comfort for our earthly existence. If the harvest fails, how great is the calamity to the people! Famine, pestilence, and death are in consequence rife and rampant in the land. The harvest, in its comprehensive sense, is also the main source of our industrial and commercial life, and if this source fails, multitudes are deprived of employment, and suffer starvation and misery.

Now, what the earthly harvest is to the bodily life, the spiritual harvest is to the spiritual life; there is a perfect correspondence between them. Hence it is, that we so often read of the harvest, and of the fruits and products of the harvest, in the Word of God. Hence also, it was that the "feast of harvest was established, in the church of the Jews, in order to represent the implantation of truth in good, which is regeneration. (Exodus xxiii. 16.) Prior to the Lord's coming for redemption, there was every sign that the spiritual harvest was about to perish, and together therewith, the entire human race, which would inevitably have taken place, had the Lord not effected redemption, and thus prepared the way for a new harvest of every spiritual good and truth to spring up and to grow, and become ripe, and suited to the spiritual nourishment of the soul. The prophet Joel describes this devastated state of the church when the Lord came, or when "God was manifest in the flesh," by the destruction of the harvest, when he says"Be ye ashamed, O ye husbandmen; howl, O ye wine-dressers, for the wheat and for the barley; because the harvest of the field is perished;" (Chap. i. 11, 12.) and that the salvation of man is represented by the harvest, is plain from Jeremiah,—“The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved." (Chap. viii 20.) The evils also from hell, originating in selfish and worldly loves, which destroy the spiritual harvest of everything good and true in the church, are denoted in Joel, by "the palmer-worm, the locust, and the caterpillar." (Chap. i. 4.)

When, therefore, the Lord walked with His disciples, on the Sabbath day, through the cornfields, and when they plucked the ears of corn, &c., we are presented with a striking fact, which teaches us, by the correspondence between things natural and spiritual, according to which the Word is inspired and written, that the Lord in His Divine Humanity, is the " Lord of the harvest," that is, the Source and Giver of every thing good and true, for the spiritual nourishment and salvation of man. It is in vain to look for this spiritual nourishment and salvation from any other source; for, He is the bread which cometh down from heaven and giveth life to the world." But, in order to receive this salvation, and to be fed with this "meat which perisheth not," we must go directly to Him, in His "Glorious Body" or Divine Humanity, and

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worship Him as the supreme object of our love and adoration. Our hearts and minds are then opened to receive this heavenly nourishment, and by thus walking with the Lord through the cornfields, and eating of the corn, we grow in righteousness and holiness all the days of our life. The "cornfields," it will be readily seen, when viewed in the spiritual sense, signify the divine Word, which is the divine storehouse of all spiritual nourishment; for the Word is the great cornfield and harvest of everything true and good from the Lord; and to walk with Him on the Sabbath day, through the cornfield, is to gather instruction from Him, in the knowledges of divine truth, for the edification and nourishment of the soul. Thus it was that the Lord abrogated the ritual formalities of that day, in the Jewish church, and established it as a day of spiritual instruction, as well as a day of worship, and of mutual love and charity, in the church He was about to establish.

There was a statute in the Jewish church which is thus expressed,"When thou comest into the standing corn of thy neighbour, then thou mayest pluck the ears with thine hand; but thou shalt not move a sickle into thy neighbour's standing corn." (Deut. xxiii. 25.) Thus, the disciples, "plucking the ears of corn," committed no depredation, as would now be the case amongst us, but they acted according to this statute; it was, however, contrary to the law to do this on the Sabbath day. Hence, the Pharisees had a ground of accusation against the Lord and His disciples, when they said "Why do ye that which is not lawful to do on the Sabbath days?" But the Lord in His reply, shewed them on this and on other occasions, that He was the "Lord of the Sabbath," and that the ritual laws respecting the Sabbath, among the Jews, were about to be abrogated, and that the Christian Sabbath should be established in its stead. In the previous verse we read-"When thou comest into thy neighbour's vineyard, then thou mayest eat grapes thy fill at thine own pleasure; but thou shalt not put any in thy vessel." The church is represented both by a cornfield and by a vineyard, and from the spiritual sense it may now be seen why among the Jews it was permitted, when walking in a cornfield or in a vineyard, to pluck the ears of corn and the grapes, and to eat them, but not to take any away. For we learn that this statute involves, "that everyone associating with others who are in another doctrine and religion, may learn and accept their goods of charity, but not imbue and conjoin them to his own truths; vineyard, inasmuch as it denotes the church, denotes where there is doctrine or religion; grapes are the goods of charity; a vessel is the truth of the church."* From this, we learn

*A.C. 5117.

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that all can associate together, in the good of charity, and partake of each other's bread, but that they cannot wear each other's garments; for each has his own doctrinal perceptions of truth, which are suited only to his own state, and not adapted to the state of another. For truth clothes good, as a garment clothes the body. Had the spirit of this divine statute been known and acted upon, how much hatred and persecution would have been avoided amongst men in the church!

To walk, then, through the cornfields with the Lord, and especially on the Sabbath day, and to pluck the ears, &c., is a duty which we owe to our God, to our neighbour, and to ourselves. For we cannot worship the Lord in spirit and in truth, unless we know the Truth; and the more we desire the knowledge of the Truth from the great harvest field, which is the Word, the more truly and the more interiorly shall we love and worship the Lord. Our hearts and minds can only be prepared to receive the Lord's divine mercy and truth, in proportion as we know the truth, and take an interest in its divine teaching and guidance.

