hibited himself to the three apostles at his transfiguration, though his outer frame was still composed of natural flesh and blood, "his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was as white as the light."* What was this, but his Divine Human Form, which was strictly one Person with his Divine Essence, and to which he referred when he said, "I and my Father are one?" the Divine Love in which gave to his face the appearance as of the sun, and the sphere of Divine Truth encompassing which was representatively exhibited by garments white as the light, according to the description of Jehovah by David, "Who coverest thyself with light, as with a garment."+ This Exhibition of himself in his truly Divine Person, as this existed within, and in a sphere above, his yet unglorified outward frame, was made to the disciples by opening, for the time, the sight of their spirits, and closing that of their bodies; in which state they beheld the Lamb in his Divine Human Form, and no longer in the material human form with which the former was yet invested; hence also they saw at the same time Moses and Elias, who were purely spiritual beings the inhabitants of a purely spiritual world and hence, when they returned into their natural state again," they saw no man save Jesus only ;" and him no longer in his Divine, but only in his natural, yet unglorified outer form. Here is demonstrative evidence of his possessing an internal and an external personal form, in the former of which he was a Divine Person complete, independently of the latter, whilst the latter was not a person at all, independently of the former, since without the former it would not even have possessed life. An attention to the important truth thus obviously pre sented, will illustrate many particulars connected with our Lord's glorification, and his oneness with the Father.

2. "If thou be the Son of God," said the devil," cast thyself down; for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee;" &c. This text is abundantly explained by our observations on the former. The Son is the Lord's Human Nature, not yet wholly glorified, and therefore liable, as to the merely human part of it," to be tempted of the devil." HeGod is the Divine Essence, not yet wholly united to the Human Nature. The union was to be affected by expelling from the Human Nature all that partook of human infirmity, and by renewing it from the Divine Nature; and the means were, by suffering the Human Nature to be attacked by the infernal powers, and by its resisting their suggestions; by which, at the same time, hell was conquered and removed from man. Could the infernal powers have prevailed in any one conflict, the Human Nature could not have been united with the Divine, and the work of redemption would have failed of its accomplishment. This

* Matt. xviii. 2.

they knew; and therefore they exerted all their force and artifice to carry their point. Thus, that which our opponents aim at preventing from being believed, the perfect union of the Divinity and the Humanity in the person of Jesus Christ, is cisely that which the devil aimed at preventing from being accomplished.

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3." And devils also came out of many, crying out, and saying, Thou art Christ, the Son of God," They did not confound the two Persons of Father and Son in one Person," says the Tri-personalist, 66 as the Baron does." We have seen that, to acknowledge the Humanity and the Divinity to be two distinct principles, is quite a different thing from dividing the One God into Two, as Tri-personalists do.

4. "Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men him will I also confess before my Father which is in heaven."+ "Here again," says the objector "is the Father and the Son; and it is worthy of remark too, that the Father is in heaven, whilst the Son was speaking on earth. Now if the Father and the Son were both comprehended in the person of Christ, what could be more absurd than the language of Christ, when he says, 'him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven.' Why not, speak of himself only, and tell his followers what good things he himself would do for them, without that continual reference to his Father, which he gloried in making?" Well: if the Tri-personalist believes the Father and Son to be two completely separate persons, so that, if the Father is in heaven, he cannot be united as one person with the Son upon earth, he at least believes the Son to be but one person; and yet the very same phraseology which is here used of the Father and the Son, is used by Jesus of himself alone. "No man," saith he, "hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven."§ It is here declared that the Son of man was in heaven, whilst he was speaking on earth. Will the Tri-personalist therefore say, "Now if the Son of man was comprehended in the person of Christ, what could be more absurd than the language of Christ, when he says while on earth, even the Son of man which is in heaven ?"" If he will not repeat the scoff in the present case, let him acknowledge, that if, in divinc language, one Divine Principle may be spoken of as being in heaven and on earth at the same time, with equal propriety may this be affirmed of two Divine Principles, without any actual separation being intended; that if such phraseology proves the Father and Son to be two separate persons, it proves with equal certainty the Son alone to be two separate persons also. In DiPp. 26, 27. § John iii. 13.

*Luke iv. 41. † Matt. x. 32.

vine language, heaven and earth do not so much mean two specific places, as whatsoever is internal and external respectively: thus, when the Lord speaks of his Father which is in heaven, he means much the same as when he speaks of the Father that dwelleth in him. And when he says, "Whosoever shall confess me before men, him will I also confess before my Father which is in heaven," he means, that whosoever acknowledges him in faith and life, shall have communication and conjunction, in and by his Divine Humanity, with the Divinity itself. Thus, instead of referring men to any God out of himself, he calls them to himself, as the only object of worship,-as the only Person in whom the Godhead can be approached.

