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Swedenborg speaks of two kinds of equilibrium, one of which exists between opposite forces from heaven and hell, the other as existing between an active and a passive. In the former, the opposite powers being equal, they are both arrested by counteraction, and brought into quiescence; just as two cog-wheels in contact would hold each other motionless, if impelled by equal forces whose tendencies were in opposite directions. Swedenborg describes this equilibrium as follows:

"It is well known that when two things act against each other, and when the re-action and resistance of the one is equal to the action and impulse of the other, no surplus force remains to either, there being the same power on both sides; and that in this situation each may be guided by a third agent at pleasure; for when the force of two is neutralized by their equal opposition, the force of the third does everything, and acts with as much facility as if there was no opposition at all. There is such an equilibrium between hell and heaven." (H.H.537.)

This equilibrium is illustrated by the examples given above, of the two men, two horses, &c. This is a general equilibrium, and it is essential to man in a state of probation, it forming the ground on which alone regeneration can be effected. This equilibrium, it will be seen, is one which exists between opposites of equal powers, which consequently can effect nothing but a state of rest,-opposites of equal power, though themselves active, by counteraction, always being brought into rest or quiescence.

The other equilibrium is one which exists between an active and a passive, or between a force and that which receives it, and yields to it so as to act with its tendency and in its order. This being effected between a force and its recipient subject, it will always be according to the agreement of the form with the life received,-life being the force. This is not a general, but a particular equilibrium; yet, like the general one, it is formed and sustained by the Lord Himself, who alone knows the state of each individual and its requirements. Every man is preserved in that particular state which he has voluntarily formed in himself whilst in the world, that being his proper state in which he can act freely as from himself.

If God does not force man-and it is true that He does not, then whatever state he forms in himself as a voluntary acquisition, God preserves intact, as being one with himself, and that regardless of its quality; for in no other state can he exist, that forming his identity or proper self. Therefore the equilibriums of both angels and infernals are effected by their being preserved in those particular states which they have freely formed in themselves whilst in this world, during their probation; that of the angels being grounded in the state of good which they have acquired in agreement with influent life, and will consequently

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act in accord therewith; whilst the equilibrium of infernals is effected by their being preserved in the state of evil which they have freely formed in themselves, and that state is such as perverts the influent life, because formed in opposition to its nature; and though they act against the order of influent life, yet they are preserved in that state, as to their interiors, as the only one in which they can exist. That this is the particular equilibrium treated of by Swedenborg will be evident from what follows. Concerning the general equilibrium our author states

"For several years I have observed the general sphere of influxes around me; it consisted of a perpetual endeavour to do evil from hell on one part, and a continual endeavour to do good from the Lord on the other; by these endeavours (conatus) opposite to each other I have been kept constantly in an equilibrium. Such endeavours, and consequent equilibrium, are attendant upon every one, whence they have freedom to turn themselves in what direction they please."

And of the particular equilibrium he says

"But the equilibrium varies according to the ruling good or evil in man." (4. C. 6477.)

Again it is stated

"The good which flows in from heaven all proceeds from the Lord; for the angels who inhabit the heavens are all withheld from their own proprium, and kept in the Lord's proprium, which is Good itself; whereas the spirits that inhabit the hells are all immersed in their own proprium; and the proprium of every one is evil, and, as being nothing but evil, is hell. From these facts it may be evident that the equilibrium in which are kept the angels in the heavens and the spirits in the hells, is not like that which exists in the world of spirits. The angels in the heavens find their equilibrium in the measure of good in which they had been willing to be grounded, or that in which they had lived, while they were in the world; and, consequently, in the degree in which they had held evil in aversion; whereas the spirits in hell find their equilibrium in the measure of evil in which it had been their will to be immersed, or in which they had lived, while in the world; and thus, consequently, in the degree in which, in heart and spirit, they had been in opposition to good." (H. H. 591.)

From what is here stated it will appear evident that there are two kinds of equilibrium, one in which man is held as an inhabitant of this world, by virtue of which he is capable of changing his state; and another in which he is held in his final state, in heaven or hell, in which he cannot change by virtue of that equilibrium. The former is a perfect balance between good and evil influences from heaven and hell, irrespective of the quality of the man; and the latter is a poised state of good or evil which man has made his own during his life of probation in the natural world. Whilst man remains in the natural world he may, by regeneration, successively change the good in which he is poised, and

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thereby successively advance to states of more perfect freedom; for as he changes his state of goodness by voluntary acquisition, he also changes his freedom, each particular good having a freedom peculiar to itself; hence he is said to put on one freedom and put off another. (A. C. 5763.)

(To be continued.)

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(Continued from page 253.)

S. S.

THE Word teaches that man came from the hands of God such as to fulfil all the high purposes of his creation. It tells us, also, of that possibility of declension inherent in the very conditions of finite existence, and how the latent tendency became an open and terrible fact. Eden is, indeed, the image of a soul in perfect order, possessing all the attributes of that true manhood which consists in likeness to God. The soil of that garden, enriched by the selectest influences of heaven, contained within it all the elements needed for the growth and ripening of all the fruits of a happy and pure nature. There were in the soul of Edenic man not alone all the powers of love, thought, and action in the highest human perfection, but each principle in his nature occupied the position proper to the dignity of its use. The central principle of love to God lived in and through all lower affections and their cognate thoughts, and gave a sublime unity of purpose to the whole man. And though the love of himself and his own were in the garden of his soul, it was, as lowest in the dignity of its use, placed in the outer borders. Even the body that lay so near the earth was lifted up from mere corporeity by the influence of this transforming love. Thus, not only in the character but in the order of the principles of his nature, was Eden a true picture of humanity-innocent, wise, and whole.

