THE PRESENT THE EPOCH OF THE LORD'S SECOND ADVENT.

(Concluded.)

AND now what opinions are prevalent as to the nature of this Second Advent? It would not be easy to enumerate the various shades of belief. A large class of intelligent persons find themselves utterly unable to form any opinion respecting it. The language of Dr. Adam Clarke in relation to the Apocalypse-a book wholly devoted to this great event and its accompanying circumstances-may with propriety be asserted to represent the views of this class of persons concerning the whole subject of what is termed unfulfilled prophecy: "I repeat it," says Dr. Clarke, "I do not understand the book; and I am satisfied that no one who has written on the subject knows anything more of it than myself. I leave it to God, or to those events which shall point out the prophecy; and then, and probably not till then, will the sense of these visions be explained." The greater portion of Protestant Christians, however, are inclined to one or the other of these two hypotheses:

First, That the Millennium will not be characterized by the personal coming of the Lord, but by an extraordinary outpouring of his Spirit, which will eventually accomplish the conversion of the world and the subjugation of evil; and that this blissful state is to be immediately succeeded by the advent of the Saviour, the general judgment, and the destruction of the earth by fire.

The second hypothesis, and far the most popular one at present, is, that the Millennium, now near at hand, will be ushered in by the personal advent of the Lord, the resurrection of deceased saints, the

destruction of the wicked, and, sooner or later, the conflagration or renewal of the earth.

It will be seen that both parties are agreed in this: That the Second Advent, come when it may, will be an outward, visible manifestation, evident to the senses,-something which the corporeal eyes may see, and the bodily ears may hear. May they not be mistaken in this? May they not be right as to the fact itself, but wrong as to the manner of the fact? Precisely such an error was committed by the Jews in relation to the First Advent, they supposing its design to be their deliverance from external political bondage, whereas its true intent was, to free them from the bondage of their own internal evils and sins. It is at least possible that a similar mistake has been committed in our own day. Meantime a still small voice, gradually gaining strength, has been proclaiming for nearly a century that the epoch of the second advent is past. That event it asserts to have occurred in the middle of the last century. It asserts that the second coming of Christ is a spiritual coming; that it is a coming to the hearts and minds of men, to quicken and warm them with the light and life of truth and good; that it is a coming to unlock the hitherto concealed mysteries-so deeply important for us to know--contained in the word of God. This, we say, has been asserted, and by a man who, we are bold to affirm, is, by every consideration, entitled to a more respectful hearing upon this subject than any one who has spoken of it for the last eighteen hundred years. That man was Emanuel Swedenborg. Listen to his own declaration :

"Since the Lord cannot manifest himself in person, as has been shown, and yet he has foretold that he would come and establish a New Church, which is the New Jerusalem, it follows that he is to do it by means of a man, who is able not only to receive the doctrines of this church with his understanding, but also to publish them by the press. That the Lord has manifested himself before me, his servant, and sent me on this office, and that, after this, he opened the sight of my spirit, and thus let me into the spiritual world, and gave me to see the heavens and the hells, and also to speak with angels and spirits, and this now continually for many years, I testify in truth; and also that, from the first day of that call, I have not received any thing which pertains to the doctrines of that Church from any angel, but from the Lord alone, while I read the Word."

And again :-"I can sacredly and solemnly declare, that the Lord himself has been seen of me, and that he has sent me to do what I do, and for such purpose has opened the interior part of my soul, which is my spirit, so that I can see what is in the spiritual world, and those that are therein; and this privilege has now been continued to me for twenty-two years. But in the present state of infidelity, can the most solemn oath make such a thing credible, or to be believed by any? Yet such as have received true Christian light and understanding, will be convinced of the truth contained in my writings. Who indeed has hitherto known anything of consideration of the true spiritual sense and meaning of the word of God, the spiritual world, or of heaven and hell, the nature or the life of man, and the state of souls after the decease of the body? Is it to be supposed that these and other things of a like consequence are to be eternally hidden from Christians?"

