in a human form, and appear to themselves as men, and also that they see each other, hear and converse together; and that it is still less known that they appear clothed in garments. That this is the case, not only falls into doubt, but also together into denial with those who are so immersed in things external, as to believe that the body alone lives, and that that is nothing which they do not see with the bodily eyes, and touch with the bodily hands, see n. 1881; when yet the heavens are full of men, who are angels, and they are clothed in garments of various degrees of splendor. These however cannot be at all seen by man on earth through the eyes of his body, but through the eyes of his spirit when opened by the Lord. The angels, who were seen by the ancients, as by Abraham, Sarah, Lot, Jacob, Joshua, Gideon, also by the prophets, were not seen by the eyes of the body, but by the eyes of their spirit, which were then opened. That they also have appeared clothed with garments, is manifest from the angels that sat at the Lord's sepulchre, and were seen by Mary Magdalene, and Mary [the wife] of James in white shining garments (Matt. xxviii. 3; Mark xvi. 5; Luke xxiv. 4); especially from the Lord when seen by Peter, James, and John in His glory, when he had a white glittering garment as the light (Matt. xvii. 2; Luke ix. 29): by which garment also was represented the Divine Spiritual [principle,] or the Divine Truth which is from Him. Hence it may be manifest what issignified by white garments in the Apocalypse, Thou hast a few names in Sardis, which have not polluted their garments, and they shall walk with Me in white, because theyare worthy. He that overcometh shall be clothed with white garments,' iii. 4, 5. Garments in this passage are spiritual truths, which are truths derived from good, as was shown above; and white is genuine truth, n. 3301, 4007, 5319. In like manner in another place, 'I saw heaven pened, when behold a white horse, and He that sat on Him wa ocalled Faithful and True, who in justice judgeth and combateth; His armies in Heaven followed Him, clothed in fine linen white and clean,' xix. 11, 14. And in another place, ‘On the thrones I saw twenty and four elders clothed in white garments,' iv. 4."

For glory and for beauty. Heb. 25 lekabod u-letiphareth, for glory, or honor, and for beauty, ornament, decoration. The expression is very strong, leading us to the inference that a special significancy and importance attached to these garments. They were to be made thus splendid in order to render the office more respected, and to inspire a becoming reverence for the Divine majesty, whose ministers were attired with so much grandeur. As every thing pertaining to the sanctuary was to be made august and magnificent, so were the dresses of those who ministered there. Yet that a spiritual design governed the fashion of these gorgeous robes no one will be apt to doubt, for whose benefit these explanations are indited. As glory signifies the Divine Truth, in its internal, so does beauty, in its external form; for the brightness or comeliness of Divine Truth appearing in externals, is intimated by the term beauty. The import of the expression is, therefore, that the Divine Truth, such as it is in the spiritual kingdom adjoined to the celestial, i. e., such as it is in

internals and externals, should be presented or exhibited in the style of these sacerdotal garments, in every minute detail of which there was wrapped up a spiritual and a representative meaning. The explication of this hidden import, so far as it regards the Ephod and the Breast-plate, will constitute the subject of our next article.

(To be continued.)

ARTICLE II.

THE HOLY SPIRIT.

THE Holy Spirit is light from the Lord, revealing His Divine Form as the alone Truth, and His Divine substance as the alone Good. The operation of the Holy Spirit in man is according to the laws of order, revealing first the external of the Lord to the external perceptions of the natural mind of man; then His Divine inner to the inner spiritual perceptions of man; then His Divine inmost to the inmost celestial perceptions of man's love.

Swedenborg tells us of the exact workings of the light of the Divine Truth in the human mind, viz., that it produces Reformation, Regeneration, Renovation, Vivification, Sanctification, Justification, Purification, Remission of Sins, and Salvation.

He

Reformation has to do with man's external thought; this is filled with falsities, with utter denials of the Divine truth. For, even if man is instructed to say that Jesus Christ is a Divine being, he says it with his lips, but his thought says, "How was He divine? was a man as other men :" or else he does but think and speak as a parrot. But when man, from the literal sense of the Divine Word, sees and acknowledges that Christ was "God manifest in the flesh," and that in Him "all the fulness of the Godhead dwelt bodily," then light from the Divine Natural has penetrated his natural mind, and his understanding is reformed. But this is a cold unproductive light; it has nothing of the life of good in it, and is an acknowledgment such as the evil spirits may and often do make.

