rection; and efforts were made by the ecclesiastical council to perform the task which the constitution had assigned them. In a division of labor, a certain portion of the theological works of Swedenborg was given to each member, so that all those works might be thoroughly examined anew for the authorities bearing on the trine in the ministry-which were to be transmitted to a certain member of the council to work up in a report on this subject. But for reasons which it is needless now to recite, if it were possible to ascertain, the members of our ecclesiastical council never could be made to do the duty assigned them in this division of their labors. Notwithstanding they were urged by the repeated monitions and injunctions of the convention, in its annual meetings, to bring out their report, the person appointed to draw it up was never able to do so, because the other members either could not or would not aid him by the performance of their tasks and he was not willing to bring in a report which should set forth merely his own views, while it was his duty to draw up and present one which comprised the views of the whole council.

Thus the matter stood, when, in the last annual meeting of our convention, circumstances made it imperatively necessary that a temporary platform of ecclesiastical order should be raised for the ordination of ministers; and, for this purpose, a hasty report had to be drawn up on the subject of a trine in the ministry so as to justify the adoption under the constitution of the laws of order which were then felt to be indispensable. And an implied duty was left incumbent on the ecclesiastical council, then recruited by two new members, to engage in a more thorough discharge of their constitutional obligations. Accordingly, the members of the council again had the labor of examining the writings of the church divided among them. But although fifteen months have now elapsed since the adjournment of the last annual meeting, the member whose duty it still is to draw up the report on the trine in the ministry, has to complain that only one of his co-laborers in the work has sent him the results of his examinations: and he is left to the disagreeable alternative of neglecting this part of their duty, as often heretofore, or of presenting another crude and partial report, in which mainly his own views and examinations of the subject are alone set forth. Still he is aided and encouraged by the co-operation of the brother whose name is signed with his below. And he feels that he cannot be justified in putting off the discharge of his part of their duty any longer. Instead, therefore, of a report from the whole ecclesiastical council, which ought to have been given, the undersigned must beg leave to report, only for themselves

I. AS TO THE NECESSITY OF ORDER.

In the report to the last annual meeting, the necessity of order was cursorily shown. The convention could not have the Lord's power to ordain unless he were present in it; and the Lord can be present in his church only in and by his own divine order: because he "is order itself." It was shown that divine order in form "appears as a man." There should be, therefore, both external and internal order ;

because man is both internal and external. And external order should be developed first in time,-although internal order is first in end and lies latent in it,-because the body of man is developed before his soul. Further, good and truth flowing in from the Lord is according to reception with every one, and "reception must be altogether in the natural principle; for unless the natural principle gives aid, it is impossible for any birth of interior truth to exist." Wherefore, "during man's regeneration, the natural principle is first prepared to receive, and so far as this principle is made receptible, so far interior truths and goods can be brought forth and multiplied. (Ap. Ex. 441, A. C. 2536, 4588.) Thus it was demonstrated that both external and internal order is necessary in the church; for what is here shown of good and truth is so in respect to order, because good is order in essence, and truth is order in form. (A. C. 1728.) Thus good is internal order and truth is external order: and as truth is first in time, while good is first in end, so the church's external order is to be formed at first, as means whereby her internal order is to be developed at last. The whole question, then, in respect to the trine in the ministry, or any subject, or form, or law of order whatever, resolves itself into the simple consideration, whether the thing is true. For if it be true, it must be good for the church to be conformed to it. And the church, in seeing a certain order,-as that of a trine in the ministry, for instance, to be true, may not, after she has once acknowledged it, deny, reject or contravene it, without the most fearful peril. But before we come to consider this particular principle of order, and as introductory to it, we desire to make some more extended observations on the necessity of order in general.

"Let all things be done decently and in order," was an apostolic injunction to the first christian church, which ought not to be disregarded by the second. For the enlightened revelator of the new christian church has declared, that, "where order is not, neither is the Lord present there;" but "where the Lord is present, then, from his presence, all things are arranged into order-the Lord being order itself; so that where he is present, there is order, and where order is, there he is present." (A. C: 5703.) Can there be a stronger argument for the necessity of order in the new church? For is she not the bride, the Lamb's wife; and can she be conjoined with her Divine Spouse, if she be not made ready in all the adornment of that true order in which alone he can be present with her?

