New Church Life Vol. XIV. No. 1 PHILADELPHIA, JANUARY, 1894=124. Whole No. 159.
The Lord as King governs all and single things in the universe from Divine Truth, and as Priest from Divine Good.- A. C. 1728.
Title Unspecified 1894
"THE priesthood is a representative of every office which the LORD discharges as Saviour; and whatsoever He discharges as Saviour, is from the Divine Love, thus from the Divine Good, for every good is of love; hence also by the priesthood in the supreme sense is signified the Divine Good of the Divine Love of the LORD" (A. C. 9809). The LORD alone is Priest, and men who are clothed with the office of the priesthood are called priests only representatively. But they do represent the LORD in His office of salvation. As His representatives they dare not attribute to themselves anything else but the guardianship of the Divine Law and the administration of Divine worship. If they recede from this, they recede from the priestly, and to the same extent. Adoration from aught else than from the Divine Law, or, in other words, adoration other than that of the Divine Law in Itself, is idolatrous.
Title Unspecified 1894
THE LORD alone is Priest. From the Divine Good of His Divine Love, and by His Infinite Wisdom, He governs the affections of men, and leads those whom He foresees to be suitable, to become representatives of Him in the work of His Infinite Love, of rescuing men from the powers of hell, and leading them to Heaven and Himself. By His Divine Law proceeding from His Divine Good, and ever united with it. He operates through the internals and externals of men, disposing and guiding them to places of His appointment. And though imperfections, many and great, attach to them, still, from the Divine standpoint of the Divine Providence, what He thus institutes is perfect. As He makes even the "wrath of man to praise Him," so the imperfections and errors of His ministers become occasions for clearer insights into the depths of His Divine Wisdom, and thus for the more glorious realization of the dominion of His Love upon the earth.
Title Unspecified 1894
THE LORD is the Priest. His representative governors in the Church must govern from Him and must be governed by Him. He is their Chief Priest, and to Him are they responsible. Were they responsible to any one else on the earth, they would cease to be His priests, the guardians of His Law, and would become the priests of that other one, the guardians of another law. They would become priests of Baal. The subordination among priests, which He has prescribed in His Law, is from Him, and whatsoever is done in obedience to this His Law of subordination is done in and from Him, and is, therefore, good and wise. It is in accord and with the Law of His government that even as He is the One Governor of Heaven and earth, so in any one Church, greater or smaller, there must be one governor. To divide up the functions of government among three or more, however seductive such a proposition may appear to human prudence, is to copy after the false and vicious theology which attributes creation to one God, redemption to another, and sanctification to a third. The highest governor of a Church is directly subordinate to the LORD: Nor has any provision been made in the Divine Law, for subordinating such a high-priest to any but to the LORD Himself To allow one's vision to be blurred by the imperfections of the personality of the priest who may clothe such an office, and to set up a court of appeal above the priest of the highest Divine appointment, is to lose sight of the most solemn truth, that the LORD is Priest, and that to Him in His Human is given all authority in heaven and on earth (Matth. xxviii, 18).
Title Unspecified 1894
THE LORD'S authority and power is the authority and power of saving men. As He rules Heaven, He al rules the earth, for the one depends upon the other. To save means to remove the hells, and to withhold from evils, and to hold in good. So, as it is according to His Divine institution that in the priesthood of the Church there should be subordination, the highest governor being subordinate directly to the LORD, He operates by and through this institution to remove the hells from the priests in the discharge of the functions of their office, to withhold them from evils and to hold them in good. As every human use is given to man, not because the LORD needs him, but because the man needs the use, so with the subordination of uses by which He lends the men of lower positions in the priesthood to co-operate with Him, as of themselves, in this work of salvation. This subordination has not been instituted because the LORD needs superior governors to keep inferior ones in order, but because both the superior and the inferior governors need the prefecture and the subordination, that in them things natural may be subordinated to things spiritual, and these again to things celestial. The LORD has reserved an evidence of His not needing men in His government by placing the highest governor in immediate subordination to Himself.
