And thus, when those spiritual objects were persons, the circumstance of the spiritual eye being opened and closed would be attended by the natural appearance of spiritual beings coming and departing. Thus, when “the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, and Jesus came and stood in the midst,” (John, xx.19,) it doubtless appeared to his disciples as a natural event, and they seemed to see him with their natural eyes; but it was manifestly a spiritual vision, because the walls of the room where they were assembled, which did obstruct their natural sight, were no obstruction to the Lord's apparent natural entrance. So in the case of Abraham, the approach of the Lord to him in the form of three men appeared to him as a natural event; when in fact it was a spiritual event, occurring to the view of his spiritual sight. For Jehovah appeared to him under angelic forms, which, being spiritual, evidently could not have been seen naturally. And as Abraham probably was not aware that he saw by the opening of his spiritual sight, and thus rested in the natural appearance; hence it is recorded as an historical event, that three men stood before him as he sat in his tent door; and it is related that he performed natural offices to them. It is however manifest that all this must have been a spiritual occurrence of the merely mental world, seen by Abraham's spiritual eyes; and was but a representative imaging of divine and spiritual things, intended for the church in all ages. For these things, in common with other historical events which are recorded in the Old Testament, “happened," as Paul says, “for ensamples, and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come.” ( 1 Cor. x. 11.)

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But it may be objected here, that Stephen saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God: which implies that Jesus was separate and distinct from God, and of course could not be God himself. In answer to this, we can only observe, as heretofore , that Stephen saw with his spiritual eyes opened; and hence that which he saw was a representa tion in the spiritual world, similar to those representations which John saw in vision, and which he has described in the Apocalypse. For Stephen saw “the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God." And John (Apoc. iv . 2) beheld a throne set in heaven, and one sitting on the throne, who was evidently the same whom he had before described as unto the Son of Man standing in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks." (i . 13.) Hence it is clear that this representation to the eye of Stephen is to be explained in the same way that those are which were seen by John.

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And, from this simile, we may see that it is not impossible or absurd to imagine, that a divine substance might have been made to assume precisely the form of the Lord's humanity, by displacing and exactly replacing the material substance of which it was previously composed: so that , when the Lord was risen as to the body, he would appear, to the spiritual eye of his disciples, in precisely the same body with which their natural eye was familiar on earth. And that this is not mere conjecture is proved from the fact of his transfiguration on the mount, where he appeared to Peter, James and John in his divine body, by such an opening of their spiritual sight that they could see through his material enveloping and behold the divine form and substance that were being formed and residing intimately within it. There was a perfect identity between the two bodies, so that the disciples knew it to be still Jesus, though his countenance did shine as the sun in his strength, and his raiment did glitter as the light. Hence it is evident that the Lord had a divine body, in a process of formation on earth, and ultimately fully formed, in his material body, a perfect facsimile of it, and yet constituted of a substance totally distinct from it.

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The true reason why there is so wide a difference between us and the Unitarians in our views of the Lord, is, because the unitarian doctrine of the Lord is drawn from the natural world, and ours from the spiritual world. Unitarian doctrines are drawn from the mere letter of the Word, explained by mere natural science; but the doctrines of the new church are drawn from the letter of the Word as it is understood by angels, and are confirmed by the letter illustrated by the light of its spiritual The doctrines of the Unitarians are drawn from the Word by men in the exercise of the prdinary natural- rational powers ofthe mind; but the new-church doctrines were drawn from the Word by one in the exercise of peculiar spiritual-rational powers, because his spiritual eyes were opened to see and converse with angels, and to see and reveal the facts and laws of the spiritual world; and because he was otherwise especially filled with the Lord's spirit to teach those doctrines from him. Hence, as unitarian doctrines come from a man's own natural intelligence formed from the knowledge of truths as seen here in this world, therefore the Unitarian stands on the earth and looks at the Lord from without; but as the doctrines of the new church come from the Lord himself through heaven, and come from a spiritual intelligence not man's own, but formed from the knowledge of truths as seen in the spiritual world.

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But it does not follow that God has no form, because his form does not appear to us in our natural state: and although he does not appear in common natural, and in ordinary human, forms, yet he must exist in an appropriate divine form; because, in the nature of things, no essence whatever can exist without a form; and therefore because a divine essence without a divine form would be a divine nonentity. He may have a divine body as invisible to our natural eyes as the glorified body of the Lord was invisible to the natural eyes of his disciples when he existed in a material body on earth, but as visible to our spiritual eyes as was his divine natural body to the spiritual eyes of his disciples in his transfiguration on the mount.

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Any perſection of man's mere animal nature, then, will never give a man a rational discernment of scientific things. Let his sight, his hearing, his smell, his taste, his touch , be ever so exquisite ; let his form be ever so perfect in symmetry, or powerful in muscular energy; all will avail him nothing in the comprehension of mathematical truths, for instance, unless he has a mathematical mind. Just so it is with spiritual things. Any perfection of man's mere natural mind will avail him nothing in the comprehension of spiritual truths, unless he has a spiritual mind. And this can be acquired only by an elevation of his mental and moral powers, discretely, out of mere natu ral things into the light of heaven. A spiritual body must be developed and perfected, with a spiritual eye, and all the organs of spiritual discernment, before he can see the things of the spirit of God. He must, as Paul expresses it, “be trans formed by the renewing of his mind.” And as, in the case of the acquisition of scientific discernment, it is necessary to mortify and keep under the propensities of our mere animal nature by an obedience to the dictates of prudence and propriety; so, in the case of spiritual discernment, it is necessary for us to mortify and keep under the propensities of the mere natural man— "the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life”-by a life according to the Lord's commandments.