to point out, in some cases, where the truth lies, and so promote the proving of all things, and the fast holding of that which is good."

The same truths are repeatedly presented in these pages, in one instance in a way and on an occasion which shows the sad tendency of the prevailing views, and the power of right principles. This is in au article under the title of "An Infidel." The gentleman so designated and the author were fellow-travellers, and spending the night at the same Inn, they came to converse on the subject of religion. He who now avowed himself an infidel had been educated a Christian; but on reaching maturity, his reason revolted at the views which he had been taught the Bible contained respecting God and his dealings with men. The article is too long to be inserted entire, but we give what is said on one of the several points they had agreed to discuss, as a specimen of the book. They had agreed to discuss, "First, reconciliation by the death of Christ. Secondly, redemption by the same. Thirdly, the mediation of Christ. Fourthly, the doctrine of the imputation of righteousness without works, or salvation by faith." Two of these subjects only were discussed. We quote the discussion on the second, redemption.

"Your religion," says the assailant, "speaks of that as a purchasing. Now, how can you talk of a free forgiveness, and a heaven freely given, and all other blessings freely bestowed; and then alter your doctrine, and talk of all these being purchased by the blood of Christ for us? Before you reply to me, I will tell you what answers you need not give. You need not say, that as God Himself paid the price to Himself, therefore it was free to us. I have had enough of that; and those who bring such an answer know, as well as I do, that if a man were to do what they attribute to their God, they would call it a base or a childish quibble. The question is not merely as to man receiving something freely; but as God's giving it all freely. Now, if the price paid is counted by God as the payment of what He gives; if He considers that He receives an equivalent, then He does not give freely, in the honest sense of the words. A thing cannot be, by the same act, given and sold. And if what God gives is freely given, then it is not purchased. So you must find other answers to defend your position from the imputation of being both contrary to reason, and inconsistent with Scripture.' "Please to repeat plainly the doctrine which you challenge me to defend by reason and by Scripture.'

"That by the purchase or redemption-price of Jesus' blood, forgiveness, heaven, and all other blessings are procured for us.'

"Suppose, as in the case of "reconciliation," I decline to support the doctrine you attack.'

"Then you give up the doctrine of the redemption of a purchased possession, as it is called.'

"Nay, I maintain it in all its fulness; while I maintain the doctrine

also, that if God spared not his own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, He will also with Him FREELY give us all things.''

"Is it not mere nonsense to talk of the same thing being freely given, and at the same time purchased at an inestimable price?'

"Surely it is nonsense, and self-contradicting; I admit it fully.' "Then how do you support Scripture and Christianity in this doctrine?'

"I do not; I need not do so; for they do not assert it, nor anything else self-contradicting or unintelligible.'

"What, then, is bought by the redemption-if it is not that which you say God gives freely?'

"Now, you ask a question which can be plainly answered. We are bought with a price. We are redeemed with the precious blood of Christ. We are the purchased possession. God gives freely what we need-but could make no claim to; whereas men will not give freely what God desires, and what He has every claim to. That is to say, man will not give himself to God freely; will not give his heart, his affections, his love-and so his service. These all he has sold to sin, to Satan; and he is a slave—a slave to that world over which God gave him dominion. This slavery is death; death, not in being deprived of existence and feeling, but death in suffering destruction and misery.

"Man sells himself into this slavery for what he wrongly believes will satisfy him-for selfish gratification of his desires. The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life, steal his affections, become the objects of his love, and destroy his peace. And he will not freely abandon the choice he has made, even when he has found it to be vanity and vexation of spirit. And if God would not freely give all to purchase the affections of man-to redeem him from all iniquity—man would be irretrievably lost. So it is said of the Christians, we love God, because He first loved us; there is a 'because,' not in ourselves, nor by possibility arising in ourselves; we do not love freely. But God loves us-why? Because God is love-because He is God, and not man."

"Now,' said my friend, 'I have you in a position in which I can, without fail, or possibility of failure, knock over all your arguments; and smash what you have (I acknowledge, very correctly) stated from Scripture-with one cannon-ball taken from that same magazine. Will you deny that the Scripture says that Christians are to forgive, even as God for Christ's sake forgave them; and will you say that does not allude to the purchase of his forgiveness by the death of Christ, for the sake of which God is supposed here to forgive those who believe in that doctrine? You see you have no mere novice to deal with, nor one who is afraid to tear down every foundation, as well as every superstructure, of false religion. And say now, as an honest man, using words fairly, will you attempt to assert that what is really given for the sake of a priceless purchase, what is bought at a cost, said to be of infinite worth, is freely given? Mark me, I don't say freely received, but freely given.'

"He looked triumphantly in my face as he said this, and added, 'I do believe you are too honest to attempt to quibble, and explain away the meaning of words-which is the only possible chance of escape from the position I have set you in. And if you were deceived, or deceiver enough to think of attempting it, you see I am not to be conquered, either by frightening me by an appeal to my superstitions, or by confounding me by a mass of inconsistent words. You see that I know and assert a fact-that a purchased thing is not freely given, by him who gives it for the sake of the price, and who would not give it, but for the payment of the price. Yet your Bible speaks of 'freely given,' and your religion teaches you to forgive FREELY-yes, freely, even as 'God for Christ's sake forgave you!' He drew out these last words with a mixture of sarcastic bitterness and exulting triumph of tone; and crossed his arms, looking at me as much as to say, 'You are utterly vanquished.'

