tendency to a perfectly spherical form, for the volatile ethereal salt when mixed with the most fluid substance of nature, does not destroy, but only subdues or subordinates its forces. 3rd. In this manner is constituted the blood next in degree, or the less compounded blood. 4th. Let the spherules of this fluid be fitted each respectively into the six hollow sides of a single particle of common salt (n. 70, 77), which may serve as a basis, fulcrum, and mould of the whole. 5th. At all the eight angles, where the spherules do not mutually touch each other, let there be inserted the urinous or volatile and sulphurous aërial salts (n. 72), which are of the second order, and which are small cubes and solid triangles, by the interposition of which the whole compages is strengthened. 6th. Hence will be found to result the entire spherical figure of the compound particle, or sanguineous globule, which is voluble, fluid, flexile, possessing the power of adapting itself to any contractedness of passage, soluble, exhaling warmth, red, heavy, holding together all its parts, so as to seem to combine them spontaneously into one, and in the most orderly arrangement, while within them reigns that spirituous and vital substance which is the only substance of its kind." 96.

From these extracts, and several others to be met with in the other physiological works of Swedenborg, it is obvious that, after much theorizing and numerous experiments, some of which seemed to contradict each other, physiologists are coming to the conclusion that the colour of the blood is owing to the peculiar form and constitution of the blood globules, as declared by this much-despised author, above a hundred years since, rather than to the presence of iron merely, as insisted upon by Dr. Pond. J. B.

Louth.

WAS THE ASSUMPTION OF THE HUMAN BY JEHOVAH IN CONSEQUENCE OF THE FALL MERELY?

THE propounder of this question is inclined to answer it in the negative. It appears by the evidences to be referred to, that had not the fall of man taken place, it would, nevertheless, have been an eminent part of the Divine economy to assume, "in the fulness of time," the Humanity, and unite it with the Divine Essence, as the indispensable medium of connecting permanently with God, in the closest conjunction, "all things in heaven and on earth." What else can be the meaning of the following language of Paul, recorded by apostolic inspiration? "According to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord, that in the dispensation of the fulness of times [which is

the dispensation of the Gospel according to an enlarged and interior idea of it] he might gather together in one all things in Christ [or in his Humanity], both which are IN HEAVEN and on earth." (Eph. i. 10; ii. 11.) Again: "It pleased the Father that in Him [or in his glorified Humanity] should all fulness dwell; and having made peace through the blood of his cross, by Him to reconcile [or conjoin] all things unto himself, whether things in earth, or things IN HEAVEN." (Col. i. 19, 20.) Now, in the latter passage the great event described is made to take effect immediately following the Lord's "having made peace [between God and fallen human nature] through the blood of his cross" [the sufferings by which his Humanity was "made perfect"]. But there seems no good reason to conclude that it would not have been necessary or beneficial to unite all things "in heaven and earth" with himself by his glorified Humanity, if man had never fallen. It could not be because the inhabitants of "heaven" were fallen creatures,* that God gathered them to Himself" in Christ;" it could not be that they needed expiation, according to the common idea, even if it were granted that the common idea is a true one. It will not be denied that all rational creatures are blessed and happy in proportion to their nearness to, and the closeness of their conjunction with God. If, then, they are brought nearer by the medium of Christ or the Humanity, than they could otherwise have been, that is a sufficient reason why it should have been an eternal purpose" of the Most High thus to "gather them together in one." Such a purpose was worthy of Almighty Love, whether man so soon after his creation should fall or not. But whether, supposing this purpose to have existed irrespective of the fall, and supposing the fall not to have taken place, the Humanity would have been "made perfect" without sufferings, is a question not necessary to be considered here; but the reader may refer to A. C., 1573, which seems to bear on the question.

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We are accustomed to think of the succession of churches, from the Adamic to the Lord's coming, as wholly caused by a necessity arising out of the gradual descent of human degeneracy lower and lower; and yet the succession of churches may be viewed as descending from inmost to outermost, through the line, not of sinners, but of saints,—not of those who

* The "inhabitants of heaven" were of the celestial church only, who (according to the frequent testimony of Swedenborg) did not need salvation. The Lord came to save those of the spiritual church, and to form a heaven for their reception, as a part of his work of redemption. The apostle, therefore, could not mean that the portion of the Lord's great work which consisted in conjoining all things in heaven with Himself was any part of what is properly meant by the work of salvation, that is, from sin and its consequences.

were in the actual perversion of the church, but those in the actual use and improvement of the dispensation existing in their time. Putting out of view, then, the wicked in all ages, it is clear that there always was a remnant of mankind in conjunction with the Lord, and through whom He might have descended down to the point of the assumption of the Humanity, on the supposal that they, the good, alone existed. But man having sinned, as well as become more external, it was an object of Divine Mercy to provide for the "making peace by the blood of the cross;" as well as to "reconcile with himself," or "gather together all things in one," which are " in heaven," as well as on earth, in his glorified Humanity.

If Jehovah was the Divine Celestial to the Most Ancient Church, the Divine Spiritual to the Ancient Church, and the Divine Natural representatively to the Jewish Church, the Divine was all this-not to the wicked members, but to the good members of these successive churches. And why so? We answer, to the end that eventually, in the Christ, the Person, or the Divine Natural Humanity of Jehovah, the good of every degree might be gathered together in one, as a consequence of the Divine Celestial, Divine Spiritual, and Divine Natural having been united in one in his Divine Humanity, by its full glorification even to ultimates.

