perish, from the first moment of existence plants devote themselves to preparations for producing flowers; and if accidentally placed in circumstances which threaten early death, will make a vehement and successful struggle to ripen at least a seed. All the most interesting and beautiful incidents in the biography of plants gather round the history of their flowers. Until these appear, the plant has attained neither to its highest glory nor its full vigour, nor are its properties perfected. This is why for medicinal purposes plants are always collected when in bloom. As the vesture of the stamens and pistils, the petals of flowers may be regarded as the wedding-dresses of the plant; their opening to the sunlight as the bridal morning; and their lovely hues and sweet odours, as its gaieties, smiles, and music. Pliny well called flowers 'the joy of plants,' for at no period in the history of life is joy so brilliant and abounding as when its sympathies and affections blossom into marriage; and immutably identified with such joy are the matchless forms and vivid colours of flowers, their fragrance, their gracefulness, and the superb season of their highest plenty, when all nature is a song. Even in the bud, the importance of these organs is foretold; for at a period when the calyx and petals are but minute, colourless scales; when the silken attire is but weaving, and the embroidery is scarcely traced, the stamens and pistils often shew a large and shapely development. This is well seen on unrolling the white spire-like buds of the crocus bulb. When the stamens have shrivelled, and the petals have withered and fallen, gestation may be seen in the ripening seed pod; parturition in its bursting when mature, and the escape of the seeds; lactation in the nourishing of the new born plants by the soft white matter stored up for that purpose within the shell of the seed. There is not a more charming analogy in nature than that of the mother's bosom with the nutrient cotyledons of a seed, which usually produced in pairs, sweeten their latent juices immediately they are needed by the thirsty little being entrusted to them, now but a green speck, some day a beautiful plant or a mighty tree. The vegetable anatomist is familiar with many more such resemblances, unnecessary here to be specified. The curious may see an account of them in Ryan's Philosophy of Marriage, chapters 13 and 15.

7. The discovery of this admirable piece of consanguinity between plants and animals belongs wholly to modern science. The ancients allude to it rarely, and in the most superficial manner. Aristotle (De Gen. Anim. i. 23.) and Pliny (Hist. Nat. xiii. 4.) seem to have had a slight idea of the function of the farina; the other allusions relate almost exclusively to the date-palm, celebrated for its separate sexes,

N. S. NO. 149.-VOL. XIII.

Z

from the first dawn of history.* Not, indeed, until the middle of the sixteenth century was the subject seriously examined. The period included between this and the beginning of the eighteenth, rich in profound and memorable insights, found Ray, Grew, Malpighi, Camerarius, and numbers of other acute botanists studious in the investigation, the synthetic mind of Linnæus rising at the close, to consolidate their scattered observations into an exact and coherent system. In the writings of this great man are cited innumerable facts and illustrations on the sexuality of plants, and its agreement with that of animals, placing the matter beyond possibility of denial, though objectors were plentiful and longlived. †

8. Where stamens and pistils are not produced, as in the ferns, seaweeds, lichens, and other plants thence named by Linnæus cryptogamic, or 'invisibly-married,' their functions are representatively fulfilled in a mode similar to that by which zoophytes and animalcules are multiplied. Sometimes, as in that curious inhabitant of our still ponds, the Zygnema, there is a wonderful simulation of sexuality, though the organs engaged are simple cells. The animal and vegetable kingdoms blend at their lower extremes, approaching in external forms not a little, and largely in organization and method of life; and so intimately, that it is yet undecided under which division certain little beings best deserve to be arranged. That the sexual principle is continued into the very lowest, whether animal or plant, is, however, perfectly certain. || `

* See, for instance, in addition to the above-named authors, Herodotus, Book 1st; Vincentius Bellovacensis, in that great cyclopædia of the middle ages, the Bibliotheca Mundi; (Spec. Nat. xiii. 31.) and the most amusing account of the 'loves of the palms,' in Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, Part 3, Sect. 2, Member 1, Sub-sec. 1.

The most important of the evidence so collected, is presented at one view in a dissertation by Wahlbom, called Sponsalia Plantarum, published in the first volume of the Amanitates Academicæ, 1749, and translated by Rose in his Elements of Botany,' 1775. The botanical article in the Encycl. Brit. may also be consulted for a summary, both of the evidence and the objections.

The same simulation of sex in its highest expression, occurs in certain animalcules, as the Paramecium Aurelia. (See Rymer Jones, p. 63.)

|| The best and most recent information on the reproduction of the Cryptogamia in general, is contained in Lindley's great work, 'The Vegetable Kingdom;' and on that of the tribes especially interesting to this inquiry, in Hassall's Fresh-water Algæ, and Ralfs' British Desmidieo.

179

SWEDENBORG AND CALVIN.

"THE STONE WHICH THE BUILDERS REJECTED, THE SAME IS BECOME THE HEAD OF THE CORNER." (Luke xx. 17.)

In the "Spiritual Exposition of the Apocalypse" by the Rev. Augustus Clissold, M.A., lately published, we have abundant evidences collected from every respectable source, both ancient, medieval, and modern, of the decline, fall, and consummation of the church. But in no subject is this so obvious as in the numerous extracts adduced to shew the death of the "Two Witnesses," as recorded in chapter xi. It is well known to the intelligent in the New Church that these two Witnesses signify, first, the acknowledgment and confession of the Lord Jesus Christ in His Divine Human or “Glorious Body" as the God of heaven and earth; and, secondly, that we are conjoined to Him by a life according to the precepts of the decalogue. Now how these two essential articles of all genuine Christian doctrine-these two great witnesses of Christianity, as a living heavenly principle in the church and in the individual, have been destroyed by false dogmas, vain traditions, and by evils of life, is abundantly demonstrated by Mr. Clissold.

