good, and water signifies truth. Again, in Jeremiah: The word came to Jeremiah, saying, Arise and go down to the potter's house. Then I went down to the potter's house, and behold he wrought a work on the wheels. And the vessel that he made was marred, so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it (xviii. 1-4). In this passage is likewise understood that with the Jewish nation there remained nothing but what was false; and the vessel that was marred in the potter's house denotes that falsity. By the house of the potter is meant the state in which they were. That the truth of the church was taken away from them, and given to others, is understood by the potter making it again another vessel such as seemed good to him. The reason why a potter's vessel, or an earthen vessel, signifies what is false, is, because it corresponds to a device, and a device is that which springs from the self-derived intelligence of man; from this correspondence it was that the prophets were commanded to do such things as are mentioned above.”—A. E. 177.

That this interpretation receives countenance from philology will scarcely be questioned by any one who is aware that the original word for potter is, yōtzer, from the radical, yâtzar, to form, to fashion, and that the derivative noun, yětzer, is the word which in the Hebrew occurs in the following passages: "And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagi nation of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." "For I know their imagination which they go about, even now, before I have brought them into the land which I sware." "For the Lord searcheth all hearts, and understandeth all the imaginations of the thoughts." "O Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and of Israel, our fathers, keep this for ever in the imagination of the thoughts of the heart of thy people, and prepare their heart unto thee." All this goes to make evident the soundness of Swedenborg's remark in regard to the grounds of this interpretation, that a potter's vessel "corresponds to a device, and a device is that which springs from the self-derived intelligence of man." This is the genuine force of the Hebrew term, so that we have here an instance in which the literal confirms the spiritual sense.

But to return to our main theme--the Jews and their prophetic destiny. How, it is asked, is it possible to resist the evidence of the letter in regard to their future restoration? Has not Mr. L. shown that if this event is not distinctly foretold, then it is impossible to construct language into propositions that shall declare it? Especially, is it possible to turn aside the force of the argument drawn from their past history and the array of literal accomplishments of prophecy which it exhibits? Was it ever more explicitly announced that Israel should be dispersed than that they should be gathered? Yet what could be more punctiliously accomplished than the oracular burdens denouncing upon their disobedience the pain of invasion, captivity, and exile? Have they not been scattered and peeled and made a byword and a hissing among all nations, and has not this sad lot been in exact accordance with the predictions that "went before upon them?" What inference, then, can be drawn but that the predictions relating to their future shall be followed by an accomplishment equally literal and signal? Has not Mr. L. shown that all the announcements are such as to be compatible with the nature of the subject, and therefore excluded from the category of metaphors?

Such are the interrogations that may be presumed to be urged against the views we have thus far endeavored to maintain. And what shall be said in reply? It is of course impossible to deny that so far as the past is concerned, the history of the Jews has been in accordance with the scope of the letter. But our position, which is that of the New Church, is, that the literal sense of the historical record is not the actual and ulterior verity which it is designed to set forth before us. We do not say, be it observed, that the Jewish history is false, but that the sense of the letter is not its full or whole sense. We hold that their history is itself as truly a language, serving as a vehicle for moral and spiritual instruction, as are the words of Moses, or Joshua, or Samuel, in which that history is written. If we could suppose that Bunyan's allegory of the Pilgrim were the record of an actual "progress" such as is described in the letter, every one can see that the narrative would not on this account serve any the less as a medium for conveying the same spiritual lessons that it now does ; nor would these spiritual lessons, constituting the internal sense of the writing, be any the less its true genuine and paramount sense than it now is. In like manner, the history of the Jewish people in their deliverance, for example, from Egypt, their sojourn in the wilderness, and their establishment in Canaan, although made up of a series of actual facts of remarkable character, shadows forth at the same time an interior spiritual history of the life and experience of the Lord's church, which constitutes in reality the internal sense of the Mosiac narrative--a view of the subject distinctly recognized in the 88th Psalm, where the writer prefaces a compend of this history by saying, "I will open my mouth in a parable; I will utter dark sayings of old." On any other ground than that which we have stated it would be difficult to detect a parabolic strain in this Psalm.

