they had beheld and attended to Him, only as " He who was born king of the Jews," or at best only as the Son of God. They had indeed seen the external miracles which he performed, and they had heard His various discourses both in private and to the multitude, but "their understandings were not yet opened that they might understand the Scriptures," their minds were not enlightened to a spiritual view of that Word which "endureth for ever in the heavens"-they knew not the internal signification of that "Word which was WITH God, and which was God:" yet our Lord upbraids them, not only because they had not acquired a more perfect knowledge of Him, but also because they "Have I had offered up no prayers to heaven in His name!

been so long time with you (saith the Lord) and yet hast thou not known Me, Philip? He that seeth Me, seeth the Father: how "Whatsoever sayest thou then, shew us the Father?" And again: ye shall ask the Father in my NAME, He will give you. Hitherto ye have asked nothing in MY NAME; ask and shall receive, that your joy may be full."

ye

Now, the Lord's Second Advent hath been announced to the world upwards of sixty years: the members of the New Jerusalem profess to believe that the Lord hath again appeared in the power and glory of His own Word, as now opened in its internal sense they have had the Lord a much longer time with them, than the primitive disciples had; some five, some ten, and some of them twenty years: some of them perhaps have been occasionally, like the apostle John, "in the spirit on the Lord's day," when they have had the kingdom of heaven open to their view, and been shewn "those things which should be hereafter." They have been taught the name and nature of God-the end and design of all the miracles which he wrought-the heavenly contents of his Holy Word-the necessity of shunning evils, as being sins against God-and the nature, design, and spirit of prayer. Yet it is to be feared that too many of them are as ignorant of the Lord as the primitive Christians, and that he may say to them as He did to the disciples, "HITHERTO ye have asked nothing in My

name!"

* Those of our readers who are not much acquainted with the views of the New Church will be pleased to understand, that these expresions, applied literally to John, are spiritually, not literally, applicable to members of the New Church.-EDITORS.

When however the Lord has so graciously promised that "if we ask" any thing "in His name," He will do it-when He hath not only shewn us plainly of the Father, but also informed us “that His essence and his name is love;"--when He hath given us, in that prophetic prayer which He taught His disciples, a compendium of all that we can ask or desire in order to make us happy, and hath asssured us that that prophecy shall be fulfilled in every regenerate mind; what can be the reason that we either "ask and receive not," or else that our own hearts upbraid us, because "Hitherto we have asked nothing in the Lord's name?" The reason is, because it is one thing to know the Lord in our understandings, and another thing to ask, desire, or pray to the Father in His name. The one is the dawn only of the regenerate life; but the other is the meridian state thereof; the one is the " Spirit of God moving upon the face of the waters" only, the other is the conclusion of the sixth day's works, when "God saw every thing that He had made, and behold it was very good!"

Our understandings soon acquire a knowledge of the leading truths of Christianity: in the commencement of our religious journey, we are eager in the pursuit of these knowledges; but we then receive them only scientifically: we speedily learn that the Lord Jesus Christ, is the only God-that consequently He alone is to be worshipped; and we are soon convinced, both from reason and revelation, that "God is love." All this knowledge we readily imbibe, and we search eagerly after truth, as after hid treasure. To receive this in our understandings only, is to possess that knowledge which St. Paul says, “puffeth up," though the pursuit thereof is pleasing; but to unite these truths with their corresponding good, to subdue our own proprium, our own evil nature, -and to receive a new name, a new nature, a new will from the Lord, is not so easily accomplished. The head indeed will readily retain the one but the heart is not so willing to submit to the other.

Throughout the whole Word of God, we find particular injunctions and directions respecting the name of the Lord: thus in Exodus: "The Lord whose NAME is jealous, is a jealous God." -in Leviticus: "Thou shalt not profane the NAME of thy God, saith Jehovah."-In Deuteronomy: "That thou mayest fear this glorious and fearful NAME, Jehovah thy God."-So in the Psalms: "The NAME of the God of Jacob defend thee.-In the NAME of God we will set up our banners." We also read in the Decalogue, that,

"the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his NAME in vain." In the gospels likewise our Lord informs us, that "where two or three are gathered together in his NAME, he is in the midst of them;" and the first petition in that Divine Prayer which the Lord taught his disciples, is, that his name may be hallowed or sanctified. From these quotations, and from the general tenor of Scripture, therefore, it is evident, that the bare words of the name Jesus Christ cannot be what is intended; consequently that a petition offered up (according to the general custom) to the Father for the sake of the Son, is not what our Lord meant; for he says, John xvi. 23, "Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in MY NAME, HE will give you;" but in the xiv. ch. 13 ver. "Whatsoever ye shall ask in MY NAME, that will I do."-Why? the Father may be glorified in the Son; for he and the Father are One."