And now let the reader judge whether the following passage from the Apocalypse Explained, n. 641, does not convey the idea of this successive descent as a part of the Divine plan, irrespective of the fall :- If we take a view of the successive states of the church on our earth, it is evident that they have been similar to the successive states of the man who is reformed and regenerated, in that, with a view to his becoming spiritual, he is first conceived, afterwards born, then grows up, and is afterwards led on further and further into intelligence and wisdom. The church from the most ancient times, even to the end of the Jewish church, INCREASED as a man who is conceived, born, and GROWS UP, and is then instructed and taught; but the successive states of the church after the end of the Jewish church (or from the time of the Lord even to the present day) have been as those of a man who advances in intelligence and wisdom, or is regenerated, for which end the interior things of the Word, of the church, and of worship, were revealed by the Lord when he was in the world, and now, lastly, things still more interior are made known; and in proportion as things interior are revealed, in the same proportion man may become wiser."

It is certain, then, from the tenor of this passage, that the Lord came into the world "in the fulness of times," in two senses; it was the fulness

of times when man's necessity had become extreme, and when he was in the fulness of danger from the hosts of hell, through the consummation of the fall, in the utmost degree of human degeneracy; from the consequences of which no power could rescue man but the power of "God manifest in the flesh." It was also the fulness of times" when the church, viewed in the abstract, or when the abstract power and capacity of man had advanced, increased, and grown up (as Swedenborg says) as from first birth to manhood; when a state had been attained that called for such a revelation as that which the Lord afforded when he was in the world. Not only, then, had the church, in successive ages, as to its bad members, increased in depravity, but the church, from the most ancient times, had "increased" precisely " as a man" increases in capability from birth to maturity; it had been gradually, it is presumed, in the line of its good members, increasing in the abstract capacity of thought. It appears from the tenor of the passage just quoted, that in the most ancient time the capacity of thought with man was relatively infantine; it was interior, and without that expanded fulness which the individual man acquires as he passes from the natural interior thought of a child to the natural exterior thought of a man, which latter makes one with the expressions, marshalled and appreciated rightly by education, so as to afford aid to the development of thought, and the adequate means of expressing it; and as Divine Truth is in its fulness in the external sense of the Divine Word, so is the thought of man in fulness, when man (in order) can think well in externals; for thus are his interiors brought into fulness, and thus his human truth is in fulness in his external sense of it, and the whole man, from internal to external, is filled and blessed with truth of every degree.

Now had the Lord come into the world in the most ancient times by a human birth, he could only have taken on him the few states then developed; and supposing the church to go on increasing in external capacity afterwards, none of these additional states, nor those who were in them, would have been gathered into oneness with the Lord through his previously assumed Humanity. It was then necessary that the assumption of Humanity should be deferred until all possible states of man had been developed, from the most interior to the most exterior, that all might be assumed by the Lord by a human birth, and by this means all states, and men in all states of capacity and attainment, be conjoined with his Humanity, as the repertory and fountain of life and power to them (through the mutual correspondence between his human nature and theirs), and the essential ground of all things constituting their essential being.

That man should attain the fulness of abstract development, and the fulness of hereditary evil, at the same point of time, was a foreseen coincidence; and possibly it was in the very nature of things that, degeneracy having commenced, should proceed and run parallel with human development in a descending order. Thus, according to our theory, the Lord, by assuming Humanity at this juncture, not only took upon himself actually all the possible abstract or rudimental states of a man as to mental power, but all the possible propensities of a man, providing, in his glorified Humanity, for the help of man in all conditions of mental power; and for the purification of man in all states of hereditary evil, and the restoration of him, in all states resulting from actual sin.

It is a consideration of the greatest interest, that before the coming of the Lord men were, relatively to the present time, in a state of mental childhood and youth, even to adolescence, in respect to spiritual or interior things combined with exterior, in plenary fulness and power. During the first Christian church, the above described figurative grown-up man, at his commencement under the Gospel, was too simple to receive the more interior things of the New Jerusalem dispensation, and, therefore, has been struggling ever since with fallacies, and labouring to grasp realities; but now that the New Jerusalem dispensation has opened, man is no longer struggling with fallacies, but has a clear and full assurance of those highest truths which are of the greatest moment to him to know. He has attained the fulness of his internal capacity together and in union with the fulness of his external capacity; and therefore it is, as Swedenborg remarks above, that "things still more interior are made known,” that man, having the capacity to appreciate them, may by means of them, "become wiser." At the same time, and to a degree and extent altogether unprecedented, there are now brought forth the truths of natural science, thus affording the opportunity of bringing the fullest amount of abstract ability into the fullest manifestation, to the advancement of human improvement and happiness, of all kinds and degrees.

And does it not greatly exalt our idea of the grandeur of the proceedings of Infinite mercy and goodness, to contemplate the Divine plan of creation as providing for the eternal conjunction with the Creator of the inhabitants of all worlds, and of all the spirits thence, through his Divine Humanity? Taking this sublime and comprehensive view, it is no longer a question, "How did the fall of man on this earth affect the inhabitants of other earths?" or, "What interest have they in the redemption effected for us?" The abstract man was progressively developing at the same time, in all worlds, towards that point called "the fulness of times" (implying the fulness of states), when all potential states should become