bring out the virtues and excellencies of others, and to cast a veil over their infirmities.

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That the love of the neighbour is the fulfilment of every precept of Christianity, is known from what the Lord says :- By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one towards another;" and also from the declaration of the Apostle,-that "love is the fulfilling of the law." Now the great aim of moral and religious training is to keep this constantly in view. Every thing that can bring out the affections for the neighbour should be especially employed by the parent and teacher; and every thing that can prevent the free exercise of the affections in relation to others, should be sedulously avoided. Liberality and generosity are two virtues, by the prudent exercise of which, the love of the neighbour, both in an individual and collective sense, is chiefly manifested, and his good greatly promoted. How is it that there is amongst us so little liberality,-how is it that we are not taught to give of our substance more than we do, and to cultivate that sentiment involved in the declaration, "that it is more blessed to give than to receive"? It is because in our childhood and youth the selfish affections have been more cherished and cultivated than the disinterested and the liberal. Hence it often happens that a person who, although religiously disposed and pious, possessing hundreds, yea, thousands a year, considers that a donation or subscription of a sovereign or two to his place of worship, or to some benevolent institution, is something liberal and handsome; whereas the same person thinks nothing of ten or twenty pounds for some article of dress or of ornament, or some scheme of pleasure or amusement. In which case it is evident that the selfish affections have been chiefly cultivated, and that the liberal and disinterested emotions by which the good of our neighbour and the church is promoted, have been neglected. Now, although it is not wise-that is, not in agreement with enlightened views of charity to relieve indiscriminately all beggars who implore relief, because many such are very idle and wicked, and prefer beggary to useful labour, yet children should be led to give of their substance, whether it be food or money, to others; especially to share their enjoyments with their brothers and sisters and playfellows; and also to give to the lame and the blind, and even to common beggars, as objects upon whom the benevolent affections, and consequently the love of the neighbour, may be brought out and cultivated. In this way an allabsorbing selfishness may, in its early stage of development, be checked, and liberal and generous emotions be awakened in the mind, which, from exercise and culture, will be strengthened and made the source of the purest pleasures that can be enjoyed, because assimilating us more to angels, whose blessed life consists chiefly in the exercise of the most

disinterested love, which induces them "to give and to lend, hoping for nothing again." Parents and teachers are not aware how much they contribute to the realization of this blessed spirit, by the early training of their children. But let examples teach us :

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Louisa, a charming little girl, came running into the parlour where her father was, in order to fetch something from a box in which she was accustomed to put pence and other things, which she saved for various purposes. "Hollo," said the father, "what is the matter?" "Ah," said Louisa, "there is a very poor woman at the door, who says she has had nothing to eat to-day, and that she is very ill." "Have you not asked," said the father, "who she is?" "It is the woman with the crutch," said his daughter, "whom I mentioned to you the other day." Oh, then, you can keep your money to yourself; she has been a thoughtless, extravagant woman; go and tell her that if she had economised in her younger days, she would not be a beggar now." “Oh, that I cannot do," said Louisa; "my heart will not let me speak to her in that manner; let me give her this penny." Upon which the father started up and scolded the woman for being a beggar. In this manner he treated all beggars; and though some were lame and blind, and consequently unable to perform useful labour, he nevertheless passed them by as objects not worthy of relief, justifying himself with the idea that God saw some good reason thus to afflict them. At length Louisa became quite hard-hearted against the poor, the lame, and the blind, and never thought of sympathising with them and relieving them, but behaved more kindly to the dogs and the cats in her father's house than to the poor and the afflicted.

Now here we have a case which is a type of many that almost daily occur. Swedenborg teaches us, that children should he initiated into acts of charity and into the love of the neighbour, by giving to the poor and the afflicted; and this is according to the letter of the Word, by which children and the simple minded are first led, before they can enter, in after life, with discrimination and judgment, upon the nobler exercise of an exalted love to their neighbour. We must all, in a spiritual sense, be clothed with "camel's hair, girt around with a leathern girdle, and be fed with wild honey" (of which John the Baptist was the living literal type), before we can be "clad in the white robes, washed and made white in the blood of the Lamb, and girded with a golden girdle, and be fed with the fat things full of marrow, and with wines on the lees well refined,”—that is, we must first go through preparatory states in the external man, before the internal can be opened and replenished with the graces and blessings of heavenly life.

(To be continued.)

"THE TRINE IN THE CHURCH."

EVERY passage in the writings of Swedenborg is a legitimate subject for comment, with a view to the right understanding of it. In No. 17 of The Coronis to the True Christian Religion, a posthumous work of our author, he affirms the universal existence of a Trine in every thing in order to its perfection; and amongst other instances of its occurrence, he says" In the church, there must be a mitred prelate, parish priests, and curates under them." Although the original terms are somewhat singular, I think Mr. Hindmarsh's translation, as just given, must be deemed an accurate one, and for this reason, that there is no other Trine of personal distinctions in the Christian church, that I am aware of, than that of bishops, parish priests, and curates. It is the object of this paper to ascertain what is the true construction of this statement of a Trine in the Church, in the view of sound reason; and to inquire whether the author meant a trine of outwardly contrived and objectively defined personal offices and distinctions, to be understood; or a Trine of ecclesiastical subjective uses, in operation in every church of necessity, but, possibly, in different modes of actual operation in different churches. It is assumed that we ought to put such a construction only on our author's words, as makes him consistent with known facts.