Title Unspecified 1894
THERE is nothing extraordinary in this immediate relationship between a chief governor and the LORD. IL exists with every man; Every man is governed immediately by the LORD, for this is specifically meant by His saying, "All authority is given unto Me in Heaven and on earth." In the home every father of a family is priest, and no member of the clergy dare invade the sanctity of this priesthood. This, however, in private life. But in the public administration of the things which are of the Divine Law and worship, men must be subordinate to one another, and the highest governor in any Church is subordinate to the LORD immediately. But is there no provision against the abuse of his office by the chief ecclesiastical governor? Yes-THE LORD IS THE PRIEST.
Divine Good is 1894
The Divine Good is that from which are all celestial and spiritual goods, and thence also all truths.- A. C. 3703.
GOVERNMENT BY THE LORD AS PRIEST PENDLETON 1894
And Moses was feeding the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, Priest of Midan."-Exodus iii, 1.
REDEMPTION is purely a Divine Work, and could not have been accomplished except by God incarnate; the Divine Omnipotence alone, by the Arm of Flesh,-by the Human which the LORD assumed, the Divine present with men, and spirits, and angels,-could have subjugated the Hells, restored order in the Heavens, and thus prepared the way for the establishment of a spiritual Church upon the earth. These three things, which constitute the work of Redemption, the LORD accomplished when He had glorified His Human, and had taken unto Himself in His Human all Power in Heaven and on Earth, becoming in His Human, God manifest, God with us, reigning forever in that Human and by that Human, as the First and the Last, the God of gods and the LORD of lords. Redemption itself accomplished, the Hells subjugated, the Heavens restored to order, preparation is made for a new spiritual Church on the earth-that is, the Church in the world of spirits, which had been destroyed by the evil, is re-established, places of instruction are provided in the interior sphere of that world, on the, confines of Heaven; the faithful are liberated from the lower earth, their prison-house, beneath the world of spirits, and introduced into the places of instruction, and the good coming out of the natural world are led there, all to receive their final instruction and preparation for Heaven. This work done, the Church then descends into the natural world, and is instituted there, in which and by which men may also reap the benefits of the Divine Work of Redemption, may be instructed in the truths of Revelation, and by the new spiritual liberty given unto them, and the new spiritual power granted, may be individually redeemed and saved by keeping the Commandments of the WORD of GOD, and by faith in the LORD JESUS CHRIST, the One and the Only God of Heaven and Earth, our Redeemer and Saviour. Redemption is a Work of Divine Love that could be effected alone by Divine Power, and Divine Power is exercised by Divine Truth. The Divine Truth is the Divine Power, yea, is the Divine Love, operating with men in both worlds, to subjugate the Hells and hold them under subjection, to order the Heavens and maintain the angelic liberty and life, to restore and reform the Church that the human race may continue to exist upon the earth, to be the perpetual seminary of the angelic Heavens. The Divine. Truth, which is the WORD and was in the beginning with GOD, descended, and formed the Heavens of the ancients, and the ancient Churches upon this earth, and in the fullness of time descended into the world into the natural sphere of the thought of men, and, as it had been the First in the beginning with GOD, it became also the Last with men, to form with them a perpetually enduring Church, a Church which was first called Christian; but when this in its receptive form with men became corrupt and was consummated, a New Church, in which the LORD is to reign: the All in all, the crowning Divine Work of all the ages, the New Jerusalem. The LORD by His Divine Truth has been the Redeemer from eternity, and by His Divine Truth He became also the Redeemer in time, and by His Divine Truth He is the Redeemer to eternity. Before His Advent the Divine Truth was present in the Heavens, but it was not present in the. Church with men on the earth, except as veiled and covered by representatives-except in those things of the Church with men that represent and correspond to the Divine Truth as it is in the Heavens; but since His Advent the Divine Truth is present actually in the Church, the representative covering has been removed, and the Truth in its spiritual form, as it is in the Heavens, is laid bare to the view of all men who are willing and ready to see it in that form; and by the ultimation of the Divine Truth in its own spiritual form with men, which the LORD effected in the Glorification of His Human, which was at the same time the fulfilling and Glorification of His WORD-by this the Divine Truth is in Power in the Heavens and on earth, such