secondary planets or satellites have in like manner been detached from their primaries while undergoing the condensing process. It is also considered that the same vortical law which gave birth to orbital, produced also the axillary motion. Now, it is very remarkable that nature furnishes us with what appears like examples of all that has been adduced. One planet, Saturn, is still surrounded by rings,-the substance not being condensed into spheres or globes. The distances of the planets from the sun are evidently regulated by some certain principle of action, as exemplified in what is called Bode's Law, and they increase in density as they approach the sun. Thus, Mercury is as heavy as lead, while Saturn is about the weight of cork. Then, again, the times of their periodic revolutions are about the same, as it has been mathematically calculated the axillary rotation of the whole mass of matter occupied at the time when the respective rings were detached. There is, therefore, much that seems to favour the nebular hypothesis, and the opposition it has experienced beyond that which arises from scientific objections, may be traced to the abuse that has been made of the term " Natural law," as if a law could exist without a pre-existent Law-giver or Disposer. But the nebular theory does not, strictly considered, presume to dispense with the agency of a divine Creator: it presumes the nebulous matter to be the work of His hands, and that His will is manifested in the laws to which it has been subjected. The fault rather is in overlooking the continually presiding and sustaining power of God, and restricting the attention so exclusively to the original creative impulse.

I

There is another nebular theory, or rather elementary theory, but yet little known to science, although several years older than Buffon's, and which, unlike the modern nebular idea, does not commence with amorphous pre-existent matter, and then consider it as subject to laws and changes, which cannot be seen as necessary properties of its pristine state; but which endeavours to trace substance from the Deity downwards, and to show that the great natural movements are a consequence of the activities impressed on every particle of a primordial element. allude to Swedenborg's theory propounded in his great work, The Principia, published in the year 1733. This work has only been accessible in its original Latin, until the last few years, when it was first translated by a member of the University of Oxford; and hence may be the cause why it is so little known. The modern nebular hypothesis appears to have been suggested by external appearances, while Swedenborg's theory is more the result of profound original thought. He appears to have run up analytically through all science as known at his day, especially chemistry, magnetism, and the highest branches of geometry and mathe

matics, until he considered he had reached the extreme point of human inquiry; and then, synthetically to have descended, and in his descent to have endeavoured to reconstruct the universe from the principles he had discovered in his long and laborious ascent,—or, in other words, his patient research in all the natural sciences. It would not be practicable, on the present occasion, to offer even a slight sketch of the details of his philosophy. I shall, therefore, confine myself to a mere glance at the first principles which bear upon our inquiry.

In the work to which I have alluded, The Principia, the author, after treating on the means of attaining a true philosophy, and the character of a true philosopher, proceeds to deduce his Elementary Principia of the universe. But I must here premise that he does not use the word element in its present scientific signification. There are between fifty and sixty known substances ranging from metals up to gases, which, by the present art of chemistry, are incapable of being decomposed, or separated into more simple bodies; hence, these, in the present use of scientific terms, are called elements or simple bodies. But Swedenborg uses the term element more in its ancient sense, or in the sense we now speak of aerial fluids, or imponderable forces. An element with him is also always a compound; and, hence, he was led to prove, by geometrical means, the form and composition of the water particle, when, by every other philosopher in Europe, water was considered as a pure and simple substance. With this view of the nature of an element, Swedenborg proceeds to inquire into the first manifestations of Divine creating energy, and this he represents, in geometrical language, as the first natural point. These points he considers so far above our common forms of matter, that they may be viewed as almost pure lines of force, proceeding in perpetual spirals, and, unlimited in their essence, because, in his expressive language, Born of the Infinite;" and he endeavours to assist his readers' imagination by a diagram illustrating such a form of motion. In tracing the effects arising out of the action of these spiral forces, he next shows how a first limit or boundary will arise, and hence how a new form of existence will come into being, which he designates as the "first finite,” because it is the first limit, infolding, or enclosure, of the primal force; and in this conception we have the first idea of true chemical combination. Then proceeding with his theory, he goes on to show how the first finite becomes an active force in the genesis of a "second finite," or second defined mode of existence; and so he proceeds through a series of such actives and finites, until he arrives at water, which, according to his phraseology, is "the first material finite," which may be considered as equivalent to saying that it is the primary inelastic ponderable body;

and, therefore, as water, no longer an element, in his sense of that term. From the combination of the first and second finite, he deduces the existence of an universal element, and from subsequent combinations and condensations, so to speak, a magnetic and an ethereal element. Proceeding downwards in his scale of finites and elements, he represents the fourth finite as forming the solar vortex, and here his theory meets the modern nebular hypothesis. But there is this difference, that according to geometrical principles, each finite or elementary molecule has a principle of inherent motion within it, active in the degree that it approaches the Infinite, and which directly produces an axillary motion, and indirectly a translatory or local motion in space. The action of the aggregate is therefore the combined action of the inherent forces of each individual particle; and hence, on this theory, axillary and orbital motions are considered as necessary consequences, anterior to gravitation, which is a law applicable to matter only when it arrives at a ponderable condition. But the nebular hypothesis appears to consider the existence of common matter universally diffused, and then to call in the agency of gravity as a central force, and also to require the accident of opposing currents. In this I consider it deficient, in scientific simplicity and the exhibition of fundamental law, to Swedenborg's theory. For common matter is inert; and if it once existed passively diffused, how could it ever have changed its condition? How could an inert body originate a central or any other motion?

