them the letter of the 19th Psalm: "The Heavens declare the glory of God;" and Romans i. 20, "For the invisible things of Him are clearly seen from the creation of the world, in that they are understood from the things that are made, even His eternal power and Deity." All this from the simple literal Scripture and catechism, without any esse, or existere, or procedere; and yet, I ask, what would there be lacking of essential conception which you set forth in your labored and scholastic scheme?

How easy, too, to apply the same method to any rational soul. We never strictly see each other. That which is substance in man, as well as God, is no matter of sense, but is understood from the things that are done, even our temporal power and humanity. Perhaps you would claim this as a part of your theory; but as applicable to any rational agent, divine or human, what does it amount to but this? In every exercise of the soul there are feeling, thought, and action. There can be no feeling or desire, without some knowledge of what is desired. There can be, on the other hand, no knowledge without some degree of interest in the thing known, and there can be neither, without some energizing, either outwardly or inwardly, of the soul. In other words, in order to act, we must know, and we will not know unless there is some feeling prompting the knowing and the acting, and which must itself be known and acted out. This is a very good and useful view, but why put it forth as something so profound, and with such an array of scholastic language, as though it were absolutely essential to an argument on the Old Testament theophanies, or the New Testament doctrine of the incarnation? God may manifest himself in his works; He may send a prophet to declare the fact of His goodness, but what proved necessity from this for His manifesting himself in a human form, unless there were other ends in view, and other thoughts than ever entered into the Swedenborgian gnosis? The design of all this is not very obvious, unless it be to prove that God could not be objectively known to the universe, or to the human mind, unless the Divine Nature had this triplicity of aspect involved in the esse, the existere, and the procedere-or, in good Anglo-Saxon, being, revealing thought, and going forth. This, however, you would conclude, is only for our minds, and therefore, the trinal division is only in appearance, and for the Divine Mind has no reality.

Now, the opinion may reverently be advanced, that if there be any necessity here at all, it must be carried farther. The idea of a real plurality in the very Divine Nature itself, seems to have anciently commended itself to the reason of some minds, from the seeming impossibility of otherwise forming a satisfactory notion of the mode of the Divine Existence. A pure monadity, with nothing objective to love, nothing objective to know, in the fullest and highest sense (for even if an eternal creation is supposed, it must fall infinitely below the all perfect idea required to fill the Divine Mind and the Divine affection), was totally inconceivable. It was the most difficult of all thoughts. Hence the mind seems driven to think of some real distinction, in order that Deity might be objective to itself, and our own thoughts get relief from this inconceivable subjectivity. Hence the

conception of a self, knowing a self objectively, and of self, loving a self objectively, and, at the same time, being objectively known and loved, even as it knew and loved. Hence the absolute necessity of some such conception as that of two or more personalities, or hypostases, distinct, yet bound in a unity transcending, in its oneness, any conception of the term as employed to denote any human, or any created relation.

Now, we venture on any such speculation as this with all reverence. We would rather trust one single text of Scripture than pages of such philosophizing; and yet we cannot help thinking that it is as good as yours, and that it possesses a better ground in the reason than any view which would resolve the plurality in the mode of the Divine Existence into mere phenomena, having no reality in the Divine Nature, representing no true hypostatic plurality, and therefore, in fact, a false manifestation, a deceptive phantom, without any corresponding objectivity behind it.

But the farther consideration of this topic, and of your subsequent letters, must be deferred to another opportunity.

ARTICLE II.

Yours, &c.,

T. L.

THE TABERNACLE SERVICE VIEWED IN ITS SPIRITUAL IMPORT.

No. I.

THE PRIESTLY GARMENTS.

