the copy-book sentences laid up in our memories from the period of youth. CCXXI. The ability to derive every impulse of will and thought from the Lord, essentially constitutes the angelic character; and it is the actual reception of every impulse from the Lord, that constitutes the ground of angelic happiness. How few religionists consider, that to enjoy this holy and blessed state hereafter, it must have its commencement here, by the detection, and rejection, of every impulse that arises from contrary sources. CCXXII. It is an honour to fill any office by which service is rendered to the Church. But while all agree in this sentiment, each one should ascertain whether he means the honour that is conferred by man, in the form of a compliment to his integrity or ability; or "the honour which cometh from God only." The former impedes, while the latter promotes a true faith, according to the Lord's saying, "How can ye believe which receive honour one from another, and seek not the honour which cometh from God only?" 66 CCXXIII. The servant of the Lord must not strive, but be gentle, and patient, in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves."-" It is not according to the laws of order, that any one should be persuaded instantaneously of the truth, or that truth should become instantaneously so confirmed as to leave no doubt whatever concerning it. Truth thus instantaneously impressed would not be rational but persuasive truth, which as to its quality is hard, unyielding, without the capability of extension, and unreceptive of good." (A. C. 7298.) (To be continued.) JUSTIFYING RIGHTEOUSNESS. IN the Patriot newspaper for May 22, 1845, I found the following extract given as a gem, since it occupies a place in that paper called THE CORNER." The Patriot is the principal organ of the English Dissenters, and hence we are warranted in drawing the conclusion that this extract fully expresses their views of that righteousness which justifies man in the sight of his Maker : 'Except a man's character be very bad, it is not easy to convince him of the necessity of being better. Many speak as if they actually dreaded, as well as disliked, to be very righteous: thus deeming it not only unnecessary, but in some way dangerous, or discreditable, to be so. No wonder, therefore, that a justifying righteousness should be far from their thoughts, seeing a personal one is thus lightly valued, and even laughed at, when it is zealous of good works.-ROBERT PHILIP." From the above it would appear that the orthodox dissenters consider a personal righteousness, a righteousness which is zealous of good works, as a totally different thing from a justifying righteousness. Let us, then, very briefly inquire what the Scriptures affirm respecting a justifying righteousness? In the prayer of Solomon, at the dedication. of the Temple, we find the following words:" If any man trespass against his neighbour, and an oath be laid upon him to cause him to swear, and the oath come before thine altar in this house: then hear thou in heaven, and do, and judge thy servants, condemning the wicked, to bring his ways upon his head; and justifying the righteous, to give him according to his righteousness." (1 Kings viii. 31, 32.) 66 Will Robert Philip, or will the collective wisdom of the English Dissenters, undertake to prove that the justifying righteousness here spoken of is not a personal one?" Again we read:-"For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified." (Rom. ii. 13.) Does this language, or does it not, in the strictest sense of the terms, imply personal obedience? Let the reader just run his eye over the whole of this chapter, and if that reader were Robert Philip himself, he must reply in the affirmative. What, then, becomes of his impersonal justifying righteousness? There was a sect among the Jews, who justified themselves before men;—a sect who certainly neither "dreaded," nor disliked to be very righteous;" a sect who "trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others;" a sect who were punctilious in their observance of trifles, while they neglected the weightier matters of the law, and respecting whom the Lord said to his disciples :-" I say unto you, that except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven." (Matt. v. 20.) Now here the question recurs again,-what is the righteousness here mentioned as qualifying the disciples for entrance into the kingdom of heaven? "Not our righteousness, but the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, and received by faith alone," would be the reply of Robert Philip, and of all his brethren. All we ask then is, why the Lord's assertion did not stand thus? For I say unto you, that except My righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven. ΙΑΚΩΒΟΣ, THE SWEDENBORG ASSOCIATION, THE LONDON PRINTING SOCIETY, AND SWEDENBORG'S MANUSCRIPTS. NO. II. In our last we took occasion to urge some of the claims of the Swedenborg Association upon the attention of our readers, and at the same time to give an account of a work which the Association may perhaps be called upon to publish. And we alluded also to the fact, that several documents bearing upon Swedenborg's life and history had lately been discovered at Lincoping, in Sweden, and were now proffered to the Association, whenever it saw fit to lay them before the world. We have now the satisfaction of placing before our readers a more detailed account of these documents :: ORIGINAL LETTERS AND PAPERS BY EMANUEL SWEDENBORG. 1. Petenda Societatis Literariæ 2. Project for a New Society of Sciences at Upsala 3. Plan and description of a flying machine 4. On the causes of things 5. On the improvement of trade and manufactures 6. On the establishment of Saltpetre-Works in Sweden 8. A new method of sailing against the wind 9. Machinery for carrying vessels against the stream 10. A carrying (?) machine (Dragmaschin)* 11. Memorandum on some minor trials and experiments 12. On different sorts of soils and muds 13. Project and calculation for a pile-driving machine 14. Proportiones Aërometricæ, and new stereometric rules 15. Description of a crane 16. New way of discovering mines and treasures 17. New method of finding longitudes by lunar observations + 18. On mechanical inventions 19. An anthropological treatise 20. On the sulphureous quality of the atmosphere. Original Letters from Swedenborg to Berzelius. 