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the Catholic Faith, and in the Methodists when they set up their conventicles of schism, it was the priesthood that led the way in Luther and in Wesley. Nor has philosophy been without her contribution towards the general disorder, even philosophy, with all her severer attributes of wisdom and of love. In the very first ages, even from the time of the Apostles, there was no more fruitful source of heresy than the learning and contemplative devotion of the Gentile philosopher, who, when once admitted within the church, sought to penetrate or explain the mysteries of CHRIST. The Gnostics were the founders of those heresies which are mentioned in St. John's Gospel. They embraced under that title most of those learned men who deluged Christianity with the strange doctrines alluded to, even as early as the Epistles of St. Paul. They were distinguished,' says the historian Gibbon, as the most polite, the most learned, and the most wealthy of the Christian name; and that general appellation [Gnostics] which expressed a superiority of knowledge, was either assumed by their own pride, or ironically bestowed by the envy of their adversaries.' They blended with the faith of Christ many sublime but obscure tenets, which they derived from oriental philosophy, and even from the religion of Zoroaster, concerning the eternity of nature, the existence of two principles, and the mysterious hierarchy of an invisible world.'* No less than fifty, if not more subdivisions of the Gnostics disputing on some ineffable mystery of divine revelation, which they sought to interpret by human knowledge, astonished and perplexed the Christian world. The principal names which have come down to us, are the Basilidians, the Valentinians, the Marcionites, and the Manichæans. They covered Asia, Africa, and Italy, with their many-headed controversies, and disturbed the peace and simplicity of the Christian faith, by curious speculations which never ended, and intricate schemes of revelation which drove back inquiring souls even in those days, into Paganism and Idolatry. The world was over-ridden by a learning which destroyed itself by pride; and men seeking to be wise above the Word of GOD, lost the only key to its difficulties, which was faith. Thus it ever is that learning and ignorance meet in the same enthusiasm; and unaided by the light of God's Spirit, work the very same ends in scattering and dividing the fold of Christ.

"These observations will introduce us to the history of another sect of these latter days, a sect far differing from those which have preceded, inasmuch as it is derived from a man more eminent, perhaps, than any other, in the many acquirements of human learning and philosophy. He was no common enthusiast, issuing forth with fanaticism, and personal ignorance; not one of the common order of fanatics, who would found a sect before they could even read the Holy Scriptures in their original language; but one of the deepest and most varied learning, following however too fatally, and imitating too curiously the history of the Gnostic philosophy of the primitive ages.

Swedenborg has often been considered to have some affinity with the Gnostics of the first and second century of Christianity. But this

* Gibbon, c. iv.

assertion is only made by writers who have never studied a single book of Swedenborg. The Gnostics, however, were by no means a despicable class of men; they were the intelligent class of that early time. They brought reproach upon themselves by mixing up the truths of Christianity with erroneous speculations.*

The writer then gives a biographical account at some length of Swedenborg, and concludes with the following remarks:

"His faculties were clear to the last. Whatever the impressions were under which he acted and wrote, it is certain there was no purposed intention to deceive. The absence of all desire to make proselytes; the contented way in which he bore contradiction; the determined and emphatic manner in which he communicated what he considered to be GOD's Revelation; the consistency moreover of a good moral life passed in constant study of God's Word, and unblemished by any of the world's immoralities-all these facts coupled with the manifestation in his youth and throughout the prime of his manhood, of an undoubtedly strong and vigorous intellect, which failed not to pursue with success every branch of science-all this places this extraordinary man far beyond the usual character of the religious enthusiast, at any rate deprives him of the possibility of being ranked as a wilful impostor."

We now proceed to the next number (July 1) of the "Old Church Porch," in which the writer continues his papers on Swedenborg and the doctrines of the New Church :

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Whatever the assertions of Swedenborg might have been, coming from a man so eminent in every branch of human learning, and from one so devoted to the service of God, they had at least a claim to a fair and impartial hearing. Others might have been met with the mere cry of enthusiasm, or of imposture; but not so in his case, when for so many years he had been known in the world of science and literature, as one of the ablest men of his age. Neither was a fair hearing denied him. They merely asked, as it was just they should, the ground of his claims, and the ends to which they tended.