Yes, order is indispensably necessary in the church. For without it the church can never be secure. Since "the security of a large, as well as a small, society, depends on order." (C. L. 283.) Indeed "on order depends the consistence of all things." For "what would be the case with man, unless all and every single part of his body were arranged in a most distinct and orderly manner, having a general dependence upon one heart and lungs? What would the whole be but a heap of confusion? For how else could the stomach, the liver and the pancreas, the mesentery, and mesocolon, the kidneys and the intestines, perform each their respective offices? It is by the order reigning in and amongst those several organs that they appear

to man, all and each of them, as one. Without distinct order, again, in man's mind or spirit, and without a general dependence on the will and the understanding, what would it be but a confused and undigested chaos? Without such order, how could a man think and will any more than his portrait or statue which ornaments his house? What, again, would man be without a most orderly arranged influx from heaven, and the reception thereof? and what would this influx be without that most universal one from God, on which the government of the whole and of all its parts depends, and unless all things had their being, lived and moved in him?" "For instance, what is an empire

or kingdom without order, but a troop of robbers, several of whom, collected together, would slay their thousands; and, at last, a few of this band would slay the rest? So, again, what would become of a city, or even a house, without order? and what would become of a kingdom, city, or house, unless there were in each some supreme head and director?" (U. T. 679.)

Nothing can be more conclusive for the necessity of order than are these authorities. The consistence of all things depends upon it. The security of all society, and therefore of the church, depends upon it. And the church cannot be conjoined with the Lord as a wife with her husband, without that true order in which alone he can be present with her for her existence, preservation and blessing.

Such is the doctrine of the church in respect to the necessity of order in general. And our argument for the priority of external order in time, is simply this. The external church is the earth, in respect to the external church as heaven. And the Lord God, in reforming and regenerating the souls of men, as in creating the material universe and their bodies, invariably acts from first principles by last. Hence he creates the earth first as a ground-work for heaven. And this being a universal law, which applies as well to the spiritual as to the material world, therefore the external order of the church must be formed first in time, as a fundament, laboratory and continent of its internal order, which at all times lies within it as first in end and means. It is true that the heavens exist as a medium through which the earth is created as an ultimate. But the heavens do not exist and subsist in form until they close in that ultimate as a basis and continent-just as the will cannot exist and subsist in form until it flows through the understanding into acts. Hence there can be no sight without the eye, no hearing without the ear, no smelling without the nose, and no touch without an ultimate organization of the skin. And as the eye is formed before there is any sight, or the ear before there is any hearing, and thus before the will and understanding, which are as heavens through which they are formed as an earth, can come into form and activity, so must the external church be first formed in time before any internal church can exist and subsist in its form and activity. And this is our answer to the argument, from A. C. 4223, that uses are prior to the mediums or personal agents of use. For although it is true that ministerial uses are prior in end and means to their personal agents, yet no ministerial use can exist in form and efficiency before or without its personal agent, just as the use of sight

cannot exist in form and efficiency before or without the eye. Hence, if there is a trine of uses, there must be a trine of personal agents before those uses can possibly exist and subsist as a trine. And it is a great error to imagine that a trine of ministerial uses can exist in form and efficiency in one person. For the priesthood is a complex and not a simple personal unity. The one priesthood is made up of a trine of priests, just as the one skin is composed of a trine of skins in the body. Undoubtedly every one priest has a trine in himself, just as the Levites, who sustained the lowest grade in the jewish priesthood, had a trine among themselves in the three families of Gershon, Kohath and Merari -to whom peculiar and distinct duties were assigned in the time of David, (1 Chron. xxiii. 2-6 :) and as the trine in the one grade of the Levites did not make unnecessary a trine of discrete grades in the jewish priesthood, so the trine in the individual priest or minister does not make unnecessary a trine of ministers in the christian ministry. And this is proved by the Lord's example. For if the christian priesthood ever could have existed in one person, it must have been in the person of the Lord when on earth: but the Lord when on earth, ordained twelve apostles to be with him, and seventy disciples to go before him to those places whither he himself should subsequently come. Thus we find, in the christian priesthood, as established by the Lord himself, a trine of personal agents, to effect his priestly uses in establishing and extending his church on earth. So that then the one priesthood was a complex of a trine of priests; and the personal agent or medium of the priestly use existed first in time as the indispensable means of its development. And so we argue it must be, now and at all times, in just order.

