value of each, and how each depends on the other, and also that by one as well as the other we are created into the image and likeness of our heavenly Father; and therefore, that neither organ can, by its constitution, be a stumbling-block or a snare.

Swedenborg teaches that all things of the body exist only because they correspond to all things of the spirit. The heart and the lungs sustain the life of the body precisely in the same way that the will and the understanding sustain the life of the spirit. The blood perpetually flowing forth from the heart-love in its activity-warms and vivifies the whole system; and if the action of the heart ceases, life instantly becomes extinct. Yet the life-giving blood can be maintained in a healthy state only by the constant action of the lungs, which cleanse it from all impurities, and incessantly renew its life-bestowing power. If the action of the lungs be stopped, the motion of the brain presently becomes impeded by the impurities of the blood, very soon the whole nervous life is paralyzed, and finally the heart ceases to pulsate, and then life departs.

Thus it is that the will and the understanding mutually depend on each other; and the perfection of the spirit must spring from the healthy action of each, just as the rightly balanced action of the heart and lungs fills the animal system with vigorous life.

In the infancy of the world, when man dwelt in the garden of God, this balance was perfect; but when he ate of the forbidden fruit, that is, worshiped himself instead of God, believing his intelligence to be selfderived, this balance was lost. The truths of the understanding no longer purified the affections of the heart, because those affections regarded only self. This fallen state is now the natural state of man. We are bond-servants in Egypt, and happy are those who are able, even through forty years of weary pilgrimage, to attain rest in Canaan.

The impulse of worship is instinctive in the will, for the essence of the will is love, and love, by its nature, demands an object of supreme devotion. Unless guided by the truths of the understanding, this devotion is as liable to be given to self, or to the world, as to the Lord. The understanding should go forth, take cognizance of all things, and return to instruct the heart. Still, though the instructer, it is not the superior. It must bring its stores of knowledge as a tributary, not as one having authority. "The understanding does not lead the will, but only teaches and shows the way; it teaches how a man ought to live, and shows the way in which he ought to walk; the will leads the understanding, and causes it to act in unity with itself; and the love which is of the will calls that wisdom in the understanding which agrees

with itself. The will does nothing by itself without the understanding, but does every thing that it does in conjunction with the understanding; yet the will associates the understanding with it by influx, and not the understanding the will."-D. L. and W. n. 244.

It is a common opinion, held by many well-meaning persons, that it is of no consequence what a man believes, provided he leads a good life. This opinion is the natural result of the throwing off the galling chains of irrational creeds, which have oppressed the souls of many with a weight too grievous to be borne. When men cease to believe in faith alone, from the violence of reaction in their ideas they are prone to cease believing in it at all; and thus they pass from one extreme of falsity to another. In this, as in most cases, the opposite extreme of wrong is not right, for truth lies in the midst. It is not by faith alone, nor by works alone, that man can be saved. Faith is a mere phantom of the imagination, until it takes substantial form in works; and works are neither virtuous nor vicious of themselves, but only as they are the fruits of the good or evil affections of the heart. The Hindoo mother who drowns her child in the Ganges, or the Hindoo widow who immolates herself on the funeral pile of her husband, from simple faith that these actions are pleasing to the eye of heaven, may be truly religious in performing them. In Christian countries, those who perform the external acts which our religion commands, in order that they may appear well in the eyes of the world, as certainly sin before heaven as if they committed acts the very reverse. They live a perpetual falsehood; and in a future life it will be far more difficult for them to become inhabitants of heaven, than for the poor Hindoo; for to change a corrupt heart, is far more difficult than to set right a misguided understanding.

There is a class of individuals who lead good lives, because they are naturally so constituted that they feel no desire to do otherwise. But certainly it cannot be accounted as genuine goodness in man that he is temperate, if he feels no inclination to be otherwise, or that he is honest, if he is naturally destitute of acquisitiveness, or that he is amiable, if he has no combativeness. On these grounds we might attribute moral excellence to a brute animal.

There is still another class of persons who lead externally good lives, but who are in the most dangerous state of all; and these are they who worship human nature; who talk of it as if it were a god; who shun evil actions, not because they are displeasing to the Lord, but only because they themselves will be defiled thereby. This is the most intense pride of life, and perhaps of all sins the most difficult to overcome. It is built upon the deepest self-love. It is idolatry of e N. S. No. 95.-VOL. VIII.

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most internal and incorrigible nature. It is not a small matter what one believes. True goodness can exist only as the fruit of true

faith.

The question naturally arises, how is it that the will can distinguish the true from the false among the various knowledges brought to it by the understanding? By its own unaided efforts it cannot do this, but by the Divine assistance all things are possible, and this, too, can be done. There are in the mind of man three degrees or planes, one above another; the natural, the spiritual, and the celestial. By the first degree he has communication with this world, and by the second and third with the spiritual world. The two superior degrees are sanctuaries into which that which is false or evil cannot enter; and these degrees are not opened, or they remain as it were dormant, until man becomes regenerate. Holy influences from the spiritual world are perpetually striv ing to open these superior degrees, which are respectively receptacles for truth and goodness. While man desires truth from worldly motives, these degrees remain closed, but so soon as he desires truth from heavenly motives, they begin to open. The Scriptures shine with ever-increasing light to him who goes to them desiring truth from the love of truth; while he who reads only to confirm his preconceived opinions, though he read perpetually, finds only those things which he believed he knew

before.

