XI. Swedenborg, '* Jehovah God is esse îh îtself

♦ * beginning andend, &c. from etemity to etemîty."

Spinoza. " Substance is that M^hich is in itself, and is conceived by itself." Ethics, part 1, de£ 3. And " whatever is is in God." Prop. 16. And " God is etemal." Prop. 19.

XII. Swedenborg. *' The unity of God is most intimately inscribed on the mind of every mau." T.C.R. page 20.

Spinoza. ''The human mind has an adéquate knowledge of the etemal and infinité nature of dod,"

Ethics, part 2, prop. 47.

XIII. Swedenborg. '' That the infinité divine is in man, as in its images, is évident from the Word where this is read,"&c. T. C. R. p. 29,

Spinoza. '' Hence it folio ws that the mind of man is a part of the infinité intellect of God." Ethics, part 2, prop. 11, coroU.

XIT. Swedenborg. '' In bim (man) the soûl is not life, but a récipient of life. * ^ Life in himself is God.

* * ^ The Divine Esse, because it is One^ the Same^ the Itself, and thence indivisible, caxmotbe in several."

T. C. R. page 22.

Spinoza. '' The Bemg (Esse) of Substance (God) does not belong to the essence of man, or, does not constitute the form of man." Ethics, part 2, prop. 10. And " the absolutely infinité Substance is indivisible." Part 1, prop. 13. And '^ Every thing according to whose nature many individuals may exist, xausi neces-

SPINOZA AND SWBDBNBORO JDVmBmO. If

sarily hâve an extemal cause," [i. e. inan has not life in himself.] Part 1, prop. 8, schol.

XV. Swedenborg. '' Whereibre infinité ia an adjeo tive, belonging to the essentials and attributes c^ God, ail of which are called infinité." T. C. R. page 33.

Spinoza. The Ethics speaks of the attributes of Grod as infinité, but only in their own kind ; thus, ikought is infinité thought, but not infinité extension ; and again, extension is infinité extension, but not in<^ finite thought While God is the absoliUdy infinité Being.

XYI. Swedenborg. ^'Every one should prépare tbe way for God, that is, should prépare himself for reeep* tion ; and this should be done by means of knowtr edges." T. C. R. page 20.

Spinoza. " The highcst effort (aim or striving) of the mind, and its suprême or greatest virtue, is to know God by the third kind of knowledge." Ethics, part 5, prop. 25. See No. III. in first letter.

XVII. Swedenborg. " Every quality has its quality from that which is the iiself from which it is [derivedj, and to which it refers itself [as to its cause] that it may be such." T. C. R. page 21.

Spinoza, " The power of an effect is defined by the power of its cause, in so far as the essence of the effect is explained by the essence [the itself] of the cause." Lthics, part 5, ax. 2.

XVIII. Swedenborg. '*Wherefore the Lord says, that He is in the midst of them : also, that He is in them and they in Him." T.G.R. page 21.

Spitioza. '* Our mind in so far as it knows itself ^id the body under the form of etemity, possesses necessarily the knowledge of God, and knows that it is in God, and is conceived by (or througb) God."

Ethics, part 6, prop. 30.

XIX. Swedenborg. " * ♦ and yet the substantial and material things in the universe considered indiyidually, are infinité in nnmber." T. C. R. page 96. '

&>inoza. " There must be infinité things in infinité modes in nature." Ethics, part 1, prop. 16.

XX. Swedenborg. " ♦ * the life to eternity, which every man has after death, is not communicable but from an eternal God." T. C. R. page 27.

Spinoza. *' The human mind cannot be entirely destroyed with the body, but something remains of it, which is etemal." Ethics, part 5, prop. 23. And the démonstration connects this portion with God as the cause.

XXI. Swedenborg. " Let every one therefore be cautions how he persuades himself that he lives from himself ; and also that he is wise, believes, loves, perceives truth, and wills and does good from himself.

T. C. R. page 36.

Spinoza. " Tbere is no absolute or free wiil in the mind ; and it may be demonstrated that the mind has no absolute faculty of understanding, desiring, loving," &o. Ethics, part 2, prop. 48, schol.

It is proper to note hère, that although, as must be seen above, both writers deny to man the faculty of willing, &c. as of kirnself, yet both agrée that man, though not absoltUely free, is yet in another view perfectly free ; Swedenborg referring this freedom to the spiritual in man, while Spinoza refers it to what he calls reason, which is only another name for Swedenborg's spiritual. They both refer this, spiritual in the one case, and reason in the other, to God as the cause, and explain it to be that in man by whioh, as they each show in other parts of their writings, man is capable of knowing God, and being made happy by a conjunction with him. As this point touches the question of free-agency in man, I suppose it will be readily admitted, that a few words cannot make the views of the writers clear ; yet, in justice to both of them, it ought to be remarked, that, with their respective explanations, they favor neither the popular notion of freedom as something absolute in mai», nor, on the other iiand, the doctrine of blind necessity.

XXIL Swedenborg. '< It is to be held that ail things in the universe were created in their orders, so that they may subsist each one by itself, and that from the beginning they were so created, that they may conjoin themselves with the universal order, to the intent that each particular order may subsist in the universal, and thus make one." T. C. R. page 47.

Spinoza. « * «f « and if we thus go on ad infini-

SPINOZA AND s f m m m no idbmtipisd 17

larm, we may easily eoaeeivt that ail nature is om laëividual, whose parts (that is to say, ail bodies) rary in infinité modes, without any change in the total lor diFÎdual'' : [i. e. ali bodies make one.] Ethies, part 2, Une 7 after prop. 13.

