structed men; and that these wonderful recitals concealed the ancient wisdom of the Greeks. It is in this sense, we can say with Chancellor Bacon, that Mythology was the wisdom of the ancients. Dupuis thought that he beheld in them a description of natural phenomena; but so many efforts of imagination are not necessary to describe simply that which is. Fable is no longer, as the Abbe Bauier thought it to be, the history of men; never has that which is real in the world, been enveloped in so many marvellous circumstances. Baron Eckstein says, that the first men saw in nature a typical world. Nature, says he, elsewhere, is the image of another nature, which, as an ideal world, exists in God. According to the same author, at the patriarchal era, the universe opened itself as a book, where men deciphered the mysteries of an order purely intellectual. All heathen philosophy is there to reply to him who would doubt this assertion.

We shall find elsewhere proofs that correspondence alone can explain the various extraordinary ceremonies of ancient worship; let us return to the very principle which establishes them. All that which exists in nature, necessarily derives its being from the spiritual world; in this case the object created, and the generating principle mutually correspond. Every form of Being, says Bernardin de St. Pierre, expresses some intellectual sentiments. Every kind of animal displays some features, by which we can discover its character. By this it is admitted that there are forms separate from what is material, because indeed we cannot conceive that any thing can come into being, if it has not before existed in thought. In man, for example, the action, which is natural, corresponds to the intention, which is spiritual. It is from this that the countenance is a mirror of the soul. A world without correspondences would be an effect without a cause.

Every part of heaven, says Swedenborg, flows into the corresponding part in man. Without that action life would be extinguished in him, since he derives it from the Lord, who constitutes heaven, and impresses his form upon it. Holy Scripture is written from beginning to end by correspondences; when the subject is concerning the members of man, it is necessary to understand the heavenly things to which those members correspond. By the eye is signified intelligence; by the ear obedience; by the hand power; by the nostrils perception. It is that which we express in common language when we say, he has a penetrating eye, or that he has a short sight; he has long arms, and other common expressions, which derive their origin from another source than that which is material.

The most simple reflection is sufficient for us to receive these expressions as proofs. Man thinks indeed by the influence of the spiritual world, without being conscious of it, lest his liberty should be infringed, that is only as an echo, which is repeated, when he thinks he is speaking himself.

"That is a fine conception," says Madame de Staël, “which tends to discover the resemblance of the laws of the human understanding, with that of nature, and considers the natural world as the effect of the spiritual world. It is not a vain imagination that these metaphors continually serve us to compare our sentiments with exterior objects; sadness, to heaven covered with clouds; a calm, to the silver rays of the moon; anger, to the waves agitated by the wind; it is the same thought of the Creator which is transferred into two different languages, and one may serve to interpret the other. Almost all the axioms in physics correspond to maxims in morals. That kind of parallelism which we can perceive between the objects of the world, and the perceptions of intelligence, is the index of a great mystery, and every mind would be struck, if we could arrive at any positive discoveries derived from it; but still the light we already possess, although feeble, enables us to see very far."*

Not only man, but animals, plants, minerals, the productions of nature, and those of human art, are correspondences. Nothing exists without an antecedent, or a cause; all things which strike our senses have, therefore, an origin. They are only upon the earth, because they have their principles in the spiritual world. If they were upon the earth, without having previously existed in the world of causes, they would have derived their origin from dead nature, which is opposed to the laws of order, and impossible. Some grains of dust moistened by the rain, or dried by the rays of the sun, cannot produce thought, intention, and motion. There is something spiritual or moral beyond or within the organ; there is in bodies which surround us, something significative within or beyond the form. The people know this very well; hence they discover emblems in colors; blue is representative of joy; white of innocence; they also give a language to flowers; like our ancestors we see types in natural objects. The cause is concealed in the effect, for there is not any thing which has not its origin in the spiritual world; neither is there any thing which does not correspond to it, and it is by this means that there is a divine communication with that which is purely physical or natural. Bernardin de St. Pierre observes that colors have an influence on the * De l'Allemagne, 3 partie, ch. 10.

passions, and that they, as well as their harmonies, have relation to moral, or spiritual affections.*

(To be continued.)

GULIELMUS.

EXTRACTS

FROM DR. TAFEL'S COLLECTION OF DOCUMENTS RESPECTING THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF EMANUEL SWEDENBORG, &c.

IN our notice of this useful work we observed that there is but little that is new, or that has not appeared, some time or other, in the English language. We promised, however, to transfer to our pages some things of importance, respecting the testimony of Oetinger, which may not be generally known in this country. Oetinger was a man of distinguished learning and piety, and highly respected by his countrymen. He was the author of many works, and attained the highest dignity in the church; he was appointed by his Serene Highness the Duke of Wurtemberg to the prelacy of Murrhard. He was one of the first in Germany who became acquainted with the writings of Swedenborg. He translated meny things from the Arcana Coelestia, and the Earths in the Universe. He also published an Analysis of Swedenborg's Natural Philosophy, and compared it with his Heavenly Philosophy.

