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beautiful,

In the former case, Absalom was separated therefrom. and without blemish;" but in the latter, he was insidious, rebellious, and murderous. The greatest evils that arise in the church are from the falsification of the divine truths of the Word. This falsification and perversion arises when, by false doctrines, the letter is separated from the Spirit of the Word, in which spirit its genuine truth consists. Genuine doctrine, on the contrary, unites the letter with the spiritual sense, and draws forth, as from a living fountain, its genuine truths. For the Word is always understood according to the doctrine which guides and influences the mind. "How can I understand," said the eunuch to Phillip, "unless some man should guide me?" (Acts viii. 31.) Thus, the understanding is always guided by some doctrine or other, as the horse is guided by bit and bridle. Now, it is invariably the tendency of a false doctrine to separate the letter from the spirit of God's Word, and thus to destroy both, or to cause the letter, as the apostle says, to kill instead of making alive. (1 Cor. iii. 6.) Thus when Absalom assumes the representative of the letter separate from the spirit, he is intent upon rebellion and murder rather than upon life and peace. In this case he becomes deadly hostile to his father, who represents the genuine, or interior Truth of the Word; for the genuine Truth of the Word has no enemy so hostile and deadly as the letter, when separated from its spirit and falsified. The literal sense, thus perverted by false doctrine, exalts itself above the spirit of the Word, and endeavours to take from it the kingdom, and to rule exclusively over men's minds. Thus Absalom, by specious pretences and fallacious reasonings, endeavoured to "steal the hearts of the men of Israel," and he said, "Oh that I were made judge in the land, that every man which hath any suit or cause might come unto me, and I would do him justice." (2 Sam. xv. 4.) This insidious rebellion increases until it bursts out into open warfare against David,--the interior or genuine Truth of the Word and of the church. Hence this divine record reads us a lesson, which is of daily application both to the church and to individuals. When in the church the letter is separated from the spirit of the Word, as in the case of Peter, the rock and the keys, in Mat. xvi.-where, by false doctrine, the Romish Church has so separated the letter from the spirit of the Lord's Words, as to arrogate to itself the power of the keys, of opening and closing heaven at its pleasure, and of assuming pre-eminence and authority over God's heritage upon earth;-in this case we may easily see how hostile the letter is thus made to the genuine spirit and teaching of that passage, which shows that the Lord alone hath that power, and which cannot possibly be

transferred to any man or to any church whatsoever. Absalom, with his extraordinary hair, instead of being beautiful and without blemish, has thus become a deceitful and rebellious monster, ready, under every false pretence and fallacious reasoning, to usurp the kingdom, and to wrest the sceptre from the hand of him who alone should govern.

This case of Absalom's rebellion might also be illustrated by every false dogma which has perverted the true teaching of the Word, and separated its letter from its spirit. The doctrine of three Persons in the Trinity, the dogmas of salvation by Faith Alone, of Predestination, &c., are all so many hostile rebellions of Absalom against David, his father. We will, however, only mention one other case, which is of infinite importance to practical Christianity in our individual life. It is common to consider the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, &c., as men of God, and as saints whom we can imitate. Now, although they are often mentioned in the letter of the Word with divine approbation, so much so, that David is called a man after God's own heart," yet if we, on that account, think that we may indulge in the licentiousness which David or Jacob indulged, and imagine that as they were not condemned for their conduct, so shall we, in like manner, escape condemnation ;—or if we look upon their deception and licentiousness as any palliative or excuse for our own evil thoughts and acts,-we are guilty of separating the letter of the Word from its Spirit, and have joined with Absalom in his rebellion against his father, as the King of Israel. Such abominations, both in doctrine and life, are aptly represented by Absalom "going in unto his father's concubines in the sight of all Israel.” (2 Sam. xvi. 22.) The consequence will inevitably be, that if we persist in such a perversion of the "letter which killeth," we shall at length experience the same fate as Ammon, or as Absalom, when, being caught by his hair in the branches of the oak, he was pierced through and slain by Joab. The patriarchs were not intended to be models for our imitation; but they are types or representatives; and it is only in their representative character that we have to consider them, not in their private and personal character, in which they are by no means models and examples of perfection for our imitation. In respect to the good things which are said of them in Scripture, they represented the Good and Truth realized in the church; but in respect to the evil things so often likewise said of some of them, they represented the evil and false principles of our unregenerate nature, and of the fallen states of the church. Thus, both phases of the church, its orderly and its disorderly states, are signified by the things predicated of the patriarchs, and of the kings. In like manner, Peter represented, on certain occasions, the true faith of

