6 'The whole book is written in a close, and, in part, in a confused hand, and will be difficult to read and decipher. And this is what I have to offer with respect to the merely external and bibliographical knowledge of this Manuscript. But as for a more internal and perfect knowledge of the argument, I have not yet had leisure to acquire it. I dare not, therefore, judge of the value or weightiness of the Dissertations whose titles I have given, or of the relation in which they stand to the author's other works, published or unpublished. But I am well persuaded, at all events, that the contents of this book are, for the most part, eminently worthy of a more accurate investigation, but this can scarcely be instituted until they are made more easy to read and understand, for certainly, at present, it is no small task to decipher them. The Library of the Royal Academy of Sciences, July, 1845.' Such is Dr. Svedbom's Memoir. We feel assured that the New Church will feel grateful to this accomplished littérateur for the pains he has taken to give an accurate account of Swedenborg's Physiological Manuscripts, and that the friends of the Swedenborg Association will be glad to learn that Dr. Svedbom proffers his services on advantageous terms, should they be required in the edition of these manuscripts. It seems scarcely possible that such precious documents should be suffered to remain unpublished. For the most part they treat of subjects distinct from theology, and the knowledge of which is not supplied by Swedenborg's Theological Writings. And Swedenborg no more discarded his scientific works, than a man after studying the natural sciences can be said to discard science, because he has acquired a sufficient basis in it, and has passed on the higher plane of spiritual truth. Scientific truth still remained to Swedenborg as the natural although quiescent basis, on which his spiritual perceptions were founded. The plain fact is, and it is legible in all the operations that are going on around us, that although new Spiritual Truths are now given to mankind, yet these are also accompanied by practical natural truths in vast abundance, proving that there is a progress taking place, under Divine Guidance, at once in the spiritual and natural worlds. Therefore the New Church ought, in its own way, to explore the natural sciences, and for this purpose to make itself well acquainted with Swedenborg's philosophy, which will serve as the lungs to intermediate between the present science, and the New Church theology. Apart from such an organon, the New Church will not receive its full development in ultimates, nor ever breathe the atmosphere of ultimate Truths, in which it is the lot of all of us, as natural men, to have our external being and communications.* But in these lungs, which are not theology, and which are evidently not the present scientific views, but are an organic system of rational natural truths such as exist in Swedenborg's philosophy, the New Church will possess a mediating organ that can draw in so much of the present knowledge as is required for its own nutriment and vivification, that can give this knowledge out in speech and utterance suited to the world's comprehension, and draw out its own body into a more powerful life of natural, corresponding to spiritual, uses. "Quoniam Scientiæ occluserunt intellectum, ideo Scientiæ quoque aperient illum."―(Swedenborg's Diarium.) THE REDEMPTION OF ANGELS. AMONG the numerous inconsistencies which disgrace the gratuitous and unverified system of religion styled Orthodox, there is, perhaps, no one opinion more glaringly false than that which is entertained respecting the non-redemption of angels. Flippancy we abhor in speaking or writing on Sacred Subjects; yet we must be allowed to remark that we consider the angels of heaven as a race of beings that have been, and continue to be, very ill used by the orthodox. Thus, when an artist depicts an angel on canvass, he is sure to caricature him by clapping on his shoulders an enormous pair of wings, generally rising above his head, and reaching downwards to his heels, as if an angel were half man, half bird. How often do we hear the teachers of religion, when they would be very sublime in their public prayers, using the expressions:-"Angels veil their faces with their wings when they approach thee." Dr. Watts designates them the "winged troops" of the God of hosts; and Pope represents his "dying Christian" as begging the loan of a pair of angel's wings, having of course none of his own, to enable him to mount and fly to bliss. We lately heard a preacher adduce, in proof of the dependence of all created beings on the Deity, that even the angels are indebted to him for every flap of their wings. Now how nonsensical and silly soever these things may be, they are perfectly harmless when compared to the monstrously uncharitable doctrine which goes to deprive the angels of all participation in the great work of human redemption. We are quite aware of the ground taken by the advocates of such notions: they tell us that angels are not human beings, but creatures that were created superhuman, sinless, and standing in no need of redemption. But we ask, has this been ever proved, or can it ever be proved? Certainly not: it yet remains to be proved, and will remain so for ever, because it is contrary to the whole scope of Divine Truth. When it is most explicitly stated in Scripture that the angels of God, consisting of ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands, ascribe their redemption to the Lamb that was slain; is it not truly painful to hear large congregations of men on earth, who profess to mingle their songs with the songs of the heavenly host, flatly contradicting them, by singing, as they term it, "to the praise and glory of God," such words as the following: : "Never did angels taste above Redeeming grace, and dying love." We forbear to enlarge on this absurdity, but we must put the question how it came to pass that pure, sinless, superhuman beings, beings who “stood in no need of the work of redemption," should have become so naughty, as we are told they did? Let this be taken as a preliminary. We proceed to demand proof of the correctness of the following devotional lines of Dr. Watts,-lines which any one may, almost any Sunday, hear sung in any Dissenting Chapel,-but lines which are sufficient to make the soul shudder in its inmost recesses : "What mighty storms of poisoned darts We are far from impugning the piety of