certain hopes that he was happy. Sweden-man's, it can never become woman's; or vice borg said, Yes, I have seen him, and he is versa. The sexual distinction is founded upon well off, and not only he, but all the kings of the two radical attributes of God,-upon his the house of Oldenburg, who are all associated divine love, and his divine wisdom; whereof together. This is not the happy case with our the former is feminine, and the latter mascuSwedish kings.' Swedenborg then told him line. The union of these in Him is the dithat he had seen no one so splendidly minis- vine marriage; and the creation proceeds distered to in the world of spirits as the Empress tinctly from them, and images, or aspires to, a Elizabeth of Russia, who died in 1762. As marriage in every part. The lightning fiats Tuxen expressed astonishment at this, Swe- twine and kiss ere ever they separate. The denborg continued: I can also tell you the world would be, and the church is, an everreason, which few would surmise. With all lasting wedlock. Therefore there are marher faults she had a good heart, and a certain riages in heaven, and heaven itself is a marconsideration in her negligence. This induced riage. The text that 'in heaven they neither her to put off signing many papers that were marry, nor are given in marriage,' is to be from time to time presented to her, and which understood in a spiritual sense. It signifies at last so accumulated, that she could not ex- that the marriage of the soul with its Lord, amine them, but was obliged to sign as many as possible upon the representation of her ministers after which she would retire to her closet, fall on her knees, and beg God's forgiveness, if she, against her will, had signed any thing that was wrong. When this conversation was ended, Swedenborg went on board his vessel, leaving a firm friend and future disciple in General Tuxen.

Conjugial Love.

or what is the same thing, the entrance of man into the church, which is the bride of the Lamb, must be effected in this world, or it cannot have place afterwards. It also significs, that angels, whether men or women, already have the marriage principle in them as a ground of their angelship, or they could not acquire it after death: hence they are virtually married, and do not marry, nor are given in marriage. It is as though it had been said, that no one goes to heaven, but 336. "It is probable that Swedenborg went those who already are in heaven; or have from Stockholm to London in the middle of heaven in them, and are heaven. But this the year, according to what he signified to Scripture by no means excludes the blessed Kant's friend. However on November 8, from that conjugial union which is their sum1768, we again meet him at Amsterdam, mary bliss, and which is the foregone concluwhither he had gone to print another impor- sion of their admission to eternal life. The tant work, The Delights of Wisdom concern- text, however, does exclude sensual and nating Conjugial Love, and the Pleasures of In-ural views of marriage, and so is suitable in sanity concerning Scortatory Love. This its form to the Jewish mind and the corporeal book he published with his name, as written nature, which otherwise would have conceived by Emanuel Swedenborg, Swede. only carnally of a celestial bond.

337. "In every new view of mankind, and 339. "We must guard, however, against in each fresh system of doctrines which pro- supposing that the spiritual is not real and fesses to apply itself to the wants of an age, bodily; for every thing inward has its last the subject of marriage can hardly fail to resort in substantive organization. The bodies have an important place; in many systems, of angels are as ours in every part, but more indeed, it furnishes the experimentum crucis, expressive, plastic, and perfect. Their conand at once decides their pretensions. It now jugial union, which is true chastity and playdevolves upon us to say a few words upon ful innocence, is bodily like our own; nay, this topic, in its connection with Swedenborg's far more intimate: its delights, immeasurably doctrines.

