precise; and they form a precise and sharply defined system of the universe, of which all the facts revealed in the Bible are harmonious, component parts; nor can they be made harmoniously to work into any system but this one. It is further to be noticed, that the Apostle Paul was raised up and especially qualified to survey all parts of the ancient revelation, and to present the whole system in its full symmetry and proportions.

Two most significant facts now meet us at the outset, as it regards Swedenborg: he utterly rejects the devil from his system of the universe, and he utterly rejects the Apostle Paul as an expositor of that system.

Now it is not to be supposed that Swedenborg had any clear idea of what he was doing when he took these steps. But there is abundant reason to believe that the devil well knew what he was about, when, by philosophy and vain deceit, he led the morbid mind of the Swedish philosopher contemptuously to throw away the main key of the system of the universe, and to reject the chief guide whom God has raised up to lead us through its mazes. Let us, then, notice a few things that God has revealed by Paul, concerning the devil, and his relations to the system.

Paul states explicitly that the great end of the Son of God in becoming incarnate, viewed in its relations to the system of the universe, was to destroy the devil, Heb. ii. 14. With him, also, John coincides, 1 John iii. 8. Paul also states, that, so soon as that great work is completed, the present system will close. By destroying the devil and his works, is, of course, meant the prostration of his kingdom and principles; and, concerning this, Paul explicitly informs us that when Christ shall have put down all rule and all authority and power, then cometh the end; for he must reign till he hath put all enemies under his feet. Then he gives up the kingdom, and God is all and in all.

By these simple, but wide-reaching and sublime statements, the apostle has sketched a vivid and clearly defined outline of the system of the universe.

God is the great first cause and final end. Of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things. The true state of the universe is one in which He is all and in all. The chief end of all creatures is to glorify God, and enjoy Him for ever.

Such was the state of the universe till Satan revolted. Then came in the principle of worshipping and serving the creature

more than the Creator, when Satan said, I will be as God, and led off the hosts of heaven in guilty revolt. This was THE ORIGIN OF EVIL, about which there has been so much debate. It originated in a spiritual system, anterior to the existence of the material system; the devil was its author. For it he must account to God and to the universe. This he well knows. Hence his ceaseless efforts to hide this view of the origin of evil, and to teach that the material system is the true cause of evil. This has been the doctrine of the devil in all ages. We find it in Platonism, in Gnosticism, in Manichæism. To it the simple Scripture doctrine, concerning the devil, is the great antagonist. This doctrine Swedenborg denies; thus did the devil gain his main point, and render it impossible for him ever after to construct anything but a false and delusive theory of the universe. Henceforth his theory must be like the play of Hamlet, with the omission of the part of the Prince of Denmark; or the history of Europe from 1793 to 1815, with the omission of Napoleon Bonaparte. If the devil is omitted, of course the great cause of the present state of the universe is omitted: the great end of God in the present dispensation is omitted, — viz., to destroy the devil's kingdom and works, and to establish his own kingdom on its ruins: and the means of gaining this end, by the redemption of the church, are omitted: the execution of God's plan is also omitted. And what have we left? Truly, we have neither more nor less than Swedenborg's theory of the universe; or, if you prefer it, one of the devil's manifold theories, designed to hide the real system of the universe, and the real issue between himself and God, and the certain overthrow of the powers of darkness.

Let us now descend to details. By the revolt of Satan, the power of God's law-the great uniting bond of the universewas weakened, and sin spread among created beings. The human race fell. Then, to destroy the works of the devil, God determined to unfold his character, by the redemption of the church. To do this, it was necessary that new power should be added to the law, and to justice as well as to mercy, by an atonement; and that, by new spiritual influences, sinners should be induced to return to God. Hence the incarnation and death of the Son of God, and the regenerating and sanctifying influences of the Holy Spirit. Hence, too, the disclosure of the Trinity, and the doc

trines of justification and predestination. It is therefore plain, that the whole system is temporary, and tends to a day when the redeemed church shall inherit the kingdom prepared for her; and Satan and his angels, and all their adherents, shall be cast into the lake of fire. Then, also, the present material system shall end, and the new heavens and new earth, in which dwelleth righteousness, be called into being by the creative power of God. Then the present, brief, and peculiar mediatorial dispensation ends, and the dispensation of eternity begins; and God is once more all and in all, as he was before Satan revolted.

