that we must find the great panorama of organization. This subject has been especially investigated by many distinguished sons of science, and the accumulated facts are of great interest. We limit ourselves, however, to the abstraction of some prominent points from standard authorities, particularly from Mr. Solly's celebrated work on the Human Brain. When we trace the human embryo, as far back as microscopic powers can carry us, we find it to be a minute nucleus of animal matter, not differing in chemical composition, or physical properties, from the germ of an oyster. The subdivision into lamina takes place with uniformity, and each lamina proceeds with its individual development. The ultimate or peripheral parts appear before the central organs of each system; the simple, before the more complex. The capillary vessels are seen before the veins and arteries, and these are sketched out before the appearance of the heart. The nerves are prior to the spinal cord, and the spinal cord to the brain. Each lamina, in its progress, exhibits a shifting series of forms, each of which is permanent in an inferior species. At one period, the lungs of man resemble the respiratory apparatus of fishes, and communicate with the air by perforations in the neck. At first the heart is a single chamber, like that of insects, subsequently it is doubled like that of the aquatic tribes, again it presents three cavities, which are persistent in the adult crocodile, and finally it is four-fold, as in quadrupeds. The same successive and remarkable steps are taken by the brain, so that animals have been accurately and appropriately classified, according to the development of the nervous system. The degree of convolution observed on the cerebrum has been proposed by Owen, and others, as a plausible criterion of mental power. The brain of man, at first, is perfectly smooth, as in the lowest species of animals. It becomes more and more wrinkled and convoluted, as its successive stages are represenative of higher classes, and finally attains in man the highest degree of complexity. Writers, with religious theories to maintain, have passed over these astonishing facts in silence, or vaguely attributed their occurrence to the arbitrary will of the Deity. Materialists have pompously paraded them forth to the public gaze, as the strongest arguments of their doctrine. The New Churchman surveys them in a new light. Swedenborg's peculiar view of the human form as the representative of all forms, and the aggregate of all uses, is strikingly confirmed by these embryological researches. The weapons of the skeptic are thus turned against his own breast. With this reflection before us, we need not shrink from studying the phases of human development, in dread that the spectre of infidelity will start up at every discovery. Proposition 3d. We have given a faint sketch of the plan or type of individual development. Our concluding proposition embodies an expression of the principle on which the Divine Wisdom has associated these individual forms and established affinities and relationships between them. Our readiest illustration may be taken from the human body. This is a form resulting from the aggregation of minor forms or organs, each of which has its specific use. Each organ is dependent on the others, and their mutual and combined services maintain the existence of the body. Every structure, simple or compound, appears at the precise point where it can best fulfil its definite function. Dr. Jackson, of Philadelphia, remarks," Every organ created is a sufficient reason for the appearance of the organs which follow it." This definite correlation of parts is a fundamental element in the organization of every era, and in the geographical distribution of plants and animals. The study of geological strata, the facts of Chemistry, and even Materia Medica, Botany, and Natural History, from the Infusoria, to man himself, substantiate this idea, involving the doctrine of use, which is so strongly characteristic of the Swedenborgian philosophy. It is needless to dwell on a point so obvious to all, and to which no one will probably demur. Such is a bare outline of Swedenborg's philosophy of organization, and such is the system which has been branded as more absurd than the monstrous fictions of the Koran! We refer its merits to the court of nature, and anticipate a decision in our favor. If physical science does not sanction the theory, we are willing to abandon it, or to give it a place only in our memories with the beautiful visions of the great poets of the world. A theory, unsubstantiated by fact, is a shadow, a vision. But a theory which not only harmonizes with known facts, but is eminently suggestive of new ones, deserves the attention of every mind at all acquainted with the history of human discovery. If the laws of nature are to remain riddles for ever, if the materialist has stretched the bow of philosophy to its farthest limits, then indeed let the works of Swedenborg be entombed in old libraries with the forgotten speculations of former ages. But if the universe is not the monstrous offspring of Chance, if the Bible is not a discordant medley of Jewish traditions, then will the revelations of Swedenborg supersede all theories. The time is passing away when ridicule of the man, or ignorance of the system can obscure the glory of the one, or suppress the merits of the other. "Truth, crushed to earth, will rise again; The eternal years of God are hers, But wounded Error writhes in pain, W. H. H. ARTICLE III. BIBLICAL EXPOSITIONS. I. JOHN VIII. 3-11. "AND the Scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst, 4. They say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act. 5. Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou? 6. This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not. 7. So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. 8. And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground. 9. And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst. 10. When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee? 11. She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more." 66 The insertion of the clause in italics at the end of verse 6, to which, of course, there is nothing corresponding in the original, tends to convey the impression, that our Lord stooped down and wrote with his finger on the ground in a kind of reverie or fit of abstraction, as not paying attention to the charge brought against the woman. This is doubtless very far from the truth. He wrote upon the ground, not because he did not heed what was said to him, but because he did. A parallel passage suggested by Swedenborg affords a most satisfactory clew to the true interpretation. Jer. xvii. 13, " O Lord, the hope of Israel, all that forsake thee shall be ashamed, and they that depart from me shall be written in the earth, because they have forsaken the Lord, the fountain of living waters."* The language is a clear rebuke to the apostate sons of Israel, with the threatening of something implied in their being "written in the earth." What this is we may learn from Swedenborg's explication:-"To be written in the earth is to be condemned on account of the state of life, inasmuch as by earth is signified what is condemned. Hence," he continues, “it is evident what is signified by the Lord's writing with his finger on the earth, namely, the same as above in Jeremiah, or, that they were equally condemned on account of adulteries, wherefore Jesus said, 'He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.' That the Lord twice wrote on the ground in the temple signified their condemnation for adulteries in the spiritual sense; for the Scribes and Pharisees were they who adulterated the goods, and falsified the truths of the Word, consequently of the church; and adulteries in the spiritual sense are adulterations of good and falsifications of truth; wherefore also he called that nation an adulterous and sinful nation" (A. E. 222). This is a clear and satisfactory view of the scope of the incident, as to which all the commentators are sadly at a loss to make any thing of it. Mr. Barnes says of the writing on the ground that the Saviour's "object is unknown, and conjecture is useless," although somewhat strangely he offers himself in the same connexion the following solution;-"By this Jesus showed them clearly that he was not solicitous to pronounce an opinion in the case, and that it was not his wish or intention to intermeddle with the civil affairs of the nation." The It is worth while to notice here the sudden change of person. The verse opens with an address to the Lord in the second person, and it is said, "all they that forsake thee shall be ashamed," when all at once the speaker identifies himself with the Lord, saying, "they that depart from me shall be written, &c." This illustrates the position of our author elsewhere, that when the divine influx infills an angel-messenger he knows no other than that he is the Lord himself. From several passages in the Word it would seem. that this holds also occasionally of the sacred writers under the afflatus of inspiration. VOL. II. 5 above exposition however gives quite another version of the affair, and shows that the Lord by a symbolic act designed to apply the Old Testament prophecy to the persons before him. In a most significant manner he would teach them that as their forsaking the Lord was spiritual adultery, it was with a poor grace that they stood forward as the accusers of the offending woman. It was a rebuke administered by an act which might be properly translated into the language of Paul: Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest for wherein thou judgest another thou condemnest thyself; for thou that judgest doest the same things.