the church, such as it ought to be in every Christian; but when he denied the Lord, he typified the fallen state of the church, when the Lord is utterly rejected. Peter, therefore, is not always a model for us, nor is David, nor any of the Old Testament saints, as they are sometimes called.

Another account related of Absalom which we shall consider, is that of his tragical end, after his defeat in the battle in which twenty thousand of his followers were slain. (2 Sam. xviii.)* Divine Truth

* It is said (Chap. xv. 7.) that "after forty years, Absalom said unto the King, I pray thee let me go and pay my vow, which I have vowed unto the Lord, in Hebron." A correspondent has recently inquired of us whether forty years, as rendered in the common version, is not a mistake, since David himself only reigned forty years altogether, and it is certain that Absalom's rebellion did not occur at the end of his father's life. We beg to inform our correspondent that this question has much perplexed the commentators and the learned. The result of the investigations, as given by Bagster in his Comprehensive Bible, is as follows:-" As David reigned in the whole only forty years, this reading is evidently corrupt, though supported by the commonly printed Vulgate, the Septuagint, and the Chaldee. But the Syriac, the Arabic, Josephus, Theodoret, the Sixtine edition of the Vulgate, and several MSS. of the same version, read four years, and it is highly probable that arbaim, forty, is an error for arba, four, though not supported by any Hebrew MS. yet discovered. Two of those, collated by Dr. Kennicott, however, have yom, day, instead of shanah, year, that is, forty days; but this is not sufficient to outweigh the other authorities." It appears, therefore, from this statement, that all the Hebrew MSS. yet discovered have forty, and not four, but as the Word, we are taught by Swedenborg, is preserved entire in the Hebrew, we have no other appeal than to a strict collation of all the Hebrew MSS. still extant; and this has been carefully done by Dr. Kennicott, and by others. But can this difficulty be solved? We think that it admits of solution on the following grounds:-The primary object of the Word is to convey spiritual and Divine truths, and not merely natural facts and ideas. But Divine truths are conveyed through correspondences and representatives. Now forty, in one of its meanings, has a similar correspondence to four, and signifies a plenary state either of good, of evil, or of temptations. Four also denotes what is full and plenary, and, in this respect, has spiritually, or representatively, a similar signification to forty, but in less fulness. Now as forty and four have representatively a similar signification, we may see that as a type, either the one or the other may, in this instance, be employed; and, therefore, in a spiritual point of view, it is immaterial which number is assumed. As an analogous case, which to a great extent proves the truth of our remark, and the validity of the explanation of the difficulty here given, we would refer to Exodus xii. 40, where it is stated "that the children of Israel dwelt in Egypt 430 years;" whereas it is quite certain that from the time Jacob went with his sons into Egypt, to the period of the departure under Moses, was only 215 years, thus only half the period stated in the text. It is true that from the time of Abraham's descent into Egypt, to the period of the deliverance, was 430 years, but the children of Israel themselves only dwelt in Egypt 215 years. Now Swedenborg shows us, in A. C. 7985, that 430 years is men

cannot possibly be conquered; when, at the time of judgment, it comes to battle with the rebellious, it invariably maintains its power and its authority, and vindicates all its rights and prerogatives. This battle comes to pass when the church, having fallen from its rightful king and head, has separated, by perverse doctrines, vain traditions, and by evils of life, the letter of God's Word from its Spirit, and consequently from its genuine spiritual teaching. This battle must also be fought between every individual and his Divine King, who has, during his sojourn here, lived merely in the externals of the letter, called by the apostle the "oldness of the letter," and who has not come to that "newness of life" which the spirit and life of the Word alone can give. We well know on which side victory will be proclaimed. The issue and result of the contest cannot be doubtful. Absalom and his followers must be slain, and the lawful king must reign in the church. Genuine truth from the Lord, through the proper understanding of His Word, must finally prevail over every false dogma, every fallacious reasoning from appearances in the letter of Scripture, and over every assumption and every evil practice which has made its way through the fallen states of our humanity, aided and abetted by the powers of darkness, into the church on earth- Happy, thrice happy shall we be, if, when the day of that battle comes, we shall not be found "fighting against God!"

