preted only by the divine science of correspondences. Sunday morning, July 28, The New Dispensation, or "the set time come" for the accomplishment of prophecy. Sunday evening, July 28, "The barren fig tree cursed.' The numerous dificulties in the divine narrative removed.-Monday evening, July 29, The doctrine of the resurrection of man; Is it a resurrection of the material or spiritual body? and when does it take place?- Wednesday evening, July 31, The Lord's Second Coming; Is the supposition that this event will involve the destruction of the earth, and the visible firmament with the sun, moon, and stars, defensible by Scripture and reason; or is it not? Thursday evening, August 1, The principal objections to the doctrines of the New Church answered. In addition to the above, the announced course, the rev. gentleman delivered two good practical discourses on the following Sunday, August the 4th. Of the whole of these lectures we can say they were well chosen, and the subjects most ably elucidated. The one on "the true character of the Word of God," arrested the attention of the whole congregation for a period of nearly two hours, and evidently made a deep impression; and the same may be said of that on the resurrection. With the exception of one or two persons, whose prejudices had no doubt been engrafted in youth, and perpetuated with increasing tenacity through an age of error, and who, on Monday evening, July 22, left before the lecture on the Atonement was finished, there was the most indisputable evidence of surprise and approval. In these lectures the most important doctrines of the New Church were set forth with logical coherence, and the conclusions arrived at were amply supported by Scripture proofs, without any cause of offence to the members of other religious communities. While all of them were expressly suitable to strangers, they were equally interesting and instructive to the members of the Church, by whom, for their clear demonstrations of truths and charitable spirit, they will long be remembered, and, we trust, be imitated. On Tuesday, July 30, a coffee meeting was held in the library of the Church, which, at only two days notice, was attended by nearly 100 members and their friends. After tea, an interesting discussion, the subject of which was opened by Mr. Madeley, and followed up by other speakers, enlisted the attention of the company until half-past nine o'clock in the evening. Such meetings have been for many years held monthly in this city, but a more interesting one than the above has seldom if ever been enjoyed. The whole evening shewed an intense and undivided interest in the doctrines of the Church and its welfare, and afforded additional proof, if any were wanting, of the unity of its members, and of their zealous coöperation in its support. In ORDINATION OF D. T. DYKE. agreement with the unanimous resolution passed at the General Conference in London, held in August last, Mr. David Thomas Dyke was, on Sunday morning, the 18th. ult., ordained into the ministry of the New Church, by the Rev. T. Goyder. The ordination took place at Norwich, and Mr. Dyke was attended to the altar by six members of the Norwich Society. After the ceremony, Mr. Goyder delivered an affectionate and impressive ordination charge from Malachi ii. 7, " For the priest's lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth, for he is the messenger of the Lord of Hosts." The Church was well filled on the occasion, and the people appeared to be much impressed with the service. Mr. Dyke preached in the evening to a large and attentive congregation, from 2 Sam. v. 8. OBITUARY. Died, May 4th, 1844, at Quidhampton, near Salisbury, after a lingering illness of many years, borne throughout with most exemplary fortitude and Christian resignation, Mrs. THEOPHILA DYKE, aged 74 years. She was the relict of Mr. David Dyke, a notice of whose obi G. tuary appeared in our pages in May, 1839. As an individual she was much and deservedly respected by a numerous circle of acquaintance, and as a member of the Church, her loss will be greatly felt by the Society to which she belonged. D. T. D. EARTHQUAKES IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD, OR GREAT CHANGES IN THE STATE OF THE CHURCH. "And the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air; and there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, It is done. And there were voices, and thunders, and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great."-Rev. xvi. 17, 18. The pouring out of the vial of the seventh angel into the air, signifies the inflowing [of divine truth] from the Lord into all things collectively pertaining to the men of the Reformed Church; by the air, is signified, all things relating to perception and thought, and thus to their faith, for faith is of thought, according to the perception of the understanding.Apoc. Rev. 708. The great voice out of the temple of heaven from the throne, saying, It is done, signifies the manifestation by the Lord, that all things of the Church are devastated, and that the last judgment is at hand; by a great voice coming out of the temple of heaven, is signified a manifestation by the Lord from the inmost heaven; by a great voice, manifestation; and by the temple, the inmost heaven. It is done, signifies consummation, i. e. devastation.-Ap. Rev. 709. And there were voices, and lightnings, and thunders, signifies ratiocinations, falsifications of truth, and arguings, grounded in the falsities of evil in the Church, among those who are in faith alone, and who turn away from reflecting upon the evils in themselves, because they have no inclination to desist from them, even if they come to a knowledge of them.-Ap. Rev. 710. And there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great, signifies, as it were, concussions, paroxysms, inversions, and casting down from heaven of every thing relating to the Church.-Ap. Rev. 711. Earthquakes signify changes of state in the Church, because the earth signifies the Church; and the trembling motion, or agitation, the quakings and concussions in the Church.—Ap. Rev. 331. By famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in divers places, is signified that there would be no longer any knowledge of good and truth, and thus that the state of the Church would be changed, which is an earthquake.-A.C. 3353. Inasmuch as this is spoken of the first state of the Church's perversion, it is said, the end is not yet, and that these things are the beginning of sorrows.-A.C. 3354. That earthquakes, in the internal sense, denote a change of the state of the Church, appears from the signification of the term earth as denoting the Church, and from the signification of the term motion, with which it is associated, as denoting change of state, in the present case, as to things appertaining to the Church, viz., as to good and truth. —A.C. 3355. The ground and reason why motion denotes change of state, is, because motion is effected in space and in time, and in the other life there is no idea of space and time, but, in its stead, an idea of state.A.C. 3356. An earthquake signifies the perversion of the Church; and a great earthquake, a remarkable change of the state of the Church.