Dr. Watts, but we are certainly at a loss to know whence he obtained his information on this subject, unless it was from John Milton; certainly there is nothing of the kind taught in Scripture. Milton, we believe, has the honour of being the author of this horrible mythology, which is not surpassed by the grossest fables of the heathen writers. Milton's Devil was a pure angel of light; he did not choose to be dependent on the Supreme, but would be the supreme himself;-he raised an insurrection in heaven;— drew over to his side about a third part of the angelic host;—the result was that he, together with his adherents, were hurled out of heaven, and, as Dr. Watts informs us, storms of poisoned darts, deadly javelins, thunderbolts of flaming wrath, with other missiles, pursued them to hell, and nailed their hearts fast to the racks of long despair. Where these weapons of vengeance were formed, or by whom, neither John Milton nor Isaac Watts has informed us; but the reader will naturally infer that they were manufactured in heaven, and ready for use when wanted; and certainly it is not more incongruous to believe this, than it is to believe that hell had its origin in heaven. We laugh at the heathen mythology;-the heathens can afford to let us laugh on, while such doctrines form the basis of our creed. We have designated this doctrine gratuitous and unverified, and we offer, in proof of the assertion, the following comment on Heb. ii. 16. For verily he took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham." The verb eriλaußaveraι twice used in this verse, constantly signifies to take hold of a thing. (See Matt. xiv. 31, Mark viii. 23, Luke ix. 47, chap. xx. 20-26, chap. xxiii. 26, Acts xvii. 19, chap. xxi. 30-33, chap. xxii. 19, 1 Tim. vi. 12-19, Heb. viii. 9.) Our translators, taking the word here to signify the same as his taking part of flesh and blood with the children, ver. 14, or his being made in all things like unto his brethren, ver. 17, have rendered took on him, i. e. assumed: but as it would be improper to say He took not on him angels, but the seed of Abraham, they have been obliged to help out this sense by adding to the text the nature of. The marginal translation, however, is certainly more literal, and equally, if not more agreeable to the context and scope of the Apostle's argument, viz., He took not hold of angels; but of the seed of Abraham he taketh hold. That is, he did not lay hold of the angels who kept not their first estate, in order to deliver them, but reserved them in everlasting chains of darkness, unto the Judgment of the great day, Jude ver. 6; but he took hold of the seed of Abraham, the children which God had given him, that he might save them."* Perhaps a more gratuitous assertion than the above was never made by any one professing himself to be an expositor of the Sacred Scriptures. If by the term angels, as here used by the inspired Apostle, he meant the devils in hell, it may fairly be presumed that he would have qualified it with some epithet that would have left no doubt in the mind of the reader as to his meaning: but plain enough it is that Paul uses the term in the same sense as he does in chap. xii. 22, where he represents the Church on earth as forming a part of the great family of the redeemed. 66 And here it may be proper to remark how strangely inconsistent the popular belief is with itself in numerous instances. In speaking of the passage just quoted, the same commentator observes respecting the innumerable company of angels," that" They are now reduced to a mere order under the Son of Man, (1 Pet. iii. 22,) and incorporated into one society with the saints, (Eph. i. 10,) as their fellow-servants under Christ, (Rev. xix. 10, chap. xx. 9,) being all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister to them who shall be heirs of salvation." + * M'Lean on the Hebrews, vol. 5, p. 79. + p. 200. Here we have an important fact admitted, viz., that the angels of heaven are incorporated into one society with the saints on earth, and are (of course) their fellow-servants under Christ; but how could this be if angels in heaven, and men on earth, are separate and distinct orders of being? Besides, how was this "new order," this incorporation into one society effected, but by the stupendous work of human redemption? And is not this work the grand theme of the Apostle in all his writings? Is it not, indeed, the only theme of all the sacred writers? They wrote about nothing else. The great, the glorious work of human redemption was effected by the Lord alone during his abode on this earth;—the scene of operation, however, properly speaking, was in the spiritual world. There the Lord first reduced the heavens to order: and this is no vain fancy, for we are told that even the heavens were not clean in his sight, and that he charged his angels with folly, Job. xv. 15, chap. iv. 18. The effect, then, of redemption was first felt among the heavenly host;-thence it descended to men upon earth,-the new heavens must exist before the new earth could exist. The illustration will not, it is hoped, be considered as far fetched, when we refer to the circumstance of the angels coming and ministering to the Lord on the termination of his temptations, (Matt. iv. 14,) doubtless as an expression of their gratitude for their share in his "redeeming love." The work of human redemption could only be effected "Once," and "once for all," (Heb. x. 10,) that is, for all the human beings that shall compose the great body of the redeemed, at what time soever they have passed, or may hereafter pass, from earth to heaven. This innumerable company, this multitude which no man can number, what is it, what can it be, but the whole family in heaven and on earth," of which the Apostle speaks (Eph iii. 15,)—"the perfect men,” (chap. iv. 13,) standing out in the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ? or as Swedenborg has most sublimely expressed it,— "the whole angelic heaven, together with the Church on earth," appearing "before the Lord as one man."* The preceding remarks are not offered as a regular investigation of the subject, but are intended merely to recall attention to the luminous and incontrovertible statements of Swedenborg in his work on The True Christian Religion; the vindication of that author from the slanderous misrepresentation of the Rev. J. G. Pike, of Derby, and the minute examination of the fable of fallen angels, by the Rev. S. Noble in his "Appeal," &c. *T. C. R., 119. ΙΑΚΩΒΟΣ. |