"Now what was the case? The world for seventeen centuries and a half had received the revelations of Jesus Christ communicated by the church. From the Apostles' time through ages of trial and of controversy; amid the councils of the wisest and the holiest; with a faith proved in the blood of a thousand martyrdoms; the doctrines of the church had descended and in all their leading aspects had been universally received. Upon what principle could it be demanded that now of a sudden, and without any preparation or forewarning, to one individual should be imparted an entirely new Revelation, uprooting and discarding the old that from one individual should arise a totally new idea both of the Scriptures, and of the state and prospects of man-a New Church, in comparison with which all that preceded was in shadow and confusion, if not in positi:e error. And yet this was in reality the

• See Mosheim's "De Rebus Christianis ante Constantinum gestis."

claim set forth. Things hidden from David and the prophets in the dispensation of the Jews: things hidden from the Apostles and Evangelists in the dispensation of Jesus Christ: things hidden from the Confessors and Martyrs of the purest ages of the Gospel, were now for the first time made known and revealed. Up to the eighteenth century, the whole church had been in error. Both the Roman and the Greek; the church of the West and of the East, all had been equally in the dark. In Swedenborg alone, the light had been disclosed. The 'heavenly doctrines of the New Jerusalem' were those alone which men were now to receive and to embrace."

In this extract the writer imagines that the pure doctrines of Christianity have come down unperverted through the Catholic Church to which he belongs (not the Roman Catholic Church) to the present day, as understood by the editor of the "Old Church Porch." This, however, as all church history proves, is a great mistake. It is true that for the first three cenuries, up to the Council of Nice, the pure doctrines of Christianity were received in simplicity by the church. But after that period the entire system of doctrine, owing to the belief in three Persons, "each by himself," as the creed expresses it, "being God and Lord," consequently, in the idea of nearly all, tantamount to three Gods, became perverted, and gradually grew worse and worse, until the abominations of Popery entirely laid waste every vestige of the church. We earnestly inquire of the respected and learned writer in the "Old Church Porch," whether he can in his conscientious thinking reconcile the above statement in the creed with the declarations of the Lord Himself, that the "Father dwelleth in Him," that "He and the Father are one," and that “He who seeth Him seeth the Father;" and also with the declaration of the Apostle, "that in Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily." Now Swedenborg has been instrumental in bringing back the church to its primitive Faith, all the truths of which may be now seen "not as through a glass darkly," or in obscurity and simplicity, but in the clearness of rational and spiritual light. That the New Jerusalem of the Apocalypse is a renovated system of Christianity, which as to doctrines and principles is to come down from God out of heaven-that is, to be revealed through the opening of the Divine Word-is beginning to be generally believed.

"Even to our Blessed Lord Himself, when He came to preach among the Jews, it had been said,—'Who_gave Thee this authority?' and men freely canvassed the sources of His power; some saying in wonder, How knoweth this man letters, having never learned?' and others imputing it to an evil source, even to 'Beelzebub the Prince of the Devils.' It was not then to be expected that the world should embrace the assertions of Swedenborg without questioning whence they

came, and how he had received the things which he declared. His claim, in the words of his own defenders, was no less than this:- He presented himself as the herald of the Lord's second Advent, in a new dispensation of doctrinal truth, and the proclaimer of a great consequent change in the state of the world.' The question of course arises, Where is the commission of the herald? Where are the grounds upon which the proclamation is made?

"Now one of the special warnings of our Blessed Lord before He left this earth, was that false prophets should arise, who should if possible deceive the very elect;' and one of the directions of the church from the very earliest writings of her inspired Evangelists was, to 'try the spirits whether they be of God.' In this it is very plain, that since nothing is impossible with God, there may arise prophets at any time in the world, and there may arise men of professed spiritual agency, to direct and impart the councils of Almighty God.

"We are not told that the gifts of the Spirit are at any time to cease in the church; neither are we told of any epoch at which Revelations are no longer possible. We do not judge then against Swedenborg as against an impostor, or a self-deceived enthusiast, of necessity; but we only follow the caution of the Apostle and of our Lord, when we claim the right to try the spirit,' whether it really be of God, or not."