And now who makes these declarations? Who was Baron Swedenborg? A man descended from ancestors of singular integrity and

piety; educated in all the learning of his age; the companion and friend of princes and nobles; of a spotless purity of life that even the breath of slander has not dared to sully. His splendid genius and his profound acquirements have compelled those who are not his disciples to give him the first rank among such names as Newton, Bacon, Leibnitz, Laplace, and Cuvier. Nor was his learning of that description which serves only to nourish vain pride and contempt for his fellow-men. In all his investigations, and they extended to nearly every branch of human knowledge-he had but one object in view, which he pursued with a devout humility of which there is no other example; and that was, to discover God in nature, and the relation of the soul to God. It is this man, whose whole life reflected the calmness of the deepest wisdom and sanity, whose whole writings are a constant appeal to man's highest rationality and deepest consciousness-it is this man who has been pronounced, by those who have never candidly examined his writings, a monomaniac, a deluded fanatic, a babbler of vain dreams-the victim of a distempered fancy. Is it indeed so?

The simple biography of Swedenborg will convince any candid mind that he was neither deceived himself nor capable of deceiving others. Let any one read the Divina Commedia of Dante, the greatest name in Italian literature, or the Paradise Lost of Milton, whose sublimity has never been surpassed, and afterwards peruse the Heaven and Hell of Swedenborg, and he will see who is rational and sane, -who treats of matters of fact, seen, heard, attested,-and who gives vent to the ravings of delirium, or pictures the images of a glowing imagination. But then these poets, it may be said, do not profess to speak of realities, but give us their fancies or imaginings merely as such-merely as probabilities, which do not grossly violate current opinion, or the truth of nature. While Swedenborg, on the contrary, professes to speak of facts, independent of beliefs or prejudices, and therefore cannot be judged by the standards to which an avowed fiction is amenable, but must be brought to the tribunal of Scripture, reason, and conscience. Even so. Precisely this difference will be found in their works. He accepts, nay, he invites, precisely such a test. At this tribunal, and at this alone, let him stand or fall.

It is not within the limits of our design to dwell upon the character or writings of Swedenborg. We cannot, however, refrain from expressing our unshaken belief-a belief that has gradually been matured, in perfect freedom from all preconceived views or interested motives, and in opposition to long and confirmed skepticism concerning the most vital truths of Christianity,-a belief that has been formed under the influence of earnest prayer for the Divine guidance, and the consciousness of having given to our reasoning faculties their full, and fair, and unbiased influence,--we cannot, we repeat, refrain from expressing our deep-seated conviction that Emanuel Swedenborg was commissioned by God himself to reveal to man truths which could not be reached by any effort of reason. And we believe those truths to be of the very highest importance. We believe they have power to regenerate the world. They are calculated to affect man in all his re

lations, and to touch the most secret springs of action. They give a reality to the concerns of a future life before which the avarice, and ambition, and sensuality which now so captivate the minds of men must shrink into paltry insignificance. They appeal so strongly to man's higher nature, that they must move every heart in which the faintest spark of humanity lingers.

Little do the statesmen, and economists, and reformers, who are consuming their days and nights in anxious efforts to devise the means of arresting the social and political anarchy which every day seems more inevitable-little do they imagine that the revelations of the reputed Swedish maniac are silently but surely performing the task to which their united efforts are all unequal. Little does the world dream that the humanizing spirit that for the last seventy years has been gradually infused into legislation, the liberalizing spirit that has pervaded theology, and the predominance over materialism that has characterized philosophy, may all be traced to the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg, and to the influence of that great event of which he was the commissioned herald. That such, however, is the indisputable fact, that to the influence of the truths he has revealed these benign influences may all be traced, those who have carefully examined his writings are most firmly persuaded. They are firmly persuaded that the doctrines and principles revealed by him are destined to gain a permanent ascendency over the minds of men; that they must and will eventually triumph over all opposition and prejudice. They are firmly persuaded that these doctrines and principles, and these alone, are capable of giving to civilization that onward and upward impulse it must either now receive, or be deluged beneath the stormy sea so rapidly advancing to meet it. All other means are confessedly inadequate. All other schemes have failed to secure more than a transient confidence, or to inspire more than a fallacious hope. If this too fail, we are indeed but the worthless insects of a day, or the foredoomed victims of an inexorable fate.

us.