But if from this light of natural truth man goes about to do good, because Christ went about doing good, then the light grows, and he distinguishes more and more clearly between good and evil; and by putting away evil, the love of doing good grows upon him, and regenerates his will. Thus his outermost degree of life is brought into the sphere of the Lord's person. The reformation of his understanding, and the regeneration of his will, bring him into a perception of his true eternal spiritual being. Thus is he renovated. Heretofore the spiritual man has been dead; now he realizes it; light has shone upon it, and with his spiritual understanding he begins to discern spiritual truths-a something within the mere literal meaning of the

Word; not only the Divine person, but the Divine wisdom, grows upon his perceptions; the dead spiritual man is renovated, but a perception of the Divine wisdom is but a receptacle in him of a feeling of the Divine Love; and thought, animated by feeling, is vivified; it lives and acts; and the reformed natural understanding, and regenerated natural will, become the fitting receptacles of the renovated spiritual understanding, and the vivified spiritual will. Man now lives in a higher degree, but as yet he is in the full recognition of himself; he loves this beautiful truth as his truth; he walks on the walls of the spiritual city of his mind, peopled with living forms, and adorned with the gardens of intelligence, and refreshed with the sparkling fountains of natural truth; and he says, "Is not this great Babylon which I have built?" But while the words of self-gratulation are bursting from him, gone is the glory; darkness has veiled from him the light of the sun; there is yet a loftier height to which he must attain before the sun can forever shine upon his perceptions; he must realize that in man is no truth; that God is the alone Truth, whence all truth flows into him simply as a Divine gift, as a Divine possession in him. He must look upon himself as insignificant a medium of truth as any tiny vein in his own body which bears his thought upon the red flood that flows through it. When he has attained to this perception, then the truth in him is sanctified; it is the Lord's truth, not his; and Sanctification leads to Justification. For if God is the alone truth, He is the alone Life, and man being a form, receptive of Life from God, all the good that he does is from the Lord, and man is just because God is just. Thus the renovated and reformed human understanding is sanctified and made holy, and the vivified, regenerated will is justified, and then comes a yet more interior perception of the celestial purity of the Divine Wisdom; and this looking upward to the Divine innocence, causes man to see more clearly his own innate and total depravity and total corruption; and by looking away from himself to the Lord, he becomes purified from self-intelligence and self-love, and he comes then into a perfect trust in the Lord, and yielding his inmost will to the Divine will, his sins are remitted, or are put away from the centre to the circumference; for the Lord becomes the centre and soul of his being. Thus is salvation wrought in the man by the gradual revealings of that holy light that flows from the body of our Divine Lord, bringing him into the very sphere of the celestial personality, of the Divine individuality, resulting from the perfect wisdom which is the form of God, and of the infinite purity of love, which is the substance of that Divine Form. And when the human mind attains to a perception of absolute perfection, and the human heart realizes a love, that will forever satisfy its requirements, then is the hunger and thirst of the soul ministered unto, and man reposes in an eternal joy, which is salvation.

EXTRACT.

The sensual man reasons acutely and with readiness, because his thought is so near his speech as to be almost in it, and because he places all intelligence in discoursing from the memory alone.--A. C. 195.

ARTICLE III.

THE ANTIQUITIES OF EGYPT.

THE contributor of the series of papers entitled "The Druidism of Ancient Britain," published some years since in the Repository, performed a service worthy of gratitude. It tended to call into notice what was else obscure, and gave to British archæology a post of honor, which could not fail to be gratifying to those who love the name of Cymbri, and are interested in the lore of the bards. In the ideal Taliesin, a personification of the Genius of Druidism, we observe a form of speech not far remote from that employed when the man Adam of the Most Ancient, and Noah of the Ancient, church are mentioned in the Word.

Our interest in these memories of the hoary Past was again excited by a hasty perusal of Gliddon's "Ancient Egypt." Mr. Hayden in his justly popular "Reply to Dr. Pond" made a few citations from this work, and had aroused a curiosity which our immaturity of perception precluded from being satisfied. Finding valuable assistance from a perusal of these lectures, we were impelled to suppose that others would share the delight which we experienced, and therefore concluded to embody several of the prominent statements of the author in a communication for the Repository.