To forget self, to lose self in turning to the Divine,—this, and this only, is the way by which man can attain the truth. Just so far as man turns himself towards the Lord, by obedience to those truths which he has already received, so far he becomes capable of receiving the heavenly influx that is ever waiting for him; and when he learns to love the Lord with all his heart, and soul, and mind, and strength; that is, when his whole will is perfectly subject to the Divine Will, and his whole life one continued act of obedience, he will receive the heavenly influx so perfectly, that his perception of truth will be, as it were, instinctive and without effort. This is the state of the angels of the highest heavens; and though we cannot attain to it on earth, we should constantly keep it before our eyes, as the goal for which we are striving, and where alone we shall find perfect rest in the Lord.

M. G. C.

THE LAND OF EGYPT AND THE LAND OF CANAAN, OR THE NATURAL AND THE SPIRITUAL STATE.

"For the land, whither thou goest in to possess it, is not as the land of Egypt, from whence ye came out, where thou sowedst thy seed, and wateredst it with thy foot, as a garden of herbs; but the land, whither ye go to possess it, is a land of hills and valleys, and drinketh water of the rain of heaven: a land which the Lord thy God careth for the eyes of the Lord thy God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year even unto the end of the year."-(Deut. xi. 10, 11, 12.)

WHEN the end is attained, the perfection of powers is in its fulness, and before ends can be obtained means must be employed. We are born natural and sensual; we are to become spiritual and celestial, when the powers of humanity reach their fulness and perfection. We all look forward to the attainment of bliss, and our vision is so organised that we can rationally perceive the end before it is attained, and no end can be permanent, no possession secure, unless eternity be involved in that which we desire; and any desire that does not terminate in Him who is the Alpha and Omega of things, cannot be lasting, neither can it have within it a state of permanence and security.

The journey of the children of Israel from the land of Egypt, points out the succession of states that every Christian must undergo before he can be fit for the kingdom of heaven. To a reflective mind, that people will present many peculiar phases, that will forcibly illustrate the Christian progress,-though their wanderings were confined to time and space, yet they point out the Christian's progression from state to state. A cruel tyrant subjected them to bondage and toil, -so also the dominion of evil spirits the people of God to servitude and sin; and before the yoke can be broken, and the tyrant overthrown, the out-stretched arm of the Lord has to lead man through many trials and difficulties, ere deliverance can be effected from the land of Egypt, and the house of. bondage.

As the children of Israel would rejoice when the promised land first spread its glorious prospect to their delighted gaze; as the toils of the journey through a dreary desert would lend, by contrast, enchantment to the view,—so also do the cheering influences of the intellectual faculty enable the Christian to view the broad expanse of a heavenly state, and the anxieties and temptations of the powers of darkness fit his mind to appreciate the calm repose which a state of spiritual-mindedness opens to his view,- -a bright land—a land where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest. Our prospects always precede our possessions, just as the understanding of truth always opens the eyes to

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see the kingdom of heaven, before the will is prepared to enter heaven and become possessed of eternal life. It would appear that Moses was endeavouring to impress on the minds of Israel the distinction between the nature and properties of the two lands, and that the possession would depend on their obedience to the commands of Jehovah. So also does the Word, which is typified by Moses, emphatically shew us the distinction between what is heavenly and what is worldly; and our attainment of heaven depends upon our obedience to the commands of the Lord, for He said, If thou wouldst enter into life, keep the commandments.” We must, then, examine the difference between the two lands, and we shall perceive that they are emblematical of the natural man with the spiritual degree shut, and the natural man with the spiritual degree opened. Egypt is a land wherein science has been cradled. The vestiges that it contains all point out that they have been produced by a mighty nation that has now passed away. The Pharoahs are gone, and the Turk rules the land. The fertilizing power of their river (the famous Nile) oozes its way through the land, and periodically supplies them with the necessaries of life; and when irrigation is effected it is a work of labour, for no rain from heaven descends to fructify and call forth the powers of vegetation; no clouds intervene to modify the scorching rays of a vertical sun. On the other side we see a land-the land of Canaan-whose very appearance delights the eye with its magnificent scenery; whose mountains and hills convey the limpid streams of heaven in a thousand rills to the plains below, carrying plenty and beauty wherever they flow; it is a land that is watered from above. The products of both lands are dissimilar, because one is watered from above, the other from beneath. Canaan was a representative land. The most Ancient Church dwelt there, and all its parts were representative of heaven. Here dwelt the men of the golden age, and here was seen a type of heaven above. Egypt also was representative, and therefore the Word of God so often mentions both lands, to point out the different states of mind that were typified by each. Many are unable to see that land signifies the Church, or Man of the Church, but it becomes apparent when we consider that the earth nourishes the seed and brings it to maturity. On the other hand, the Church nourishes the seeds of Divine truth, and Divine truth is compared to a seed on account of its prolific principle and its extensive uses. For a sower went forth to sow; some seeds fell by the way-side, some among thorns, some on stony places, and others in good ground, that brought forth, some thirty-fold, some sixty-fold, some a hundred-fold." The land that does not bring forth fruit is not the good ground, it is the land of Egypt, or