more blessed and perceptible than on earth, 338. "The author affirms, upon a union commence in the spirit, and are of the spirit of experimental with rational evidence, that even in the body: its powers, springing from sex is a permanent fact in human nature, - a divine fountain, are marred by no languor, that men are men, and women, women, in the but spire in an unconsuming flame of perenhighest heaven as here upon earth: that it is nial virility. This world, however, and not the soul which is male or female, and that sex the other, is the theatre of prolification; the is thence derived into the mortal body and the fixed soil of nature alone produces new benatural world; therefore that the difference ings; whence angelic marriages do not engenof sexes is brighter and more exquisite in der natural but spiritual births, which are the proportion as the person is high, and the various endowments of love and wisdom; sphere is pure. The distinction not only wherefore, by this offspring or in-spring, the reaches to the individual, but it is atomically minute besides; every thought, affection and sense of a male is male, and of a female is feminine. The smallest drop of intellect or will is inconvertible between the sexes; if

partners breed in themselves human fulness, which consists in desiring to grow wise on the man's part, and in loving whatever belongs to wisdom on the wife's. Thus conjugial love is a means of their eternal progression, by which

they become younger and younger, more and dence, and placed so merely on the pedestal more deeply the sons and daughters of the of religion and divine necessity, as in SweAlmighty, and are born again from state to denborg's system: with him it is the ideal of state as happier children in the cycle of wed-union, and every thing in the sexual commerce ded satisfactions. is tried and judged by its tendency or approxi340. "To conjugial love our author assigns mation to indissoluble marriage. Well may the highest position in the soul: in its descent the state be guarded, which is to be eternal: it is the gate by which the human race enters well may the force be subject to heavenly into existence; in its ascent and upper faculty rules, whose effects extend through all genit is the door through which the Lord enters erations in the lines of time, and upward into the mind. It is the appointed source of through the hierarchies of that past, which is all creatures, from which beneath springs gen- but the depth and height of the present. eration, and regeneration comes through it 343. "Such, at least, is the consequence of from above. The purity of the source deter- the creed, that sexual distinctions are eternal, mines the world's condition at any given period, and monogamy their divine end: it evidentinfluencing posterities organically, and the ly confers the heart of spirituality upon the mind and will in their finest springs. Nay, marriage tie, and tends to maintain it for both upon this depends the spiritual world itself; divine and human reasons. Nor are the cefor earthly marriage is the seminary of heaven, lestial reports devoid of interest in the matas adultery is the seminary of hell. Children ter; for were it not for them, the sanctity of born of parents imbued with truly conjugial marriage would fail of present experience, love, derive from those parents the conjugial and come in time into the hands of the philosprinciple of goodness and truth, which gives ophers who keep no account of their receipts. them an inclination and faculty, if sons, to perceive whatever appertains to wisdom, and if daughters, to love the things that wisdom teaches. 341. "It is plain that of an affection so exalted there are few patterns to be found on earth, and that even where it dwells, it may not be manifest; and for this reason our author was obliged to describe it from experience in heaven, where it reigns in open day as a fundamental love. Fact alone supplies description, and the facts of conjugial union were not given on this globe in that age; it was then needful to explore the heavens, in which that ancient love is stored. For this purpose, as the ages are differenced by this very affection, he prayed to the Lord to be allowed to visit them, and travelled in spirit with an angel guide to the golden, silver, copper, iron, and still later periods; that is to say, to the men and women who are still in those states. And every where he learned from the best and the eldest the tale of their faithful loves; or, as in the lower ages, observed that ne decadence of their state was in proportion to their want of fealty to the primeval bond. He learned that the marriage of one man with one wife is the law of heavenly union, corresponding to the unity of God, to the singleheartedness of man, to the marriage of the good with the true, and of the Lord with the church. Polygamy, however, and varying unions, were the sign and the cause of a broken religion, and the avenues of sensuality towards hell. He brought back to this

earth the documents of the other life on this point, the Reports of the great epochs, and these are given in his memorable relations, a series of narratives between the ethical chapters, which complete by experience the field which is given through doctrine in the latter.