-Ap. Exp. 400, 674. An extraordinary and unexpected alteration, civil or ecclesiastical, is represented by a great earthquake.-Cruden's Concordance. "Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven. And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain."-Heb. xii. 26, 27. If we trace the idea of the word earthquake by the aid of a Concordance, and compare it with its definitions in the writings of Swedenborg, we may acquire some rational perceptions of its proper use and accurate signification wherever it occurs, as a spiritual term, in relation to mental phenomena, throughout the holy Scriptures; and we may also observe its analogical meaning in reference to the state of the Church in man, whether individually or socially considered. It will thus be seen, that the abstract idea elicited is confirmatory of the specific interpretation, the interior sense being translucent and demonstrative of the spiritual signification of the term. The precision of the abstract idea is retained and supported wherever it occurs; for while the primary and specific idea is preserved in the mind, a meaning is obtained, which is rational and consistent, and if collated with the other particulars in which each series is connected, it will then appear ample and demonstrative; we thus see the grounds of the analogy, or rather, the corres pondence, in the specific interpretation or primary root of the idea, and as this is unfolded, by the other particulars which are developed in the Apocalypse, we arrive at the confirmation, in the signs of the times, which the present age so fully establishes. The interpretation of the term Earthquake, as elucidated by our author in the Apocalypse Revealed, if considered in relation to the Christian or Reformed Church, is remarkably singular and particular. It affords the best commentary we can possess of the rapid movements in the world, and in the passing events which we daily witness and explore; and these are of such a character as to claim the deep and serious examination of the professing members of the Lord's New Church. It is only within a few years that the causes and uses of earthquakes have been rationally understood or considered, and that the attention of learned and scientific persons has been drawn to the subject. Investigations of this kind have attracted the notice of students in geology. If the amount of information from this source is small, yet the little that has been ascertained is confirmatory of the views maintained by the interpretions of our author;* and they are calculated to assist the mind in some further and juster conclusions upon this point. The spiritual interpretation as deduced from the term earthquake, is not only more easily admitted, but also more fully recognized than at the period when this exposition first appeared in 1766. The more enlarged and correct views of creation, and the silent operation of causes progressively at work in the bowels of the earth, which were then unknown, are now discovered to be in harmony with the principles unfolded by Swedenborg; so that new light has broken forth in circles and by mediums where it was least expected, and confirmations are thus discovered, in principles, which were before supposed to be arbitrary and fanciful. The changes occurring on the surface of the earth are admitted to be in harmony with the progressions of a law of order, so that the creative energies of the divine operation are not impeded for a single moment; for in considering the works of creation, space and time are to be removed from our thought, as the infinite things unfolded in the particulars of creation exist only indefinitely with us, by which they appear as in an image; the "invisible things of God being thus understood by the things that are made," by a law of divine analogy subsisting between them.+ The *"The causes of earthquakes have not as yet been satisfactorily explained, but they are now generally allowed to be connected with volcanic agency."-Chambers's Information for the People, Vol. II. p. 20. + See Divine Love and Wisdom, 155. analogical interpretation of Scripture is thus preserved and extended; it is in fact confirmed by scientific conclusions; and it seems as if the crisis were fast approaching,* when the law of interpretation respecting the style in which the Sacred Scriptures are written must undergo a thorough revision and investigation;† for at present no fixed principle is acknowledged as to the nature of divine inspiration, and from hence has arisen "the interminable controversies which have divided, and must still continue to divide, the Christian community," The term Earthquake, when considered in relation to the law of correspondence as interpreted by Swedenborg, is appropriate to its pri mitive use and signification by the Apostle Paul in the Epistle to the Hebrews (xii. 26.), in which the like idea is entertained, with a similar application to the then present state of the Christian Church. The shaking of the earth, and of the heavens also, denoting the destruction and final overthrow of heathen idolatry, and the total abolition of the Levitical worship, as preparatory to the establishment of the kingdom of Christ in the world, which is the communication of his own goodness and truth to the souls of men, preparatory to the fuller development of these divine communications at His second coming in the power, and glory, and efficacy of His Word. The changes now in progress are alike declaratory and in harmony with all the arrangements of the same "The full and complete system of organic life now on the globe includes all the effects of land and sea, warmth and cold, divided regions, and all the other things which are the diversifying causes of nature; and it is no wonder if, before this land was raised from the deep, and the present distinction of natural regions was produced, there was not the same extreme variety of natural productions. Till that variety was occasioned on the globe, it was not the fitting place for intellectual man that it now is; for, surely among the other uses and correlations of the visible creation, this is one,-by its inexhaustible diversity and ever growing newness, to interest with a perpetual charm the growing mind of a rational being, and lead him by a flowery path to the cultivation of the divine things within him, which raise him above all that his senses make known, and thus to fit him for the highest contemplation of which he is capable, namely, the relation which he bears to the unseen AUTHOR of all this visible material world." "Thus to the mind of a geologist, nature is one glorious book; one system of appointed and associated laws, independent of time and exempt from change, but operating under conditions, which vary with time and place. The past has prepared the present; the present explains the past, and points to the future."-Professor J. Phillips' Supplementary Note to the Rev. Professor Powell's Connexion of Natural and Divine Truth, p. 309, quoted in Dr. J. P. Smith's Lectures, p. 86. See the notices of Dr. Henderson's work on Divine Inspiration, Intel. Repos. Vol. IV. 1836-37, p. 413, 530, 653, where this subject is very fully and satisfactorily elucidated. |