One great branch of the Protestant Church is called Calvinism; the entire Church of Scotland is Calvinistic, or founded upon the doctrines of Calvin. But how did Calvin and his followers, at the time of the Reformation, regard the testimony of the two Witnesses, and on what stone did they endeavour to establish the so-called reformed churches? Certainly not on that "Precious Stone which ought to be the head of the corner," or on the acknowledgment of the Lord Jesus Christ in His Divine Humanity, or Glorious Body, as the God of heaven and earth. This is evident from the following extract :

"We have seen (says Mr. Clissold) in the chapter on Christ and Antichrist,

"First, that although by one class the humanity is admitted to be the Son of God, yet that it is no otherwise the Son of God than other saints and angels are.

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Secondly, that by another class the humanity is altogether denied to be the Son of God.

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Now into these two classes the church has been divided from its earliest years. Indeed Calvin maintained, Libri Symbolici, p. 865,

* See this Periodical for March.

"1. That God is man, and man is God, is only a figurative mode of expression.'

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2. That the human nature has communion with the Divine not in reality and truth, but only nominally and verbally.'

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3. That notwithstanding all God's omnipotence, it was impossible for him to let the natural body of Christ be, at one and the same time and instant, in more than one place.'

"4. That Christ according to his human nature, received by his exaltation only created gifts and finite power; and that he neither knows nor can do all things.'

5. That Christ being absent as to his humanity, reigns as does the king of Spain over the New Islands.'

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6. That it is a damnable idolatry, if the confidence and faith_of the heart be placed in Christ not only according to his divine but also according to his human nature, and if the honour of adoration be directed to both.'"

Now these are the very words of Calvin,* and we ask every Calvinist, Is not this most completely to act the part of the builders who rejected the STONE, which ought to be the Head of the Corner? To say that it is" damnable idolatry to place the confidence and faith of the heart in Christ, not only according to his divine but also according to his human nature;"-is not this utterly to reject Christ altogether, except in the mere Socinian sense of an exalted Teacher?

We now see the reason why so many of the old Presbyterian churches in England, which were established during the time of Cromwell and the Second Charles, on this Calvinistic faith, have entirely lapsed into Socinianism. How could it be otherwise with such teaching as that of Calvin ? And we also see why it was that Swedenborg reproaches Calvin as teaching and acting an anti-Christian part; † and who will deny that such teaching is anti-Christian in the extreme? It must, however, to the honour of the Lutheran Protestant Church be stated, that they entirely rejected these Calvinistic articles respecting the Person of Christ. They retained, however, the Athanasian Doctrine of three Persons, "each for himself being Lord and God," which in the minds of ninety-nine out of every hundred who embrace that dogma, amounts to the idea of three Gods, which is almost as destructive of the true idea of God as the doctrine of Calvin stated above. It has, however, this redeeming feature, that the affirmative of the divinity of Jesus Christ, even as to

* Quod damnabilis Idololatria sit, si fiducia et fides cordis in Christum non solum secundum divinam, sed etiam secundum humanam ipsius Naturam collocetur, et honor adorationis ad utramque dirigatur.

True Christian Religion, 798.

See Lib. Symbolici, Vol. ii., p. 865.

THE STONE CUT OUT OF THE MOUNTAIN WITHOUT HANDS. 181

his Humanity, is thereby preserved, which affirmative is utterly destroyed by Calvin in the article above, which teaches that "the worship of Christ either as to his divine or his human nature is damnable idolatry." It is quite evident that Calvinism, properly regarded as emanating from Calvin himself, and Christianity, such as it emanates from Jesus, cannot exist together, -the one is the negative of the other.

THE STONE CUT OUT OF THE MOUNTAIN WITHOUT HANDS.-DANIEL. ii. 45.

In our former article we spoke of "the STONE which should be the Head of the corner." This Stone, we saw, plainly represented the Lord Jesus Christ in his Divine Humanity, or "Glorious Body," as "the precious foundation or rock" upon which the church must be built. The builders have rejected that Stone, and the consequence is, that the church is now a heap of ruins, with nothing but external authority, as in the Romish Church, and earthly emoluments and dignities, as in the Church of England, to keep it together. We shall now allude to the "Stone cut out of the mountain without hands."

Dr. Cumming, the celebrated minister of the Scottish Church in London, was lately in Manchester, and preached two discourses, since published, in the National Scotch Church of that city, on the "Church of Christ." In the former of these discourses he uttered these words, no less remarkable, as coming from such a quarter, than really true, as indicating the fall and consummation of the Old Church, and the commencement of the New, signified by the New Jerusalem in the Revelation:

"I believe (says Dr. Cumming) the sifting time for all our churches is come. It began in Scotland, and will not end in England. No one can look abroad at Christendom at this moment without seeing that churches and thrones, at least European ones, are rocking and tottering as beneath the vibrations, the successive vibrations of a ceaseless earthquake. The Scottish Church lost several good men by their secession from her in 1843; our Wesleyan brethren are now passing through a trying ordeal; the Church of England, I need not tell you, is rent and torn,-and the more sad and terrible the rending because it is not about mere paltry matters of church discipline, as it was with us in Scotland in 1843, but about precious and vital truth. And I believe all our churches and denominations are about to be broken to pieces by the Stone cut out without hands, that is now dealing its successive blows,— yet out of that chaos and disorganization there will emerge the true church, bright like the sun, and pure as the moon, and terrible as an army with banners.'

"But we are not to hasten it. God will attend to his own prophecies. I am not, because I believe my own church will be destroyed as a national church, as well as