The clouds, the clouds !-My childish days That never will grow cold: And the love of nature is one of these NOTICE TO CORRESPONDENTS. The length of the paper on the "Formation of LOCAL ASSEMBLIES" renders its insertion impracticable, unless the writer will permit us greatly to curtail it. We take this opportunity of stating that communications which would occupy more than three or four printed pages must frequently be rejected; even if otherwise suitable. Few words, and many and well arranged things, should be the aim of contributors to such a work as ours. The poetical pieces of J. G. B. P. are creditable to his talents; but from the want of any spiritual application are not suited to the Magazine. In the lines "To a dead body" there are even doctrinal errors. If J. G. B. P. will attend to these points, we are sure he may produce poetry which would really ornament its pages. To the earnest request to animadvert upon a recent Ball at Manchester; we observe that we are not Censors, but Editors. Whatever falls within the latter province, we hope fearlessly to execute; beyond this we trust never to be led, either by party or private feeling. The continuation of the Miracle of Raising Lazarus in our next. We thank MONITUS for his suggestions, and assure him that his opinions on a late controversy entirely accord with our own.-Truth, like the nobler metals, always appears the brighter for a little rubbing. It is with sincere pleasure that we inform the Church, that Dr. Spurgin having, through the medium of a friend, apprized Mr. C. A. Tulk that the articles affecting Mr. T. in the last number of the Intellectual Repository, were inserted not only without, but positively against his consent, a mutual explanation took place; and these gentlemen, in consequence now meet each other, to use Dr. S's own words in his note to us, "under the pure and peaceful government of charity.' This is as it should be; and we trust the example will soon reach his fellow editors. ONCE FOR ALL we say that the insertion of articles in the pages of our Journal, does not imply the approbation of the Editors to all the sentiments they may contain. If the design be good, and the communications respectably and temperately written, it is our duty as far as circumstances will permit, to give them a place. To do otherwise, were to assume a station to which we have too deep a feeling of our own weakness and fallibility to pretend. We are only pledged to the articles signed EDITORS, and to such occasional notices as may be placed under the present head. It is most gratifying to be able to state that the Magazine promises to realize in every way the hopes respecting it. The number of regular subscribers is steadily increasing: Two places in which there are New Church Societies have already doubled their former orders. THE NEW JERUSALEM MAGAZINE. APRIL, 1829. ON THE MIRACLE OF RAISING LAZARUS FROM DEATH. [Continued from page 45.] SWEDENBORG, among the references to the Arcana Cœlestia, which are contained in number 305 of the Treatise on the New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Doctrine, says, "that in the sense of the letter there is a distinction made between the Father and the Son, but not in the internal sense of the Word, in the perception of which sense are the angels of heaven." If this declaration of our inspired author be true,—and who, that believes the LORD'S Second Advent to consist in the full manifestation of Himself by the explication of His Holy Word in its spiritual sense, can for a moment doubt it?—then must it be evident, that to have a clear and full perception of the unity of the Father and the Son, our doctrine must not be identified with the literal sense, in which there is, in several passages, as marked a distinction made between them as could be made between any two separate individuals; but, taking that literal sense as the basis for an influx purely spiritual, we should endeavour to draw our doctrine from it, and this we shall be enabled to do whenever our minds are receptive of light from heaven. All former churches, however opposite their doctrines in relation to the LORD, whether, as in the case of Trinitarians, a mysterious and unintelligible tenet be formed by the juxtaposition of opposing passages in the literal sense; or whether as in the case of Arians, the literal sense be thought to establish another view, which lowers the Saviour to the rank of the first created being; or whether, as in the case of Socinians, all mystery be rejected, and with it a portion of the literal sense, in order that the remainder may exhibit the LORD as no more than a mere man, gifted with the power of working miracles, but finite VOL. I.-No 4. K like themselves, subject to hunger and thirst, to sorrow and temptation, to mental and bodily suffering, and even to death; all these churches, without any exception, have sought and found their several modes of faith in the literal sense; the appearances of truth in the letter, which are given as a basis and fulcrum to enable man to rise from off the earth, have been adopted as the true doctrine, and heresies without number have been the invariable result.* Nor is it possible, from the very nature of the literal sense, that it could have been otherwise; and he who attempts to prove from that sense alone, that the Lord Jesus Christ is Jehovah, must rely rather upon the ignorance of others, than upon the strength which he derives from the consistency of the literal account. That sense is the sword which "turns every way, to guard the way of the tree of life,” and therefore as many texts may be brought forward on the one hand to prove that the * In the Extracts from the ARCANA CELESTIA, given in the Work ON THE NEW JERUSALEM AND ITS HEAVENLY DOCTRINE, which follow the chapter on the Holy Scripture or Word, Swedenborg says, "That the angels understand not even one word of the literal sense of the Word. A. C. 64, 65, 1434, 1929. "That the internal sense of the Word contains the secret truths [Arcana] of heaven, which concern the Lord, and His kingdom in the heavens and upon earth. 1, 2, 3, 4, 937. "That these secret truths [Arcana] do not appear in the sense of the letter. 937, 1502, 2161. "That not one word only, nor a single jod could be wanting from the literal sense of the Word, without an interruption of the internal sense, and therefore the divine providence of the LORD has preserved the Word so entire, even as to every expression, and every point. 7933. "That the internal sense of the Word is the doctrine itself of the church. 