of clouds and of thick darkness." (ii. 2.) No one can suppose that natural clouds and darkness are here meant: but this language is used in reference to the state of the Jewish Church at the time of the Lord's advent. By day is denoted state. And the state of that Church was indeed one "of clouds and thick darkness,” for it was immersed in gross falses which darken the understanding, but which it had, nevertheless, confirmed by some appearances of truth in the letter of the Word.

Take another text from Psalms; "God's strength is in the clouds." (lxviii. 34.) What intelligible idea can be derived from these words, if clouds be understood literally, as denoting the vapor that floats in our atmosphere? None whatever. But in the writings of Swedenborg we are shown that Divine Truth in the letter of the Word is in its ultimate and fullest form · hence in its strength. The Word of God in its literal sense is brought down and accommodated to the lowest states of men in the natural world; and it must be first obeyed in this lowest or literal sense; otherwise the Lord can have no power to remove our evils. For example, take the precept "Thou shalt not steal." This has a spiritual as well as a literal sense. But until man keeps this precept literally, the Lord cannot remove from his mind the evil which is condemned by its spiritual sense. Moreover by means of the literal sense, Divine Truth can descend to men and affect them in their lowest states. Through this medium the Lord hath power or strength to reach and save, if they are willing to be saved, even the worst of men. Thus He hath all power on earth as well as in heaven. Hence we may see why it is said that "God's strength is in the clouds."

But Divine Truth cannot descend lower than the state of the natural man, nor than the literal sense of the Word, which is adapted to his state. It terminates in the literal sense, and rests upon it like a house upon its foundation. Accordingly it is said in Psalms, "For thy mercy is great above the heavens, and thy TRUTH [ reacheth] unto the CLOUDS." (cviii. 4.) Now would it not be absurd to speak of Divine Truth extending to the natural clouds? But by means of the immutable law of correspondence, it does reach even to the letter of the Word, which is the spiritual import of clouds.

Then again we find, that, on various important occasions, when truths of an exalted character were to be announced, the revelation, according to the Sacred Record, was made from the clouds. And

this was done to represent, as it does by correspondence, the manner in which all divine truth is communicated to man. It is uttered from the clouds. The Lord, who is the inmost, soul and life of all Scripture the very Truth Itself addresses man through the medium of the literal sense of the Word, thus from the clouds. Hence when the Decalogue was given on mount Sinai, we read that "the Lord said to Moses, Lo, I come unto thee in a thick cloud.” And so "it came to pass on the third day in the morning, that there were thunderings and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount." (Ex. xix. 9, 25.) Now if we regard the thick cloud here mentioned as the symbol of the Word in its literal sense, from, or through the medium of which the Lord comes and communicates to our minds pure spiritual truth, how beautiful and expressive does the language become.

Again when Moses was called up into the mount to receive the tables of the law, it is written that " a cloud covered the mount. And the glory of Jehovah abode upon mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days: and the seventh day He called unto Moses out of the midst of the cloud." (Ex. xxiv. 15, 16.)

Again: when the children of Israel were journeying through the wilderness, we are told that "Jehovah went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud, to lead them the way." (Ex. xiii. 21.) By these words, in their spiritual sense, is denoted the comparative › cloudiness or obscurity of truth, previous to our regeneration, or while the Lord is leading us through the spiritual wilderness, and conducting us to that heavenly state of mind which is denoted by Canaan. He does not permit his truth to shine upon us with noonday splendor, for He sees that we could not bear it. It would reveal such a mountain of evil within us, that we should be disheartened and crushed beneath the weight. He, therefore, mercifully tempers his truth to our state-veils and softens its effulgence with a cloud. And throughout our regeneration we must look continually to Him in the cloud. We must keep the Lord as manifested in the flesh, or his truth as revealed through the letter of Scripture, continually before us. Thus the literal sense of the Word, irradiated by the genuine Divine Truth within, is the pillar of cloud by day in which the Lord goeth before to lead us on our heavenly way.

These passages may suffice to show us, not only that clouds are used in a symbolic or spiritual sense in the Scripture, but that the spiritual meaning of the term must be what Swedenborg has de

clared. And if this be well established, it is clear that the nature of the Lord's second advent can be none other than that taught in the writings of the New Church.

The argument presented in this lecture is brief and simple. Summarily stated it is this:

1. The repeated command of the Lord himself to "Watch" lest we be deceived in regard to his second advent-lest we mistake some false Christ for the true one- is proof positive that the general belief of Christians in regard to the manner of His second appearing cannot be correct; because no impostor could simulate this kind of advent, and consequently no one would be in danger of being "deceived."