The battle occurred in the Wood of Ephraim. (2 Sam. xviii. 6.) Ephraim is an emblem of the intellectual principle of the church, or of the understanding of the Word in the church. Thus Ephraim is said to be "the strength of the head" (Psalm lx. 7.), because all the strength of the mind, and all the spiritual strength of man, come from an enlightened understanding, and a sincere love of Divine Truth. It is this which gives him strength in the day of battle. But the wood, or the forest of Ephraim, is an emblem of the intellectual principle of the church, or of the understanding of the Word, immersed in the darkness and fallacies of merely external ideas, not enlightened by any internal or spiritual perception of Divine Truths. Those who separate the literal from the spiritual sense of the Word, plunge themselves into this

tioned in this passage instead of the absolute literal fact of 215 years, for the sake of the spiritual sense of the Word, and for the purpose of describing an entire state of vastations from beginning to end; so that the number 430 is more fully the hieroglyph of that state than 215, hence the reason why it was adopted. And by parity of reasoning, the number 40 was more fully the hieroglyph of Absalom's plenary state of rebellion, and of the consequent state of temptation and evil that would come over the church, and hence that number was adopted in the Divine text instead of the number 4.-EDITOR.

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dark forest, where, at the time of judgment, they who are in evils are found and destroyed. For in proportion as our minds dwell only in the mere letter of the Word, without advancing to a spiritual discernment of its truths, we must needs remain in the fallacies of merely natural ideas, and think materially and grossly of spiritual things. Thus we remain in the "forest of Ephraim." Absalom, in making his escape, was caught by the head in the thick branches of a great oak, and left by his mule, hanging between the heaven and the earth." (Verse 9.) This event was to teach us that those who acknowledge the literal sense alone of the Word, and who deny its internal "spirit and life," become at length, according to the confirmation of evils in the life, so implicated and involved, by fallacious reasonings, in the merely natural and sensual perception of things, as to be entirely caught by what is external only, to the denial of every thing spiritual and divine. For the oak, with its dense and complicated branches, corresponds to the merely natural and scientific principle of man, which is the ultimate plane of his thoughts and mental conclusions; and the hair of the head, as we have seen, is a type of his sensual thoughts and reasonings, which are the ultimates of his mind, as the hair is the ultimate of his body. There are two general classes of such persons, both of whom are here represented by Absalom hanging by his hair in the branches of the oak, and by being finally slain by Joab. The first class are mere rationalists, of a negative kind, that is, they who deny that the Word contains any thing but the mere letter, and who endeavour, by negative reasonings, to show that the Scriptures are like every other book preserved from antiquity, and to be interpreted according to the same principles only. They thus reason until they finally reject the Word either altogether, or as to a great part of its contents. This is done by the numerous class of rationalists of the Lutheran Church in Germany, and by many in this country. All such are caught "by the hair in the thick branches of the oak;" in the time of judgment, at the battle of the great day, they will find that their boasted rationalism, in which they had trusted, will be of no avail in the presence of Divine Truth,-the Lord as the King of the Church; but will forsake them as the mule, the emblem of the rational faculty in man, forsook Absalom, and left him a prey to his enemies. The other class to which we allude is that who, from the want of instruction superior to that which a fallen church can give, remain in the merely gross literal ideas of the Word and its teaching, and never come to any clear discernment of Truth. But of this class there are two kinds,-those who desire, from a love of Truth, to come to clearer and more spiritual N. S. No. 139.-VOL. XII.

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