which constitutes a marriage. The case is similar in regard to the internal or spiritual man: between the good and truth in this man there subsists no heavenly marriage, but between the good of the spiritual man and the truth of the celestial man, for the celestial man is respectively in a superior degree; neither doth heavenly marriage subsist between good and truth in the celestial man, but between the good of the celestial man and Truth Divine which proceeds from the Lord. Hence also it is manifest, that the essential Divine Marriage of the Lord doth not subsist between Good Divine and Truth Divine in His Divine Human, but between the good of the Divine Human and the Essential Divine, that is, between the Son and the Father, for the good of the Lord's Divine Human is what is called in the Word the Son of God, and the Essential Divine is called Father."-A C, 3952.

STRICTURES ON THE ARTICLE IN OUR LAST NUMBER, ON MARRIAGE, &c., SIGNED SCRUTATOR."

To the Editor.

SIR,-In the June number of the "Intellectual Repository," is an article on "Marriage, its Origin, its Nature, and its Laws." With the opinions of its author, on this subject, I have no doubt that every reader in the Church will in the main agree. But whilst giving my humble meed of praise to the high and holy views there expressed, I am forcibly impelled to remark with regret the very strong and illiberal terms in which "Scrutator" speaks of marriages formed between two persons of different faiths.

When the writer of the essay says that the parties "should believe alike as to the essential principles of religion," no one can fail to be impressed with the conviction that to insure a union of minds such agreement is indispensable; but "Scrutator" proceeds to particulars, and then says the parties should be of one creed, for "what can be more incongruous, yea, revolting to one's perceptions, than to see a Protestant married to a Roman Catholic, a Socinian to a Tripersonalist, or a Christian to a Jew or Mahomedan?" I confess, Sir, that when I read these words I was deeply pained. They conveyed to my mind a sense of sectarian prejudice, and a needless disregard for what might be the feelings and position of readers of the Magazine. My first thought was one of thankfulness that it is not at man's tribunal our fellow-beings will be judged; and when the secrets of all hearts are revealed, and the ends of every man's life explored, the Divine Judge will be too merciful to condemn as revolting, marriages entered upon doubtless in the sincere hope they might conduce to happiness, even though a difference

of religious belief would render them incapable of yielding the com pletest blessings. Believe me, Sir, I do not write from undue partiality on this subject. On the contrary, I have often witnessed an interruption to domestic harmony, a barrier to the intimate oneness which is the chief bliss of union, and have traced these shadows of life to a want of unanimity in matters of religion; more especially where, as in the Roman Catholic faith, the priest is called in to supplant the counsels of the mother. I am willing to admit that these marriages are not the happiest, and that it is right to warn those who are seeking partners against forming such connections; yet never should it be said they are "revolting to one's perceptions." It may seem a truism, and it is one which I feel sure Scrutator" would acknowledge, that a marriage in which an innocent girl is yoked to rank, wealth, and immorality may well be called revolting. It seems to me as if sin and guilt alone deserved so harsh a term. We are repeatedly told by Swedenborg that it is the good of life which saves. The Roman Catholic, Tripersonalist, Socinian, &c., may be living in a higher degree of good than the Protestant or New Churchman who unites himself with one of these. Thus the partner who we are disposed to say is in errors of doctrine, may set a bright and pure example before the eyes of the one whose truth we consider more interior.

Whilst I feel how deep and holy are the blessings bestowed by a true union of minds, and whilst I ackowledge that to enter into the pure region of such a union there must be in each party a reverential love for the Supreme Author of all, and an earnest striving to live the life of goodness, yet I cannot but deprecate such an expression as that of Scrutator's," when he says that "any union between persons of different creeds is revolting to one's perceptions." Surely every experience of life, and every precept of Christian charity, should teach us not to judge others so harshly. Let us feel that where the parties are united in good, and strongly impressed with the loveliness of virtue, we may leave them, in all confidence, to the mercy of their Almighty Father, not doubting but that He will bless and sustain them. M. A.

[In reply to the above stricture, we insert the following extract from Swedenborg :

On the Necessity of truly Married Parties being of the same Faith or Religion.

"One of the causes of colds and of disunion of minds between married partners is this,-that one of the parties is of one religion and the other of another. The reason is, because with such parties good cannot be conjoined with its corresponding truth; for the wife is the good of the

husband's truth, and he is the truth of the wife's good, as was shewn above; hence of two souls there cannot be made one soul, and hence the stream of pure conjugial love is closed, in consequence of which a [quasi] conjugial principle is acceded to, which hath a lower place of abode, and which is that of good with another truth, or of truth with another good than its own, between which a concordant love cannot subsist. Hence with the conjugial partner, who is in false principles of religion, there commences a cold which grows more intense in proportion as he differs in such principles from the other party. On a time, in a great city, I was wandering through the streets with the purpose of inquiring out a habitation, and I entered a house inhabited by conjugial partners of a different religion; being ignorant of this circumstance, the angels instantly accosted me, and said, 'We cannot remain with thee in that house, because the conjugial partners who inhabit it are principled in discordant religion.' This they perceived from the internal disunion of their souls."-C. L. 242.]

REVIEW.

ASTROTHEOLOGY. By Edward Higginson. Being Four Lectures in reference to the Controversy on the Plurality of Worlds, as lately sustained between Sir David Brewster and an Essayist.