"In the meantime I rang the bell; and on the servant coming, I asked if he could procure for me a New Testament. (The town where we were was on the Continent.) He succeeded in a few minutes in getting it, while I turned to the passage in my Bible to which my opponent plainly referred. (Ephes. iv. 32.) I shewed him the place silently, and he silently nodded.

"I now opened the Testament in another language, and gave him the book to read it, which when he did he frowned, and then spoke angrily, saying, 'O, that's a mere come-off. You knew very well that the two translations differed, but I stand upon our English Protestant Version.'

"'Well,' said I, 'if you do, I cannot answer you. But it stands alone in its mistranslation; and I am not English enough to prefer the English Protestant translation to every other translation I ever met with, and to the original text besides, which all make it, 'Even as God in Christ forgave you.' And, moreover, some at least of the older English versions so translate it. Let us not argue as if we were enemies trying to vanquish each other; but end as we began, in friendship, and in a friendly manner, searching for what the truth is, that it may make us free.'

"I thank you,' he exclaimed, ' for that word. Yes; if this passage is as you say it, then its truth is obvious, its consistency with the truth which commends itself to our reason and affections. Yes, we shouldI maintain it, infidel as I am-we should forgive as God, for the sake of what He is, (not for the sake of any compensation,) forgives us. And if the Bible and Christianity taught that, I should never have rejected both.""

Besides the more lengthened observations that are to be found in the book on different points of Christian doctrine, there are pithy remarks that attract the attention of the reader.

Thus he says,

"The great outline of the true system is this--that the foundation

NO. IV.-VOL. I.

11

and root of true religion is the conviction that 'GOD IS GOOD;' and the end and object of true religion is, To be like Him.

"I can as little doubt my God's forgiveness, as I can doubt my need of it, when I look to Jesus, and see what God is, and what I ought to be, manifested in Him.

"While a man's religion is selfish, he will imagine to himself a God to be propitiated, to save him from the punishment he deserves. When a man's religion ceases to be selfish, he will seek and find a God to save him from committing sin, and so deserving punishment. Theology too often points out the imagined Saviour from punishment. The Bible points out the real Saviour from sin.

"Mystery-mongers, who like to be spiritual slaves or spiritual tyrants, delight in the connecting of the idea of 'imputation' with the necessity of a contrary character from that imputed; the idea of ‘justification,' with that of an unjust person declared just; the idea of 'trust,' with an absence of a known reason for confidence; and the idea of 'belief,' with a disregard to proof or evidence.

*

"To impute sin, or to impute goodness, implies, generally and rightly, that the person to whom either is imputed is believed to be actually guilty, or actually good by him who imputes, unless the imputer is false and wicked.-God does not impute sin except to those who sin, nor goodness except to those who are good; for God is wise and true; He knows what is, and says it.

Any one who would justify (or declare just) one who was not so, would be either mistaken or wicked. So to justify a person would be wicked. But to justify (or the word so translated in Scripture) sometimes means to make just; and one who should make the wicked righteous or just, would be truly good in doing so, and true in thus representing him so.

"In heaven nothing can give happiness but the knowledge of the truth, the love of the good, the life of holiness. Then man will be happy. Then God will see what He wrought so much for, and will be satisfied.

"This is life eternal; and even here we may enjoy it-though alloyed, yet real; the full enjoyment of it is heaven.

"And in hell nothing can torment, unless enmity to good, and so to God, be in the heart, unless error and falsehood prevail, unless evil be master. Even here we can experience, and we do experience much, much of this. The experience of it after death, when the coarse and slow-feeling earthly shell is cast off,-when we shall be no longer able to render ourselves callous to pain, nor to intoxicate ourselves with false pleasures, when evil shall reign and where evil shall reign, and

while evil shall reign, thus sovereign; the full suffering of it, the full misery of it, the full experience of it,-this is hell.

"Evil and good make hell and heaven."

Before concluding our notice of this honest production, in which there is so much that is sound and useful, we may state that there is one doctrine at least from which we must express our dissent. The author believes in universal restoration; and we fear he has not been sufficiently rigorous in the application of his own rule in Scripture interpretation in his investigation of the subject. The light of the New Church would help him out of his obscurity, and afford him a view of the subject consistent at once with the attributes of God and the nature of the human mind. On all the other subjects of which he has treated, even those in which he has presented the truth most clearly, would the writings of our Church afford him the greatest benefit. In reading the book we have indeed been impressed with a sense of the blessing we possess in the light communicated in the Works of Swedenborg.

In the book before us we have many Scripture doctrines stated correctly as to the facts; but it does not give the philosophy. On the subject of the trinity there is nothing very clear-nothing that can set the mind at rest. The atonement is correctly stated-God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself. But there appears no clear light as to what the atonement effected by our Lord consisted in-the reconciliation of human nature to himself in his own person, as the origin and the pattern of the reconciliation to himself of man's nature in the persons of those who are regenerated. We mention these as facts, not as complaints,-not with any view to depreciate the book, but for the purpose of indicating where the true doctrine it contains may be found, not only clearly stated and amply proved, but luminously explained by the light of the Son of Man, as he has now appeared in the clouds of the letter in the power and glory of its spiritual sense.

X.

ALETHE;

A PAMPHLET ANNOUNCED AS BEING SOLD BY THE SWEDENBORG SOCIETY."

To the Editors.

GENTLEMEN,

It has been the cause of much gratification to many members of the Church with whom I am acquainted, to find that a New Magazine is to be published for the promotion and advocacy of the truths of the