Many of our friends are aware that Swedenborg affirmed many things in regard to which subsequent explorations were needed for confirmation. Those who received his testimony were not so insanely in love with the marvelous as their opponents vainly endeavored to represent. They sent no embassy to China, or Great Tartary to find those lost books of the Word which the Lord had given to the Ancient church. They employed no traveller to roam through Africa in quest of the people "more internal than the rest of the Gentiles," whose manners were simple and affections ennobled. New-churchmen, eager to verify the teachings of the illuminated scribe, exhumed not Egypt or Ethiopia. Men who disregard the instructions of Moses and the prophets will not hear though we superadd testimony from one who spoke from the spirit-world.

Yet as time drew on, the providence of God afforded confirmations to the words of the gifted Seer. Demonstrations were made here and there, which evinced that the region of departed souls was not far remote from the dwellers in material bodies. Nations were found in Africa, whose character indicated that Swedenborg had spoken truth. Large cities inhabited by millions of people have been discovered in Tartary. Traces of books have been obtained, possessed of a peculiar character and style, among a people not Paynim nor Pagan.

Egypt, the mystic home of the Gods, a pioneer of human civilization, has already revealed secrets of vast importance. The researches of archæologists have not been in vain, as is manifest in the pamphlet before us. The author has been very judicious in his selections from the materials afforded him by his own observations, and the labors of others.

The art of writing, we are assured, is of very remote antiquity. It was in existence before history had a being. The older portions of the Bible were compiled from more ancient documents. The book of Job, for example, was an Arabian production, and composed among a literary people. This is evident from these expressions, "Oh, that my words were written! Oh, that they were PRINTED in a book!" He undoubtedly meant engraved like the Chinese works, not by modern typographers. Again: "My desire is that my adversary had written a book." Long before Moses was born, written chronicles and the sublimest poetry were extant.

"The Book of Genesis is divided into two perfectly separate histories. The first part is an account of the CREATION, and the general history of mankind up to the building of the Tower of Babel. The second part is the history of Abraham and his descendants." Swedenborg and Dr. Lamb, from whom Mr. Gliddon made this quotation, divide this book at precisely the same point, and include ten chapters and nine verses of the eleventh, in the first part.

But fanaticism, accident, and casualties have destroyed the great mass of ancient literary productions. We can allude to "the various instances of the annihilation of ancient archives in Asia Minor, Greece and Syria;" the destruction of the Ptolemaic Library, also of the Alexandrian collection; the destruction of the Chinese annals by the Tartars, and likewise of the Indian and Central Asiatic libraries by other hordes of the same nation; the Turkish devastations, the perishing of Tyrian literature at the conquest by Alexander, and of Roman annals when Brennus entered that city; the conflagration of Phoenician manuscripts by Marius at Carthage, and of the Hebrew archives by Titus Vespasian. "Mahomed Ali has permitted the destruction of more historical legends in forty years than had been compassed by eighteen centuries of Roman, Byzantian, Arab, or Ottoman misrule." The history of Hecateus, and the annals of Manetho, Berosus, and Eratosthenes are lost, all but a few mutilated fragments. So are also the records of a still earlier period, "save such as Champollion has pointed out on the monuments and papyri of Egypt." That there was a vast number of books is shown by the enumerations now extant. At the date of 525, B. C. above twenty thousand volumes were "in constant, universal and popular use among the inhabitants of Egypt, the productions of a Saphis, Athothis, Necho, and Pet-osiris, all Egyptian Pharaohs; no less than of priests and other philosophers, who lived, nearly all of them, ages before Moses."--Poems, especially epics, were common: and Homer, who visited that country eight hundred years before our present era, stands charged by the Egyptian poet Naucratis, "with gleaning from Egyptian bards the ideas which, with such sublimity of thought and diction, he perpetuated in his Iliad and Odyssey."

But the original documents are lost forever; the glories of ancient Nile have perished; and the prediction of the Hermetic books is fulfilled: "Oh, Egypt! Egypt! the time will come, when instead of a pure religion and a pure belief, thou shalt possess nothing but ridiculous fables, incredible to posterity; and nothing shall remain to thee but