Our readers are aware that the controversy referred to above has created great interest in the scientific and polemical worlds, and that the press teems with tracts and pamphlets taking opposite views on the great question "Whether the stars are inhabited, and if inhabited, by what sort of beings?" The Essayist, who is generally supposed to be Professor Whewell, takes the negative, whilst Sir David Brewster takes the affirmative. The professor displays on his side great command of temper and much transparent sophistry, whereas Sir David, not content with the assistance of truth and reason, indulges in invective of the most antiquated virulence, or in the words of the Christian Remembrancer:

"In the one volume a very bulky mass of very pompous thought, ingenious argument, and elaborate dissertation, is expended in an effort to maintain a paradox and overthrow a popular belief. In the other, a highly discursive style of querulous remonstrance feebly advocates the established conviction-sometimes by false philosophy-sometimes by random theory-sometimes by not indisputable analogy, and not seldom by mere bombast.”

The remarkable feature in this controversy is the entire negation of the existence of such a writer as Swedenborg, for, with the exception of a quotation from his works by Dr. Brewster, who alludes to him as a writer to whom sufficient attention has not been paid, and who quotes

with approbation a paragraph from Swedenborg's "Earths of the Universe," not the slightest allusion is made to a man who professes (whether truly or falsely is not now the question) to have had his spiritual eyes opened and to have seen what on the part of the essayists is but conjecture and wild baseless guesses at the truth.

Mr. Higginson descends into the arena to give us the Unitarian view of the question. He opens with a lament

"That beyond the circle of avowed Unitarian Christians, Science and Theology are accustomed to look upon each other with a greater or less degree of jealousy and suspicion, the scientific man seldom daring freely to avow the most religious conclusions he draws from the study of nature; the theologian dabbling very cautiously in the mere shadows of science, lest he should plunge unawares into religious heresy."

Then, with an air of self-gratulation, he declares "himself as one of those who have been so happy as never to have imagined the possibility of their being at variance." Mr. Higginson then lays before us his own views, which, it is presumed, satisfy himself and persuade him of the happy union of theology with science :

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Involuntarily and rightly the thought of the Future Life seeks to find for itself a resting place among those dimly-discovered worlds, as

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"Perhaps our future home from whence the Soul,
Revolving periods past, may oft look back

With recollected tenderness on all

The various busy scenes she left below,
Its deep laid projects, and its strange events,
As on some fond and doting tale that soothed
Her infant hours.'

"Does our Astrotheology," he continues, "point out the possible or probable locality of the future life of man? or, short of this, does it help to support or define, in any way, that natural hope and Christian belief?" The true science of the heavenly bodies has long since dispossessed the popular Heaven and Hell of their respective seats above the blue sky and below the dark earth. Our antipodes (as every body knows) dwell, like ourselves, upon the opposite surface of the round earth, where the old Greeks, in ignorance of its globular form, placed their Tartarus and Elysian fields. Within the earth the geologist cannot find fit space even for the Roman Catholic limbo or purgatory; and the heaven of ancient Jewish and Gentile belief above the blue firmament, has dissolved in space, occupied, at intervals, by suns and systems of worlds. Has Science, then, whilst disproving these definite false beliefs of former ages, given a true one in their place? Has it shown us where or how or when the Future Life is?

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It has not. It has not told us definitely what is or will be! But indefinitely what may be in hundreds and thousands of ways at the Sovereign will, it has told us and proved to us. [Indefinite proof!] It has disclosed orderly worlds so numerous and vast, reasonably

believed to be inhabited or habitable, as to make it an absurdity for any philosophical believer in human immortality to ask doubtingly, where the future life of man can be?-Can be?

"If that is the question, it can be here, if God so willed. A spiritual life may well be conceived as tenanting the self-same abodes in which it erewhile dwelt in the flesh, now unseen by us, who remain, though taking earnest and loving interest in us. And here, in the very scenes of its fleshy dwelling, the spirit may be reaping the blessedness or the woe of its previous actions and character.-Can be? It can be in any planet in the solar system, if God hath so willed;-in one of those nearest and most like the earth in their physical circumstances, if it hath pleased God to ordain that in the life to come we shall be reinvested with bodily limbs and senses, closely resembling our present lot.

"But, if the question be,-Where is the future life of man, or where will it be? Religious philosophy is not ashamed to say-I know not, nor need I know, since it is, or it will be, where the Good God chooseth.”

This last sentence, gravely put forth in a pamphlet of some 100 pages, as the final position, impregnable and unassailable, and satisfactory to one "who is happy in the belief that Science and Theology are now wedded in happy union," may be a stroke of dry humour, for assuredly such an answer, in so great a controversy, must not be looked at from a serious point of view. The oracle speaks vaguely. The Unitarian trumpet gives an uncertain sound.

seer.

We would recommend Mr. Higginson and his Unitarian readers, if they want to escape from the mere negations in which they wrap themselves, to turn, in a candid spirit, to Swedenborg's discoveries, and, as they aver that they submit all questions to the final tribunal of human reason, to examine and carefully note whether there is anything wild, extravagant, or opposed to human reason in the revelations of the great But before we give quotations from this great authority, let us ask Mr. Higginson, if analogy, the only instrument he can use in building up his theory, if he has one, should not tell him, that if round our sun revolve other earths, is it not natural to suppose that those earths are inhabited by human beings? And that if the fixed stars are suns, is it not equally reasonable to suppose that round them revolve planets or earths also inhabited by human beings,-men with physical natures like our own, and waiting, like us, a change to a spiritual nature? A strong argument against Mr. H.'s supposed transfer of men of one earth to another is, that, were such the case, is it not right to assume that this earth would receive inhabitants who had resided previously in some other earth? But what sect of philosophy ever entertained this idea? In now referring to Swedenborg, we ask, if even the very language in which his ideas are clothed does not seem to emanate from one having autho[Enl. Series.-No. 19, vol. ii.] 2 s