as was not before; and this mighty change, effected by the LORD in His Advent, is what the LORD meant by the words, To Me-has been given all Power in Heaven and on earth. And on account of this distinction in the manifestation of the Divine, before His Advent and after it, the WORD before the Advent is called the Law Divine, the Truth Divine; and the Human of the LORD, as it was with the angels in Heaven, is called the Human Divine. But by His Advent, and the Redemption then effected, by the Glorification of His Human, the Law Divine became the Divine Law, the Truth Divine became the Divine Truth, the Human Divine became the Divine Human; because the LORD had then become the Omega as He was the Alpha, the End as He was the Beginning, the Last as He was the First. The Law Divine, or Truth Divine, as it was in the Heavens and in the Church, before the Advent, and as it was in the LORD, after His birth into the world, before His complete Glorification-which was finally effected by the Passion of the Cross-this Law Divine, or Truth Divine, is represented by Moses. This Law Divine or Truth Divine could be assaulted, tempted, and reprobated by spirits and men; but the Divine Law or Divine Truth, as in the glorified Human of the LORD, is unapproachable by evil spirits and evil men, and they are filled with terror at its presence, and flee away and hide themselves in the caverns of Hell, as from an all-consuming fire, which threatens their destruction. Redemption, as was said, is the subjugation of the Hells, the restoration of the wonted order of the Heavens, and the preparation for a new spiritual Church on the earth; then follows the establishment of that new Church. The first thing in that establishment is liberation, all the processes previous to liberation are preparatory, but the Church is not instituted until spiritual liberty is given unto it. This liberation,, or the giving of spiritual liberty to the Church, is the subject of the third Chapter of Exodus; and this liberty is provided by the LORD after Redemption has been effected, the Last Judgment accomplished, and preparation made in both worlds. When a Church has come t& an end, or is consummated-that is, when the falsity of evil reigns universally and there is no longer any acknowledgment of the Divinity of the LORD, or any genuine spiritual good of charity, except with a few,-then the LORD departs from the old Church, forsakes it because it has forsaken Him turns away from it because it has turned away from Him,-and appears to the New Church-that is, to those who are to be liberated, and can be liberated from the falses of the former Church, and out of whom a New Church is to be formed. These are the Gentiles, and those among Christians who, are still in the truths of simple rood, who still retain a simple faith in the LORD, His Divinity, and the inspiration of His WORD; who have procured and imbibed a few truths from the WORD in the letter, which teach that Divinity, and the necessity of salvation by keeping the Commandments of the Decalogue.
3
To these the LORD appears, and these He instructs in the genuine truths of His WORD, preparatory to the establishment of the New Church with them, when their spiritual liberation has been effected. This is what is represented by the departure of Moses from Egypt, and his sojourn in the land of Midian; the departure is the departure of the LORD from the old Church, which is represented by Egypt, and the sojourn is the instruction of those in the truths of simple good who are represented by Midian. In the consideration of this subject, it must be remembered that the idea of space and time, or geography, or nationality, must not enter; Midian is not one thing and Israel another, naturally speaking, but they represent the one Church, though in different stages of the process of its growth and establishment. Moses in Midian represents the LORD appearing as the Divine Law to those who are in the truths of simple good, and who are to form His Church, instructing and preparing them for the liberation that is to come; and Moses in Egypt, after the return from Midian, is the LORD as the Divine Law actually beginning the work of the liberation of those who are to be of the New Church. In this third chapter the LORD instructs concerning liberation, and thus prepares for it, and in the following chapters of Exodus the liberation itself is described. The LORD by His Glorification, by the fulfilling of all things of the WORD, has become the Divine Law, and He appears as the Divine Law to His Church, or to those who are to be of His Church; or He appears as the WORD which is the Divine Law-that is, He appears as the Governor and Leader, for it is the Law which governs and leads; even as Moses was the governor and leader of the Israelites to conduct them out of Egypt, through the desert to the promised land. For it must ever be remembered that there are two universal operations in the process of the establishment of the Church, governing or leading, and teaching; and that governing is the first and greater universal: no Church is established