Had the tree of knowledge of good and evil,—had the serpent, with its power of deception, been excluded from the picture, it would have been incomplete as an expression of our total humanity, and as an indication of that possibility of declension inherent in a finite and free nature. For while the Tree of Life is the fitting image of love to God, and of the wisdom that grows with it,-while the tree of knowledge stands for that outward and downward tendency of the human mind which leads it to seek that light without and below which can only be found within and above,-both together they are the complete expression of that perfect freedom without which man would cease to possess the likeness of God in himself. And the freedom thus indicated was needful for the full development of the Divine purpose in man-that is,

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to gift bim with the highest nature and the purest happiness possible to the condition of finitude. Doubtless, a certain amount of pleasurable activity might have been assured to a creature to whom freedom, involving the fatal possibility of sin, had not been given. But it would have been of the sort enjoyed by bees or beavers, which, while the amount of pleasure possible to them is assured in perpetuity,-while the same unerring instincts act with the same wondrous precision from generation to generation,-are as incapable of rising from the level of the instincts they inherit, as of falling, by any fault of theirs, from the place they occupy in the scale of created beings. The Divine Being, to crown creation, made men; not automata, or creatures of irreversible instinct, but men who lived as it were of themselves, the likeness of Him who alone lives of Himself.

Hence, while primeval man was gifted with deep intuitions which taught that God is the Fountain of Light,—that each moment he was sustained by the inflowing of forces not his own,-that no life was good but that which he lived from God,-on the side of his outer nature and the senses, he had a vivid sense of independent existence, appeared to feel, think, and move, to perform his uses, and enjoy the delights of the beautiful world he lived in, by powers altogether his own. For God, in his great love, when he gave, desired to give wholly, and the sense that life was one with the recipient was given with life itself. Thus, while on one side his sweetly attuned nature was responsive to the breath of heaven in every tone, and filled with all those harmonies of pure affections and noblest thoughts which hymned inaudibly the praise of God; on the other he breathed in the delights of the world, was wrapped round by appearances, and he himself and all things seemed to be sustained by self-derived life, having no visible point of junction with any foreign source.

We find, then, that in picturing the tree of knowledge as having a place in the garden of Eden, the Word is teaching of the existence of one tendency in human nature out of which evil may come, but which is none the less on that account essential to the completeness of a free and finite creature. Man stood, then, in freedom between the appearance and the reality. The Divine desired no forced homage; nor did He desire the worship and service of His creatures but as the means of gifting them, continually, with richer blessings. And as the reception of the spiritual gifts of God, in the sense of making them part of his own nature, was only possible to man in freedom, therefore was freedom essential to his growth to the full stature of true manhood. Had no appearance of self-derived life balanced the reality, man would have

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been the creature of necessity, led inevitably in one direction by forces he had no power to resist. There would have existed, in such case, an automaton moving as it was moved by the influences to which it was subject, but not a man freely accepting the belief that life is from God and should be devoted to Him, against the appearance that life is from self and should be devoted to that.

Nor is the serpent less a representative of an essential part of that humanity which, while it should live from and for heaven, must begin its existence in a material world. It is the symbolical expression for that principle which links the spirit on the one hand with the world on the other. The sensual principle by which the world and its science get access to the mind, is only in true order when it submits its appearances to the correction of interior wisdom. Accepting this correction, the facts and principles of the science proper to that region of the mind, illustrate and confirm the truth which the higher wisdom teaches. But permit the sensual mind, or that which receives its impressions through the senses, to erect itself into a teacher and master of the whole nature, at once order is subverted, and the shadows which have too often usurped the name of philosophy, take the place of the realities of truth. It whispers that the life of the soul is the result of organization, and disappears with it; that the world contains within itself the sufficient causes of its own existence; that the conception of a spiritual world of causes is a superfluous and baseless theory; that only those principles are worthy of acceptance which can be subjected to the test of observation and experiment, or reasonings based upon them; that so much religion may, indeed, be admitted as can be fairly evolved from the facts and laws of the universe, and is needful for the moral and social order of the world; but that it may be doubted whether any Supreme Intelligence governs all things-or, at least, that it is an open question. Such are the tendencies and such the actual manifestations of the sensual principle, when it assumes the part of judge as to the truth or falsehood of things belonging to a sphere which it has no power to penetrate.

Both the serpent and the tree of knowledge were in the garden before the fall, but neither is the serpent a tempter so long as it submits to the corrections of interior wisdom, nor is the tree of knowledge, in itself, death, so long as man does not live from a belief based on appearances. Nor could either affect humanity so long as it remained in its pristine integrity. Tempting influences have no power where evil within gives no power to the enemy without. The pure can pass through all surrounding evil without defilement, and only where impure proclivities