COMMENTARY CONTINUED. DISCOURSE Iv. may be described as the whisking of the Solar Force through and about the Initiate which at every pronounced increase of vol- tage causes greater illumination, to the seer, actually visible as light. See Frontispiece. 21. His breath kindleth coals, The Divine Energy or Fire* enkindles the ganglia. Or this verse may be taken literally, for when the Solar Force has reached and energised a certain ganglion the Initiate is able to enkindle substances by directing the Solar Force upon them through the medium of the breath. 22. and sorrow is turned into joy before him. The suffering experienced in the physical body during the period when the centres are energised is transmuted into the joy of divine realisation. 27. He esteemeth iron as straw, and brass as rotten wood. This is an allusion to xl, 18, the “pipes of copper and tubes of iron,” or the nervous systems, channels of the Divine Energy, which adapt themselves for the conveyance of this Force, 33. Upon earth there is not his like, who is made without fear. Literally to ‘those who behave themselves * Solar Force. 281COMMENTARY. CONTINUED. DISCOURSE Iv. without fear,’ who can fearlessly govern Leviathan. Job xlii, 1. Then Job answered the Lord, and said, 2. I know that thou canst do everything, and that no thought of thine can be hindered.* Job after his Illumination recognises and is non-resistant to the Law of Nature, God, which wills obedience from all things. * Literal translation. Tue Hoty LANGUAGE DESCRIBED BY EMMANUEL SWEDENBORG. ‘The most ancient manner of writing was that of representing things by persons, and by words, by which was understood something altogether different from what was expressed. In such manner, indeed, that nothing was literally true just as it was written, but under these narratives something allegorical was understood. Thus they set forth the various affections under the forms of gods and goddesses, to which the heathen nations afterwards instituted Divine worship ; which may be known to every scholar, since such ancient books are still extant. This method of writing they derived from the most ancient people, who lived before the flood, and who represented to themselves things heavenly and Divine, by such as are visible on the earth and in the world, and thus filled their minds and souls with joyous and delightful perceptions. The 282 GGCOMMENTARY CONTINUED. DISCOURSE Iv. most ancient people as they had communication with spirits and angels, had no other speech than this, which was full of representatives, and in every expression of which there was a Spiritual sense. . . . Hence it may appear how far man afterwards removed himself from heaven: when, at this day, he does not even know that there is in the Word anything else than what appears in the letter, not even that there is a spiritual sense ; and whatever is mentioned beyond the sense of the letter is called mystical, and rejected on that account. Hence also it is that communication with heaven is at this day intercepted, insomuch that few believe there is any heaven, and, what is surprising, much fewer amongst the learned and erudite than amongst the simple.” Arcana Cozzestta, TRANSLATION or Counress or Catruwess in “Tue Mystery of THE Acs,” PAGES 488-9. Samson. OF “these marvellous men filled with strength” was Samson. Concerning his mother, the wife ot Manoah, of Zorah, of the family of the Danites, we read the following in the Book of Judges, xiii, verses 6,7, and 24. “Then the woman came and told her husband, saying, A man of God came unto me, and his countenance was like the countenance of an angel of God, very terrible: but I asked him not whence he was, neither told he me his name: Buthe said tome, Behold, thou shalt conceive, and bear a son; and now drink no 283