All this, of course, Swedenborg utterly denies and rejects; for, beginning as he does, he cannot do otherwise. He admits of no great revolt, which, for a time, broke up the established order of the universe; of course he cannot look forward to the era of its final suppression, and of the utter destruction of its authors, and say with Paul, THEN COMETH THE END. No; for all that we can find in Swedenborg or Professor Bush, the present dispensation is the natural state of things, and is to be eternal. Look at it, as they set it forth. There is no future resurrection, or judgment, or any great era, or any end of the system. The law of the whole universe is, to begin by the existence of a spiritual body in a natural body, and then to drop the natural body, and rise in a spiritual body into the spiritual world. In accordance with this law, the whole universe is arranged. It exists in the form of a grand man; the component parts of which are worlds, which exist in infinite space, so arranged as to present to the eye of God the shape of a great man. The qualities of the inhabitants of these worlds vary, according to the place occupied by them in the body or limbs of this great man, according to the doctrine of correspondences; and from each world there is a stream of spirits, entering corresponding portions of the spiritual world; and, for all that appears, this system is eternal, and there are no spirits in that world, good or bad, that did not come through material bodies, as in this world. Hence the fundamental idea of the system excludes a fall of pure spirits, existing without bodies, in a spiritual system. Of course it has no place for the fall of the devil, or for his conquest, and the close of the present dispensation.

Here, then, we have a theory of the material system and of

the universe, essentially, radically, and totally at war with that of the Bible. It rejects the whole of what God is doing, according to the Bible. It renounces the vital and fundamental idea of the present dispensation; it renounces the system of means, of which the atonement is the centre, and the redemption and exaltation of the church, and the destruction of the devil and his kingdom, the end; and in its place puts the dreams of Swedenborg, or rather the delusions of the devil through his dreams.

Of course he has no room, or use, for the Trinity, or for the atonement; and much less has he any room, or use, for the Apostle Paul. Indeed he can hardly command his spirit to treat him decently; and, if he dared, would have consigned him to hell with John Calvin, whom he hated with equal sincerity, and towards whom he was not afraid to express his hatred.

But now the question comes up, What shall be done with the Bible? This is the stone of stumbling and rock of offence to all infidels, Romanists, Transcendentalists, and Swedenborgians. It stands erect, and, in the name of God, boldly and incessantly gives the lie to all their theories and delusions. What, then, shall be done? There are two courses: one is direct assault and destruction; the other is to seize it and retain its influence, and then to gag it, or mutilate it, or add to it, till it can be compelled to speak as the exigencies of the case demand.

The work to be done by Swedenborg was a desperate work, according to any sound principles of interpretation; and the course that he took was no less desperate. First, he contrives entirely to drop some of the most refractory materials, especially the Epistles of Paul; and, to cover up this barefaced deed, he drops the rest of the Epistles and the Acts, and with them a portion of the Old Testament which he could easily spare, and reserved a certain portion, out of which to elaborate his system. Then he brings in his theory of triple senses, and correspondences; and immediately, like the cuttle-fish, he darkens the waters of truth and common sense, and escapes all pursuers. Nothing can be more unfounded, more nonsensical, more ridiculous, than his principles of interpretation. It is a mental degradation even to be called on seriously to refute them, and yet it is a work that ought to be undertaken for the public good. The public are, therefore, under great obligations to Dr. Pond, for the thorough manner in which he has done it in his fourth chapter;

and to Dr. Woods, for the exposure which he has made of the same subject, in his second lecture.

It is perfectly plain, that the reasons assigned by Swedenborg for rejecting the writings of Paul, to say nothing of other portions of the Word of God, are perfectly arbitrary. He gives no reason but his own assertion, that they do not contain certain hidden senses. The real reason, however, is plain, at least to the devil, if not to Swedenborg, viz., that they do contain certain senses not hidden, and which it is a desperate work to undertake to hide. Accordingly he does not hesitate to contradict, in express terms, the doctrines of Paul, as to the devil, the atonement, justification, predestination, and decrees. He detests them himself, and makes all his spirits detest them, but those which are in the hells, or tending thitherwards.

It would be interesting, did circumstances permit, to show how Swedenborg's antecedent philosophical views of the material system and the universe, moulded and gave shape to his theology; but our limits forbid.

I will only say, in the words of a German writer, that his descriptions of the spiritual world, "even in the minutest points, bear the stamp of the age in which he lived, and those views of the external world which he had gained as a natural philosopher." Hence the numerous contradictions to the sciences of the present day, which Dr. Pond has so ably exposed, and which are an integral part of his professed revelations.

It would also be interesting and instructive, did time permit, to show how his low and degrading views of the spiritual world grow directly out of his theory of the universe, and of the rejection of the Scriptural view. We may, perhaps, revert to this topic hereafter.

It is sufficient, in conclusion, to remark, that Swedenborg is but another illustration of what the whole history of theology shows, - that rejecting the Scriptural doctrine concerning the devil and his angels, always involves, in its ultimate results, the rejection of the whole system of God. We would also say that it is no less true, that all who are shallow and superficial in their views of this great doctrine, will, of necessity, be equally shallow and superficial in their views of the whole system of God. How is it possible to deny or to overlook God's great end in the present dispensation, and yet to understand the dispensation itself?