If we may be allowed in this connection to refer to an instance of Swedenborg's peculiar mode of interpretation, the point may be still more clearly illustrated. He informs us that the fact of our Lord's being carried, in his infancy, into Egypt, had a mystical or spiritual significancy representing his being imbued with the scientifics or knowledges denoted by Egypt, such being, in the internal sense, the import of every thing pertaining to that singular country. Now although the actual going down to Egypt did occur, as related, yet the prediction, "Out of Egypt have I called my son," would still have received accomplishment in its genuine import by the Lord's early acquisition of that kind of science, and his emerging or ascending to a higher, and such would have been the true meaning of the oracle, even if the outward migration had not occurred. Considering the divinity of our Lord's person, and the stupendous and eternal ends of his mission, it cannot be doubted that such a singular event as this temporary sojourn in Egypt, as well as all the circumstances of his birth, infancy, childhood, and subsequent career, had a latent connection with some interior and spiritual train of experience which might properly be shadowed forth thereby. The external events, however, were the true shadow, and the internal the substance. The substance can exist apart from the shadow, but not the shadow apart from the substance.

In the above illustrations we have exhibited the principle which we hold to govern the construction of the historical and prophetical Word throughout. The sense of the letter, though a true sense, is not the true sense. The entire natural domain covered by the purport of the letter is a mere outbirth from the spiritual sphere, as truly as the trunk, branches, leaves, and fruit of a tree are the product of the elaborating vegetative soul, which is ever active within and working after the model of a Divine idea. If inspired prophecy denounces against the recreant nation of Israel the penalty of dispersion, and inspired history records its literal fulfilment, we still hold that the deeper internal meaning remains the genuine meaning of the Spirit, and that the literal accomplishment is a mere factitious and comparatively trifling appendage, as it were, to the verification taking place in the spiritual world to which man's spirit naturally and perpetually belongs. The operation of spiritual causes is ever tending to outward ultimation, just as the wars of the Reformation were the legiti mate product of the spiritual wars, or conflicts of opinion, to which that great event gave rise. In like manner in regard to the predicted return of the Jews. We think it not unlikely, as we have before hinted, that in the midst of the various political and ecclesiastical overturnings of the future, a train of events may arise which shall result in the actual literal migration of considerable numbers of the race of Israel to the land of their fathers. But suppose this should be the case, what then? Does it follow that this is the grand, paramount, and crowning purport of the oracles in question? Shall we for a moment imagine that any thing less than spiritual and eternal ends govern the Divine counsels, or that anything short of those ends can be contemplated by the genuine sense of his Word?" What is the chaff to the wheat, saith the Lord?" All external fulfilments of prophecy, are mere chaff compared to the internal, and such they are perceived to be by one who is elevated, as the man of the church should ever be, to a state of spiritual discernment. It is upon this ground undoubtedly that Swedenborg appears so often to overlook, as it were, the sense of the letter. To his spiritualized perceptions enjoyed in common with the angels, all historical fulfilments of the prophecies, especially those of Daniel and the Apocalypse, seem to have been as though they were not. For ourselves we are inclined to believe that the events of external history bearing upon the fortunes of the church are dimly and remotely alluded to in the Revelations of John, for instance, but we can at the same time well understand how to a mind, in the psychological state of Swedenborg's, every thing of this nature should have appeared as little else than the shadow of a shade. How could it be otherwise, to one who was instructed that the whole order of worldly events, with all their pomp and pageantry, was a mere visible reflex of an inner world of life and action, which sustained to the outer evolutions the relation of the informing soul to the bodily gestures? Among the many statements made on this head and going to show the true structure of the Divine word, the following may be cited.

"The internal sense of the Word is its very essential life, which does not at all appear in the sense of the letter. Such is the perception which the angels have of the Word. They are utterly unacquainted with what relates to the letter, not understanding even a single expression in its ultimate signification, much less the names of countries, cities, rivers, and persons, which occur so frequently in the historical and prophetical parts of the Word."-A. C. 64.

"The internal is of such a nature that in it all things are to be understood, even to the minutest particulars, abstractedly from the letter, as if the letter did not exist; for in the internal sense is the soul and life of the Word, which does not appear, unless the literal sense, as it were, vanishes."-A. C. 1405.

"These and the subsequent circumstances historically occurred, as they are written; but the historicals are representative, and each word is significative. The case is the same in all the historicals of the Word, not only in the books of Moses, but also those in the books of Joshua, of Judges, of Samuel, and of the Kings. In all these, nothing is apparent but a mere history; but although it is history in the literal sense, still in the internal sense are heavenly arcana, which there lie concealed, and which can never be seen, so long as the mind, together with the eye, is confined to the historicals; nor are they revealed until the mind is removed from the literal sense. The Word of the Lord is like a body in which is a living soul. The things belonging to the soul do not appear whilst the mind abides in corporeal things, insomuch that it scarcely believes that it has a soul, still less that it will live after death; but no sooner is the mind withdrawn from things corporeal, than those belonging to the soul and to life appear. This is the reason, not only that corporeal things must die, before man can be born anew, or be regenerated, but also that the body must die, before man can come into heaven, and see the things of heaven. So it is with the Word of the Lord; its corporeals are what is of the literal sense, whilst the mind is held in which, the internal contents do not appear; but when the former become, as it were, dead, then first the latter are presented to view."-A. C. 1408.