by teaching alone, nor is a single step of progress made by that alone; teaching has respect to the thinking of the Church, but governing has respect to its doing; and as the New Church is to be a doing Church rather than a thinking Church, except so far as a right thinking is preparatory to a right doing, therefore the LORD appears to it as the Divine Law, which in its literal or external form is a Command of something that is to be done, and hence Moses especially represents the Law of the Decalogue, or Ten Commandments. He who does not see and receive the LORD in His Second Coming as the Divine Law, and so long as he does not so receive, is not of the New Church, even though he may stand and view it from without. Man is led to the Church by teaching but it is the doing of the Law that introduces. The Law demands obedience, the Divine Law in its civil form also enforces and compels; but the Divine Law for the Church does not enforce obedience or compel man to obey, though it points out to him that unless he compels himself to obey the Law of the Church, which is the Divine Law, he cannot enter into the Church nor prepare for entrance into Heaven. This, suggests the difficulty that the Church labors under in its beginning, the difficulty under which the Church at large is laboring now; it sees the LORD in some sense as the Divine Teacher, but it does not as yet see Him as the Divine Law, or as the Divine Governor by the Divine Law; and until this is the case, the Church stands still and perhaps stagnates, even as water or air stagnates is not put in motion. There is no such thing as standing still; to stand still is to stagnate, to become corrupt and die, which is to glide backward into the Hell of the old Church. The Church must move onward, or it is lost; and all spiritual motion is by obedience to the Law, an obedience that is self-compelled in liberty and according to reason-that is, an obedience I which is the doing of the Law, which follows a right I thinking concerning the things which the Law teaches. In the light of this teaching, that the LORD comes as the Divine Law to the Church, you will please note the Divine significance in the fact that Moses finds a reception and resting place with Jethro, priest of Midian. It is, I say, of Divine significance, of Divine significance to us and to the Church-a Divine indication of a supreme need and of an appalling danger to the Church at this time in its history: the supreme need of the recognition of the office and use of the priesthood, and the acknowledgment of it as the LORD'S office of government in the Church, by which souls are saved and led to Heaven; and an imminent danger lest this office and use be rejected by the Church; and with it the rejection of the LORD as the Divine Law, which institutes the priest-hood, even as Moses instituted the priesthood of the Jewish Church, without which that Church could never have fulfilled its mission in the world; just as without a genuine priesthood, which that priesthood represented, no genuine Church could ever be established among men. From the sermon of two weeks ago we learned of the fact-a striking fact in our Church history-that the subject of the priesthood has been in issue from the beginning, that its office and use has been assailed, and continues to be assailed by the self-intelligence of men, prompted by the spirits of the dragon, who operate through, who inspire and promote, yea, who are the fruitful source and origin of the democratic spirit of the world. This fact, which we have learned, cannot be too forcibly impressed upon our minds; for in it we see the imminent danger of the Church, involving as it does either the rejection, or acknowledgment of the LORD, as the only Divine Law and the only Divine Authority in His Church. In order to understand this question,-and it is necessary to understand it,-and in order to see the Divine significance in the fact of the reception and presence of Moses with Jethro priest of Midian, it is necessary to consider the two-fold aspect of the priesthood as that is presented in the WORD of Divine Doctrine which has been given to the Church. The LORD Himself is the Priest, and there is no other Priest in the Heavens and in the Church; others are priests in a representative sense, but there is actually no Priest but the LORD Himself; this is the fundamental idea of the priesthood, without which there is no understanding of the doctrine of the priesthood as it is given to us; and as we are instructed to call no man father, upon earth, so are we instructed to call no man priest upon earth, for One is our Father and our Priest who is in the Heavens. When we call a man father or priest, it must be understood that it is done representatively, and not in any other sense. This is fundamental, and so of supreme importance to understand, and saves the Church, and the man of the Church, from the worship of any man, and prevents any man from interposing his personality between the Church and the LORD, or form occupying any position which the LORD alone holds toward a men, and every man.
