meet in his name implies, that they are gathered together in the love of Christ: they cultivate, cherish and exercise love to him, and desire to be like him in every attainable degree."

So far Mr. Williams; and what is this but saying, what the New Church means when she states, that the name of the Lord denotes all the quality by which he is worshipped?

Now when the mind has attained this view of the meaning of the name of the Lord, how is it possible to avoid seeing, that the instructions the Lord Jesus Christ gives respecting asking in his name, and asking the Father in his name, mean something very different from addressing prayers directly to the Father, and mentioning the name or words, "Jesus Christ," at the end? Mr. Baxter, in the passage quoted above, says, that "those things which belong to the Father to give for the sake of the Mediator, must be asked of the Father for his sake:" and this is the usual practice of professed Christians. But there is a wide difference between asking the Father, for the sake of Jesus Christ, and asking the Father in his name: for the latter we have the authority of Jesus Christ himself; but for the former there is no warrant throughout the Bible: the practice has originated in the fatal mistake of supposing the two phrases to be synonymous. But if the Lord's name is a phrase signifying the nature or quality by which he is worshipped, then to ask the Father in the name of Jesus Christ, is to address the Divine Being in the nature, quality, or character, of Jesus Christ; or, in other words, to worship the Essential Divinity as dwelling in, and manifested by, the Divine Humanity. This is the meaning of the phrase as applied to the Lord; with respect to man, it means also, that the manifested God must thus be approached from qualities in the worshipper derived from Him,-in love, faith, and obedience.

Thus, Gentlemen, we see, that Mr. Williams was favoured with views which required but little rectification to bring them to those of the Truth Itself; and that Mr. Baxter and Dr. Owen entertained sentiments, which also are near akin to those of the Truth Itself, whilst their other opinions, unless rectified by its means, are in the highest degree inconsistent and absurd. They thus are strong, though in part indirect, witnesses to the Truth: and they evince › that the doctrine of the Sole Divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ is the only one which makes the Scriptures consistent throughout, and enables us to establish a system of religious truth free from all shadow of contradiction. What is true in all other systems

unites with this great truth as its necessary basis; and whatever is at variance with it is involved in inextricable mystery and confusion, and falls to pieces of itself.

I am, Gentlemen, Yours, &c.

AMICUS.

SUGGESTION RESPECTING PRIVATE PRAYER.

To the Editors of the Intellectual Repository. GENTLEMEN,

As a Constant Reader of your valuable Miscellany, I take the liberty of submitting to your judgment the propriety of the insertion of the following suggestions respecting Private Prayer.

It has occurred to my mind, that a morning and evening prayer concisely framed, embracing the leading features of the New Church Doctrines, embodying at the same time their spiritual tendency, in allusion to that reverential feeling of the Psalmist, when he exclaims, "Lord, what is man that thou art mindful of him, or the son of man that thou shouldst deign to visit him,” would be of great usefulness to many of your readers.

The importance of feeling, in prayer, this awe-struck mind of the Psalmist, must indeed be evident to Christians; but which mind, it may be feared, is too often absent in our addresses at the footstool of the Great Creator. And as prayer should ever be the offering of the spirit, not the lip; the words which compose it ought to be alike the fruit of the spirit; that is, a composition of holy and devout feelings, so harmonically put together, as, if possible, to excite and vivify, in the aspirant, the feelings themselves. The author of the "Twelve Hours,” and other useful works, has thus embosomed within them his own devotional spirit; thereby super-adding a charm which renders them doubly attractive and improving; and as every production of this eminent divine is nothing less than a re-production of himself, I would (if I might be allowed to submit a preference) modestly, though earnestly solicit the thoughts of the "Twelve Hours," on this most important duty-Private Prayer.

I remain, Gentlemen, with much esteem,
Yours sincerely,

August 21, 1824.

S.

THE HISTORY AND PRESENT ASPECT OF NATURAL SCIENCE CONSIDERED; IN REFERENCE TO THE PROGRESS OF THE NEW CHURCH, AND THE EFFORTS OF THE INSTITUTIONS FOR PROMULGATING HER DOCTRINES.

LETTER I.

