spect in relation to the spiritual life and happiness of their souls; thus, when the prudence and circumspection of the external man is under the guidance and influence of heavenly principles in the internal man, the "harmlessness of the dove" is then combined with the "prudence of the serpent," and man is truly wise.

The Lord gives his disciples "power to tread upon serpents" (Luke x. 18); and He also gives them "power to take up serpents" (Mark xvi. 18). In the former case, serpents signify the perverse sensual things in man, and also evil and unclean spirits who, as we have seen above, are in the closest connection with the unclean and wicked things of our sensual nature; to tread upon them, is to subdue and reject them by the divine power which the Lord continually gives us for this purpose: and in the latter case, to take up serpents, signities to elevate and purify the things of our sensual nature, which is effected by faith in the Lord and a life of love according to his precepts. Hence, "to take up serpents," spiritually understood, is one of the true signs of a living faith in the Lord. The Lord then " enters into a covenant with the creeping things of the ground” (Hosea ii. 18), and purifies and blesses all our external appetites and desires, so that, "whether we eat or drink, or whatsoever we do, we do all to the glory of God" (1 Cor. x. 31).

Ancient mythology also confirms the truth that the serpent is the correspondent emblem of the sensual principle in man. The giants who waged war against the gods, were represented as having, among other hideous features, their legs and feet like serpents. Python,* the huge serpent which Apollo, the god of light and truth, slew with arrows, was evidently a mythological emblem of the perverse sensual principle of human nature; and the hydra with many monstrous heads, which Hercules destroyed, had a similar signification. The fury, Envy, was seen by Minerva in her miserable house in hell, eating the flesh of vipers,—

"Videt intus edentem

Vipereas Carnes, vitiorum alimenta suorum
Invidiam," etc.

to denote, that this malignant passion is nourished by the corruptions of our sensual nature.

Seeing, then, what the sensual principle is, how much we ought to

*Those are called Pythons, says E. S., who speak falsities from deceit or purpose, and who utter them in a tone of voice that seems to proceed from spiritual affection. (See T. C. R. 324.)

watch and pray against the perverse influence and operation of sensual fallacies, appetites and pleasures! He who professes the doctrines of the New Church, and does not at the same time, by daily taking up his cross, subdue his natural cupidities and appetites, and keep them under the controlling influence of a religious and spiritual principle, is one of the greatest enemies to the holy cause he professes to advocate. If he does not in time take heed to his ways, and sincerely repent by changing his course of life, from having had so clear a knowledge of the truth, his states will be filled up with a greater measure of wickedness and condemnation, than the states of others not blessed with so clear a discernment of divine truths and eternal realities; for "the servant that knew his Lord's will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes." (Luke xii. 47.) MINUS.

CHAPTER XVII.

NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL SUBSTANCE AND FORM-TRUTH AND LOVE ARE SUBSTANTIAL-THE NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL BODY-OBJECTS IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD, AND THE LAW OF THEIR EXISTENCE-DISCRETE DEGREES, CONFIRMING THE DOCTRINE OF CORRESPONDENCE-God, the INFINITE AND SELF-EXISTING SUBSTANCE.*

CREA

YREATION is an outbirth of the Creator, and in all its parts which are according to divine order, is illustrative of his infinite Love, Wisdom and Power. The old hypothesis, "that all things were created out of nothing," is now for the most part exploded as a groundless fancy, irrational and absurd. Those who still cling to this old fancy, prove that they have not attained to a knowledge of what is truly philosophical and spiritual. This idea of a creation out of nothing, if such an idea can be possible, is supposed to have some ground to stand upon in an assertion of the apostle: "The things which are seen were not made of things which do appear." (Heb. xi. 3.) These words, however, by no means teach that the things. which are seen were created out of nothing, but that they were created out of things which do not appear to the bodily sight; and the things which do not thus appear, are the things which exist in the spiritual world, and which are substantial, and the proximate cause of the creation and existence of things in the natural world, which are material.

Without a knowledge of the spiritual world, and of its relation to the natural; and likewise without some discernment of the nature of the substances and objects which exist in that world, and also of the laws by which they are governed, it is impossible to have proper ideas concerning the creation of all things by God. The natural universe is as a theatre representative of the spiritual and heavenly things which exist in the spiritual universe, and especially in the Lord's kingdom; and the things which exist in this latter are representative of the infinite things of Love, Wisdom and Power which exist in the

* From the Intellectual Repository for Dec., 1844.