In a previous series of articles we have gone at length into a consideration of the Jewish Tabernacle, with its various appendages, and endeavored to show, by the light of the New Church, the spiritual significancy of each. In the present, and several articles to follow, we enter upon another department of the same general theme, and, guided by the same clew, propose to unfold the interior import of the Sacred Garments, in which the priests were called to minister. This forms the subject of the xxviii. chapter of Exodus, in which we have an account of the setting apart of an order of men to officiate as ministers of the Tabernacle worship, and a minute description of the vestments by which they were distinguished. Previous to this time the patriarchal mode of service had no doubt obtained, every master of a family being a priest to his own household; but now, as a Tabernacle of the congregation was about to be erected, as a visible centre of unity to the nation, the Lord saw fit to order the institution of a public priesthood, and, according to previous intimation, Ex. xxvii. 21, Aaron and his sons are fixed upon as candidates for the high distinc

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tion. Of the four sons of Aaron here selected, the two eldest, Nadab and Abihu soon proved themselves unworthy of the honor now conferred upon them, and perished miserably in consequence of profaning the sacred things with which they had to do in the discharge of their office. The succession then reverted to the line of Eleazer and Ithamar, in which it was perpetuated down to the latest period of the Jewish polity.

In the discharge of the office to which they were now called, Aaron and his sons sustained a purely representative character, and therefore no inference can be drawn from this fact relative to their personal character. From what we learn of Aaron there is little reason to think that he possessed the qualities which intrinsically correspond to a priestly function. But this was no detriment to his fulfilling the duty to which he was now designated by the following order :

Ex. xxviii. 1-5, "And take thou unto thee Aaron thy brother, and his sons with him, from among the children of Israel, that he may minister unto me in the priest's office, even Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, Eleazar and Ithamar, Aaron's sons. And thou shalt make holy garments for Aaron thy brother, for glory and for beauty. And thou shalt speak unto all that are wise-hearted, whom I have filled with the spirit of wisdom, that they may make Aaron's garments to consecrate him, that he may minister unto me in the priest's office. And these are the garments which they shall make; a breast-plate, and an ephod, and a robe, and a broidered coat, a mitre, and a girdle and they shall make holy garments for Aaron thy brother, and his sons, that he may minister unto me in the priest's office. And they shall take gold, and blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine linen."

Take thou unto thee. Heb. pn hakreb, cause to come nigh. Gr. рosαyayou, bring near. The original root p karab, is of the most frequent occurrence in relation to sacrifices, and is the ordinary term applied to the bringing near or presenting the various offerings which were enjoined under the Mosaic ritual. It is wholly in keeping with this usage to employ it, as here, in reference to persons who by their dedication to the service of the sanctuary, were in a sense sacrificially offered up and devoted to the Lord. But, in a higher sense, this causing Aaron and his sons to approach denotes the conjunction of the Divine Good, represented by Aaron, with the Divine Truth, represented by Moses. The conjunction of these two principles is represented in the Word by two conjugial partners, and also by two brothers; by the former, when the subject treated of is the heavenly marriage of Good and Truth; and by the latter, when the subject treated of is concerning the two-fold ministry of judgment and worship; the first being performed by those who were called judges, and afterwards kings, and the second by those who were called priests. The spiritual import of brothers, therefore, in this relation is not very unlike to that of Church and State.

לכחנר .Heb

That he may minister unto me in the priest's office. lekahano, from the root kahan, of which Kimchi says the primary meaning is the rendering of honorable and dignified service, such as that of officers of state to their sovereign. In accordance with this it is used concerning the sons of David, 2 Sam. viii. 18, who could not, strictly speaking, be priests; and on the same grounds the substan

