to speak, and to act, just as he pleaseth, having nothing to guard against but worldly censures and punishments." I then asked, whether such persons assert also, that it is allowable to think of God, as not being omnipresent and omniscient: and the angels replied, "This also is allowable according to their maxims, since God, with such as have obtained faith, and are thereby purified and justified, doth not look at any thing belonging to their thought and will, and they still retain in the inner chambers, or superior regions of their mind or faculties (ingenium), that faith which they had received in its first act or operation, which act, they insist may sometime or other return without their knowing any thing of the matter. These tenets are the things represented by the small head, which they draw into the fore parts of the body, and also insert in the great head, whilst they talk with the laity; for their discourses with such persons do not proceed from the small head, but from the great one, which appears in front with a face resembling that of a man and they converse with them from the Word about love, charity, good works, the commandments of the decalogue, and repentance, in which discourses they quote from the Word almost all that is said on those subjects; but at times they put the small head into the great one, and think with themselves in the former, that these duties are not to be performed for the sake of God and salvation, but only with a view to the public good or private advantage. Since however their discourses on such occasions are pleasing and elegant, particularly when they speak about the Gospel, the operation of the Holy Ghost, and the nature of salvation, therefore they appear to their hearers like handsome and comely persons, of a wisdom superior to the rest of mankind; and this is the reason why, as thou observedst, the boys and girls on the decks of the ships gave them delicate food, and other things of value. These then are they whom thou sawest represented as turtles. In the world where thou livest, they are scarce distinguishable from other people,

save in this respect, that they fancy themselves wiser than others, and treat the rest of mankind with contempt, even those who profess the same doctrine respecting faith as themselves, but do not dive so deeply into its mysteries. They carry about them a particular mark or signature in their clothes by which they are known to one another. I shall not tell thee," said my angelic instructor, "what are their sentiments in regard to other subjects connected with their faith, as election, free-will, baptism, and the holy supper, which are such as they never divulge, but yet are known to us in heaven. This however being their nature and quality in the world, and no one being permitted, after death, to think one thing and say another, therefore, when they come into another world, where they cannot refrain from uttering all their wild and extravagant, conceits, they are considered as insane, and are expelled from all societies, and are at length cast down into the bottomless pit, mentioned in the Revelation, chap. ix. 2, where they become corporeal spirits, and appear like Egyptian mummies; for the interiors of their minds contract a hard callous covering, by reason of the barrier which they themselves had placed between the two regions of their minds while in the world. The infernal society consisting of such spirits, is in the neighbourhood of the infernal society of the Machiavelists, and they are continually passing from one to the other, and calling one another fellowcompanions, but they do not stay long with each other, because there is a diversity between them arising from the circumstance, that some sort of religious impression, connected with their notion concerning the act of justification by faith, had been cherished by the former, whilst the Machiavelists had rejected every thing of the kind.

After I had seen these spirits expelled from the societies, and collected together in order to be cast down into the bottomless pit, I observed a ship flying in the air, having

seven sails, and in it officers and sailors clad in purple garments, with caps magnificently adorned with laurel, who exclaimed with a loud voice, "Lo, we are in heaven! We are the truly learned, distinguished above others by our purple robes, and our grand laurel wreaths, because we are the chief of the wise from all the clergy in Europe." I was wondering what this exhibition could mean, when I was informed that it arose from the conceited images, and ideal thoughts, called phantasies, that proceeded from those who had before appeared as turtles, and who were now expelled from every society, as persons insane, and collected in a body into one place. I was straitway seized with a desire to converse with them, and accordingly walked towards the place where they were assembled, and payed my respects to them, and said, "Are ye the people who have separated the internals of men from their externals, and the operation of the Holy Spirit, as being within faith, from its co-operation with man, as having nothing to do with faith, and who have thus separated God from man? Have ye not, by so doing, not only separated charity and its works from faith, as many other teachers among the clergy have done, but also faith itself, as to its manifestation in the sight of God, from man? But in discussing this subject with you, which do you prefer, that I should draw my arguments from reason or from the Sacred Scripture?" And they said, "Begin with reason." So I proceeded, saying, "How is it possible for the internal and external of man to be separated from each other? Who doth not or may not see plainly, by virtue of a perception common to all men, that all the interiors of man proceed and are continued to his exteriors, and even to what is most external, in order to produce their effects and perform their works? Do not internal things exist for the sake of external, that they may be terminated by them, and subsist in them, and thus exist, just as a column doth upon its pedestal? How plain is it to see, that unless there was such a continuation and consequent conjunction, the things most

