SLXXXV.-Swedenborg's place in History.

To form a more comprehensive knowledge of Swedenborgianism, it is necessary to point out more fully the idea, which its author entertained of his own historical importance. He divides the history of the world into. so many great periods, which he denominates Churches; to wit, the Antediluvian; the Asiatico-African, which attained its term by the introduction of idolatry; the Mosaic; and, lastly, the Christian Church. In the latter, he again distinguishes four Churches, the AnteNicene, the Greek, the Roman Catholic, and the Protestant. The last-named, also, like the preceding Churches, has already reached its end: hence, with the New Community, the times revert to the origin of the Church-to primitive Christianity, whose principles can henceforth never more be forsaken. So far Swedenborg, who, as is clear from this, formed no slight estimate of his own historical importance. Let us first take into consideration the view of universal history, prior to Christ, as set forth by him. He says, the four great periods of the world follow each other, according to the type of the four seasons of the year, and the four times of the day; and the same regularity, which, on a small scale, is observed in this succession of times, exists there on a larger scale. On the impropriety of making Christianity fall in with the winter and the night, we will not lay any particular stress, although Christianity expressly declares itself to be the never-setting noonday of ages. But, what Christian can tolerate the subordinate position which is assigned to Christ! Instead of representing him, as the great centre-point of the world's history, he is made to begin a period merely

coordinate with the other epochs of the world! This would have been, at least, no error of the understanding, had Swedenborg regarded Christ as a mere man; but, it becomes the greatest of errors, since Christ he considers to be the incarnate God. If the Deity manifests Himself in the flesh, so thereby, it is hoped, an epoch is introduced, to which nothing can be adjoined, but all things should be made subordinate. From this point of view alone, Swedenborg might have discerned the essential defects in his system.

Had

The cause of this perverse construction of human history, must be looked for in the fact, that Swedenborg would not acknowledge a general fall of the human race, and, in reality, was at a loss how to explain the very evident fact of a radical sinfulness in man. Swedenborg deeply considered the scriptural opposition between the first and the second Adam, instead of occupying himself with allegories in respect to the first; had he, in the fall of Adam, deplored with a pious simplicity, at least, the fall of all mankind, though he had been incapable of comprehending the speculative reasons of this fact, then the whole period, from Adam to Christ, would have appeared to him as the period of the developement of the sinful principle, and of an apostacy from God; but, on the other hand, he would have regarded Christ as the great turning-point in history, with whom commenced the unfolding of the principle of sanctification, and of a return to the Deity. This one great period he might then have again, in some manner, subdivided; but should never have placed the period from Adam to Noah, that from Noah to Moses (or what he calls the Asiatico-African Church), and the period from Moses to Christ, on the same level with the Christian epoch. Such a parallel was only

possible through a total misapprehension of the Christian view of the moral world. The texts in Romans (c. v. 14-21; xi. 32), and in Galatians (c. iii. 22), might alone have sufficed to teach him the right and the true view, had he not, on that very account, struck out St. Paul's Epistles from the catalogue of canonical Scriptures, precisely because they offer so clear a contradiction to his whole conception of religious History.

His main point of view being thus distorted, Swedenborg can give no satisfactory explanation of any great phenomenon in religious history; on the contrary, in his system all is dismembered, unintelligible, and incoherent. The idolatry of Nature he deduces from the accidental circumstance, that the correspondences between the material and the spiritual world had been forgotten. The revelation, which, as Swedenborg positively asserts, was made to Enoch, and transmitted to the following generations (namely, that all objects in the lower world had their correlatives in the higher), and the true knowledge of these mutual relations in special, defined cases, were, in the course of ages, according to our prophet, effaced from the memory of nations; earthly things were regarded without connexion with the things corresponding to them above; and the veneration, which was due to the latter, was paid to the former. This view of Swedenborg's has much resemblance with the more common, but equally superficial, notion, that out of the confusion of the symbol with the object represented by it, idolatry arose. But, the question must ever recur, how could those relations adverted to be forgotten, and where must we look for the cause of this oblivion? Wherefore, also, must the faith in the one, true God have been at the same time abandoned? The consciousness of God was certainly not essentially

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connected with the knowledge of such correspondences between heavenly and earthly things, since Enoch was the first to be instructed in them; and yet before him, certainly, men had also known the true God. Had Swedenborg acknowledged a general darkening of the human mind through sin, a corruption transmitted from Adam, and with ever-increasing intensity, contaminating all generations, he would not have sought to account for the idolatry of Nature, from such mere external causes. He would have understood, that the soul severed from God by sin, necessarily fell under the dominion of Nature, and chose those Powers for the object of its worship, with whom it felt an especial affinity, and by whom it was invincibly attracted. The loss of the essential, internal, and universal correspondences between God and man, led to the ignorance of those external and particular correspondences, between the inferior and the higher order of the world. The separation of the soul from God, and its concentration within itself, first produced this conception of nature, as disconnected from all higher relations.

Let us, once more, call to mind one of the proofs attempted by Swedenborg, in support of the necessity of the Incarnation of the Deity, in order to bring back men to Himself; for it is only here that proof can be perfectly appreciated. He says, the faith of man, considered in itself, may be compared to a look cast up vaguely towards the sky, but, through the Incarnation, is the same circumscribed, and directed to a definite object. If, hereby, the necessity of an Incarnation of the Divinity be rendered perfectly conceivable, yet this argument offers no reason, wherefore the Divine Word should have become flesh precisely at the commencement of the fourth period of the world. Swedenborg

might, just as well, have introduced this Theophany immediately after the creation of the first man. Nay, he was forced to do this, unless all the aberrations of the ages prior to Christianity-unless all Heathenism itself be regarded as perfectly guiltless. Did the first men, unfavoured as they were with the descent of the Son of God, cast a less vague look up to Heaven, than those of later times? For this very reason, Swedenborg should have placed the advent of Christ at the very origin of History; and thus the first, and not the fourth, period of the world, should have begun with Him. Had he, on the other hand, kept strictly in view the teaching of the Bible, as to the end of the mission of the Son of God, then he would have understood the epoch of his coming. The whole drama of History, as set forth by our prophet, appears without a plan; the members of the great historical organism appear to hang, as if by accident, together, and to mingle in blind confusion. Now we can see, wherefore Swedenborg himself seemed to have a sense of the unsatisfactoriness of the cause assigned by him, for the incarnation of the Deity at the particular period wherein it occurred; and wherefore he sought to aid his meagre representation, by a fantastic device as to the relation between heaven and hell. He saw himself forced to the adoption of this device, in order to account, by the relations of the next life, for the incarnation of the Deity, which had no foundation in this world's history; -a device, whereby the error of his whole historical construction, is not in the least degree obviated.

When we now come to the Christian period, what a singular view of its history, what an astonishing spectacle, presents itself here! The Church also, as we have already observed, is divided into a cycle of four