(To be concluded in our next.)

THEOLOGICA GERMANICA.

THE above is the title of a work that has recently issued from the press, under the prestige of three names, which have numerous though very different circles of admirers in the religious world-Luther, Bunsen, Kingsley-such is the group who join hands in support of this valuable addition to practical Christianity. The first, Luther, says of it,"Next to the Bible and St. Augustine, no book hath ever come into my hands whence I have learnt, or would wish to learn, more of what God and Christ, and man, and all things are." Bunsen, in his letter to the Translator, says,-" This small, but golden treatise, has been now, for almost forty years, an unspeakable comfort to me, and to many Christian friends to whom I had the happiness of introducing it." Whilst Kingsley, in his preface, declares that "to those who long to be freed, not

merely from the punishment of sin after they die, but from sin itself while they live on earth; and who therefore wish to know what sin is, that they may avoid it ;-to those who wish to be truly justified by faith, by being made just persons by faith, and who cannot satisfy either their consciences or reasons by fancying that God looks on them as right, when they know themselves to be wrong, or that the God of Truth will stoop to fictions (mis-called forensic) which would be considered false and unjust in any human court of law;-to all these this noble little book will recommend itself; and may God bless the reading of it to them, and to all others no less."

In finding those, who we have reason to believe hold views different from each other in some points of doctrine, though perhaps agreeing in others, so united in their opinions of the worth of this little book, we are forcibly struck with the truth of what Swedenborg asserts in the A. C. 1288" Particulars of doctrine do not cause disagreement, provided they regard one end, which is to love the Lord above all things, and our neighbour as ourselves;" also, (1285,) "The doctrine is one when all are principled in mutual love and charity. Mutual love and charity are effective of unity, or oneness, even amongst varieties, uniting varieties into one; for let numbers be multiplied ever so much, even to thousands and ten thousands, if they are all principled in charity, or mutual love, they have all one end, viz., the common good, the kingdom of the Lord, and the Lord himself; in which case the varieties in matters of doctrine and worship are like the varieties of the senses and viscera in man, as just observed, which contribute to the perfection of the whole." Again, in speaking of the means by which the Divine Providence of the Lord continually operates, that those should be saved with whom faith, separate from charity, is made matter of religion, he says,- "It is of the Divine Providence of the Lord, that although that faith has become matter of religion, still every one knows that that faith does not save, but that a life of charity does, with which faith acts as one; for in all the churches in which that religion is received, it is taught, that there is no salvation unless a man explores himself, sees his sins, acknowledges them, repents, desists from them, and enters on a new life this is read with much zeal before all those who approach the Holy Supper; adding, that unless they do this, they will mix holy things with profane, and cast themselves into eternal damnation; yea, in England, that unless they do it, the devil will enter into them as into Judas, and destroy them as to soul and body; from these things it is manifest, that every one in the churches where faith alone is received, is still taught that evils are to be shunned as sins."

"I have heard Luther, with whom I have several times spoken in the spiritual world, accurse faith alone, and say that when he established it, he was admonished by an angel of the Lord that he should not do it; but that he thought with himself, that if he did not reject works, a separation from the Catholic religion would not be made; wherefore, contrary to the admonition, he confirmed that faith."-D. P. 258.

From the extracts given below, it will be perceived that the author of the "Theologica Germanica," whose name is unknown, but who is said. to have been a knight of the Teutonic order, and to have "belonged to a class of men who sprang up in Southern Germany at the beginning of the fourteenth century, and who were distinguished for their earnest piety and practical belief in the presence of the Spirit of God with all Christians, laity as well as clergy," had a mind enlightened from above to perceive that holiness is an absolute good, to be sought after for its own sake, and sin an absolute evil, to be shunned, not from fear of external, but internal consequences. In chapter xi., under the figurative expression of a righteous man being brought into hell in this present time, are most powerfully described the effects upon the truly penitent of the discovery of the hatefulness of sin, the self-loathing that it produces, and the desire to undergo any amount of suffering in order to be delivered from what is perceived to be so direful in its consequences upon the soul. In like manner in chap. vii., the distinction between the Divine and Human Natures of the Lord appears to be meant by the author when he says that the Soul of Christ had two eyes, a right eye and a left eye, and how the right eye, being fixed upon eternity and the Godhead, remained in the full intuition and enjoyment of the Divine Essence and Eternal Perfection; and continued thus unmoved by all the accidents, pains, and sufferings that befell the outward man. Whilst the outward man and the left eye of Christ's soul, stood with him in perfect suffering, in all tribulation, affliction, and travail.

But we shall proceed to give a few extracts from the work, as well as the headings of several of the chapters, to enable the reader to judge for himself, and we cannot doubt that all who desire to see the duties of practical Christianity more extensively recognised by the members of the various religious sects, will hail this little work as one of the many helps with which the press now happily teems, to a more enlightened view of the nature of true religion; an excellent summary of which is given by Bunsen in his letter previously referred to.

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Sin is selfishness: godliness is unselfishness: a godly life is the stedfast working out of inward freeness from self: to become thus godlike is the bringing back of man's first nature."