342. "Never was monogamy so rescued from the baser justifications of worldly pru

[344. In the latter part of this work, and separate from it, is a short treatise on what might be called, "The Infernal Pleasures of Insanity, concerning Scortatory Love:" for none but infernal spirits, and those whose minds are under their influence, can possibly take delight in the grossest perversions of all that is good and true. But let it never be forgotten, that what Swedenborg says on these unpleasant subjects, is by no means designed this essay, the important distinctions must be conas doctrinals for the New Church; and in reading stantly kept up, between the phrases "it is right," (fas est,) and it is allowed or permitted, (bicet ;) the former having reference to the laws of Divine Order, and the latter, to those of Divine Permission, to prevent greater evils.

345. In this tract the author has given a virtual commentary on the Divine Command-"Thou shalt not commit adultery." "His object is to do what no Protestant theologian has ever done, to lay open from its inmost grounds the entire morale of the seventh commandment. In accomplishing this object he has, with a masterly power of analysis, discriminated between the different degrees of guilt which attach to the greater or less departure front of his offending hath this extent, no more.' from the strict rules of chastity. The head and Viewed in the light of Criminal Jurisprudence, it bears the same relation to the command Thou shalt not commit adultery,' as the statute law on the different degrees of manslaughter does to the command Thou shalt not kill.' The statute laws wisely discriminate between murder and manslaughter in the first, second and third degrees, awarding a different degree of penalty to each. But who, for that reason, would think of charging the laws with laxity of morals,' or with encouraging murder?

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346. "Yet the charge of encouraging vice has as little foundation in truth when applied to Swedenborg as it would have if applied to the laws. He discriminates the sins under this head into eight degrees, and teaches that the greater the departure from the right, the greater the sin and consequent penalty, and of course, the slighter the departure from strict rectitude, the less grievous the sin and consequent penalty. He shows how,

when a man's heart appears to be fully set in him to do evil in this respect, he may be restrained Christ's Power over all Flesh. from plunging into still greater evils than he is 349. In this year, (1768) we have the folalready in the practice of, and how he may be led lowing, concerning the Lord's power, and the into a state of comparatively less evil, and finally bodies of angels, in a letter to Dr. Oettinger. back into the paths of true virtue. In all this there is no intimation that any such practices are any "You suggest a doubt in respect to Christ's thing else than grievous sins, which are to be even having power given Him over all flesh, and yet the more strenuously striven against than other sins: angels and heavenly beings (Angeli et Calites) have which is a reason for his being more minute. His not flesh, but lucid bodies. To this be pleased constant language in regard to them is, that they to receive kindly the following reply: That by all are vile,' detestable to christians,' and 'lead to flesh, there spoken of, is meant every man, wherehell.'"]-N. Church Repository, vol. i. pp. 621, 622.