the language of correspondence, He is represented as saying, "Every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills. I know all the fowls upon the mountains and the wild beasts of the field are mine" (Ps. 1. 10, 11).

18

CHAPTER XIV.

CORRESPONDENCE of the Vegetable WorlD, WITH ILLUSTRATIONS.

THE objects and productions of the vegetable kingdom of nature,

of which growth, but neither sensation nor locomotion, is predicable, are, equally with those of the animal kingdom, used in the Word of God as the appropriate representative forms and correspondences of holy and spiritual subjects and objects, or their opposites.120 Thus, shrubs and flowers, herbs and trees in general, "from the cedartree in Lebanon, even unto the hyssop that springeth out of the wall” (1 Kings iv. 33); "from the rose of Sharon to the lily of the valley " (Cant. iii. 1); all "trees pleasant to the sight and good for food" (Gen. ii. 9); "thorns, also, and thistles" (Gen. iii. 19); nettles and brambles (Isa. xxxiv. 13); wormwood and hemlock, correspond to or represent the countless things of intelligence, observance, and knowledge both true and false, wholesome and pernicious, and to

120 Jupiter's statue was made of oak; and Tacitus affirms that in Germany the images of the gods consisted of rude trunks of unpolished oak.-Potter's Antiq., vol. i., p. 191. Isa. xl. 20.

Robust is from the Latin word, robur, strength, and which is the name for an oak. The Hebrew word for oak also denotes strength.

| spond, are capable of being overruled for use and service to man, as well as being capable of abuse. Such is especially the case with all plants possessing medicinal qualities. A justly celebrated author remarks, that "If a stranger had visited a wandering tribe before one property of herbalism was known to them; if he had told the savages that the herbs which every day they trampled under In the age when the science of correspond- foot were endowed with the most potent virences and all true religion became corrupted tues,-that one would restore to health a into idolatry, "trees were the original tem- brother on the verge of death, that another ples of the gods; they were also the symbols would paralyze to idiocy their wisest sage, or images of them; and their several attri- that a third would strike lifeless to the dust butes were expressed by several trees, which their most stalwart champion; that tears and were perpetually appropriated to their re- laughter, vigor and disease, madness and reaspective deities, and called by their names; son, wakefulness and sleep, existence and and therefore addressed and appealed to, as dissolution were coiled up in those unreif they had themselves the attributes and garded leaves,-would they not have held powers of their prototypes, to hear the cove-him a sorcerer and a liar? To half the virnants made in their presence, and punish the violators of them."-Dr. Gloster Ridley's Notes on Melampus, p. 259. London, 1781.

It must not be overlooked that plants and vegetables, including those of even the most noxious kinds, like the doctrines and truths adapted to the various natural and sensual principles of the mind to which they corre

tues of the vegetable world mankind are yet in the darkness of the savages I have supposed. There are faculties within us with which certain herbs have an affinity, and over which they have power. The Moly of the ancients was not all a fable."-Bulwer's Zanoni, vol. iii.