Lord Himself. Thus "the invisible things of God from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead." (Rom. i. 20.) The WORD by which all things were made, is the DIVINE TRUTH acting as one with the DIVINE LOVE or GOODNESS. Truth is not a mere conception of the mind in conformity with the true nature of things; still less, is it a mere fiat or declaration of the mouth, but it is the very essential substance of all things. When therefore the Lord said, “I AM THE TRUTH," He declared that Truth is a substance and a form, which in its divine origin, or in the Lord, is the divine and infinite substance and form, from which all other substances and forms, both in the spiritual and natural worlds, are only derivations and formations.-A. C. 7270.

In the spiritual world these substances and forms constituting the infinite variety of objects and scenery there beheld, are called spiritual and substantial; and because they exist from the Sun of the spiritual world as their proximate origin, they are of a different nature, and are governed by laws essentially different from those by which objects in the natural world are governed; because these latter objects are from the sun of nature as their proximate origin, and hence they have a nature, and are governed by laws peculiar to themselves. To think, therefore, of the substances and forms of the spiritual world with the same ideas as we think of the substances and forms of the natural world, is to think erroneously; hence the cause why people in general, when they hear of a spiritual world filled with objects in varieties infinitely greater than can be seen upon earth, recoil at the idea, and treat it with ridicule, because they can only think of them in the same manner as they think of material objects. And, indeed, before they are instructed how the case is, they must needs be excused.

Let us take the spiritual body and the natural body of man as a basis of our contemplation and reasoning on this subject. These two forms of man, the one spiritual and the other natural, exist simultaneously, the one is the form of his mind, by which he is an inhabitant of the spiritual world; and the other is his bodily material organization, by which he is an inhabitant of the natural world. That these two forms of man exist simultaneously, is plainly declared by the apostle Paul, when he says, "there is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body;" the apostle speaks in the present tense,"there is,”-in order to show that these two forms exist simultaneously. And such is the uniform testimony of Swedenborg. This spiritual

form is the seat of all man's mental life, but the natural form is the seat of all his bodily life. Man does not enter consciously into the possession and enjoyment of his spiritual form or body, until he has left the natural body by death; no more than the chrysalis, so long as it is in the pupa-state, is in the conscious enjoyment of the power which it has, by virtue of its golden wings, of rising, when it becomes an imago or perfect butterfly, from the ground, and winging its flight in the aërial regions, skimming over the flowery meads, and feeding on ambrosia and nectar. Before it can do this, the pupa-state which bound it to the earth must be put off. So long as man is in a material body, he is comparatively in this pupa-state, bound by the laws of space and of time, shackled as to his mental powers, earthbound as to many of his conceptions and ideas, and gross as to his affections. and pursuits. The laws of creation and of order require him to pass through this state, which, although indispensable, is not intended to last long; because, as the apostle says in the same chapter, "that which is natural is first, and afterwards that which is spiritual." In this state we are trained and prepared for the heavenly world; and thrice happy are they who suffer themselves to be duly prepared, that is, to be regenerated.

It is of the utmost importance that we should have correct ideas of the nature of spiritual substances and forms, since otherwise there can be no genuine intelligence and philosophy concerning anything above the mere senses. Now, the spiritual body, or the spiritual form of man which is the seat of all his mental life and activity, is evidently subject to a different order, and to different laws from those which exist in the natural world, and to which the natural body is subject. When speaking of mind we use terms taken from natural objects; and we say that the mind is great or little, enlarged or contracted, high or low, acute or obtuse, etc.; but we never think that these properties literally belong to the mind, except only in a remote and figurative sense. Hence we think of mental states and activities independently of the laws of nature; and we form, in some measure, spiritual ideas of mind and its phenomena.

By the term spiritual, we mean what is separate from the laws and conditions of nature, and what is peculiar to the laws and conditions of the spiritual world. The spirit or mind of man, when in perfect freedom of thought, thinks already to a certain extent in agreement with the laws of that world which it is destined to inhabit forever. It thinks of departed friends as being exempt from the laws of matter