* fore in the Word mention is sometimes made of As to 347. "We cannot quit the Conjugial Love all flesh, which is to denote every man. without noticing to the reader the author's what concerns the bodies of the angels, they do penetration upon a subject where a studious not appear lucid, but, as it were, fleshy, for they are substantial and not material, and things subold bachelor might be expected to have no stantial are not translucent before the angels. experience. It is an instance of the sym- Every material thing, or substance, is originally pathy of genius, which can place itself in the derived from what is substantial, and every man position of its object, and look outward from cometh into this substantiality when he puts off, the hearts of alien things. Thus it was that by death, the material films or coverings, which is Swedenborg analyzed the male and the female the reason why man after death is a man, but soul, and their faculties of conjunctivity; thus purer than before, comparatively as what is substantial is purer than what is material. That the that he dived into the recesses of wedded life, Lord has power, not only over all men, but also and laid down a science and a series of its over all angels, is evident from His own words in agreements and disagreements; that he ex- Matthew: All power is given to me in heaven, and amined its love, its friendship, and its favor, in earth,' (xxviii. 18)." -Documents, pp. 152, 153. at the different periods of life; that he described to the life, but in formal propositions, Doctrines of the New Church, and Comthe jealousies of the state, its burning fire mencement of Persecution. against those that infest wedded love, and its 350. "Swedenborg remained in Amsterhorrid fear for the loss of that love; and dam during the winter of 1768-69, and early finally thus that he depicted the love of chil- in the spring of the latter year published his dren, the spiritual offspring of conjugial love, Brief Exposition of the Doctrine of the New in its successive derivations; and childless Church, in which work,' as he says, 'are himself, appreciated the circulation of inno- fully shown the errors of the existing doccence and peace, that the hearts of the young trines of justification by faith alone, and of the establish in the home. Much, however, that imputation of the righteousness or merits of he has said belongs to his peculiar seership: Jesus Christ,' which doctrines, he expected, much of the psychology is of more than earth- might probably be extirpated by this book. ly fineness; the distinctions are those of spir- He circulated it freely throughout Holland itual light, and the delicacy of the affections and Germany; but, on second thoughts, sent is that of spiritual heat; which is not sur- only one copy to Sweden, to Dr. Beyer, reprising, for the wives of heaven had been questing him to keep it to himself. communicative to our author."-Wilkinson's true divinity in Sweden was in a wintry Biography, pp. 158–171. state; and in general, towards the North 348. For a full representation of the sub- Pole there is a greater length of spiritual ject of Conjugial Love, as indeed all other night than in the southern parts; and those spiritual and theological subjects which the who stand in that darkness may be supposed author has treated of, the reader is referred to kick and stumble more than others against to the "COMPENDIUM" of his writings. And every thing in the New Church which is the we may say here, once for all, that as this Sum- produce of an unprejudiced reason and undermary of his Life is designed both for a Prefix standing; yet we are to admit some excepto that work, and also to be published sepa- tions to this observation in the ecclesiastical rately, it may account both for the brevity order.' of this analysis of his writings, and for what 351. "Swedenborg's anticipations with reof unnecessary fulness also there may appear gard to his native country were not falsified in some of the notices of his theological works. by the event, for already on the 22d of March, Also, for some repetition of occurrences which 1769, Dr. Ekebom, dean of the theological are inserted both in the Life and in the COM- faculty of Gottenburg, had delivered to the PENDIUM. The object here is a double one Consistory there a deposition of objections to serve as a fitting Prefix to the COMPEN- against Swedenborg's theological writings, DIUM, and to be published separately also. laden with untruth, and full of personal reThe dean branded his doctrine