The doctrine at page 57 of the True Christian Religion, of God beinç " order itself," and that the " laws of order are mvriads," and that " God cannot act contrary to them,'' is precisely Spinoza's doctrine, as may be seen in many places. The doctrine is argued at length in the Ethics, part 1, prop. 17, schol : the proposition being, that *<God acts by the mère laws of taë own nature, and is not necessitated."

As a further illustration of this point, I add the following from Swedenborg. '^ Thoee who do not «Or derstand the Divine Omnipotence, may imagine eilhr er that there is no order, or that God can do contrary to order, as well as aocording to it, wfaen yet, without oïder, there could be no création. * * * Yea, God himseif cannot do contrary to his own divine order, since this would be to do contrary to himseif." P. 347.

The corresponding passage to this in the Ekhîcs, is in ihe 2d schol. to prop. 33, part 1, where Spinoza says, '* It clearly follows trom the preceding propositions, that things bave been produced in the greatest perfection by ^od : seeing, indeed, that they iiave folio wed necessarily from His most perfect nature. Nor does this opinion arsue any imperfection in God ; for ît is his very perfection which bas compeiled us to affirm it Nay, it follows from the contrary opinion, that God is not whoJly perfect ; for if things could bave been produced in any other mode, we must attribute to God another nature, différent firom that which we hâve been competled to attribute to Him, from tte considération of the most perfect Being {Ens,)'^

And further, in the same scholi. Spinosa remarks, that the supposition that God could croate things otherwise than aocording to order, would impiy that God could change his own decrees, while ail agrée Ihat God's decrees are unchangeable.

XXIII. Swedenborg. '* It is at this day a prevailing opinion that the omnipotence of God is like the ab-

18 SPINOZA AND SWEDENBOBG IDBNTIFIED.

soluté power of a king in the world, who can at his pleasure do what he wills,''&c. [and this opinion Swedenborg very severely condemns.] T. C. R. page 48.

Spinoza. '^ The vulgar understand by the omnipotence of God, the free will of God, and his right or aathoritv over ail things which exist, and which are therefore generally regarded as contingent. Moreover they often compare the power of God with the power of kings. But we hâve refuted this in CoroUaries Ist and 2d, prop. 32, part 1."

Hère it will be seen that the same illustration is taken by each writer, and the popular opinion equally condemned.

XXIY. Swedenborg's doctrine of space and time is the same with that of Spinoza. Each author dénies that thèse tenus apply to God. '^ The sun itself/' says Swedenborg, '^would be near the eye unless intermediate objects discovered that it is so distant" ; and Spinoza, in the schol. to prop. 35, part 2, had already ta* ken the same example, the sun, to illustrate the same principle.

XXV. Swedenbarg. * * * " They acknowledged that there is a God, and that nature was created to be subservient to the Life which was from God : and that nature in itself was dead, and that thus, it does nothing from itself, but is actuated by Life," [i. e. by God.]

é True C. R. page 65.

Spinoza. " A thing which bas been determined (moyed) to ad bas necessarily been so determined by Grod, and what is not determined to act by God cannot détermine itself." Ethics, prop. 26, part L

Spinoza makes a distinction between nature active and nature passive. The first is nature regarded as absolviSy and is always active ; the second regards nature as relative, in which sensé one thing is acted upon by another. Every single thing partakes of each ; it bas a certain power of action, but from the active power of other things it may be acted upon. But God is regarded as the really acting cause in both cases, or as the only acHvily.

XXVI. Swedenborg. " Now, because the Word is such, appearances of truth, which are truths clothed.

SPINOZA ATID SWEDBNBOBO lEHENTIFUfl). 19

may be taken for naked truths, which, when they are confirmed, pby reasonings founded on àe mère appearances of things as presented to the sensés] become fallacies, which in themselves are falses. From this, that appearances of truth may be taken for naked truths, and confinned, bave sprung ail the hérésies which hâve been, and still are, m the Christian world. Hérésies themselves do noi condemn men ; but confirmations of the falsities, wtûch are in a heresy, from the Word, and by reasonings from the natural man and an evil life, do condemn." T. C. R. p. 192.

Spinoza. " But the reason why men hâve not an equally clear knowledge of God and of conunon notions is, they cannot imagine God as they do bodies, and^ they hâve connected the name oi God with images of things which they are in the habit of seeing ; [which last, according to both Swedenborg and Spinoza, are only appearances of truth] and this is the origin of most controversies, that meneither do notcorrectiy express their own meaning, or do not correctly interpret the meaning of others. * ♦ ♦ I wish you to remark, that the imaginations of the mind, regarded in them^ selveSj coniain no error ; or, the mind does not therefore err because it imagines ; but only inasmuch as it is without an idea which precludes the existence of those things which it imagines to be présent For if the mind, when it is imagining non-existing things as

S resent to itself, knows at the same time that the thmgs not exist, it will certainly attribute this power of imagining, not to any defect, but to the action (power^ of its own nature." Eth. part 4, props. 17, 47, & schol.

XXVII. Swedenborg. " But bare knowledge only enters the understanding, and this bas not any authority over the will, and so is not in man otherwise than as one who stands in the entry, or at the door, and not as yet in the house." T. C. R. page 193, also p. 397.

Spinoza. "The true knowledge ofjood and ejo^ canAot, as truth, [i. e. as " bare ^^""yi^r^^^J r^^T" any affection, but only in so far as it ^VJ^se f <^o'^«»/ïered as an affection." Ethics, part 4, prop. 14.