Nor can we perform our duty to our neighbour, unless we are instructed in the divine Truth of the Word; for we do not know who our neighbour is, still less how charity should be exercised towards him, unless we are instructed in these divine truths. How important, then, it is that we frequently walk through the cornfields with the Lord, and especially on the Sabbath day. And whensoever, in a prayerful and devout spirit, we read the Word, and meditate upon a portion of its divine contents, we are represented in the language of correspondence, as walking through the cornfields with the Lord, and plucking the ears of corn for our spiritual edification and support.

And, in respect to the duty which we owe to ourselves, it is certain that without the knowledge and love of the Truth, we cannot be saved. For without truth we cannot be regenerated, nor have we any power against evils and falses from hell, nor can we consequently be purified from sinful tempers and inclinations. Thus by truths both heaven and the church exist in man; and after death he can only be elevated into heaven as the truths of the Word have, through faith and love, been established in his heart during his life upon earth. So great is the importance of the knowledge and love of truths, that a man, in the light of heaven, does not appear to be a man, but a monster, without these truths.

The disciples not only "plucked the ears of corn, but rubbed them in their hands;" this they did in order to separate the husk from the kernel, the chaff from the wheat. That the wheat signifies the Word of the Lord, and that the chaff means what is false and fallacious, is plain from

Jeremiah- "What is the chaff to the wheat, saith the Lord." (Chap. xxiii. 28.) It must be observed, that the disciples plucked the ears for themselves, a fact which teaches us that we must, as of ourselves, acquire truths from the Word; as the Lord has not only supplied the harvest, but also the power by which it can be gathered. To "rub the ears in their hands" involves, no doubt, a very important duty, when, as the apostle says, the Word is "spiritually discerned;" for the hands correspond to the rational powers of the mind, which ought by all means to be employed in the investigation of divine truths from the Word. For truths revealed in the Word may be rationally understood, and they do not serve for nourishment and edification until they are rationally and spiritually discerned. The mental process of meditation and reflection, in order to understand the truth, and to separate it from what is false and fallacious, is well represented by "rubbing the ears in the hands," in order to separate the chaff from the wheat. For, who can doubt that we are endowed with a rational mind chiefly that we may exercise it in the divine truths and eternal realities, which are so mercifully revealed for our salvation? Men in general exercise their rational minds on scientific subjects, and on earthly phenomena, until they thoroughly and satisfactorily understand them; why should they not, in like manner, exercise their rational powers on the subjects of divine revelation? There will be no improvement, and no progress in the right direction, that is, towards heaven, until men thus " pluck the ears of corn, and rub them in their hands," for the purpose of deriving that spiritual nourishment which is denoted by "eating them." May we all frequently walk with the Lord, through the cornfields of His divine harvest!

APEX.

NATURE OF THE DIVINE TRINITY."

(Concluded from our last.)

AFTER a very careful perusal of Mr. Mason's critique, I am compelled to say-and I say it with all due deference to Mr. Mason,—that I think he has sadly confused this great doctrine, and made statements not at all creditable to himself or the New Church, and which indicate but a partial view of Swedenborg's teachings on this subject. And this I know is the opinion of other New Churchmen in America, from some of whom I have received letters telling me how greatly their minds had been confused and disturbed by Mr. Mason's attempted exposition of

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NATURE OF THE DIVINE TRINITY.

the true doctrine on this subject. Some of his beliefs seem to me not only unsupported by the teachings of Swedenborg, but scarcely less objectionable or absurd than the belief in the old tri-personal theory.

For example, Mr. Mason believes in two Divine Trinities, which are totally different in their nature: one of them eternal, the other not; one of them a Pagan or Jewish, the other the Christian Trinity.' He "denies that the Christian Trinity is in any sense an eternal Trinity," and says" But this eternal Trinity in the image of which man was and is created, is not therefore the same as the Christian Trinity, which commenced with the Incarnation”—that is, not the same in its essential nature, for the nature of the Trinity is the very subject in question. Mr. Mason asserts that, prior to the Incarnation, there was a "duality (not trinity) in the Divine Nature"-" God and the Spirit of God." In other words, there was a Divine Soul, and a Divine Proceeding, but no Divine Form or Body-no Divine Humanity. "The Divine Trinity" (meaning the Christian Trinity), he says, "came into existence by the introduction of a new or third element or essential into the previously revealed duality of the divine nature or mode of existence. This intervening third element was the Glorified Humanity mediating between God (or the Father) and the spirit proceeding from the humanity." He says "The Divine Truth is not the Son"-that is, not what is denoted by the Son where this term is employed to designate one element in the Divine Trinity. Neither does the Father, according to Mr. Mason's view, signify the Divine Love; but "the whole three❞— Love, Wisdom, and Operation.

Contrary to all this, I maintain that there is but one Divine Trinity revealed in Holy Scripture, and the nature of which Swedenborg has fully explained; that this Trinity is unchangeable in its nature-the same now that it always was; that it is absurd to speak of a Divine Trinity that is not eternal in its nature; but that this Trinity became incarnate-that is, descended to ultimates-in time, and revealed itself to men in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, which Swedenborg has hundreds of times explained to mean the Divine Love or Goodness, the Divine Wisdom or Truth, and the Divine Virtue or Proceeding Operation; otherwise called by him the Divine, the Divine Human, and the Divine Proceeding.

I maintain, contrary to Mr. Mason, that God never existed as a divine " duality;" but that the essential Divine Love was always clothed with Divine Wisdom,--that is, bodied forth under a Divine Human Form-for there always was a Divine Human, and thence proceeded the Holy Spirit, an effluence, however, incapable of reaching