the Divine Providence, that every principle of the good in man should be joined to its own truth; and where man's ruling love is grounded in evil, every principle of evil should be conjoined to its own false.* Hence everyone after death must either be in good, and, at the same time, in truth, or else in evil, and, at the same time, in false; otherwise the good and the false and the evil and the true, being opposites, would wage a perpetual conflict till the one destroyed the other. Moreover the agents by the instrumentality of which alone regeneration is effected, are the good and the true; but in the case of their being brought to bear on their opposites in infernals, they would only excite combat, to cease only with the destruction of the one or the other. Hence the operation of every law of the spiritual world under which the soul is after death, is to remove all that is uncongenial to the ruling love, that the spirit may be one either in the marriage of the good and the true, or in the infernal marriage of the evil and the false. It is for this end that the spirit is vastated, that the angel may stand in that which is heavenly alone, and the infernal divested of everything heavenly, which could only add to his wretchedness by condemning every principle which belongs to his life's love.

Under whatever point of view then the subject is looked at, it is evident that the only means by which the soul could be reformed after death would be by reconstructing it from first principles, in other words, destroying its organic forms, and forming a new soul from it by the same process as that of its first formation, a proposition which needs but to be stated for its inconsistency to be seen. Without, then, carrying the argument further, sufficient has been advanced to show how utterly destitute of all rational ground is the idea that the ruling love can by any possibility be changed after death. If, as those who maintain the idea admit, it is not possible to change the will independently of the man here, whilst the ultimate forms of the soul are ductile and yielding, and whilst the final issue is pending, how is it possible to effect a change when its choice has been deliberately made and confirmed, and fixed its impress on every form of the spirit?

Though, however, infernals cannot be reclaimed, their state, so far as possible, is mitigated. By the recurrer ce of the punishments which follow the outbursts of their evil lusts, they are at length touched with horror at them, and are thus brought into a condition in which they can be restrained from infesting the good, and preserved from the punishment which evil in that world brings upon itself.

*See D. P. 16.

+ D. P. 18.

‡ A. C. 828, 967, 7188, 7280.

Here, however, it is necessary to draw this argument to a close. It might be extended by tracing the Divine Love at every step of the process, even to those who are most deeply immersed in the evil and false for whilst the wicked are continually leading themselves into evils, the Lord is in the continual endeavour, by His providence, to lead them out of them; but that they cannot be entirely led out of evils and into good unless they are willing. This, however, will be obvious to the reflecting, to whose attention this paper is affectionately commended.

*

W. W.

NATURE OF THE DIVINE TRINITY.†

To the Editor.

Orange, N.J., July 12th, 1861.

Dear Sir, I did not know that you had published anything of mine in answer to Mr. Mason, until I received your kind letter of the 4th ult., as the January No. of the Repository did not reach me until yesterday. And while I appreciate you kind intention in copying from the New Church Herald so much as you did of my reply to Mr. Mason, I cannot but regret that you did not wait for my answer in the form

* See D. P. 295-298.

+ In our January number appeared an article from the Rev. B. F. Barrett, extracted from the New Church Herald, of November 3rd, published at Cincinnati, in reply to Mr. Mason's papers, inserted in this Periodical for August and September last. As Mr. Barrett's paper in the Herald was a reply to Mr. Mason, we inserted the substance of it in this Magazine for January last. But from the above communication from Mr. Barrett, it appears that the reply inserted in the Herald was not the one intended for this Magazine, and that in justice to him we should print the reply he has now sent. We willingly do this, as fair play and justice require it to be done. We regret, however, that Mr. Barrett had not seen this Periodical for six months, from January to June; we hope that in future he may obtain it more regularly. We will only add our regret that there should be any controversy amongst members of the New Church on any subject of doctrine, which Swedenborg, in our judgment, has left so clear and so well established from the Word. We also here admit that, had we been more considerate, this present controversy, as it is on a fundamental doctrine, should not have appeared in our pages; but as it is, our readers, we think, will have their minds more enlightened on this subject by the luminous statements which Mr. Barrett has adduced from Swedenborg.-ED.

intended for your pages, and which I sent you some time ago.* I hope you will not think me unreasonable, if I still ask that you give the article I sent you a place in the pages of the Repository. Please to consider the following, which are my principal reasons for making this request:

1st. The article you have published as from me, was never intended for your columns, and its publication was never requested. It was merely a portion of what I wrote hastily for a weekly paper (the Messenger), in reply to some extracts from Mr. Mason's article, copied with approbation into that paper.

2nd. I have been assailed through your columns-rudely, as I think -by Mr. Mason; and I desire to let your readers see how unjustly I have been attacked, and how strong is the testimony from E. S. in favour of the doctrine of the Trinity, as stated by me, but which Mr. M. so strongly condemns.

3rd. The portion you copied from the Herald, as my reply to Mr. Mason, fails to do full justice to my thoughts on this subject, and to exhibit the full strength of my position. Having been rudely attacked and roughly handled, should I not be permitted to make my defence through the same columns as strong and complete as I can?

4th. You have allowed Mr. Mason to occupy your columns with four articles against me-dealing his blows, too, not over gently, as you will acknowledge. Should I not, then, be allowed the privilege of one article in reply, even though it be somewhat lengthy? And the one sent by me is the only one ever intended for your pages.