"The historicals are what represent the Lord; the words themselves are significative of the things which are represented. But being historical, the mind of the reader cannot but be detained in the facts related, particularly at this day, when most persons, and nearly all, do not believe that there exists an internal sense, still less in each single word; nor, possibly, will they yet acknowledge it, notwithstanding it has been thus far so manifestly shown; and this also by reason that the internal sense appears so to recede from the literal, as to be scarce discernable. But they may know it from this consideration alone, that the historicals can by no means be the Word, because in them, separate from the internal sense, there is no more of divinity than in any other history; but the internal sense makes it to be divine. That the internal sense is the Word itself, appears from many things which are revealed; as, 'Out of Egypt have I called my Son' (Matt. ii. 15); besides many other passages. The Lord himself, also, after his resurrection, taught his disciples what was written concerning him in Moses and the prophets (Luke xxiv. 27); thus that there is nothing written in the Word but what has respect to him, his kingdom, and the church. These are the spiritual and celestial contents of the Word; whereas those contained in the literal sense are for the most part worldly, corporeal, and earthly, such as can by no means constitute the Word of the Lord. Men at this day are of such a character, that they perceive only such matters as these, and scarcely know what spiritual and celestial things are. It was otherwise with the men of the Most Ancient and Ancient Churches, who, should they live at this day, and read the Word, would not at all attend to the literal sense, which they would regard as none, but to the internal sense; they are exceedingly surprised that the Word is not thus perceived by all; wherefore, also, all the books of the ancients were so written, as to mean in their interior sense otherwise than in the literal sense."—A. C. 1540.

Such then is the testimony of one fully competent, as we believe, to be a witness in regard to the interior genius of the Word of Truth. And on what ground is this testimony to be gainsayed? The statement cannot be fairly met by a gratuitous charge of visionary, fanciful, incredible, &c.-epithets, which constitute the only weapons laid up in the arsenal of some logical warriors-for it is clear that there is too much stern rationality in these statements to allow of their being thus summarily disposed of. The only proper mode of reply is to show that the fundamental ground of a fixed and eternal relation between the spiritual and the natural world is a fiction and a dream ; and when this is done it will remain to demonstrate that a boundless world of effects exists independent of a commensurate world of causes, which is equivalent to maintaining that the human body can exist and perform all its manifold functions without the presence and operation of its animating soul. If the justness of this alternative be denied, and the position be assumed that the Divine power, immediately acting, is a sufficient solution of every problem, we have only to say, that our conceptions of the all-perfect Jehovah recognize him as creating, upholding, and governing the universe by the intermediation of laws and agencies of a spiritual nature operating under Him and extending downwards, in causative efficacy, through successive degrees to the lowest and grossest natural plane of being. The view of Cudworth on this head accords very nearly with that of the New Church. "Though it be true, that the works of nature are dispensed by a divine law and command, yet this is not to be understood in a vulgar sense, as if they were all effected by the mere force of a verbal law or outward command, because inanimate things are not commendable or governable by such a law. And therefore besides the divine will and pleasure, there must needs be some other immediate agent and executioner provided for the producing of every effect; since not so much as a stone, or any heavy body, could at any time fall downward merely by the force of a verbal law, without any other efficient cause; but either God himself must impel it, or else there must be some other subordinate cause in nature for that motion. Wherefore the divine law and command by which the things of nature are administered, must be conceived to be the real appointment of some energetic, effectual, and operative cause for the production of every effect" (Intel. Syst. vol. I. p. 219). To this he adds that on the contrary theory it would be necessary to suppose that "God himself did immediately, and, as it were, with his own hand, form the body of every gnat and fly, insect and mite, as of other animals in generations," and this theory, he remarks, is confuted by that slow and gradual process observable in the development of all organizations, as also by those instances of amorphous or monstrous formations which sometimes occur where the matter is inept or intractable, and which could not of course be supposed to exist under the immediate hand of an Almighty Architect. According to the teachings of the New Church this intermediate order of agencies is the spiritual world in general, in which, under the Supreme, all causative force resides, and