To the Editors of the Intellectual Repository. GENTLEMEN,

HAVING opportunities of viewing, under various aspects and relations, the pursuits in which so large a portion of mankind, in civilized countries, are so zealously and almost exclusively engaged, regarding the investigation of the affections, and properties, and mutual dependance, of the various beings and substances of the natural world; pursuits which are comprehended under the general terms of Natural Philosophy and Science ;-and having myself a strong attachment to those pursuits;—I have been induced to address you on the interesting objects, which the present state of SCIENCE, in general, and of that department of it called Natural History, in particular, present, for the contemplation, the hopes, and the gratitude, of the members of the New Church. The facts to which I allude, bear a prominent character, likewise, among the various circumstances of this eventful era, which call, loudly call, on the various associations for promulgating the Heavenly Doctrines for an active perseverance in their exertions: and, by consequence, on the recipients of the doctrines, for their strenuous support of those exertions. Before I proceed to delineate those features of the present aspect of natural science, to which I propose to call the attention of your readers it will be useful to examine, by rapidly tracing the history of that principle of the mind, through its various stages, from the rise of the philosophical investigation of nature, subsequently to the declension of the Noëtic church, to its condition in the times immediately preceding our own, how far it has been effectual as to its primary end, that of forming a subordinate and introductory medium of conjunction between the spiritual world and the natural;-between heaven and earth;-between the Lord and man. For this purpose it may be expedient to say a few words respecting the nature of mediums in general.

By a medium then, we are taught, is meant a being or principle,

which, operating intermediately between other beings or principles, and possessing a capacity of conjunction with both, has a tendency to effect their mutual communication and conjunction. Thus natural science, when in its proper order, is primarily a medium between intelligence and sensation: it gives form to the impressions of outward objects received through the senses: whilst the intelligence which dwells in it arranges those forms in series, analytically examines their mutual dependance and connexion, and thus itself becomes a medium, of a higher degree, between science and WISDOM. We also learn, from the New-Church writings, that the internal cannot have communication with the external, and vice versâ, unless there be a medium; thus that there can be no conjunction without a medium: so intelligence, were it not embodied in science, would have no perception of outward objects; it could receive no impressions from them, and would be incapable of affecting them. A medium likewise, that it may be a medium, must partake of the nature both of the internal and of the external, for without this, it cannot effect their conjunction: and further, a medium exists from the internal, and hence also subsists from it, by the internal regarding and as it were looking into the external by its means, from the desire of associating the external with itself; whence it likewise appears that that which is a medium, with the external alone, without the internal, must perish. Thus science, it is evident, partakes of the nature both of intelligence and of sensation: its reception of the impressions of outward objects connecting it with the latter, whilst it is allied to the former by its power of giving them form. That science subsists from intelligence by the constant endeavour of the latter to associate sensation with itself, is rendered manifest by the fact, that if intelligence be not exerted upon the impressions of sensation to which science has given form, and which have now become knowledges, in their analysis and comparison; the mind will remain clouded with the fallacies of the senses: for those knowledges, considered in themselves, are merely the images of the appearances of natural objects, and in no case those of the objects themselves, as they really exist. When the mind is thus obscured, science, as a medium, ceases to exist: and the obscure impressions, scarcely to be called knowledges, of which it consists, may be compared to a rude heap of blocks of marble and jasper rough

from the quarry, and so disguised by their native dirt, as to be inapplicable to any other purpose than that of mending the roads, or perhaps of supporting the walls of some ignoble hut. Whereas, when intelligence desires to associate sensation with itself, when it examines, divests of their disguises, and arranges in series according to use, the knowledges which science has procured, and stored up in the memory, or, in other words, when Science becomes Philosophy;—those knowledges are as the same blocks of marble and jasper, cleaned from their outward covering of earth, shaped into regular and elegant forms, their beauty displayed by polishing, and employed according to the several uses for which they are fitted by their nature, in the construction of a stately palace, which becomes the residence of a wise king.

We will now review, in rapid succession, some of the principal epochs in the history of science and philosophy, with reference, more particularly, to the means they have afforded mankind, for the perfecting of their rational faculties. And it will be seen, I think, as we proceed, that at no period since the loss of the science of correspondences, at the fall of the Ancient Church, has natural science afforded that direct medium between intelligence, properly so called, and sensation, and thus, through higher mediums, between the spiritual world and the natural, between the Lord and man;-in short, that at no period since that loss has it been so truly a principle of the Church, as it appears to be becoming at this day, even without regarding the restoration of the science of correspondences, through the instrumentality of Swedenborg.

The only science possessed by the people of the Adamic or Most Ancient Church, which bore a direct affinity to that we are now considering, was the science of correspondences: the knowledges, however, of which this consisted, and the intelligence derived from them, were the results of intuitive perception, and not of the application of the analytic faculties. The men of the Ancient Church, we are informed, instead of perception, had another kind of dictate or impression within, which resembled conscience, and was in fact a sort of intermediate between perception and conscience. They also received the knowledge of correspondences, traditionally, from the men of the prior Church. Now as mankind, after the consummation of the Adamic Church, had no longer a capacity of being instructed through the internal