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the Lord; and hence into the ability, that, as to thoughts and affections, he can be elevated by the Lord above the natural world, and thence think about God, and be affected with the Divine Spirit, and thereby be conjoined to Him: which is not the case with the animals of the earth. Men who are capable of being thus conjoined to the Divine Spirit, do not die when their corporeals, which are of the world, are separated; for their interiors remain conjoined.

Swedenborg, Arcana, n. 4525. The Human Ascending Sphere, which the Lord superindaced in the world over His former Descending Human Sphere, was like the human spirit superinduced in the body of a man in the world. But, in the Lord, both were Divine; and therefore infinitely transcending the two finite human spirits, the one for the body, the other for the soul (Ibid. on Div. Love, n. 261), of angels and men. As He fully glorified the Natural or from nature returning, Human Sphere even to its ultimates; He therefore, otherwise than any man, rose again with its complete receptacle the whole body.

Thus He could, before His ascension, put off nature, which in itself is dead, yet a receptacle of the Divine; and put on the Divine.

Those

The natural mind of man consists of spiritual substances, and at the same time of natural substances. From its spiritual substances thought is produced, but not from its natural substances. The latter substances recede when a man dies; but not the spiritual substances. Wherefore that same mind, after death when the man becomes a spirit or an angel, remains in a form similar to that in which it was in the world. natural substances, which recede by death, constitute the cutaneous covering of that spiritual body, in which spirits and angels are. By means of such covering, which is taken from the natural world, their spiritual bodies subsist; for the natural is the ultimate covering: Hence it is, that there is no spirit or angel, who was not born a man.

Ibid. n. 221, 234, 257.

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are not the best. The substance of the fruit is much finer, and of a better flavor, than that of ordinary melons. It is exceedingly cooling, and may be eaten without the least danger. This fruit, gathered green, will in ripening, keep unfaded till the middle of winter, when it is allowed to be as good as in its proper season.

Modern Univer. Hist. vol. vi. p. 130.

It is inconceivable how soon a fresh-water plant dies, if taken from its element; quite as quickly as a fish, and decays much sooner, for it grows putrid almost immediately. It is also remarkable, that (after the manner of sea and lake fishes) a fresh-water plant soon decays in salt water, and a sea-weed soon decomposes in fresh water.

See TILLOCH's Philosoph. Mag. for Jan. 1815, p. 9.

5117. [Luke xxiv. 50.] Mount Bethany was distant from Jerusalem a sabbath day's journey, or seven furlongs and a balf.

Dr. LIGHTFOOT.

Jesus Christ was translated not on a Thursday, but on the Jewish sabbath or on what is called the Lord's day, the second day in the feast of Pentecost. Deut. xvi. 9, 10. 1 Cor. xv. 20.

The modern Jews celebrate the Pentecost for two days. (CALMET.) This causes Luke to distinguish the Second Day, as the day on which Pentecost was fully come (Acts ii. 1). Hence probably, the First day of Pentecost, the day of Firstfruits, is the Resurrection Day; the Second, the day on which the Law of Moses and the Holy Spirit of the Gospel were successively given.

Verse 51.] His material body was now glorified, or turned into glory as it manifestly passed from him. And from this time the spiritual body he had from the virgin was glorified,

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5130. [John i. 14.] The increase of the solid parts of the globe by the recrements of organic bodies, as limestone rocks from shells and bones, and the beds of clay, marl, coal, from decomposed woods, is now well known to those who have attended to modern geology; and Dr. Halley, and others, have endeavoured to shew, with great probability, that the ocean has decreased in quantity during the short time which human history has existed. Whence it appears, that the exertions of vegetable and animal life convert the fluid parts of the globe into solid ones; which is probably effected by combining the matter of heat with the other elements, instead of suffering it to remain simply diffused amongst them.

DARWIN'S Temple of Nature, canto i. l. 268.

5135. [John i. 18.] Were it but possible for the eye to view through the skin, the mechanism of our own body, the sight would overwhelm us. Durst we make a single movement, if we saw our blood circulating, the nerves pulling, the lungs blowing, the humors filtrating, and all the incomprehensible assemblage of fibres, tubes, pumps, currents, pivots, which sustain an-existence at once so frail, so presumptuous ? How then could we support an interior view of HIM in whom we live, move and have our being !

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5131.