But, to clear this subject further, let it be asked: Do our adversaries imagine, when Swedenborg speaks of the Divine Essence or God himself, as assuming Humanity in the Person of Jesus and as being the soul of that Humanity from its conception, that he means it to be understood that the Divine Essence, or the whole Deity, was shut up in the material frame taken from the Virgin Mary, like an etherial essence in a bottle, and that, so long as the Person of Jesus remained on earth, heaven was left without its Governor, and the whole Universe, except that little portion occupied by the material body of Jesus, was shut out from the presence of God? Nothing can be more abhorrent from all the views of Swedenborg than such a phantasy. According to his expressive language, "God is in all space without space, and in all time without time;" he is universally omnipresent through all space and all time, without partaking in the least either of the one or of the other. Hence, then, it was quite possible for "the Father" to be "in heaven," considered even as a place, and yet to be in intimate union with the person of Jesus on earth and so far as that person entered into this union, that is, so far as it was made Divine, it, also, was not in space, though still retaining a close connection with the outward frame, which was all that appeared before men: and when the outward frame also had been made Divine, as was the case at the resurrection, and most entirely at the ascension, it, likewise put off the trammels of space; and the Lord is now as completely omnipresent with respect to the whole of his Divine Person, as with respect to the Essence of Deity. "Lo, I," in the Divine Body in which you now behold me, says the ascending Saviour to his followers, am with you alway, even to the end of the world.*

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The objector's last interrogation, quoted above, as expressing the sentiments of many, also demands a remark. "Why not, says he of Jesus, "speak of himself only, and tell his followers what good things he himself would do for them, without that

*Matt. xxviii. 20.

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continual reference to his Father which he gloried in making." This implied denial of the power of Jesus "himself," to do good things for his followers, really approaches to the cry which said "Let Christ the king of Israel descend now from the cross," from the state of impotence, to which, as we think, our denial and opposition have reduced him, "that we may see and believe." But at this time, to have spoken of "himself only," would have been to teach, not the union of his Humanity with his Divinity, but its separation from it; in which state it would have been powerless. While the Humanity was yet but partially glorified, it necessarily was in the acknowledgement that all its power was from the Divinity, and looked to the Divinity that its glorification might be completed: and Jesus at this time spoke accordingly, to teach us these truths. But does he never tell his followers what good things he himself would do for them?" He does this, with only occasional references to his Father, even while on earth; even in this very declaration, rightly understood, he promises that he will give, to those who acknowledge him and his power to give it, the highest privilege that can be conferred on a created being, the knowledge of and conjunction with, the Inmost Divinity; a promise that would be absurd in the extreme if the Inmost Divinity and he were not one Person. To the same purport he says elsewhere," No man knoweth the Son but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father save the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal him."* But after his resurrection he constantly speaks of himself alone as doing good things for his followers; because, his union with the Father being now effected, there was no longer any reason for his ascribing the power to him; accordingly he never once does so himself being now the proper Person of the Father. "In my name they shall cast out devils, they shall speak with new tongues, they shall take up serpents," &c.t "He breathed upon them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost." "Behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you."§ "To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life," &c. "To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna,

&c. "I will give to every one of you according to your works."

"To him will I give power over the nations," &c. Thus the Lord Jesus Christ goes on through this chapter and the next, and indeed through the whole book, presenting himself alone as the inspector of his people's actions, and as alone doing "good things" to them that overcome. What blasphemy would all this be, were he now, in any respect whatever, a separate Person from the Father! And how careful should his professed followers † Mark xvi. 17, 18. John xx. 22. Rev. ii. 7. 17, 23, 26.

* Matt. xi. 21.

Luke xxiv. 49.

be, how they mock at the "good things which he himself will do for them," and "for whosoever shall confess him before men!"

5. "For I am not alone, but I and the Father that sent me. It is also written in your law, that the testimony of two men is true. I am one that bear witness of myself, and the Father that sent me beareth witness of me."* Great stress is laid by the Tri-personalist, in common with all his brethren, upon this text; but, what the Lord is here in reality asserting, is, not his separation from the Father, but his oneness with him. This we will endeavor fully to evince, FIRST, From the literal sense of the text and context: SECONDLY, From the spiritual sense of the Mosaic law referred to: and THIRDLY, By showing, that, even in the language employed, the Divine Speaker is careful to avoid any expression that might sanction the notion, that the distinction between himself and the Father is a distinction of Persons.

We are FIRST to show, That the Lord is here asserting, not his separation from the Father, but his oneness with him, from the literal sense of the text and context.

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He had just before spoken of himself as the Divine Truth itself, by saying, "I am the light of the world.”† The Pharisees denied this, and treated him as an impostor, with the scoff, "Thou bearest record of thyself; thy record is not true." Je sus replies, that though he bears record of himself, his record is true; and then he argues, in the words quoted, that he is not, as they supposed him, a mere man, but a man of Divine Origin, or, as to his essential and interior nature, a Divine man, and in close union with the Essential Divinity, or the Father. “I am not alone," not in a state of separation from the Father, " but I and the Father that sent me." The construction of this last clause is left imperfect, and contains no affirmation, the words necessary to complete it being left to be supplied in the mind of the reader, as is often the case in the ancient languages. What then is understood, to complete the sense in English? Evidently the clause is to be filled up thus: "I and the Father that sent me are together," that is, are in union, that is, as he explains it more fully elsewhere, "I and the Father are One." plains it also with sufficient clearness in this same discourse, when he says, in nearly the same words, a few verses below, "He that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me alone."§ And he explains his meaning still more fully, and in still nearer connection with the words in question, when he says,|| “If ye had known me, ye [should — or rather, according to the present use

He ex