From an unpublished MS. of the life of Oetinger, written by himself, Dr. Tafel has extracted the following; at page 129, he says, "I wrote the second part of the Earthly and Heavenly Philosophy in the presence of death; this, I thought, was to be my last work, but I recovered, and Swedenborg's book on Heaven and Hell came to hand, which I translated, and extracted from it the first part of Earthly and Heavenly Philosophy, and sent it, having submitted it to the censorship, to the press at Tubingen. In the mean time the prelacy of Murrhard became vacant. I was well aware, although I had been proposed as prelate ten years before, that I had many enemies, and therefore I wrote a candid letter to his Serene Highness, upon which he sent me two letters in four days, appointing me prelate. The book which I had written appeared afterwards, but the Consistory was much incensed at its appearance, and called upon me to justify myself. I was at Stuttgart about twelve months, and returned again to Murrhard. I then devoted myself to the work entitled Philosophia * Etudes de la nature, t. 1. p. 176.

+ See some account of Oetinger in the Int. Rep. Jan. 1830, pp. 1-4.

Scripturanæ, but was again compelled by the Consistory to appeal to the Privy Council. The Consistory interdicted me from publishing any thing either within or without the country. Upon this my son, a physician, published a work, under his own name, entitled Metaphisica et Chemica. After this I wrote to Baron Swedenborg at Stockholm, who replied to my letters; the correspondence may be seen in Dr. Clemm's German Theology," &c.

The two first letters, with which Oetinger opened the correspondence with Swedenborg, do not appear; they were probably not preserved. The first letter of Oetinger is dated Oct. 7, 1766, and is a reply to one that Swedenborg had sent, dated Stockholm, Sep. 23, 1766. This letter is inserted in the New Jerusalem Magazine for 1790, and contains a list of some of his works, and where they may be procured. Oetinger's reply to this letter is as follows:

Maxime Venerande et Excellentissime, &c.,

Stuttgart, Oct. 7, 1766,

As I am detained in this city on account of business, I received your kind favor of the 23rd Sep. only yesterday. I had previously received the catalogue of your books, and have especially read the work De Sapientia Angelica, and have found that it well agrees with Holy Scripture.

But, O my dear sir, you can scarcely imagine, how much I have had to suffer on your aecount, because I have translated the first part of your work, and indeed only the visa-things seen.

You most solemnly declare in your letter, that the Lord has manifested Himself to you, and that He has sent you to do, what you are now doing, and I certainly believe, that your spiritual sight is opened, like Gehazi's, to see things that are truly wonderful. I believe that from a celebrated philosopher you have become a prophet* and a seer, as was the case in former times. But as the spirit of the prophets should be examined according to I Cor. xii. 1, you will, no doubt, submit to be examined also. Is not the Holy Scripture, the Divine Revelation— a book in which all, who can read and hear, can confidently trust? "Seek," says the prophet, "out of the book of the Lord and read, no one of these shall fail." Isaiah xxxiv. 16. An inhabitant of earth, therefore, should seek, although he has not yet seen your discovery of the spiritual sense of scripture. If we could not understand any of the unknown things of heaven without you, I must conclude that Reve

* Dr. Tafel, in a note, refutes the erroneous conception about Swedenborg being a prophet, in the same sense in which that term is applied to the prophets of old.

ation before you has been read in vain.*. But we all can understand, that we have to wait for a city, whose builder is God. But as I became so desirous to know your discoveries, I found new doubts arise in my mind. The world is already sufficiently inclined to unbelief, and you take from it the power to understand the city of God, as being literally a city, you assert that it must be spiritually understood.

I beseech you to write to me once more before you die, and leave us not in uncertainty respecting the state of things after death. Jehovah appeared to Gideon, Judges vi. 4, and said to him, 'I have sent thee.' Gideon replied: 'Give me a sign, that I may know that thou art the Lord, who speakest with me.'

You have communicated to us many wonderful things respecting the state after death; they are reasonable and edifying, but they are not sufficient to induce the belief that the Revelation of John is to be understood only as to its spiritual sense, and not literally. You would also have required signs, if you had been in my case, but the wonderful things you have said are not sufficient signs for us. Give us a sign that your doctrine of the New Jerusalem is true; God cannot say any thing in opposition to His Spirit. I beseech you, therefore, to enquire of the Lord, who has appeared to you, whether you may speak to John himself, and ask him whether he will say, yea and amen to your explanation of the Apocalypse. I wish you also to speak more with the twelve Apostles, than with Enos and Paul, whose epistles you do not adduce. Do you wish yourself to be believed more than Paul and John? Does not Paul say, that there is no other gospel than that which he preached? Why can we not find in your writings, that you have spoken with the twelve apostles, or with the twenty-four elders? Might it not happen, as Paul says, that an evil spirit, in the form of an angel of light, who is opposed to the literal sense of John, has said, "I will be a false spirit in Swedenborg?" II Chron. xviii. 20, 21.

in

How important is that assertion which Jesus makes at the end of the Apocalypse, chap. xx. 18, “If any man shall add," &c. Now, if you say, that the city is no city of walls, of pearls, of fountains of living water, &c., is that not "to take away"? And when you say your book in the New Jerusalem, that the new heaven and the new earth are a new church, and that the city which comes down is nothing but its heavenly doctrine, every thing in the whole Apocalypse must be taken in a different sense than that which is obvious in the letter.

The eternal decree in Christ according to Ephesians and Collosians * Dr. Tafel also abundantly refutes this erroneous assertion.