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Person by himself to be God and Lord, yet are we forbidden by the Catholic religion to say there be three Gods or three Lords"?

O.C.M. This creed, I admit, in common with Christians in general, to be the basis of all orthodoxy; and, consequently, I maintain the words you have just quoted. You are aware that many people desire that this creed may be omitted from the Book of Common Prayer used in the Church of England, or, at least, they wish that it might not be read in the churches; but as far as I can ascertain, this wish to exclude it is not on account of the doctrine of the Trinity which it inculcates, but on account of its damnatory clauses at the end, which, most people think, breathe a persecuting spirit, and are uncharitable, and therefore ought not to be read.

B. This, I believe, is the reason; and not, as you say, the doctrine of three Persons which it inculcates. You will, however, oblige me by shewing on what grounds, either in Scripture or reason, this doctrine of three Persons is founded.

O. C. M.-Oh, Scripture, you well know, often speaks of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, which are three Persons, according to the statement you have quoted from the Creed. But as for reason, there are no grounds upon which it can be understood; it is above our rational powers to comprehend, and therefore we must believe it without allowing our reason or understanding to have anything to do with it.

B. But do you not see, Sir, that by this admission you have already demolished one half of your definition of the term visionary, which, as you stated, means that which has no ground in reason to rest upon? And as you have admitted this, you have so far admitted your own doctrine of the Trinity, from which you derive your idea of God, to be visionary, and as for Scripture, you well know that Jesus Christ often declares that the 66 Father is in Him," and not a separate Person from Him, and that “He and the Father are One," not by unanimity and love as a father and son upon earth, who sincerely love each other, but they are One as to Essence and Person, like soul and body. Again, the Lord declares,-"He that seeth me, seeth Him that sent me"-also, 'He that hath seen me, hath seen the Father." I conclude, then, from this, and numerous other declarations in Scripture, that there is one Divine Person in the Godhead, and not three; and indeed this must be so, if you admit the truth of the Apostle's declaration, that “in Jesus Christ dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily;" for what declaration can be more expressive of one Divine Person than this?

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O. C. M.—Yes; but you know that a Father is one Person and a Son is another Person.

B.-Truly; but to take up the expressions when applied to the Deity in a merely gross literal sense, is to think as grossly and as absurdly as the Jews did, when they said "How can this man give us his flesh to eat, and his blood to drink?" or as Nicodemus thought about regeneration, when he said, "How can a man enter a second time into his mother's womb, and be born?"

O. C. M.—Oh, Mr. B., I begin to see that you are charging me and my orthodox brethren with thinking as grossly on divine subjects as the Jews and as Nicodemus did! But you must know that it is best to think as a child upon these subjects, and to believe them in simplicity.

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B. In children from seven to twelve years of age, we excuse such thinking from mere external appearances and statements; but in a man, and especially in a teacher, we cannot excuse such gross thinking as that there are three separate Divine Persons in the Trinity, of whom each Person, as the creed says, "is to be acknowledged to be God and Lord," which certainly amounts to the idea of three Gods. A child, before he is properly instructed, and capable of knowing true intellectual ideas, may and does think, when he reads the Gospel, that the Father is one Person and the Son another; for the Apostle says, When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things." (1 Cor. xiii. 11.) Now, what I maintain is, that by not putting away the gross unscriptural ideas of three Persons, according to this creed, you have not put away, as you became a man and a teacher, childish notions, but have remained in the gross ideas of your childhood, which ideas are mere fallacies, and if confirmed, dire falsities, quite opposed to the ideas of pure Truth, upon which only our ideas of God and of spiritual things, or our entire theology, ought to be based. You speak of the simplicity of a child with which we ought to believe the Gospel; but it should be well considered, that there are two kinds of simplicity,-the simplicity of ignorance, and the simplicity of wisdom: it is the latter, and not the former, which ought to characterise true Christians.

O. C. M.— I now see that you are endeavouring to shew that my doctrine of God and of the Trinity is neither founded upon Scripture nor reason; and that, consequently, my doctrines are visionary, and not yours.

