not that body that shall be. (xv. 37.) He says also with equal plainness of the body, It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body: there is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. (44.) These words require to be examined closely, and involve remotely a deep metaphysical question. In common language the terms Body and Spirit are accustomed to be opposed, and are used to represent two things which are totally distinct. But St. Paul here brings the two expressions together, and speaks of a spiritual body. St. Paul therefore did not oppose Body to Spirit: and though the looseness of modern language may allow us to do so, and yet to be correct in our ideas, it may save some confusion if we consider Spirit as opposed to Matter, and if we take Body to be a generic term which comprises both. A Body therefore, in the language of St. Paul is something which has a distinct individual existence. If we were to call it a substance, the expression might again be liable to indistinctness; because Substance in modern language conveys the idea of materiality, or at least of tangibility. But the language of metaphysics might allow us to call spirit a substance. St. Paul, as we have seen, would have called it a Body; and Tertullian in the same manner says that the Soul may be called a Body, though he adds that it is a body 'propriæ qualitatis et sui generis.'* His expressions seem still more extraordinary in another place, where he asserts that God is a body: 'Quis enim negabit Deum corpus esse, etsi Deus Spiritus est? Spiritus enim corpus sui generis in sua effigie.'+ One of his commentators observes, that this expression is not to be endured, and that it savors of anthropomorphism. But we must not judge of Tertullian's phraseology according to the modern acceptation of words. If he chose to say with St. Paul, that a spirit is in one sense a Body; and if it be true, as it undoubtedly is in some sense, that God is a Spirit, it seems to follow logically, that God is a Body in Tertullian's and St. Paul's sense of the term. It is true, that we must consider whether the word Spirit is not here used equivocally. Every person perhaps would admit, that a Spirit, i. e. a spiritual or angelical being, is a Body in St. Paul's sense of the term; i. e. it is a Being or Substance: but whether God is a Spirit in this signification of the word, involves one of the deepest of all metaphysical questions, and would lead us to enquire whether the Deity possesses personal individuality, or whether he is to be abstracted from all ideas of lineaments and space. There is no need to examine this abstruse subject, nor to seek to penetrate that light, which no man can approach unto: (1 Tim. vi. 16.) but I would observe, that our ideas are liable to great indistinctness upon this point. All persons are not disposed at first to admit, what + Adv. Praxeam, c. 7. p. + iv. 24.

* De Anima, c. 9. p. 269.

504.

is nevertheless undoubtedly true, that a Spirit is bounded by space. Every Spirit is not everywhere: there must be portions of space where any given spirit is not; it is therefore bounded by space, and as Tertullian says of the Soul, Solenniora quæque et omnimodo debita corpulentiæ adesse animæ quoque, ut habitum, ut terminum, ut illud trifariam distantivum, longitudinem dico, et latitudinem, et sublimitatem, quibus, metantur corpora philosophi.'* It is very unfair therefore to say that Tertullian was an anthropomorphite in his notions of the Deity: he believed that God had a distinct being, and that he was, in the language of St. Paul, a spiritual Body. In the same manner St. Paul tells us, that every individual, when he rises again, will have a spiritual body; but the remarks which I have made may shew, how different is the idea conveyed by these words from the notion which some persons entertain, that we shall rise again with the same identical body. St. Paul appears effectually to preclude this notion, when he says, Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. (50.) The Fathers felt the force of this text, when they were defending literally the resurrection of the flesh : and Beausobre is in this instance not unjust to the Fathers, when he says of one of them :-'Adamantues, où l'Orthodoxe, pressé par cet objection, a recours à une très-mauvaise défaite, quoiqu'elle ait été adoptée par plusieurs des Pères. Il dit une vérité, mais qui n'est point à propos. Selon lui la Chair et le Sang ne signifient dans cet endroit que les actions vicieuses de la Chair. Il faut en convenir; cette solution donnait la victoire à l'adversaire; car il est plus clair que le jour, que l'Apôtre a pris la Chair et le Sang dans le sens propre ; sans remarquer, que cette expression ne signifie jamais que l'homme mortel.'+ Tertullian labors at great length to establish the same interpretation of 1 Cor. xv. 50; and Epiphanius does the same, when arguing against the Manichees. Nothing, however, can be plainer, than that St. Paul asserts in this place, that the bodies with which we shall rise at the last day, will not be bodies of flesh and blood; we shall be changed: (52.) and Jesus Christ shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body. (Phil. iii. 21.) Epiphanius tries in the same manner to explain away another expression of St. Paul, where he speaks of delivering a man unto Satan, for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. (1 Cor. v. 5.) Manes made use of this text to prove, that the soul or spirit will be saved without the body; and Epiphanius shows, that in this instance at least, his opponent had the advantage of the argument. Upon the whole, I should conclude, that though the Gnostics entirely mistook the

* P. 269.

+ Vol. ii. p. 139. Hær. lxvi. 87, p. 707.

De Resur. Carnis, c. 48, p. 354. || Hær. lxvi. 86. p. 706.

doctrine of the Resurrection, the Fathers also did not represent it in its proper light. The former error perhaps led to the latter; and while the notion entertained by the Gnostics concerning matter, made them shrink with horror from a reunion with the body and soul, the Fathers insisted more strongly upon a resurrection of the body, in order to maintain the belief in a future judgment, which was denied by the Gnostics. Neither party seems to have been aware of the full meaning of the expression, there is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body; an expression which allows us to believe that we shall rise again with a consciousness of identity, but which leads us also to conclude, that the bodies with which we shall rise, will not be material. Origen appears to have approached much nearer to the truth in this particular, than any other of the Fathers; and he certainly did not believe, that the same material body of flesh and blood would rise again unchanged:* for which opinion he incurred no small share of reproach; and Epiphanius labors at great length to prove it to be heretical.+ There are few persons, however, who would not allow that the arguments of Epiphanius are miserably weak. The history of this controversy, and of Origen's sentiments, are very fully discussed by Hætius;-Origenian, 1. ii. c. 2. Quæst. 9. p. 209."