For

* On the subject of Marriage and its opposites, see Noble's Approaches. peal, Sec. 6, Part 4, N. C. Repository, Vol. 1, pp. 621-2, and Aas in the highest degree heretical, and on Layinan's Reply to Dr. Pond, Chap. x. p. 154. These momentous questions must be understood.

points the

most tender to every Christian,

Socinian; yet stated further, that he did the Soul and the Body, which he designed not know Assessor Swedenborg's religious to give to the world in the French capisystem, and should take no pains to come at tal. He had spoken well in his theological the knowledge of it.' As for Swedenborg's works of the noble French nation,' had chief works, he 'did not possess them, and taken care to communicate his works to public had neither read nor seen them.' 'Is not bodies and select individuals in France, where this,' says Swedenborg in reply, to be blind also they had been in considerable request, in the forehead, and to have eyes behind, and now he desired to issue something from and even those covered with a film? To the French press. It is probable that had his see and decide upon writings in such a man- present plan succeeded, he intended also to ner, can any secular or ecclesiastical judge publish in Paris that great summary of his regard otherwise than as criminal?' For doctrines which he was then about to write, the rest our author's reply consisted in a cita- and which was his last performance. tion of some of the leading doctrines in his 353. "Arrived in Paris he submitted his works, those particularly on the divine trinity, tract to M. Chevreuil, Censor Royal and Docthe holiness of Scripture, the unity of charity tor of the Sorbonne, who after having read it, and faith, and the direction of faith towards informed him that a tacit permission to publish one person, namely, our Savior Jesus Christ; would be granted him, on condition, as was and he denied that his doctrine was heretical customary in such cases,' that the title should according to judgments pronounced by the say, 'printed at London,' or 'at Amsterchief ecclesiastical bodies in Sweden. Re- dam.' Swedenborg would not consent to this, specting the other point,' says our author, and the work therefore was not printed at namely, the charging those doctrines with Paris. Hereupon a calumnious letter was Socinianism, the same is a horrid blasphemy circulated in Gottenburg, which alleged that and untruth; forasmuch as Socinianism signifies he had been ordered to quit Paris, which he a negation of the divinity of our Lord Jesus denied as a direct falsehood,' and appealed Christ, when, in fact, His divinity, in this for the truth of the case to M. Creutz, the doctrine of the New Church is principally Swedish ambassador to France. confirmed and proved, and that the Savior 354. "Rumor has been busy with him upon has so fully completed the reconciliation and this journey. The French Biographie Uniredemption of man, that without his coming verselle connects him with an artist named no man could have been saved, see Apoc. Rev. Elie, who it is alleged supplied him with 67, and in many other places; in consequence money, and furthered his presumed designs. whereof, I consider the word Socinian to be a Indeed he has been accused of a league with scoffing and a diabolical reviling. This, with the illuminés, and with a certain politico-theothe rest of the Doctor's "Reflections," may be logical free masonry, centuries old but always considered in the same sense as "the flood invisible, which was to overturn society, and which the dragon cast out of his mouth after foster revolutions all over the world. We the woman, that he might cause her to be can only say, that our researches have not swallowed up by the flood, during the time elicited these particulars, and that every authat she was yet in the wilderness" (Apoc.thentic document shows that Swedenborg stood xii. 15). And it may come to pass that the always upon his own basis, accepted money from same which is mentioned in verse 17, may no one, and was just what he appeared — a likewise take place: "And the dragon was theological missionary, and nothing more. wroth with the woman, and went to make war Still as there is generally a grain of truth in with the remnant of her seed, who kept the even the most preposterous lies, we shall be commandments of God, and have the testi- glad to look out in this direction for biographmony of Jesus Christ.” The tenor of Scrip-ical materials. Whatever else they be, they ture, the Apostolic Creed, and whatever was shall at least be welcome. not self-contradictory in the orthodoxy of the churches, he claimed to have upon his own side. He requested of Dr. Beyer that his reply might be communicated to the bishop and the Consistory, and intended afterwards to publish both sides, and possibly to found an action at law upon the proceedings, unless the dean should retract his scandal.

355. "In the autumn of this year (1769), Swedenborg had left Paris, and was in London, where he published his little brochure on The Intercourse between the Soul and the Body. It was during this sojourn of two or three months that the most intimate of his English friends, Dr. Hartley, Rector of Winwick, in Northamptonshire, drew from him a short ac352. "At the end of May or the beginning count of himself, as a means of refuting any of June, Swedenborg left Amsterdam, en route calumnies that might be promulgated after his for Paris, with a design,' as he said, which departure. Dr. Hartley had thought that beforehand must not be made public.' It ap- Swedenborg was hardly safe in his own country, Dears from this that he anticipated some diffi- and that possibly he was pressed for money. culty with regard to the object of his mission. In course of this mild and modest document, This was no other than the publication of an- Swedenborg set him right on these topics. other little work, viz., The Intercourse between 'I live,' says he, on terms of familiarity

