ly prepared for the society of angels, the moment they quit the body? Do not the greatest part of mankind leave this world in a sort of intermediate state, neither entirely good nor utterly bad? Where then can they resuscitate in the other life but in an intermediate world? But though most who depart out of the world are in this mixed state, they nevertheless all belong to one or other of two entirely different classes. All are either inwardly good, though they have some imperfections not entirely surmounted in their external man; or are inwardly wicked, though they have in the external some appearances of good induced by habit and profession in society. In both cases, then, every thing in the external which does not agree with the love and faith, or no-faith, of the internal, is to be put off. This is effected, by divine means provided for the purpose, in the intermediate state and world. But, as already observed, no one is now permitted to tarry there very long; and either heaven itself, or hell itself, is now speedily the portion of all.

I introduced the discussion, in the present PART of this SECTION, on the necessity for an intermediate world and state, and on the Scripture-proof of its existence, with a quotation from the the learned and intelligent Dr. T. Burnet, on the folly of Protestants in rejecting such a state, to avoid the Roman Catholic folly of purgatory. I will close the evidences now given, that the doctrine of the New Church on this subject is in agreement with the doctrine of primitive Christianity, with an extract from a more recent author, whose works have but lately been introduced to the British public.

"The universal Christian world," says Dr. Jung-Stilling, in his Theory of Pneumatology, “from the very commencement, believed generally in an invisible world of spirits, which was divided into three different regions: heaven, or the place of blessedness, hell, or the place of torment,-and then a third place, which the Bible calls hades, or the receptacle of the dead; in which those souls which were not ripe for either destination, are fully made meet for that, to which they have most adapted themselves in this life."

After a statement of the ancient theory of the material universe, the author proceeds, "The Bible has nothing to object to the views adopted by the universal Christian Church and the Aristotelian and Platonic philosophy of the schools, which then universally governed the reason of the learned, was also perfectly contented with them. And if here and there a clearsighted individual, who thought for himself, found this or that point impossible, or some fervent Gnostic, on the other side, introduced still more impossibilities into this system of the uni

verse and of spirits, it occasioned a paper war and a charge of heresy; but the principal ideas still continued to stand firmly and canonically in both churches-the eastern Greek, and the western Latin.—

"But ere long, particularly after the age of Constantine the Great, the clergy gradually forgot Christ's golden precept, 'Let the greatest among you be as the least, and him that will bear rule, let him be as a servant.' In opposition to this, they assumed increasing honours, and even strove for the universal government of the world. But having no worldly weapons, or at least very feeble ones, they forged themselves spiritual arms, and the invisible world presented them an inexhaustible armoury.-Hades, which had been hitherto, in itself, an abode devoid of suffering, unless the individual brought anguish and torment in his own bosom into it, was now transformed into a fiery furnace, in which every departed soul that had not rendered itself worthy of canonization, must of necessity be purified, like gold and silver. Now this was a particularly potent means of bringing even the mightiest monarchs, with all their hosts, and every Christian nation, into obedience to the clergy: for the latter asserted, and it was universally believed, that they really had the keys of purgatory, and that by prayers and masses for the dead, for which the took care to be well paid, they were able to deliver the poor soul from it, and to assist it in the attainment of the bliss of heaven.

"Here we arrive at the principal source of the most senseless and revolting superstition, which certainly deserves to be rooted out. But this is not to be accomplished by refusing to give credence to undeniable facts, but by stating the sacred truth in its genuine purity.

"The Christian system of the spiritual and material world, described above, stood for fifteen hundred years unshaken. [ Copernicus, it is noticed, overturned the old system of the material world, and] Luther and his confederates accomplished a mighty revolution in religion. The Holy Scriptures again became the sole criterion of faith and conduct, and the clergy of the Protestant Church renounced all claim to the government of the invisible world: they extinguished the flames of purgatory, and enlarged the bounds of hell by adding hades to it. No middle state, or place of purification, was any longer. believed in, but every departed soul entered immediately on its place of destination, either heaven or hell. They carried this point too far: it was wrong to make a purgatory of hades;

BUT IT WAS ALSO GOING TOO FAR TO DO AWAY WITH HADES TOGETHER WITH PURGATORY."*

* Translation by Jackson, 1834, pp. 11-18.

SECTION IV.

THE LAST JUDGMENT.

PART IV.

The Last Judgment actually accomplished.