"If this fail,

The pillar'd firmament is rottenness,
And earth's base built on stubble."

But this subject has individual relations which more nearly concern "Whence am I? What am I? and what is before me?" are questions which every human being puts to himself; and though the pleasures and engrossing pursuits of the world seem at times almost to extinguish the voice of the soul, or so to materialize its desires and affections as to make them forever revolve, by a law of mutual attraction, within the sphere of the earth, still, in spite of art or medicine, in spite of precaution and care, the evil days will come, and the years draw nigh, in which we exclaim, "I have no pleasure in them!" Then springs up that urgent and solemn demand for light, that anxious desire to transcend the bounds of time and sense, so beautifully and forcibly expressed in the Book of Job:

"For there is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and the tender branch thereof will not cease. Though the root thereof wax old

in the earth, and the stock thereof die in the ground; yet through the scent of water it will bud, and bring forth boughs like a plant. But man dieth, and wasteth away; yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where is he? As the waters fail from the sea, and the flood decayeth and drieth up; so man lieth down, and riseth not: till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep. Oh that thou wouldest hide me in the grave, that thou wouldest keep me secret, until thy wrath be past, that thou wouldest appoint me a set time, and remember me! If a man die, shall he live again?”

And that question nothing but a revelation from God can solve. Let us not be told that the desire to penetrate the mysteries of the world of spirits, to wring from it the hidden secret so darkly veiled by the material universe, to bridge the chasm that forever yawns between the finite and the infinite, is profane and unhallowed curiosity. God himself has inspired the desire, and his love to man has furnished the means to satisfy it. Innumerable are the works that have been written-fancy and imagination have been tasked to their utmost capacity-to realize in some faint degree the manner of the soul's existence after the life of the body.

And herein is an internal evidence of the truth of the mission of Swedenborg. His writings open to our astonished vision the world of spirits. They vividly depict, and give life and reality to those scenes, of which, in our hours of sorrow, when the friends of our heart, the parents of our love, the infant lambs that we have cherished in our bosom, are rudely thrust away to rot beneath the damp earth, we mourn in agony of soul to catch the faintest glimpse.

The great confirmation of Swedenborg's claims to be ranked as a true prophet, like that which the wisest and best men have affirmed to be the strong ground on which Christianity rests, will be found, however, in the internal evidence that springs from the truths he has revealed. He who examines his writings with a simple heart will find them exactly adapted to his wants and needs; adapted to dispel his doubts, to support his faith, and to diffuse through his mind a calm confidence reposing on the Rock of Ages. He will see his own character and frailties reflected like the natural face of a man in a glass. He will discover the source of all his sorrows, and be shown within his reach the Balm of Gilead that will heal them. We would by no means disguise or underrate the immense demand which the assertions of Swedenborg, in their full literal signification, make upon what may be considered either the faith or the credulity of men to whom they are addressed. We should have little respect for either the head or heart of any one, in whom the first full and confiding acknowledgment and reception of the glorious truths of the New Jerusalem did not constitute pre-eminently the most stupendous epoch of his existence. An adequate conception of that intellectual and moral revolution which takes place in every mind that has experienced the transition from the low, materialistic, sensuous theology and philosophy of the present day, to the pure, rational, and life-inspiring theology of the New Church, can hardly be expressed in words. And yet, strange as it may seem, the most difficult obstacle to be surmounted in accrediting the herald of the Second Advent, con