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and friendship with all the bishops of my comparison between them. The Catholic country, who are ten in number; as also with doctrinals are excerpted from the records of the sixteen senators, and the rest of the nobil- the Council of Trent; the Protestant, from ity; for they know that I am in fellowship the Formula Concordia composed by persons with angels. The king and queen also, and attached to the Augsburg Confession. These the three princes their sons, show me much churches indeed dissent upon various points, favor: I was once invited by the king and but are agreed as to the fundamentals, of a queen to dine at their table -an honor which trinity of persons, of original sin, of the imis in general granted only to the nobility of putation of Christ's merits, and of justification the highest rank; and likewise, since, with by faith alone. Respecting the latter tenet, the hereditary prince. They all wish for my however, the Catholics conjoin the faith with return home: so far am I from being in any dan- charity or good works, while the leading Reger of persecution in my own country, as you formers, in order to effect a full severance seem to apprehend, and so kindly wish to pro- from the Romish communion as to the very vide against; and should any thing of the kind essentials of the church which are faith and befall me elsewhere, it cannot hurt me. charity, separated between the two. NeverI am a Fellow, by invitation, of the Royal theless the Reformers adjoin good works, and Academy of Sciences of Stockholm, but I even conjoin them to their faith, but in man never sought admission into any other literary as a passive subject, whereas the Roman society, as I belong to an angelic society, Catholics conjoin them in man as an active wherein things relating to heaven and the subject. The whole system of theology in soul are the only subjects of discourse and entertainment, whereas the things that occupy the attention of our literary societies are such as relate to the world and the body. As to this world's wealth, I have what is sufficient, and more I neither seek nor wish for.' 356. "We presume that Swedenborg lodged with Shearsmith in Cold Bath Fields during this short sojourn in London.

Christendom is founded upon an idea of three Gods, arising from the doctrine of a trinity of persons, and falls when that doctrine is rejected, after which saving faith is possible. The faith of the present day has separated religion from the church, since religion consists in the acknowledgment of one God, and in the worship of Him from faith grounded in charity. The doctrine of the present church 357. "On his departure from England, he is interwoven with paradoxes, to be embraced had requested his friend, Dr. Messiter, to by faith; hence its tenets gain admission into transmit certain of his works to the Divinity the memory only, and into no part of the unProfessors of the Universities of Edinburgh, derstanding above the memory, but merely Glasgow, and Aberdeen, and the letters which into confirmations below it. They cannot be passed upon this occasion furnish a testimony to his personal character from one who knew him well. Dr. Hartley, Dr. Messiter (M. D.), and Dr. Hampe, who was preceptor to George I., were his chief English friends.

learned, or retained, without difficulty, nor be preached or taught without using great care to conceal their nakedness, because sound reason neither discerns nor perceives them. They ascribe to God human properties in the worst sense of the term. The heresies of all ages have sprung from the doctrine founded on the idea of three Gods. This has desolated the church, and brought it to its consummation. The Catholic laity, however, have for the most part ceased to know any thing of the essential doctrinals of their church, these being lost for them in the numerous formalities of that religion, and hence, if they recede in part from their outward forms, and approach God the Savior immediately, taking the Sacrament in both kinds, they may be brought into the New Church more easily than the Reformed communities.

358. "In September he quitted London, and returned to Stockholm, arriving in the latter capital at the beginning of October. On his arrival he was kindly received by all classes of people, and at once invited by their royal highnesses the hereditary prince and his sister, with both of whom he conversed. He also dined with several of the senators, and talked with the first members of the Diet, and with the bishops there present, who all behaved very kindly to him, excepting his nephew, Bishop Filenius. A storm, however, had been brewing during his absence, and he now had to meet it. Dr. Hartley's fears were justified by the facts, though not by the ulti- 360. "These are a few of the propositions mate event. But before we turn to this new of this little treatise, which for its destructive page of his life, we must give some account logic, is unequalled among Swedenborg's of the works, that he had just published abroad. works. If rational assault could have carried 359. "The Brief Exposition is the forerunner the outworks of the existing creeds, this of the True Christian Religion, to be noticed work would have had the effect; and Swepresently. It is a criticism on the doctrines denborg would have been justified in his of the Catholic and Protestant churches, from hope, that the errors of the churches might the point of view of the New Church. The be 'extirpated' by a book. But an error author premises a statement of the doctrinal whose first condition lies in the prostration of views of the three churches, for the sake of the understanding, is good, so far, against