tations such as He endured when on earth. And in becoming regenerated it is necessary for us to endure similar temptations. It is necessary that we should be assailed as He was by the powers of darkness, and that we should resist them in the strength of the Lord :thus that we should take up our cross and follow Him. For in no other way can the life of self-love be extinguished, and the loves of heaven be implanted within Hence the Lord saith: "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; and whosoever will lose his life for my sake, shall find it." (Mat. xvi. 24, 25.)

us.

It may also be understood, from what has been said, how the Lord bore our sins and carried our iniquities; for these are all evils from hell; and the Lord in glorifying the Human, bore the assaults of all the hells; and He bears their assults now--He fights for us and in us against infernal spirits, as often as we look to Him and shun evils as sins. Upon this subject Swedenborg remarks thus in the Arcana Celestia n. 9937:

"That it is said of the Lord, that He carried sins for the human race, it is known in the Church, but still it is unknown what is evidentiy carrying iniquities and sins; it is believed by some that it denotes, that He took into Himself the sins of the human race, and suffered Himself to be condemned even to the death of the cross, and that thus, because damnation for sins was cast upon Him, mortals are liberated from damnation; also that damnation was taken away by the Lord through the fulfilling of the law, since the law would have damned every one, who did not fulfil it; but by carrying iniquity are not meant those things, since every man's deeds remain with him after death, and then he is judg ed according to their quality either to life or to death; and therefore they cannot be taken away by transfer to another who carries them; hence it is evident that by carrying iniquities something else is meant; but what is meant may be manifest from the carrying itself of iniquities or of sins by the Lord; for the Lord carries those things when He fights for man against the hells,

for man of himself cannot fight against them, but the Lord alone doeth this, also continually for every man, with a difference according to the reception of Divine Good and Divine Truth: the Lord when He was in the world fought against all the hells, and altogether subdued them; hence also He was made justice; thus He redeemed those from damnation, who receive Divine Good and truth from Himself: unless this had been effected by the Lord, no flesh could have been saved, for the hells are continually with man, and have dominion over him, so far as the Lord doth not remove them; and He so far removes them, as man desists from evils ; he who once conquers the hells, conquers them to eternity and that this might be effected by the Lord, He made His Human [principle] Divine; He therefore who alone fights for man against the hells, or what is the same thing, against evils and falses, for these are from the hells, He is said to carry sins, for he alone sustains that burden the reason why by carrying sins is also signified the removal of evils and falses from those who are in good is, because this is a consequence, for so far as the hells are removed from man, so far evils and falses are removed, for the latter and the former, as was said are from the hells; evils and falses are sins and iniquities."

From what has been said in this lecture, it may be seen not only that the doctrine of the New Church concerning the Atonement is in agreement both with reason and Scripture, but that it is also of the highest practical importance. It is the doctrine of the deification of the Lord's Human, and involves the whole doctrine of man's regeneration. It teaches us how the Human and the Divine were brought at-one in the Lord, and thence how the natural and the spiritual man are to be brought at-one in us. It teaches how the Lord put off the creaturely Human derived from the mother and put on a Divine Human from the Father, and thence how we are to "put off the old man with his deeds," and to "put on the new man which is renewed after the image of Him that created us." It teaches how Divine Love and

Divine Wisdom were brought at-one in the Divine Humanity, and thence how the will and the understanding or goodness and truth are to be brought at-one in our minds. It teaches how the Lord sanctified Himself, and to what end-" that we also might be sanctified through the truth." Thus it teaches that we become images and likenesses of the Lord only in the degree that we follow Him in the regeneration;-in the degree that we shun evils as sins, and thus have charity and faith united in our minds,-our natural brought atone with our spiritual man and our wills brought at-one with the Lord's will. And that so far as we love and love to do the truth, we "receive the at-one-ment " and are saved by the blood of Christ.

LECTURE X.

THE DOCTRINE OF THE NEW JERUSALEM CHURCH CONCERNING THE RESURECTION, WITH A BRIEF VIEW OF THE SPIRITUAL WORLD.

THERE IS A NATURAL BODY, AND THERE IS A SPIRITUAL BODY." 1. Cor. xv. 44.

It was stated in our last lecture that truth always receives a complexion, more or less strongly colored, from the character of the mind into which it falls. As a man must see natural objects with his own eyes if he see them at all, so he must apprehend truth with his own understanding if he apprehend it at all. And since, if the eye be diseased, it may see objects double, distorted, variously colored, or in great obscurity, so if the understanding be perverted, it will either not see the truth at all, or see it very obscurely, or in a strangely colored and distorted form. Thus the appearance, to any one, of absolute truth, must ever depend on the character or state of his own mind. If spiritual truths fall into minds of a sordid mould, straightway they are materialized. Like the minds which receive them, the truths themselves become "of the earth, earthy."

Thus when the Lord said unto his disciples, "Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees," (Mat. xvi. 6,) they supposed that He spake of the leaven of material bread," and reasoned among themselves, saying, it is because we have taken no bread (v. 7.) When He spake to the woman of Samaria who came to draw water at Jacob's well, and

said unto her, "If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, give me to drink, thou wouldst have asked of Him and He would have given thee living water;" the woman, supposing that He referred to natural water, replied, "Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep: from whence then hast thou that living water? Art thou greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle?" (John iv. 10, 11, 12.) When He said to the Jewish ruler, "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God," Nicodemus supposed that He referred to natural birth, and replied, "How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?" (John iii. 3, 4.) And when on another occasion He declared "I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world," the Jews supposed that He spake of material flesh, and therefore strove among themselves saying, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" (John vi. 51, 52.) And even "his disciples murmured at it," thinking it "an hard saying." Wherefore Jesus said unto them, "It is the spirit that quickeneth: the flesh profiteth nothing; the words that I speak unto you are spirit and are life." (v 63.)

Such is the prevailing tendency of the natural man to materialize the things of heaven. As the apostle hath well said, "he receiveth not the things of the spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." (1 Cor. ii. 14.) He is ever ready to drag down the spritual truths of the Word to a level with his own carnal conceptions. Hence it is written: "If thine eye be single (or sound) thy whole body shall be full of light; but if thine eye be evil (or diseased) thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!" (Mat. vi. 22, 23.) This is an eternal law of the human mind.