tive kohanim, is in several places in the margin rendered "princes." But as princes or courtiers wait on the king, and are honored by nearer access to him than others; so the priests under the law were assumed into this near relation to the King of Israel, and for this reason the term in its ordinary acceptation is applied more especially to the duties of priests in administering before God at his altar. Of the duties pertaining to the priestly office we shall have occasion to speak in detail in subsequent notes; but we may here observe briefly, that although as high functionaries in the court of the Great King, many of their duties were of a civil nature, as might be expected under a system in which church and state were united, yet those that more properly belonged to them in their sacerdotal character were mainly the following: They were to pronounce the benediction upon the people and to conduct the whole service of the holy place. Theirs was the business of sacrificing, in all its rites, in all offerings upon the altar of burnt-offerings. The government and ordering of the sanctuary and of the house of God lay upon them. They kept the table of show-bread properly supplied; they attended to the lamps of golden candelabrum every morning: at the same time they burnt the daily incense, which prevented any offensive scent from the dressing of the lamps from being perceived. It was their duty to keep up the fire upon the brazen altar, that the fire originally kindled from heaven might never be extinguished. It was their office to make the holy anointing oil; and theirs to blow the silver trumpets at the solemn feasts, and also before the Ark at its removals. While their numbers were few, there was occupation enough to keep them all employed; but when they afterwards became numerous, they were divided into twenty-four bands, or courses, each of which undertook weekly, in rotation, the sacred services. But this regulation belongs to the time of David. Although the Most High had before, Ex. xix. 6, said of Israel in general, "that they should be to him a kingdom of priests," yet this did not militate with his concentrating the office, in its active duties, in a single family, as he now saw fit to do. It was only in this way that the great ends of the institution could be attained, in which, however, we are to recognize far more than what pertained to the mere external institution. The priesthood, in the supreme sense, denotes every office which the Lord discharges as Saviour, and whatsoever he performs in this capacity, is from Divine Love; thus from Divine Good, for all good is of love; hence, also, by the priesthood, in the supreme sense, is signified the Divine Good of the Divine Love of the Lord, while the regal office points to the Divine Truth thence derived. Mention is often made in the Word, in one series, of kings and priests; also of kings, princes, priests, and prophets, and in such passages are signified, in the internal sense, by kings, truths in the complex; by princes, primary truths; by priests, goods in the complex; and by prophets, doctrines.

And thou shalt make holy garments for Aaron thy brother. Heb. 77 bigde kodesh, garments of holiness. Gr. στολη άγια, α holy stole, or perhaps collectively, a quantity of holy stoles. These garments are called "holy" because they were designed for holv men,

and because they formed part of an establishment whose general character was holy. Indeed, whatever was separated from common use, and consecrated to the immediate service of God, acquired thereby a relative holiness; so that we see the amplest ground for the bestowment of this epithet upon the sacred dresses. In ordinary life, when not engaged in their official duties, the priests were attired like other Israelites of good condition; but when employed in their stated ministrations, they were to be distinguished by a peculiar and appropriate dress. Of this dress, which was kept in a wardrobe somehow connected with the Tabernacle, and which was laid aside when their ministration ceased, and returned to the wardrobe, the Jewish writers have much to say. According to them the priests could not officiate without their robes, neither could they wear them beyond the sacred precincts. Under the Temple, where the usages were no doubt substantially the same as in the Tabernacle, when the priests arrived to take their turns of duty, they put off their usual dress, washed themselves in water, and put on the holy garments. While they were in the Temple, attending upon their service, they could not sleep in their sacred habits, but in their own wearing clothes. These they put off in the morning, when they went to their service, and, after bathing, resumed their official dress. But we shall treat of the details in their order.

The spiritual explication of this part of the Levitical economy will be easily inferred when it is understood that garments in general denote the things that are without, and which cover those that are within; they signify, therefore, a man's external or natural, for this covers his internal or spiritual. Where the internal is the celestial, the investiture that clothes it is the spiritual, as the truths of faith are the proper covering for the goods of charity. In the present case, as Aaron in himself represented the Lord as to his Divine Celestial principle, so his garments, being an investment of his person, represents the spiritual kingdom of the Lord adjoined to his celestial. "The Divine Spiritual principle," says Swedenborg, "is the Divine Truth proceeding from the Divine Good of the Lord; this in heaven appears as light, and also is the light which illuminates the sight of angels, both that which is external and that which is internal. The modification of this light according to the recipient subjects, which are angels, presents various phenomena to the sight, as clouds, rainbows, colors and brightnesses of various kinds, as also shining garments about the angels. Hence it may be manifest that the spiritual kingdom of the Lord was represented by Aaron's garments of holiness; for there are two kingdoms into which the heavens are divided, the celestial kingdom and the spiritual kingdom, see n. 9277; they who are in the celestial kingdom appear naked, but they who are in the spiritual kingdom appear clothed. Hence it is again manifest, that the Divine Truth, or Divine Spiritual [principle], which appears as light, is what invests [or clothes]. But who can at all believe, that within the Church, where yet the Word is, and thence illustration concerning Divine and celestial things, so great ignorance prevails, that it is not known that angels and spirits are