-Thou that sayest, a man should not commit adultery, dost thou commit adultery?" II. Hos. x. 12. "It is time to seek the Lord till he come and rain righteousness upon you." This is rendered by Swedenborg" till he come and teach you righteousness," and so also a number of critics and commentators of good repute render it. But to the New Church it is not of much consequence which rendering is adopted, as the original Hebrew for to rain and to teach (777, yârâh) is the same, and however remote these ideas may seem at first blush to be from each other, yet the amalgam, so to speak, of the spiritual sense, serves to bring them together in very close relation. It is one of the many instances where, in the Hebrew, the very letter affords a clew to the spirit. The following remarks of our author will be seen to be in point: "Because rain water descends out of the clouds in heaven, therefore by raining rain is signified the influx of divine truth from the Lord in heaven; and inasmuch as rain fertilizes the earth, therefore it signifies the divine truth, fertilizing and fructifying the church, whence by rain is also signified spiritual benediction. That by rain, in the Word, is not understood rain, but the influcnt Divine [principle], from which intelligence and wisdom, likewise the good of love and truth of faith in man, grow and fructify, and that by raining is signified influx, may appear from the following passages: Thus in Moses: My doctrine shall flow down as the rain, my word shall drop as the dew, as droppings [stillæ] upon the grass, and as the drops [gutta] upon the herb' (Deut. xxxii. 2) doctrine is here compared to rain, because by rain is signified the divine truth proceeding, from which is the all of doctrine; for all comparisons in the Word are also from correspondences: inasmuch as the divine truth flowing down is signified by rain, it is therefore said, my doctrine shall flow down as rain" (A. E. 644). In the passage from Moses the original word for rain is 7, moreh, from the root above mentioned, and it is worthy of notice that in Joel ii. 23, the marginal reading varies from the text in such a way as to throw a confirming light upon the asserted relation ;-"He hath given you the former rain (, moreh) moderately (marg. 'or, a teacher of righteousness)." In the spiritual sense either version would answer. From the same root comes likewise the original term for law (1710 torah), which evidently has the same interior import. It is interesting to trace the usage of the Hebrew word in a sense strikingly correspondent to what Swedenborg gives as the opposite of the foregoing; "From these considerations it may now appear, that by rain, in the Word, is signified the influx of divine truth from the Lord, whence man has spiritual life, and this because waters, of which rain consists, signify the truth of doctrine and the truth of faith: but whereas by waters, in the opposite sense, are signified falses of doctrine and of faith, therefore also by showers of rain, equally as by inundations of waters and by a flood, are signified not only falses destroying truths, but also temptations, in which man either falls or conquers" (A. E. 644). He remarks also that by a violent pouring down of rain and by showers of hailstones is signified an immersion into evils, and a powerful injection of temptations. In like manner the term before us, which in one connexion denotes the gentle distillation of rain from heaven signifies in another the violent casting of darts and stones upon a person, or a plunging him into the depths of the Thus Ex. xv. 4, " Pharaoh's chariots and his hosts hath he cast (, yarah) into the sea." Ex. xix. 13, "There shall not an hand touch it, but he shall surely be stoned or shot through (, yìyûreh). Ps. lxxxiv. 7, "But God shall shoot at them (7", yorem) with an arrow; suddenly shall they be wounded." 1 Sam. xxxi. 3, "And the battle went sore against Saul, and the archers (, hammorim) hit him, and he was sore wounded of the archers (2, hammorim)." Prov. xxvi. 18, "As a mad man who casteth (, yoreh) firebrands, arrows, and death." All these terms are from the same original root. sea. 66 It is certainly somewhat remarkable to find one and the same word used in such a diversity of senses, and yet the key of the internal sense very easily solves the problem. Such illustrations of the general principle of a spiritual sense are by no means of rare occurrence in the Hebrew, and we propose from time to time to point them out. ED. ARTICLE IV. WAS THE MISSION OF SWEDENBORG FOUNDED IN THE MORAL NECESSITIES OF THE CHURCH AND THE WORLD? To a truly sincere mind there can be but two branches of inquiry in relation to this very important subject. First, is the proposed system in accordance with the revelation of truth contained in the Bible; and, secondly, is it adapted to the wants and circumstances of man in his present state of sinfulness and probation? We should always bear in mind that Swedenborg professes to make no new revelation of truth to the world. He leaves the Bible precisely where he found it, not rejecting a single word or even a single letter of the original text. He proposes no new object of worship, projects no new code of morality, contends for no new scheme of salvation. The great principles of truth contained in the revealed Word of Jeho |