Having, in the previous PARTS of this SECTION, given, I venture to hope, sufficient evidence of the truth of our FIRST GENERAL PROPOSITION,-That, according to the Scriptures, the scene of the Last Judgment was to be, not in the natural world, as commoaly believed, but in the spiritual;-having shewn, in connexion with this truth, that there is strong proof of the fact, that more than one General Judgment has already, in that world, been accomplished; and that there is, in that world, an intermediate region which is the specific scene of all General and Particular Judgments :-We are now to proceed to the confirmation of our SECOND GENERAL PROPOSITION; That the Last Judgment has, in the spiritual world, been executed accordingly. Here I am to endeavour to shew, that, independently of the assertions of Swedenborg, there are various considerations tending to evince, that the Judgment has been accomplished. First, be it observed, that according to our views, there always exists, how little soever men in general may be aware of it, the closest communication between the spiritual and the natural worlds. Man, as to the interiors of his mind, is a spiritual being, and in constant connexion with his like in the spiritual world; though of this he cannot, except in very extraordinary eases, be sensible, while his spiritual part is invested with a natural covering, which is the seat of his conscious perceptions while he lives on earth. This is, in fact, only a different way of stating the doctrine generally received among Christians, that man receives influence both from heaven and hell: and how can it be otherwise, if the Apostolic declarations are true, that angels" are ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation ;" and that," the devil," or the infernal powers in the aggregate, goeth about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he shall devour." But though the spring of all man's thoughts and actions are thus either in heaven or in hell, his most immediate unearthly associates are spirits in the intermediate state or region between heaven and hell; all of whom belong, indeed, either to the heavenly or to the infernal

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kingdom, and are, as to their interiors, either angels or devils, though, not having yet entirely put off their external state, they have not entered into their final abode. Man himself, as to the interiors of his mind, is a spirit or this kind; with this difference, that although he is every moment of his life in connexion, according to the nature of his ruling inclinations, with heaven or with hell, he is not yet irrevocably bound either to the one or to the other so long as he remains here his ruling love may be changed: and thus he is associated as to his internal part with spirits of both classes, and is not, as they are, incapable of altering his inward state.

If then this view of the subject be correct (and that it is so, will probably further appear in the sequel of this Appeal; and surely it is a view that is highly agreeable to reason); if man be thus so closely connected with the inhabitants of the spiritual world, particularly with those of the intermediate region; it necessarily follows, that any great change in the state of that world, particularly of the intermediate region, must make also an extraordinary change in the state of man as to the interiors of his mind, and induce great alterations in his modes of thinking. It may also be expected, that the effect of such an operation in the spiritual world as that of the General Judgment, must be felt in the natural world also, and that judgments answering to it in importance would take place in the civil affairs of the world, particularly among the nations belonging to the professing church. If it be true, as would follow from the above statement, that the interior causes of all things are in the spiritual world, it will follow, that the performance of such a work as the Last Judgment there, must, sooner or later, be marked in the natural world also with corresponding effects.

In the second place, I would observe, that the conclusion respecting the effects, in the natural world, of the judgment in the spiritual, thus arrived at theoretically, has been practically confirmed in all former instances. As far as the annals of mankind enable us to determine, never was a judgment performed in the spiritual world, but corresponding effects resulted in the natural world also. If it be true, as generally believed, that the last posterity of the Adamic church was swallowed up by a flood, here was a catastrophe in the natural world indeed: and if, as noticed above, there is reason to conclude, that by the history of the flood is not meant that a flood of waters really overwhelmed the world, there still cannot be a doubt that greater calamities, of which, in a figurative natural sense, a flood of waters is an expressive emblem, did overtake the abandoned nations. So at the consummation of the Noetic and establishment of the Israelitish church, when a representative coming of the

Lord was exhibited by his presence in the cloudy pillar, great judgments were literally executed on the Egyptians and the Canaanites, at that time the principal nations of the consummated Noetic church; as had previously been executed, soon after the calling of Abraham, on Sodom and Gomorrah. But here again we find our most unequivocal example in the judgments that fell upon the Jews. We have seen that a judgment was certainly executed by the Lord in the spiritual world while he abode personally here: and we know that, some time afterwards, the most dreadful calamities ovetook the whole Jewish nation; indeed, the whole face of the world was soon afterwards entirely changed. We may conclude the judgment in the spiritual world to have been finished at the Lord's ascension: and thirty years after this event, the troubles broke out in Judæa, which issued in the destruction of Jerusalem, the desolation of the whole country, and the end of the national existence of the Jews. It is to be expected, that the changes in the natural world, which is the world of effects, must be some time subsequent to the changes from which they proceed in the spiritual world, which is the world of causes: and from this example it would appear as if about thirty years were the period, in which a judgment in the spiritual world begins to give rise to corresponding judg ments in the world of nature.

Now as we evidently see, that, sooner or later, such judgments in the spiritual world, have, in all former instances, been followed with great troubles in the natural world, we may reasonably conclude, that the performance in the spiritual world of the last judgment of all, would in due time, be followed by the usual visitations in this scene of existence.

Have then any visitations that may probably be supposed, by their magnitude and extraordinary character, to have had such an origin, been experienced, within the last half century, by the nations of Christendom? for to them, more particularly, as forming the professing church, must such judgments belong. Do not the recollections of every person who has lived so long immediately rush forward with an affirmative answer? In the wars, and other dreadful calamities, which began with, and rose out of, the French revolution, has not every serious observer of passing events noted features very different from those which attended the wars and convulsions of former times,-of all times later than the first full establishment of Christianity? Will he not allow them to have been such as are fully commensurate with the ideas suggested by the "distress of nations and perplexity, causing men's hearts to fail them for fear," announced by the Lord as among the signs of his Second Coming? which coming, we have seen, in the natural world, is a consequence