our own and self-derived, is ever ready to grant a listening ear to the crafty insinuations of the serpent or sensual principle, because this principle endeavors to persuade us, by many appearances, of the very thing which we desire to believe, viz: that we do live and are wise of ourselves. This affection therefore, is what is denoted by the woman whom the serpent tempted. Woman, in a good sense, corresponds to and signifies affection for truth. But when listening to the suggestions of the serpent, as in the present instance, it denotes the love of self-derived intelligence. Now when this love yields to the artful reasonings of the sensual principle, as it is ever inclined to do, and the man begins to believe that he lives, is wise, and does good of himself, because it so appears, that moment he turns away from the Tree of Life, and begins to eat of the forbidden tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And when man's affection for truth has become thus debased and sensualized changed into the affection of self-derived intelligence, it extends its poisonous influence throughout every region of the mind, blinding the understanding and debasing the rational principle also; and this is what is signified, spiritually, by the woman's tempting the man to eat. By man is here denoted the rational principle. And in this state, the sensual principle, being separated from the spiritual and celestial, and turned to the corporeal, is no longer in the true order of its creation, but in a state of disobedience to the higher principles of the soul. Therefore it is accursed. This is what is spiritually signified by the sentence pronounced upon the serpent, "upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life." And not only so, but the whole land is accursed, bringing forth thorns and thistles; that is, the whole region of the mind is disordered and debased, giving birth to infernal lusts and false persuasions.

Thus did the serpent, in the most Ancient Church, tempt the woman, and the woman the man; until the affections of that Church becoming corrupted, and its understanding darkened, it gradually and successively fell from its state of primitive purity and innocence; and thus was driven out from the garden of Eden - away from the peaceful paradise of innocence and love.

This was the fall-the fall of man: - a degraded state of spiritual blindness, moral imbecility, and internal self-worship, wherein all men by inheritance are now immersed; and from which state, whosoever rises so as to feed upon the true and living Bread which cometh down from heaven, must do so in the sweat of his face;-by

a hard struggle against his evil loves, and continual watchfulness against the subtle arts of the serpent.

Thus we may discover now, in every mind, the principles which correspond to and are denoted by the serpent, the tree of the science of good and evil, and that sinning woman Eve. And every man who depends on his own intelligence, or who loves himself more than the Lord, is eating of that forbidden tree, whose fruit is poison to the life of heaven.

Let no one, therefore, think ever to find the garden of Eden out of himself. For in the soul- the purified and regenerate soul are the essence and living correspondences of all the lovely places and beautiful forms that exist in the natural world; - of all the innocent creatures that walk and fly — of all the fair and fragrant flowers that overspread the earth. Here, or nowhere, is to be found the garden of Eden, the paradise of God.

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Thus doth this Scripture, once cold and dead, become fresh and living truth. Thus by "the key of knowledge" which is now restored to us in the revealed Science of Correspondences - by the touch, as it were, of the Lord's finger at this his second adventthe Sacred Scripture rises from the dead, and is presented to us glorious in wisdom-radiant with beauty-all warm and breathing with the life of God.

LECTURE VII.

THE SACRED SCRIPTURE - KEY TO THE SPIRITUAL SENSE APPLIED, AND ITS IMPORTANCE EXEMPLIFIED.

"The supper of the great God."— Rev. xix. 17.

IN my last lecture I explained the nature of the Science of Correspondences, according to which, as we learn from Swedenborg, the Sacred Scripture is composed throughout. I also applied it in a general way to the interpretation of a few things in that portion of the Word which treats of the creation and fall of man. I endeavored to show that this science is not arbitrary, nor fanciful, but that it has its foundation in that immutable relation subsisting between natural and spiritual things, as between effect and cause:— that it expresses a law of divine order in creation, and is, therefore, as determinate and fixed as the laws of light, or of the planetary motions. And because all things in the natural world subsist from a spiritual cause because this law of correspondence between forms and their essence, or between natural effects and the spiritual substances which enter into them as their cause, is a necessary law in creation, it is a law of order necessary also in revelation. The Science of Correspondences, therefore, furnishes us with a rule, and the only rule, as I have before said, for the true spiritual interpretation of the Word of God.