No one acquainted with the liberal character of the New Church system, will understand Swedenborg as meaning to say, that he cannot acknowledge any denominational church to be a real church unless it has a mitred prelate (primus infulatus). At this time of day, we could not avoid smiling at any one who should imply, that no churches are acknowledged, or watched over for good by Divine Love and Care, except those churches which own the dignity, and submit to the control of a bishop, that is, commit the providing them with ministers to individuals called bishops, bearing certain personal outward marks of office, one of which certainly is-that of receiving very large emoluments. After all that is said in The Apocalypse Revealed about Babylon as signifying the Romish Church, it cannot he supposed that Swedenborg acknowledged this corrupt body to be a church because it has bishops, while he withheld the appellation "church" from all nonepiscopal Protestant communities because they do not rejoice in episcopal superintendence. It is clear, then, that our author cannot, without imputing to him the greatest breach of consistency, be understood as meaning to limit the terms in question to any objective, personal, or strictly literal sense that may be put upon them. He must have used

the terms "bishops, parish priests, and curates under them," merely to cover the abstract subjective idea of three orders of ecclesiastical use. To suppose that Swedenborg casts out of his view, as not proper to be included in the term "church," all anti-episcopal communities, would be just as reasonable as supposing that when he defines the political trine in every kingdom as that of a "king, magistrates, and yeomanry," he excludes every nation that has not a monarchical form of government. If we go to a republic, we there find a use analogous to that of a "king;" and so if we go to any church whatsoever (provided only that it has ministers), we shall find ecclesiastical uses actually and certainly in operation therein, analogous to those exercised in Episcopalian churches by bishops, parish priests, and their curates, although its members never heard of a trine in the ministry.

Our author does not say that churches, to be orderly, must contrive, and set up, a trinal ministry, for if this were optional with them, they might, at will, either confirm or overturn his argument; what he says is, that wherever a church exists, the mere fact of its existence includes this other fact, that there must be in that church, because there is of necessity in every church, a trine answering to, if not externally identical with, the Trine of Uses implied in the terms bishops, parish priests, and curates under them." We beg the reader will bear this in mind, for we mean to attempt to shew, that in the New Church, before any idea was agitated about a trine in the ministry, such a trine did exist; it had actually come into spontaneous existence without any external contrivance; it needed no thought, no effort, to bring about this result, because it is one of the things that "must be," in the very nature of things, and therefore a matter in which man has no choice. A religious community may, indeed, choose and alter the mode of administering these uses, but the trine of uses themselves "must be" extant in every church, whatever the mode of their administration may be. In fact, all the trines contended for by Swedenborg in the “Coronis” must, in order to afford a legitimate support to his main proposition, be such as inherently exist of necessity, being, when viewed essentially, perfectly independent of all artificial contrivance.

Undoubtedly one mode of administering these uses is by means of the three orders of ecclesiastical officers specifically named. But let us ascertain what these threefold uses are, as implied in the officers named. They are, first, the use of ordaining and superintending ministers; secondly, the use of a stated minister; and, thirdly, the use of an assistant minister under the stated minister. In some Christian churches, undoubtedly, the first use is literally performed by bishops;

the second by parochial ministers; and the third by curates under them. But is it absolutely necessary that the first use should be performed by individual officers called bishops? By no means. In the Independent or Congregational churches, this use is substantially performed by the particular church, and is formally carried out by means of the ministers of the denomination in a religious service called an Ordination. In the Wesleyan connection, it is performed entirely by the Conference ministers, both substantially and formally. But can it be obligatory upon the members of the New Church to conclude that Episcopacy was, in the opinion of Swedenborg, the best mode, when we find him speaking of the ambition of English bishops, and the iniquity of the English Episcopal system, in such terms as those in Apocalypse Revealed, 341 and 716? Is not the testimony of history also in agreement with our author's depreciatory remarks? Has it not always been found dangerous to the people's interests to entrust individuals with irresponsible power, and also a snare to the individuals themselves so entrusted? We cannot hesitate to conclude, that power supreme and irresponsible is, in the present state of human society, more safely deposited with bodies than with individuals, however it may be said formally to be vested in an individual, who exercises it in the name of the body he represents, and on its behalf. This is equally true of political and ecclesiastical power. Theories may be spun out, and "correspondences" may be invoked, to contribute their aid to them; and antiquity, and the Mosaic institutions also, may be consulted to prove the propriety of Episcopacy ;*

* The writer having observed a tendency to assume an analogy between the Jewish priesthood and the Christian ministry, is desirous of declaring his opinion, that no such analogy exists. All regenerate Christians are made by their "Great High Priest ""priests unto God," (Rev. i. 6.) by realizing the spiritual signification of the Jewish priesthood. It is not, however, as teachers that the title of priest is conferred, as some have supposed, for the Jewish priests were not teachers; to teach the people was the office of the prophets, and the "school of the prophets." The Roman Catholics first pretended that the Christian ministry is a priesthood like to that of Aaron, and therefore entitled to offer up continually the "sacrifice of the mass. The writer is of opinion that Swedenborg did not ever apply the term priest to the Christian ministry, in strictness, but because the Romish perversion had made it usual so to apply it;-that, in fact, the term "priest," and "minister," had, by custom, become synonymous, through the same office-bearer (a religious teacher) being called by some Christian communities a "priest," and by others a "minister." The prophets, and not the priests, being the teachers of the Jews, Christian teachers, that is, the apostles, and ministers after them, on their foundation, (Eph. ii. 20.) are the successors of the prophets, not of the priests. (1 Cor. xiv. 3.) Consequently no one can consistently entertain the notion of forming a Christian ministry in imitation of the Jewish priesthood, on the presumption of an analogy existing between the two.