9025, 9430, 10401. "That they, who understand the Word according to its internal sense, know the true doctrine itself of the church, for the internal sense contains it. 9025, 9430, 10401, "That the Word in the literal sense is as a cloud, but in its internal sense is the glory. 5922, 6343. "That the sense of the letter is as a body, and the internal sense as the soul of that body. 8943. "That they who are in heaven do not understand one word according to the sense of the letter, which is natural, but according to its internal sense, which is spiritual. 2899. "That if a member of the most ancient church could read the Word, he would see clearly those things which are in its internal sense, but obscurely those things which are in its external. 449. "That the literal sense is written according to the appearances which exist in the world. 588, 926, 1719, 1720, 1832, 1874, 2242, 2520. And for the capacity of the simple. 2533, 9049. “The quality of the Word in the sense of the letter, if at the same time it be not understood according to the internal sense, or what is the same thing, according to true doctrine from the Word. 10402. "That from the literal sense without the internal sense, or, without genuine doctrine from the Word, heresies without number burst forth. 10400." Father and the Son, are distinctly conscious beings; and even that the Son is inferior to the Father, as can be adduced on the other hand to demonstrate their unity. "Of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels who are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father."* Who can read this, and many other passages equally plain and unequivocal, and refuse to acknowledge with Swedenborg, that the literal sense of the Holy Scripture, which makes a distinction between the Father and the Son, is not the true doctrine of the church, but the spiritual sense, in which no such distinction is to be found. Let us not deceive either ourselves, or others. The literal sense, if fairly given, will make as much against us, as for us. Considered in, and by itself, it is an imperfect Revelation of the LORD, mercifully accommodated to man's state, who, being grossly sensual, would not have received a higher. But that higher, and consequently, fuller revelation of Himself is at length given. It is given in the spiritual sense, in which there is not even the trace of actual union, as between two, but the plenitude and immutability of perfect ONENESS, relatively varying according to the progressive, or retrogressive states of the recipient subjects. This is indeed the Second Coming of the LORD to man, not veiled in the cloud and obscurity of the letter, but revealed in the glory and the brightness of the Spirit; not suffering on the cross in a city, which by its rejection of the divine good and truth, became "a den of dragons," but reigning for evermore in that Holy Jerusalem, which is at this day "descending from God out of heaven." What a gross error, then, is it, for men still to prefer the earthly Jerusalem to the heavenly! Still to cling to the shadows of sense, time, and space, and the properties of nature, when, if they would only look up, they would behold the substantial realities of heaven! It would not be difficult to show how much such a devious, and a downward course has tended to darken the doctrine of the LORD into a mystery. From mingling the two senses together, how many have been led to believe, that the Father and the Son, before they were united by the glorification of the latter, were two distinctly conscious Beings, the one Infinite, and the other finite; the one Omnipresent, and the other only finitely present in a certain portion of space; the one Life Itself, and the other suffering, and crying out to his Father for support in the midst of his suffering, "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me ?" I am well aware of the manner in which this has been explained. All these indications of a finite being, distinct from the Father, are, it ap *Mark xiii. 32. pears, applicable to an infirm Humanity; for that when, by the process of glorification, the Lord Jesus Christ was united with the Father, or, as it is commonly expressed, but not by Swedenborg, when the Humanity was made Divine, then there was no longer any distinction between them, for from that time forth “in Jesus Christ dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily." But neither will this explanation serve the purpose of identifying the true doctrine of the church with the literal sense; for, laying out of the consideration the fact, that even of those passages where there is the most obvious distinction between the Father and the Son, in the spiritual sense there is none whatever, even this explanation fails when brought to the test. The time when the change was completely effected has been fixed at the LORD'S ascension; and yet after this event, when we should not expect to find the slightest trace of distinction, to disturb the thoughts of him who makes out something like a consistent doctrine from the literal sense, only by keeping one half the passages out of sight, even after this event of the LORD's ascenion, the literal sense of the Apocalypse still adheres to the same distinction between the Father and the Son, as is to be found in various parts of the Gospels which relate to the LORD's appearance upon earth previous to His glorification. After His resurrection and ascension, He says Himself to His Apostle John, "Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out, and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God."* So difficult is it, nay, I will venture to say, so impossible is it, if we examine and treat the question fairly, to find in the literal sense alone, the true doctrine of the church, namely, that there is but One only God, and the Lord Jesus Christ is that God. Indeed the slightest reflection will be sufficient to convince us, that the literal sense is not the genuine doctrine of the church, but the internal sense which is to be drawn from it. For if the true doctrine had been openly and obviously revealed in the natural sense, then would there have been no occasion for the spiritual; if the truth was revealed at the first Advent, then was there no occasion for a Second; if the Old Jerusalem was to be our city, then should we not have had a new doctrine-a New Jerusalem descending at this day from God out of heaven. In that heaven out of which the Holy City is at this day descending, the angels understand not even one word of the literal sense; they do not even utter the * Apoc. iii. 12. |