And tabernacled among us] Mede, Lightfoot, and some others have advanced satisfactory arguments to prove that our Lord's nativity was in September, and particularly at the feast of Tabernacles, four years before the vulgar computation now in use. (See USHER, on the Subject.) John the Baptist was born on the 15th of the first month, or Passover Day; and the Messiah on the 15th of the seventh month, when the Feast of Tabernacles commenced. PENROSE'S Letters, P. 46. Dwelt among us] pitched his tent among us.

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BOYLE.

5132. What sense is now-a-days affixed to the term charity, the Greek name of which, charis, signifies attraction, grace, loveliness?

See St. PIERRE's Studies of Nature, vol. iii. p. 227.

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5133.

The soul converts not itself into body, nor so commixes itself with body as to become body, but takes body to itself.

Gen. ii. 7.

SWEDENBORG, on the Athanasian Creed, n. 16, p. 40.

5139. [45.] That is, his son-in-law; as Joseph had married his mother, and was therefore his father-in-law, and, in the common language of mankind, called his father, and Jesus called his son: which is common every day, and every where.

5134. [—— 18.] No object can be seen but by the rays of light that are reflected from it.

When the moon is a little withdrawn from the sun, and yet the earth is almost in opposition, the light that passes from the enlightened disc of the earth to the obscure surface of the moon's atmosphere is there reflected, and shews us the body of the moon covered with a gentle light that distinguishes it from the azure of the heavens.

The body of the moon, as a magnificent mirror, returns to us in the night, a great part of the light of the sun which we had lost.

Nature Displayed, vol. iv. pp. 28, 31, 32.

5140. [ 46.] Pride still ascribes a mighty influence to country, and to blood. Yet Pompey, so noted for his generosity, was the son of Strabo, infamously notorious to the Roman people for his avarice. The cruel Domitian was brother to the gracious Titus. Caligula, and Agrippina the mother of Nero, were indeed brother and sister; but they were the children of Germanicus, the darling hope of Rome. The barbarous Commodus was son to the godlike Marcus Aurelius. What a difference, in the same man, between Nero, saluted when he mounted the throne as the Father of his country; and Nero, execrated before his death as its avowed enemy between Tirus, stigmatized in his youth with the name of a second Nero, and Titus at his death embalmed with the tears of the senate, of the Roman people, and of stran

gers? What a difference between Cesar, so ambitious, so dissolute; and Cato, so temperate and virtuous yet both were of a sickly constitution. Place, then, Climate, Nation, Family, Temperament; these determine men neither to vice, nor to virtue. The will, the inclinatión does all : — “I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live."

See St. PIERRE's Studies of Nature, vol. i. p. 303. Summos posse viros et magna exempla daturos Vervecum in patria, crassoque sub aere, nasci.

JUVENAL.

5141. [John i. 46.] The Jews abhorred the true Christ when he came, because there had been before him a false Messiah called by the name of Jesus of Nazareth.

See Dr. GREGORY'S Assyrian Monarchy, p. 211.

of water, and what he drew and carried to the ruler of the feast from vessels full of water, was such wine as strangely surprized him with its peculiar excellency. The wine was only found in the cup into which our Saviour ordered the servant to draw, and bear to the ruler. LAW's Appeal, p. 225.

The justice of the miracle may be seen in this, that the disciples &c. who attended Jesus, increasing the number of the guests probably beyond expectation, might be justly considered as contributing essentially to that want of wine of which the mother of Jesus complained.

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5148.

If wine be drawn off about the close of March, during the ascent of the sap in the vine, it will appear as white as milk at the very instant it is poured into the glass. If drawn off when the sap is rising about the latter end of August, its quality will be much the same. An incontestible argument, that at those times the joint influence of the air and sap operates with vigor equally on the vine and on the liquor it produces. Nature Delineated, vol. ii. p. 261.

5149. [10] A nuptial feast continued Seven Days.

5150. [—— 14-16.] Rosinus and Godwin say, that the Romans had certain walks on each side of the body of the Church, which they called Porticus; and in these places it was lawful for them to make bargains, merchandize, or confer on any worldly business, as likewise in the Basilica or body itself. But their Quire, called Chorus, was set apart only for Divine Service. It is not generally known that the body of the Church, or Nave, was the Exchange of the parish.

Latent Antiquities, by the Rev. T. D. Fos-
BROOKE, M. A. F. S. A.

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