"that

The name of God, therefore, signifies all the quality by which God is worshipped, for God is in his own quality, and is his own quality his essence is the Divine Love: his quality is the Divine Truth thence proceeding, united to the Divine Good; thus with us on earth it is the Word, and also the doctrine of genuine truth and good from the Word, for according thereto is the worship. Now inasmuch as this quality is manifold, for it containeth all things which are from him, therefore he hath many names, and each name involves and expresses his quality in genus and species.

The enlightened scribe of the New Church observes further, on this subject, that "in many passages in the Word, it is said, for the sake of the name of Jehovah, for the sake of the name of the Lord, for the sake of the name of Jesus Christ, and the like. They who do not think beyond the sense of the letter, imagine that name alone is meant in those passages; nevertheless name is not meant, but all that whereby the Lord is worshipped, all which hath relation to love and faith; hence by the name of the Lord in the Word, are meant all the things of love and faith by which he is worshipped. The reason of this originates in the spiritual world: names in use on earth are not there uttered; but the names of the persons of whom they speak, are formed from the idea of all things which are known concerning them, which are compacted into one expression. From these considerations it is evident whence it is that by the name of Jehovah, the

Lord, or Jesus Christ, in the Word, is meant the all of love and faith by which he is worshipped. Inasmuch as by the name of Jehovah, or the Lord, in the spiritual sense, is signified all worship grounded in the good of love and in the truths of faith, therefore in the supreme sense by the name of Jehovah is meant the Lord as to the Divine Human principle, by reason that from his Divine Human proceeds the all of love and faith. Hence also it is evident what is meant in the Lord's Prayer, by Hallowed be thy name, viz. that the Divine Human of the Lord ought to be accounted holy, and worshipped."

Tepidus.

ARGUMENTS ADVANCED BY BISHOP HORNE, FOR THE INTERNAL SENSE OF THE BOOK OF PSALMS.

To the Editors of the Intellectual Repository. GENTLEMEN,

IN some of your late numbers we have been presented with various extracts from writers of esteem, containing arguments and testimonies in favour of some of the most distinguishing sentiments of the New Church. Regarding such collections for the treasury of the New Church as highly useful, since they tend to confirm our heavenly doctrines by widening the basis on which the superstructure of genuine truth is erected, and since they also afford means of access to the minds of those who are yet without, and who are unwilling to look at the truth till it comes recommended to their attention by authority which they respect; 1 herewith transmit a contribution of this sort from the Preface to Bishop Horne's Commentary on the Book of Psalms, in which he strongly advocates the fundamental New-Church doctrine, that the Word of God contains a spiritual sense within the covering of the letter. The Bishop's attempts to develope this sense in the Commentary itself, do not in general go very deep, though they occasionally display striking and beautiful ideas: but his mode of applying his general principle is of little importance: all that we want is his testimony to the principle itself. Here he is a most valuable auxiliary; and I trust that all your readers will be delighted with the efficient support which he here offers

to the truth. His collection of passages from the New Testament containing spiritual applications of the Psalms is peculiarly valuable; for many, I apprehend, like myself in times past, not having seen the testimony of the New Testament to the spiritual design of the Old thus collected into a focus, have no idea that that testimony is half so copious and decisive.

"A work of the utmost importance still remains, which it is the business of theology to undertake and execute; since, with respect to the Old Testament, and the Psalter more especially, a person may attain a critical and grammatical knowledge of them, and yet continue a Jew, with a veil upon his heart; an utter stranger to that sense of the holy books, evidently intended, in such a variety of instances, to bear testimony to the Saviour of the world; that sense which is styled by divines, the PROPHETICAL, EVANGELICAL, MYSTICAL, or SPIRITUAL sense. As it is one great design of the following work to investigate that sense in many of the Psalms, this is the proper place to lay before the reader those grounds and reasons upon which such investigation has been made.

"That the spiritual interpretation of the Scripture, like all other good things, is liable to abuse, and that it hath been actually abused, both in ancient and modern days, cannot be denied. He who shall go about to apply, in this way, any passage, before he hath attained its literal meaning, may say what in itself is pious and true, but foreign to the text from which he endeavoured to deduce it. St. Jerome, it is well known, when grown older and wiser, lamented, that in the fervours of a youthful fancy, he had spiritualized the prophecy of Obadiah, before he understood it. And it must be allowed, that a due attention to the occasion and scope of the Psalms would have pared off many unseemly excrescences, which now deform the commentaries of St. Augustin, and other fathers, upon them. But these and other concessions of the same kind being made, as they are made very freely, men of sense will consider, that a principle is not therefore to be rejected, because it has been abused;' since human errors can never invalidate the truths of God.

"

It may not be amiss, therefore, to run through the Psalter, and point out some of the more remarkable passages, which No. VII.-VOL. I.

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