II. AS TO THE WAY IN WHICH ORDER IS TO BE

INDUCED.

To the report of last year serious exception has been taken, because there was an effort in it to determine the external order of the church in a factitious or artificial way. It is imagined that external order is to be a spontaneous growth in the new church. We are not to resort to any of the science or means of spiritual agriculture for its production. We are not to concern ourselves at all about it; because the external order of the new church is always to correspond to its internal state, and when the internal state is right, the external order will flow from it as a matter of course, and without any effort, or even consciousness, on our part. Only concerning ourselves with the work of internal purification, we shall, when this work is properly done, lie down to sleep, and, waking up some morning, find that all our external order is nicely fixed for us without any labor or exertion whatever of our

own.

But, in the view of the undersigned, this is another of the instances which we have witnessed in the establishment of the new church, of attempting prematurely to make the order of heaven the order of earth. It is indeed true, that, in the heavens, external order flows spontaneously from the internal states of the angels. Therefore we are

taught that heaven consists in the mutual love of one towards another -whence comes order in heaven," (A. C. 5718): and further, that, "as soon as angels or spirits are assembled together, they are instantly arranged into order, as from themselves." (A. C. 6338.) But the external order of earth must be different, because the circumstances of earth differ greatly from those of heaven. In heaven it is not allowed that there shall be any disagreement whatever between the external and the internal of the angels; so that every thing there corresponds directly and fully to their internal states. Hence even the food and clothing of the angels so correspond-both being given to them gratis by the Lord, and without any efforts of their own to prccure them. Hence the whole external order of the church in heaven is correspondent to the states of the angels as they now exist. But on earth the external circumstances of men may not only not correspond to their internal states, but be directly opposite to them. Thus an evil soul may have a handsome body. The wicked may enjoy external prosperity, may wear fine clothes and dwell in sumptuous houses. The churchman may be the hypocrite. Ambition and love of gain may seek their ends by the most perfect external order. And even the abomination of desolation may stand in the holy place. On earth, men must appear to attain their ends by their own prudence. Human prudence always comes face foremost: the Divine Providence is only seen on the back. Here men must labor for food, raiment and habitation; and it is a melancholy fact that great success in the attainment of these things too often waits on the strenuous and unremitted efforts of selfish and worldly men, while the godly and heavenly minded are permitted to pine in penury and want. Thus the external circumstances of men on earth do not correspond to their internal states. And this is permitted in the economy of the divine mercy that evil internal states may be reformed. For if, when men were inwardly evil, their external circumstances invariably corresponded to their internal states, they would be wholly condemned in their evil by the full influx into them of reprobate spirits from hell. In short, entire and permanent correspondence between the external and the internal states of men is not produced by life in the natural world, but is the effect of judgment in the world of spirits. The life on earth is now and ever will be probationary; and to produce or allow the correspondence here spoken of would be to effect judgment before the time, and so preclude the entire fulfilment of the probationary state, which would be a virtual preclusion of the salvation of men. Hence, in order that men may be at all saved, there must be an external order entirely different from their internal states. That is, there must be external representatives, as shadows of good things to come, by which heaven may inflow and be brought into external connection with them for their preservation. Hence, in the church on earth, the external order is not to be correspondent to the states of the men, who are its professing members, as they now exist, but is to be representative of higher and better states into which they are to come in future. Thus baptism is not a sign that a man is a christian, but that he may become one, if its uses are effectuated in him. So the holy supper is a strictly