OPINIONS OF SWEDENBORG'S WORK ON "HEAVEN AND HELL."

SIR,

To the Editor of the Intellectual Repository.

I have much pleasure in transmitting for insertion in your useful Miscellany, the following brief summary, or compendium of thought, resulting from an investigation of the Treatise on Heaven and Hell, written by a gentleman in this town, to whom I had the pleasure of lending the above work, and who, I may say, had but comparatively little knowledge of Swedenborg's writings, he being a member of an Independent denomination.

I remain, &c.,

Dartford, August 28, 1844.

REMARKS.

R. S.

Swedenborg was one of the most profound logicians of any age or country, and in the science of Mind and Matter had but very few

* Cont. Celsum, v. 18. p. 590.

+ Hær. lxiv. p. 528, &c.

N.S. NO. 59.-VOL. v.

3 G

equals. His description of Heaven is one of the most beautiful that ever was penned. His description of Hell, one of the most gloomy and just, that ever was conceived. Swedenborg has manifested the largest amount of thought, that mortal ever thought. On the immensity of Heaven, he has given the widest field for any mind to expatiate. No book ever published contains such an amount of grandeur, sublimity, and extent of thought. Any one wishing to enlarge the capacity of the mind to a boundless extent, should read this over and over. Swedenborg's exposition, the wide thought of exposition of God's dispensations,―places God's moral government of accountable creatures in quite a new point of view. It does, in reality, solve many difficulties which no other system ever did or can solve. His accurate philosophy of cause and effect-antecedence and consequence—is truly admirable. No mind ever manifested a greater amount of true philosophic knowledge. His opinions and certainties are totally destructive of all Atheism, Deism, Materialism, and Scepticism. His conceptions of truth and good, appear to be the only conceptions which can solve many portions in the Scriptures of Divine Truth.

"Thus far I have gone in my judgment of the mind, writings, and conceptions of Swedenborg; and should I read more of his works, I may admire him yet more and more.-August 27, 1844."

FURTHER REMARKS.

“There are exquisite beauties in the Heaven and Hell not mentioned in my letter. I read,—and am almost enchanted with the logical order of the universe of thought.

“Dr. Watts, on Death and Heaven, has to me most touching beauties, but comes far short of Swedenborg. Had the Doctor only conceived and believed Swedenborg's faith, the mind of Watts would have almost gone out of the body into the Spiritual World, and would have flung abroad the consummate beauties of that state and world; so much so, that his readers would have strongly desired to have gone at once into the Spiritual Heaven.-August 28, 1844."

This writer observes,—

'Some day I may give you a letter on the advantages of Swedenborg's faith in the removal of obstacles in God's moral government of accountable beings, which no other system ever did, either of the Calvinist, Methodist, or Universalist's faith.

"All capriciousness is removed from God's dealings, either in this world or in the future.

"By Swedenborg's faith man wills his own evils, and the influxes from the Lord alone produce all the good."

ON THE UNION OF THE LORD WITH THE FATHER, AND THE CORRESPONDING UNION EXISTING WITH THE MEMBERS OF THE CHURCH.

(Concluded from page 381.)

OUR Lord, of necessity, appeared to his disciples before their illumination, as One Person on earth, in the closest union with another Person -his Father, in heaven. This was but an appearance. The Lord, however, could not destroy it, because the disciples were not prepared to rise above it. He therefore turned it to the best account possible, by making it the ground of parabolical instruction concerning the relations of the Divine to the Human in Himself; thus He constructed out of it a parable, to be subsequently opened, and made plain, when the time should come for the fulfilment of the promise of further light, conveyed in these words," These things (concerning the Father, the Son, and the Spirit,) have I spoken unto you in parables: but the time cometh when I shall no more speak unto you in parables, but I shall shew you plainly of the Father." It is because the Christian Church, at an early period, fell into obscurity, through interpreting the Word contrary to a righteous judgment, by interpreting it according to appearances, that the passages under consideration were made a ground for the not merely mysterious, but utterly contradictory doctrine of three Persons making up One God. Had the Christian Church continued in the light, it would have interpreted the literal sense of the declaration (2) in the following manner. “I pray for them that they may live in the closest union with each other, even as we appear to be distinct persons living in the union of mutual love." If the apostles, after their illumination, had judged this apparently personal relation of Father and Son to be any thing more than an appearance, we should not have found so many evidences in these Epistles to the fact, that as Jews, they had worshiped the invisible God as One Divine Person, and no more, (for in no place in the Old Testament is there the slightest evidence of Jehovah having been worshiped by the Jews as more Divine Persons than One,) and that as Christians, they worshiped the same Divine Person, as being still One Divine Person, but no longer invisible, but "manifest in the flesh." When Paul said, "In Jesus Christ dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily," he evidently regarded the Person of the Lord as the bodily manifestation of the One Divine Person, Jehovah, the fulness of the Godhead. This passage, in fact, totally precludes all idea of more Divine Persons than One.