of the Word, even the most minute, as well historothers, are contained celestial things which appero love, or good, and spiritual things which appertain th, or truth;1 consequently things divine." "In n," he declares in conclusion, "there is not any ly history, but the whole is there representative of › Divine, nor is anything else there perceived; as lso be known from the acknowledged fact, that the there heard are unspeakable by man: wherefore s historical relations be representative of things e, and be thus celestial, they cannot possibly be ely inspired."2

have thus, in this chapter, traced the principal s of contact, as well as of divergence, between Sweorg and the various schools of Biblical critics of the nt day. It only remains in the chapter which follows, te somewhat more connectedly and in detail than ave hitherto done, the views of Swedenborg and of New Church writers generally, respecting the Historooks of Holy Scripture, and to shew, by means of erous instances and illustrations, that these views not entirely reconcile and harmonize the many contendheories and hypotheses put forward by other writers, ning and preserving everything in each of them that accordance with reason, and a fair induction of the in the case, but also wholly and satisfactorily clear l the difficulties and account for all the peculiarities Le sacred histories; thus fully vindicating the system terpretation propounded by Swedenborg from the

r. Jowett, in the Essays and Reviews.' observes that "Love and have never been theological terms." Had he been familiar with ritings of Swedenborg, he would have made the discovery that is one system of Theology in which the merits of these terms are y and amply recognized.

C. nn. 1886, 7.

and demonstrating it to be every way worthy, so far at least as the particular subject of this work is concerned, of the exalted origin to which it lays claim, and, therefore, of the attention of the candid and the learned, no less than the unlearned, of every sect and school of theology.

CHAPTER II.

RY OF THE NEW CHURCH AND ITS APPLICATION TO THE HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES.

the present chapter we shall first, as in the case of ther theories examined in the First Part of this work, a full and detailed statement of the teaching of Sweorg and the New Church, in relation to the historical tures of the sacred canon ; and then proceed to make newhat extended application of the same to some of ifficulties and peculiarities presented in those Scripsas collected in a previous chapter; with a view to onstrate the entire adaptedness of this view to explain account for these peculiarities, and to supply the ets and imperfections of all other systems and ries existing at this day.

§ 1. Theory of Swedenborg and the New Church.

the chapter which precedes the present one, we , in a scattered and desultory manner, adduced a ber of extracts from the theological writings of Sweorg, presenting his teachings upon many of the es connected with the subject of this work; but, in r to a right understanding of the views of the New rch in regard to the Historical Scriptures, it will be ssary here to give a more complete and connected unt of them: which, however, we shall endeavour to s briefly as possible.

First, then, in pursuance of this object, it is to be obed that Swedenborg, and other New Church writers in ation of him, commonly divide the historical books of

may be again subdivided into four others, viz.: First, The Ancient, or purely allegorical class, comprising the first eleven chapters of Genesis, and one or two other quotations made by Moses from the historical portions of the Ancient Word, spoken of in our last chapter; Secondly, The remainder of the Jewish history properly belonging to the Word, embracing the following books, viz. : Genesis (from the beginning of chapter xii.) together with the other Books of the Pentateuch, or Five Books of Moses, Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, and 1 and 2 Kings; Thirdly, The Four Gospels, constituting the Historical Word of the New Testament; and Fourthly, The Deutero-Canonical, or Hagiographical historical Books, which do not form part of the Word, and which are, in the Old Testament, Ruth, 1 and 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther; and in the New, the Acts of the Apostles.1 To all the three first classes of writings here specified, or those which properly belong to the Word of the Lord, notwithstanding their diversities of style, subject and date of composition, the New Church attaches precisely the same character and authority, viewing them as being the very communication of the Most High, existing in visible form on the earth, to men. These, as we have

1 We would here take occasion to state that, in addition to the Historical Books, enumerated in the text as belonging to the Word, or plenarily-inspired Scriptures. Swedenborg also recognizes the whole of the Prophets. greater and lesser, from Isaiah to Malachi, in the Old Testament, and the Book of Revelation in the New, as forming part of the same, and containing throughout the spiritual, or internal, sense; while to all the remaining Books of the Canon, he attaches as high a degree of inspiration and authority as that ascribed to the whole of the Scriptures by theologians at the present day. We would also observe in reference to this subject that Dr. Dewey's remark in a previous chapter, that the Scriptures are not the Word of God. but the record of the Word of God,' is, according to the above distinction, wholly correct.

been dictated viva-voce to the different penmen by om they were committed to writing, from the mouth God Himself. Hence for us the question as to the thorship of these books, is forever set at rest; since, h the immortal Locke, we are fully persuaded that ey have only "God for their Author," and are therefore vine in their origin no less than in their contents. At same time, the inquiry as to who were the human inuments in the work, although one, in our opinion, of ry subordinate consequence, is yet perfectly legitimate, d may be attended with no little profit and interest. 2. For it is to be observed, in the second place, that e view here advanced, according to which God alone is be regarded as the author of His own Word, not only es not exclude all human agency and instrumentality om the work of composing the Holy Scriptures, in the rm in which we have them in our Bibles, but on the ntrary presupposes these as absolutely essential, even the case of the Word Itself, for the adequate presenting the Divine Truth in a manner suitable to the apprension of finite human minds; nay, renders it highly obable and important that many and various writers, ing at different periods of the world's history, and iting, as it were, each in his own peculiar style and anner, and, in general, according to his own conceptions things, should be employed by the Divine Author and evealer, in order that the human as well as the Divine ement, might, as we showed from Swedenborg, in our st chapter, to be actually the case, be fitly represented the Holy Word. This argument has thus been clearly ated by a well-known New Church author, from whose 1 See Appendix, Note A.