external must be dissolved, and melt to nothing, like bubbles in the air? Who can deny that the interior operations of God in man are myriads of myriads, utterly unknown to man himself? And what signifies it whether they be unknown or not, provided only that what is extreme and most external be known, in which man, with his thought and will, is together with God? But let us illustrate this matter by an example: Is a man at all acquainted with the interior operations of his faculty of speech, as, how the lungs draw in the air, and fill with it the vesicles, the bronchiæ, and the lobes; how they emit it into the trachea, and there convert it into sound; how the sound is modified in the glottis by the assistance of the larynx; and how the tongue afterwards articulates it, and the lips complete the articulation, in order to its becoming speech? Do not all these interior operations, of which man is altogether unconscious, exist for the sake of the last, or most external, which is articulate discourse? If you remove or separate any one of those internal operations, so as to destroy its connection with the last, or most external, would it not be as impossible for man to speak, as for a stock or a stone? Take another example : The two hands are the ultimate or extreme parts of the human body; but do not the interiors, which are continued to them, descend from the head through the neck, and also through the breast, the shoulders, the arms, and the forearms? are there not innumerable muscular textures, innumerable orders of moving fibres, innumerable fascicles of nerves and blood-vessels, with several articulations of bones, with their ligaments and membranes, of which man is utterly unconscious? And yet are not all and every one of these unknown parts necessary for the operation of the hands? Supposing those interior parts to be reflected back to the left or right, about the elbow-joint, and not to be continued below, would not the hand in such case necessarily fall from the joint, and putrify like something inanimate, that was

separated from all connection with the source of its life? Doubtless, under such circumstances, it would be with the hand, as it is with the body when a man is beheaded. Just so would it be also with the human mind, and with its two lives, the will and the understanding, supposing the divine operations which relate to faith and charity, should stop in the middle of their course, and not proceed by continued connection to the man himself; in such case man would be not only a brute animal, but a rotten branch broken off from its parent stock. Thus far I have explained to you the dictates of reason in regard to this subject; I shall now shew you, if ye are disposed to hear me, that the Sacred Scripture inculcateth the same doctrine; for doth not the Lord say, "Abide in Me, and I in you: I am the vine, ye are the branches: he that abideth in Me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit," John xvi. 4, 5; doth not fruit mean good works, which the Lord worketh by man, and which man worketh of (ex) himself from (a) the Lord? Again, the Lord saith, “Behold! I stand at the door and knock; if any man will open the door, I will come in to him, and sup with him, and he with Me," Rev. iii. 20. Doth not the Lord give pounds and talents to the intent that men should trade with them, and make profit of them, and in proportion to such profit should receive eternal life? Matt. xxv. 14 to 34, Luke xix. 13 to 26. And again, Doth not He give to every one according to the work which he doeth in His vineyard? Matth. xx. 1 to 17. passages selected out of many; sheets with extracts from the ought to bear fruit like a tree, obedience to the commandments, that he ought to love God and his neighbour, and the like. I am well aware, however, that your own intelligence, grounded in your proprium or self-hood, cannot have any thing in common with the contents of the Word, according to their true and proper sense,

But these are only a few for it would be easy to fill Word, insisting that man that he ought to work in