B. This, indeed, is the fact. It may be shewn that your doctrines, not only on the Trinity, but on the Atonement and on Justification by faith only, and also on the Resurrection, are neither founded on Scripture nor on reason; and that, consequently, according to your own definition of the term, they are visionary, and that those who believe them [Enl. Series.-No. 13, vol. ii.]

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are nothing but visionaries, seeing fallacies as truths and phantoms as realities; whereas, if you will but grant me a hearing, I am ready to demonstrate that the doctrines on the Trinity, Redemption, Atonement, Resurrection, &c. as explained by Swedenborg from the Word of God, are founded both upon Scripture and reason, and that they are quite opposed to everything visionary.

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Hereupon, the minister, somewhat disconcerted, took up his hat and departed.

Poetry.

B. C.

THE CLOSING YEAR-PROSPECT AND RETROSPECT.

LORD of my Life! Thy glance divine surveys
At once the past and future of my days!
Most true, each thought, whate'er its motive be,
Stands forth confest in nakedness to Thee!
Conscious of this, I cannot-would not-dare
To tread the confines of another year
Without retracing with a faithful eye
The various actions of the year gone by:
A painful task, but needful to be done
Ere I appear before the Judgment Throne.

In "Life's dread book" each act, each thought, is penn'd,
Whether to heaven, or downward only tend.

Ah! who may venture to predict as sure
Another year shall pass and he endure
Upon this changeful scene to live and learn,
With resolution fix'd from ills to turn,
And seek that mercy which, if slighted here,
Beyond earth's confines never shall appear!
The solemn warning, then, from Wisdom's voice,
Which pleads for heaven, there to fix thy choice,
My soul, despise not; but at once embrace
The gift my Saviour offers-"heavenly grace!"
"Be wise to-day! 'tis madness to defer".
Death is a sure, resistless conqueror,

Whose shafts, unerring, end our mortal woes—
Who reigns triumphant o'er all earthly foes.

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But is it all, to live and die on earth?
Hath not the soul another-higher birth?
Ah, yes! there is a land beyond the grave,
Where might avails not-friendship cannot save;
To which all hasten-old, young, sad, or gay--
None are exempt, Death's mandate all obey!
And this preparatory, passing scene
Will then appear as though it had not been,
Save in the blissful or the sad estate
Of those repentant, or who turn too late!

L.

MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION.

GERMANY.-DR. TAFEL.

We have received the following communication from our friend Mr. Warren, who, travelling in Germany, has very recently spent a few days at Tubingen, with Dr. Tafel. It comes very opportunely, as giving a clear account of Dr. Tafel's labours, shewing that the efforts we are now making to assist this indefatigable labourer in the Lord's vineyard, are worthy of every encouragement and support.

Boppart, 13th Dec., 1854,

To the Editor.

Dear Sir,-As an effort is being made in the several societies of the New Church in England to raise money to aid Dr. Tafel in his labours, I have thought some little sketch of what this indefatigable labourer in the Lord's vineyard has done, and is doing, might be interesting to your readers, and perhaps induce some to give who otherwise might not see the importance of doing so, and induce others to subscribe more liberally. It has, moreover, been suggested to me, by some of our friends in England, that there may be many mem bers of the Church who do not sufficiently understand the vast importance of the work in which Dr. Tafel has been for so many years engaged. He commenced the work of writing, editing, translating, and publishing for the Church as early as 1821, and has continued his labour, almost incessantly, to the present time; devoting to it, with severest energy, all the leisure which