5th. Then I am singled out and assailed by Mr. Mason for teaching what he regards as a false and unauthorised doctrine of the Trinity, just as if the view I have presented were a heresy peculiar to myself; whereas my understanding of this subject is precisely that of many of the most intelligent New Churchmen both in England and Americayour much beloved Mr. Noble among them. Should I not be allowed the privilege of showing your readers this, as I have in the paper prepared especially for your magazine?

6th. Then the article I sent you is, I think, one of intrinsic value, especially on account of the array of extracts from E.S. which it presents bearing upon the doctrine in question. It is a paper which I prepared only after a good deal of careful thought and reading, and which I cannot but hope will be interesting and instructive to others-one which future inquirers on this subject may refer to with profit.

* This answer arrived in May, when the Editor perceiving that Mr. Barrett had not seen his reply, inserted from the Herald in the January number, wrote imme

Please to weigh the considerations here presented. I have had occasion to complain repeatedly of our American New Church peri. odicals for closing their columns against me, after having freely opened them to unjust attacks upon me, or upon views which I was supposed to hold. The more liberal and tolerant character of your magazine encourages the hope and belief that I shall not have cause to make a similar complaint of the Repository. And there is small ground for fear that I may prove a troublesome correspondent, seeing that this is the first time I have ever asked to be admitted into your columns.— Yours very truly,

B. F. BARRETT.

Mr. BARRETT'S Reply to Mr. MASON's Strictures.

Mr. EDITOR. In the last August and September issues of your Magazine, there appeared two communications from the Rev. William Mason, in which my Letters to the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher on the Divine Trinity received very particular though not very flattering attention. Immediately on reading Mr. Mason's first communication, I wrote, and sent for publication in the Intellectual, a short letter touching the personal matters complained of by Mr. M., which, could he have seen, would have satisfied him, I think, that his grounds of complaint on that score were more apparent than real. Whether my letter failed to reach you, or whether you deemed it advisable not to publish it, I have not yet the means of knowing. Whatever be the reason for its non-appearance in your columns, I cannot but regret it, both on Mr. Mason's account and my own. If the letter never reached you, I will write another, as I should be glad of the opportunity to set myself right before your readers in relation to those personal matters complained of.

It was my intention to have replied to Mr. Mason's strictures immediately on receiving his concluding remarks; but partly on account of engagements which left me very little time to devote to the subject, and partly from a desire to re-examine with some thoroughness the teachings of Swedenborg in relation to the Trinity, I have reluctantly postponed my reply to this time. I trust, however, that it may yet be in season to command the respectful attention of your readers.

Mr. Mason is quite severe in his strictures upon my statement of the doctrine of the Trinity. The view I have presented is characterized

* This letter was inserted in our January number as an introduction to Mr. Barrett's reply, extracted from the Herald.—ED.

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NATURE OF THE DIVINE TRINITY.

by him as "arbitrary," "unscriptural," "deistical," "Pagan," "altogether inaccurate," "a sort of philosophical, man-made doctrine," and not that of the New Church-"not the doctrine of the Trinity expressly set forth by Swedenborg." In short, I have, in Mr. Mason's opinion, "been misled by the remains of my old Unitarian philosophism," and so have put forth for the truth a "palpable" and "dangerous error," which he has felt it his duty "to expose." The degree of perversion which, in the judgment of Mr. Mason, this great doctrine has suffered under my treatment, occasions him much grief. "I perused with pain," he says, "the view of the Divine Trinity presented in the American Magazine called The Swedenborgian,' in successive numbers during the last year, by its able editor, the Rev. B. F. Barrett."

Now, after being thus publicly arraigned by a clerical brother, and by one so well instructed, too, in the doctrines of the New Church as Mr. Mason, your readers, I trust, will not be surprised that I should desire patiently and carefully to re-examine this whole subject before pleading, or attempting to plead, to this brother's bill of indictment. I have done so, and am now prepared to say in open court, and with uplifted hand, "Not guilty," and, with your leave, will proceed to lay my defence before your readers.

The subject of my letters to Mr. Beecher was the Nature of the Divine Trinity. Their purpose was twofold; first, to expose the error of the old tripersonal doctrine; and, second, to explain and illustrate the true Scripture doctrine of the Trinity, which I understand to be the true New Church doctrine, or the doctrine as taught by Swedenborg. In the prosecution of my undertaking, having in view a class of readers not yet familiar with the terminology of Swedenborg, I did not often use the terms Divine, Divine Human, and Divine Proceeding, but employed instead, the Divine Love, the Divine Wisdom, and the Divine Power, or operative energy-terms which I regarded, and still regard as equivalent, and which I thought would generally be better understood than the others by the class of persons for whom I was writing. I also took occasion to refer frequently to the human trinity, or the trinity of will, understanding, and action, in man, as furnishing a good illustration of the Divine Trinity, being, in fact, with a regenerate man, a perfect image of that Trinity. Such is the statement of this doctrine of which Mr. Mason complains, and which he declares to be contrary to the teachings of Swedenborg, unscriptural, deistical, altogether inaccurate, &c. Is there just ground for our brother's complaint, or reason for his sentence of condemnation? If so, it is some satisfaction to know that the condemnation must fall with equal justice and weight on the great