21. A letter to Bishop Berzelius, (the brother-in-law of Swedenborg) respecting his appointment as Assessor of the Board of Mines 22. Ditto on a peculiar air pump to be worked by water 23. Ditto on mechanical inventions * This, we consider, must be a drawing machine.-Ed. This work is probably his Methodus Nova, &c. See the proposal by the Associa tion in our last number. 24. A letter containing information respecting Charles XII., 1715 25. Ditto on calculating interest by means of a triangle, 1716 26. Ditto on the regulation of salaries in a mathematical society, 1716 27. Ditto on his invention of a method of finding the longitude, 1716 28. Ditto on the construction of a canal between Gottenburgh and Lake Hjelmaren, 1717 29. Ditto on the same canal, and on salt-works, 1717 30. Ditto containing a project for an observatory at Upsala, 1717 31. Ditto on salt and salt-sources, 1718 32. Ditto on a water-communication between Kattegat and Nottkoping, 1718 33. Ditto on the King's campaign in Norway, 1718 (Four Letters) 34. Ditto on astronomical hypotheses, 1719 (Two Letters) 35. Ditto on the decimal system of money and measures, 1719 36. Ditto on the lymphatics, 1720 37. Ditto on the establishment of a lottery, 1720 38. Ditto on his (Swedenborg's) anatomy, 1720 39. Ditto on his determination with respect to fire and metals, to penetrate a primis incunabulis usque ad maturitatem," 1720 40. Ditto containing literary notices aud communications, 1722-1724, (Six Letters) Next follows a list of "Treatises written after 1721," but of which, as they appear to have been published in Swedenborg's Miscellaneous Observations, we forbear to detail the titles. These papers, however, should we succeed in procuring them, may be of service in the translation of the latter work, which, as will be seen in our last number, is immediately contemplated by the Swedenborg Association. It is needless to dwell upon the advantage of securing the above letters and documents as helps towards a good Biography of Swedenborg, and we hope that the members of the New Church will come forward, and aid the Association to place them speedily before the English readers. We have now the pleasure of communicating a piece of good news which more particularly concerns the London Printing Society. The following letter has been received by one of the committee of that valuable Society, from Baron Berzelius, the distinguished Secretary to the Royal Academy of Sciences of Stockholm. "Stockholm, September 12, 1845. "SIR,-I intreat you to excuse the long delay of my letter in answer to your request to borrow from the Academy of Sciences the Index to Swedenborg's Memorabilia. "The cause of this delay is, that after a long illness during the past winter, my physician advised me to go to Carlsbad to drink the waters. I left Stockholm at the beginning of June, and did not return till the end of August. Your letter arrived after my departure, and remained till my return, with many others which had arrived during my absence. "I communicated your request to the Academy at its sitting yesterday evening, and the Academy cheerfully agrees to grant it. But as there is no particular Index to the First Part of the Diarium, we send you Four Volumes of Index Memorabilium, in order that the editor may himself look for what he wants. "The Minister for Foreign Affairs, who is at this time the President of the Academy, has kindly volunteered to send the four volumes by the first opportunity to our Minister in London, who will hand them over to you. Have the goodness to give him your acknowledgment when you receive them. "It is with the most perfect esteem that I have the honor to be, Sir, your very humble and obedient servant, "JAC. BERZILIUS." These four volumes were duly received on the 7th of October, and on a close inspection were found to be an Index not only to the whole of the DIARY, but also to the whole of the ADVERSARIA. They are already on their way to Dr. Tafel, and will probably, when printed, make an 8vo volume as large as the Index to the Arcana Calestia. They were accompanied by the following kind and able letter from Dr. Svedbom, the Librarian to the Royal Academy : Stockholm, 15th Sept., 1845. DEAR SIR,-Out of the Library of the Academy of Sciences I have now the honor to send you, as a member of the Committee of the Society for Printing and Publishing the Writings of the Hon. Emanuel Swedenborg, the four volumes containing the original manuscript Index to Swedenborg's Diary, which the Academy has consented to lend to the said Society during one year. The four volumes, in oblong quarto, and bound in old parchment bindings, are signed on the back with Roman numbers, IV., V., VI. and VII., and by a later hand with the inscription Index Memorabilium, and with numbers 42, 43, 44 and 45. The following is a short description of the contents of these volumes, along with a few observations thereupon: The first volume, signed IV. and 42, begins with an alphabetical index comprising, from Abdomen to Zelus, 105 leaves, which are not numbered in a continued series, but only paged separately for every letter of the alphabet. After the 105th leaf the Index is continued without any alphabetical order on 31 leaves, paged from 1 to 62. This latter Index, as well as the numbering of the pages, is continued through the other three volumes, so that The second volume, signed V. and 43, contains pages 63-439; The third volume, signed VI. and 44, contains pages 440-816; and The London Printing Scciety has only expressed a wish to obtain the Index to the first part of the Diary. As the Index is not so arranged that any separate part of it refers exclusively to the first part of the Diary, but every article of the Index seems rather to comprehend collectively the whole, or at least a greater part of the Diary, I thought I should the best meet the wishes of the Society by proposing to the Academy to send you all the four volumes together. As to these volumes it is to be observed, that the old Roman numbers with which they are signed, most probably are the same numbers which we quoted in the original catalogue, made by the heirs of Emanuel Swedenborg, Theologica, No. ii. But there it is said, that the numbering of the pages is not only continued from the end of vol. IV. through vols. V. VI. and VII., but also through vol. VIII. until page 1301. This last volume is not now to be found in our library. Probably it has been taken out together with the other MSS. by Mr. Nordenskjold, and never restored. |