2. There have been great and good men in every age of the Church, who have believed that some further revelation, similar to that alledged to have been made through Swedenborg, would be vouchsafed to the Christian world, to help us to a right understanding of the Sacred Scripture; and that this revelation would be intimately connected in some way with the second coming of the Lord.

3. The Son of Man is evidently used in the New Testament to denote the Lord in respect to the Divine Truth, which is Himself. And wherever the Lord's second coming is spoken of, He is called the Son of Man, except in Revelation xix. 13, where “His name is called the Word of God." From this we infer that the predicted second coming of the Lord is not to be a personal but a spiritual coming a coming to His church of a better understanding of the Word-a coming of its genuine spiritual meaning.

4. It is manifest from many texts of Scripture that clouds, when mentioned therein, are not to be understood in their literal sense, but as denoting the apparent truths in the letter of the Word; which letter softens, tempers, and veils the resplendent truth of the internal or spiritual sense, as natural clouds do the light of the sun. And this is why the Lord's coming is said to be in the clouds of heaven.

Such is the doctrine of the New Church concerning the Lord's second appearing, and such is some of the testimony on which it rests. A doctrine at once beautiful, intelligible, rational, scriptural, and in harmony with all we know of the order of Providence, and of the operations of the Divine Love. It is a coming of the Lord to human minds in the power and glory of His own Divine Truth;

so that man, by means of greater light, may attain to higher de grees of purity and lové, and to a more intimate consociation with the angels, and conjunction with the Lord. It is such a coming as to reveal, in an eminent degree, the love, and wisdom, and glory of God.

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Sublimely beautiful and interesting is this second appearing of the Son of Man! Powerful and glorious are the truths of the internal sense of the Word now revealed! For they show us that the Lord's words are indeed spirit and life; that the Sacred Scripture is not dead, but hath a living Divine Soul, and, when rightly understood, is in perfect agreement with itself, with enlightened reason, and with all true science. This spiritual sense or soul of the Divine Word is the life and soul of all true knowledge; great Sun at the centre of the intellectual and moral world, from which all enduring systems of government, philosophy, morals, and religion, must receive their light and warmth, and according to whose guiding wisdom they must proceed, if they continue to revolve. It comes, too-this glorious truth- with mighty power; with power to save men's souls from the dominion of evil loves and false persuasions; with power to renovate the desert church, and make her rejoice and blossom as the rose. Already the mountain mists are beginning to dissolve and disappear before the rising Sun. Already have science, philosophy, government, art, felt the power of the second coming: and more and more are the healing influences of the New Dispensation to be seen and felt in the spiritual renovation of the church. Well, then, may "the Spirit and the Bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst, Come. And whosoever will, let him take water of life freely. He that testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly; Amen. Even so: come, Lord Jesus."

LECTURE IV.

THE SACRED SCRIPTURE NECESSITY OF ADMITTING A SPIRITUAL SENSE.

"A book written within and on the backside-sealed with seven seals."-Rev. V. I.

In the last lecture I presented the doctrine of the New Church concerning the Lord's second coming, and some of the evidence that goes to support it. And I think it must be obvious, from the testimony adduced, that this coming, according to the Sacred Oracles themselves, is not to be in person, nor on the natural clouds, but in the power and great glory of the spiritual sense of the Divine Word. I think it has been made evident that clouds, when mentioned in the Scripture, do not signify the watery particles in our atmosphere, but the apparent truths in the literal sense of the Word; which truths, to the understanding of the natural man, obscure the light of the spiritual sense, as natural clouds obscure the brightness of the sun. Hence the reason why it is said, that "clouds are round about Jehovah," and that "upon all the glory there shall be a covering." And hence the coming of the Son of Man in the clouds of heaven, denotes a more clear and luminons exhibition of Divine Truth; or a revelation of the internal sense of the Word through the clouds of the letter.

But some, perhaps, are ready to ask, Why should there have been any cloud about the Holy Oracles? Why did the Lord place this covering upon the internal glory of His Word? Why was it not composed in such a manner that the genuine truth could be readily perceived by every one?

And why, I would ask, was not this natural world so constituted, that a child or an ignorant savage, might comprehend its interior structure and understand all its laws, at a glance of the eye? Why do so many things in the universe around us appear different from what they really are? Why does not a flash of lightning reveal to every beholder the nature and laws of the electric fluid? Or those flickering pencils of light that dance in our northern sky, why do they not proclaim the cause of the aurora borealis? Why