the duties of his office afforded him.* During this time, besides having written and published, at his own expense, many valuable works in exposition and defence of the doctrines of the Church, some of which will undoubtedly remain standards in New Church literature, he has also translated into German, and published, many of the theological writings of Swedenborg, and many of the collateral works; edited and published new Latin editions of many others which were out of print; and transcribed, edited, and published many of Swedenborg's posthumous works and manuscripts. This last alone is a herculean labour, and one which can hardly be over-estimated by the Church. He has been aided, from time to time, in the expense of publication, by some of the public bodies of the church in England and America, and also by the benevolence of private individuals. Prominent among the former, are the London Printing Society and the Swedenborg Association. But with all this, a large proportion of the expense of publishing has always rested upon his own shoulders; and, but that he has continually expended from his own private resources all that the wants of a growing family could prudently allow, many of the invaluable posthumous works of Swedenborg, which now enrich the libraries of the church, and shed such light upon his other writings, would still be in manuscript; and some of these, there is reason to fear, would before now have been irrecoverably lost *He is librarian to the University at Tubingen.

by decay. The amount which he has thus, from his own private means, expended, has been large; and would, in the aggregate, undoubtedly surprise many who have not been particularly cognizant of the circumstances.

With all this, he has often been obliged to cease from his labours for want of means. Thus, this self-sacrificing man has been for more than thirty years expending his life and substance in performing a most laborious and disinterested labour for the church-rising early, and working late. He is now approaching sixty years of age, and the work before him is far from being completed. He is still in robust health, and as active and energetic in his labour as ever.. Shall his hands be stayed for want of means? At this present time, as he informed me the other day, his work of publishing cannot go on for want of money to pay for paper and defray other necessary expenses of publication. It is of the greatest importance to the Church that he be so well sustained that he may continue his labour to the best advantage, and without interruption. There are yet some theological manuscripts of Swedenborg, and still more philosophical, which have not been published. Of these, there is but a single copy in existence. This is liable to be destroyed, by accident or decay, and in that case they would be for ever lost to the church and the world. They cannot be safe while there is only one copy in existence. Of the value of Swedenborg's theological manuscripts, no New Churchman will be likely to doubt. Of the value of his philosophical, we have also rich earnest in those which have been already published: there is little doubt that they form an era in the history of science almost as completely new as his theological writings do in religion. Some of the manuscripts which remain are probably of equal value to those which have been published. Among them is a work on chemistry, of which, Swedenborg himself published specimens, entitled, "Some Specimens of a Work on the Principles of Chemistry."* From the impression which Mr.J. J. G. Wilkinson received from the perusal of this unpublished manuscript, he says, "The Newton of chemistry has not yet arisen, *Translated by J, J. G. Wilkinson; and pubished by the Swedenborg Association.

but when he does appear, who but Swedenborg shall be recognised as its Copernicus?" There are also among the manuscripts many letters and other documents which illustrate the life and character of Swedenborg; and whatever relates to the life of this great man, it is of interest to the church to preserve.

The manuscripts of Swedenborg are somewhat difficult to decipher; and there is no man living, in the church, at once so competent to this task, so careful against error, and so patiently persevering, as Dr. Tafel. We know not how soon it may please the Divine Providence to call him away from the present scene of his useful labours; and it seems of the utmost importance that the church should so provide him with means as to make the most of his invaluable time. If he should be removed from us before the manuscripts of Swedenborg are all published, it may be long before there shall arise another to supply his place; and in the meantime, those manuscripts, by some fortuity, may be for ever lost.

Besides the manuscripts, there are still several of Swedenborg's theological works, of which the original Latin edition has not been republished, and which are now so scarce that they are impossible to obtain. Second to the publication of the manuscripts, these should be republished. This is a work the importance of which may not be so material to many; but it should be remembered that the Latin language is a common language to the learned throughout christendom, and that Latin editions of the works of the church, deposited in the public libraries of any country in the Christian world, would be as accessible to the learned men of that country as if written in their mother tongue.* It is also of very great importance to the church, that Latin editions of the works be accessible to her ministers and leading men; for however carefully a translation may have been made, from the original into another language, it cannot in all cases so clearly represent the idea of the original as to prevent misapprehension. It is of great advantage, moreover, to any one who would profoundly and accurately understand the sublime theology of the New

* It seems also important, and for a similar reason, that the original Latin of the Philosophical works of Swedenborg should be re-published.

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