We wish nothing more earnestly than that this caution may be carried out as to Swedenborg. Let him as to every point of what he teaches in respect to doctrine and life, be thoroughly examined, and we are certain that with all candid minds the result must be favourable. The following extracts, as proving and admitting the possibility of Swedenborg's case, will be read with interest :—

"There seem to be two distinct ways in which it has pleased Almighty God to make Himself known to the soul of man, while yet abiding in the world. The first is by a moving impulse or Divine afflatus (breathing) from within. The second is by carrying the soul or spirit of the man out of himself, and presenting to him a revelation from without. The prophets of the Old Testament and of the New, are instances of the first. Visions and Revelations are instances of the second. The gift of prophecy, either considered in its meaning of foretelling future events, or in its meaning of making known the truths of God, arises from the Divine 'afflatus,' and is therefore called inspiration. We receive the words of David, of Daniel, of Jeremiah, and the like, as the words of God, because we know that they were men inspired of God to declare His truths. The same in the New Covenant, where we find many instances both of the Evangelists and of the Apostles, who wrote the words of God, using indeed their own hands as the material agents, but His Spirit as the moving impulsive power. The same also in foretelling future events, as in the case of Agabus, and the four daughters of St. Philip the Deacon, who prophesied. Indeed prophesying is specially set down by the Apostles, as one of the gifts of the Spirit, exercised as an office in the church. Upon

this it is that we have had over and over again, even in these latter days, men proclaiming to the world that they possess a Divine inspiration, i. e., a certain power within them to know, and to teach, as from God. * * *

"None, however, of these cases touch that of Swedenborg. His was not a case of inspiration from within. He laid no claim to such a gift. He came under the second head of the Divine communications; namely, that which presents to the soul or spirit of a man, visions or revelations out of the body. This, we must bear in mind, is a perfectly distinct thing.

"But here again, Holy Scripture is full of instances were such revelations have unquestionably been made; and they are of two kinds: first, those made by dreams; and secondly, those made by visions. Dreams are revelations made to man while his eyes are closed, and his body is absorbed in sleep; but visions are revelations made to man while his eyes are open, and he sees clearly by a double capacity;—with the eye of flesh, things in their ordinary state, but with the eye of the spirit, the things of the revelation imparted; the mind and interior soul within being carried away out of the natural body.

"The subject of dreams is one of the most difficult of our nature. There is no doubt but that there exists within the body during sleep, a certain subtile, volatile, spiritual agency, which enjoys all the powers of the several senses, without exercising actually in fact any one of them; which for instance sees, although the eyes are closed, passes through infinite space, although the body rest tranquilly in the same spot; touches various objects which are at a distance, and previously unknown; hears various sounds which are in reality never uttered; and goes through a variety of actions, scenes, conversations, and interviews, with persons in some instances who have never existed at all, and in other instances are of such a time or such a place as it would be impossible to reach.

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Now it has pleased Almighty God on various occasions which we cannot doubt, to make use of this peculiar faculty of the human spirit, to convey to the knowledge of man, events or circumstances which it concerned him to know. The dreams of Pharaoh's butler and baker, in the Book of Genesis, and their interpretation by Joseph, are familiar to all. Those of Nebuchadnezzar also, as interpreted by Daniel. God imparted a certain knowledge to Abimelech in a dream. The Prophet Jeremiah, (xxiii. 25.) exclaims against impostors who pretended to dream That prophecy lies in my name, saying, I have dreamed, I have dreamed. The prophet that hath a dream let him tell a dream; and he that hath My Word let him tell it faithfully, saith the Lord.' And in the New Testament, all will remember how the conduct of St. Joseph and St. Mary with reference to the young child the Holy Jesus, is all along shaped and directed by dreams specially sent for that pur pose. But a vision, as said before, is distinct from a dream, inasmuch as it is sent of God not in sleep, but with the eyes open, and the understanding awake to the knowledge of things without.

"Thus Balaam is described as having a vision from God in that