It will be seen on adverting to the previous lecture, that light, water, and blood are each given as the correspondent and representative image of truth. Those who are unacquainted with this subject of correspondences, may be at a loss to understand how this can be. They may not readily perceive how different natural things can correspond to and signify the same spiritual principle, if the principle and the thing have a relation like that existing between cause and effect. How this is, therefore, shall be explained in few words.

I presume it will be admitted by all that nothing was made in vain, but that every object in creation has some specific use for which it was created. All the things in the natural world, therefore, taken together, present us with an endless variety of natural

uses. So there are all orders and degrees of truth in the Divine Humanity, and an infinite variety of spiritual uses which truth has to perform in the spiritual creation, or regeneration of man. The different natural objects, therefore, which are each the representative image of truth, and which have each a different use, correspond to and signify the different operations or uses of truth.

Thus light corresponds to and signifies the use of truth in illustrating human minds: water corresponds to truth with respect to its use in cleansing the mind of those evil principles which defile it. And as water has many other uses besides that of cleansing, so there are correspondent spiritual uses which truth has to perform in the mind. But when man not only knows and understands truth, but so regulates his life according to it that it becomes a vital principle of his being, it is then received, as it were, into the spirit's circulation, and its use is such, that it finds its correspond. ing natural form and representative image in blood.

Thus it is, that all the different representative images of truth, whether in nature or in art, correspond to this divine principle in its various forms, degrees, relations, uses, and operations in man.

I proceed now to give some further confirmations of the truth, and illustrations of the use, of the Science of Correspondences. And although this Science is equally applicable to the interpretation of the plainer portions of the Word, yet, with the view of showing its importance more clearly, I shall select for illustration such passages as are either unintelligible in their literal sense, or attended with more or less difficulty. In the narrow limits of a single lecture all I can hope to do, is, to give the reader some general idea of the application of this science to the interpretation of the Word.

It was shown in a preceding lecture that what is recorded in Genesis concerning the flood, cannot be received as true in the literal sense, because in this sense it teaches what is manifestly contrary to the truths of science. But in its spiritual sense, as unfolded by the Science of Correspondences, this chapter addresses man's rational faculty, and is seen to be perfectly true and consistent throughout. I will here offer a few hints, which may furnish the reader with a clue to the right interpretation of the whole chapter.

Water, I have said, is the correspondent of truth. But it is only when water is employed in some of its appropriate uses, that

it has this correspondence. If people employ it, as they may, in drowning themselves or others, or in destroying any living thing that is useful upon earth, then they abuse it, or convert it from its appropriate and good use, into an evil use. There should, therefore, be something to which water corresponds when it is thus abused, or turned from a good into an evil use. And what else should its correspondence then be, but the truth misemployed, or used for an evil end? Truth is abused, because turned from its appropriate use, whenever it is employed to favor any evil love; and since genuine truth cannot do this - cannot favor anything that is evil-for only falsehood is in agreement with evil, therefore the abuse of truth implies its conversion into falsity, which is opposite; for to make any truth favor an evil love, is to make that truth a falsity. Water, therefore, when employed for any purpose that is not good, corresponds to truth when used to favor some evil love; thus to falsity, because truth is thereby changed into falsity.

From this opposite correspondence of water, we may learn what is signified by the waters of the flood mentioned in the chapter above referred to. They denote the falses of the Ancient Church, originating in its evil loves, which so overwhelmed the minds of the men of that Church, that the pure and innocent affections of charity-all the things of heavenly life-perished. And this is what is denoted by that flood's destroying every living creature and substance upon the face of the earth. Earth denotes the Church, as we have before said.

The internal sense of the whole of this chapter is beautifully unfolded in the first volume of the Arcana Coelestia. Without entering further now into the meaning of the particular things there mentioned, I will quote Swedenborg's exposition of verse 19, where it is thus written: "And the waters prevailed exceeding exceedingly upon the earth, and all the high mountains were covered, which were under the heaven."

“That waters, in this and in the following verses, signify falses, may appear from those passages of the Word, which were quoted in the introduction to this chapter, and also in the explication of verse 6, where mention is made of a flood, or inundation of waters. It was there shown that inundations of waters signify desolations and temptations, which imply the same thing as falses, for desolations and temptations are nothing else but inundations of falses excited by evil spirits. That such waters signify falses is hence, because in general waters in the Word signify what is spiritual, that is, what is