4
The Church by rationally acknowledging the priesthood in its representative character, but that the LORD alone is the Priest, by this avoids a danger that is two-fold, and yet a danger that is one, the danger of a government in the Church by human will and caprice; whether this government be by one man who is called a priest, or by the votes of a majority in an assembly of men. The danger is one danger, for there is no essential difference between the government of the pope at Rome, and government by democracy; in either case it is a government by human will, and a rejection of the Divine government of men; a rejection of the government of the Divine Law which the LORD Himself reveals to His Church, and of which He alone is the Teacher, by which He alone leads to Himself in Heaven. The Priesthood of the LORD, and the very origin itself of the priesthood with men, is the Divine Love of saving, and of forming a Heaven from, the human race; and so the priesthood in the Church is the Divine Love operating to save, or, what is the same, the Divine Good. The LORD, as the Priest, is present in the Church, as the Divine Good, saving men, the good of the Church which is from the LORD, and which is the LORD, is the priesthood of the Church, and is that in the Church which saves. This good is in the Church, and is in every man of the Church who is being regenerated, and it makes the very life of the Church; this good in the Church is signified by the priesthood in the WORD, and also by priest where that is named. Without this priesthood in the Church, the LORD is not present In the Church, the Divine Love is not present, and there is no salvation effected by the Church. Hence the importance of believing, and also of understanding that the LORD alone is the Priest of His Church, present in it as the Divine Good,-saving ten, and forming Heaven, out of men who are saved. The priesthood then is the very life of the Church, its very good, that makes the Church a Church. This is the essential aspect of the priesthood: the priesthood as a state of life with regenerating men, and in a regenerating Church. But the formal or representative aspect of the priesthood is that it is an office in the Church an office adjoined to men, who are specially set apart for that use, as the representative of the LORD in His work of saving souls. The priesthood as an office is the representative of the LORD, Who is the one only Priest, and so representative of the good which is from Him in the Church, constituting the saving essence of the Church. The priesthood as an office ministers to this good, and represents it in the working of the Church; by the priesthood as an office that good becomes operative in the Church, in the teaching of the truths of the WORD, and by them leading to the good of life, and thus to Heaven and the LORD. Without the Priesthood as a state of life in the Church, or without the good which is the priesthood of the Church; or, what is the same, without the LORD'S presence with His Divine Good in the Church, and so without the presence of the LORD Himself in the Church as the one only Priest of His Church, the priesthood as an office is dead, and the men who fill that office are dead men, and the Church to which they minister is a dead Church, and the ministry of the priesthood-in such a Church continually leads men to death and to Hell. But the office is living, and the men who are adjoined to the office are alive, and the Church to which they minister is a living Church, and the ministry performed by the priesthood in the Church continually leads men to life and to the LORD, when the Church is in good or good is in the Church; or when the LORD, who is the Divine Good in the Church, is its one only Priest leading it in the way of life; and, brethren, it is a most solemn truth,-and would that all men who calf themselves by the name of the New Church realized this,-when the LORD is known, and recognized and acknowledged as the Priest of the Church, and thus when the LORD is the Priest of His Church. You have nothing to fear of the men who are in the office of the priesthood; for the LORD is present to guide, to govern and direct, and though temptations may arise, and likewise be permitted, from the ignorance or caprice of one who holds the priestly office, still the office is there, and the LORD is there in His office, to right the wrong, to restore order and grant new illustration, and ever lead in the way of new life and progress. Let not the abuse of the priestly office,-which has happened and may happen again, probably shall happen again; for men are ever liable to turn aside from the path of duty into ways that are devious and dark, and those in the priestly office are no exception; no human instrumentality can provide against it, and the LORD Himself permits it;-but let not the abuse or possible abuse of this holy office lead you into doubt and fear concerning the office itself, which is the LORD'S office in the Church, for that office will survive and the Church by it will survive, and the LORD by that office- will lead through all the storms that will arise, into the ways of tranquillity and peace. And Moses was feeding the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, Priest of Midian. It will be remembered that Moses, when he appeared in Midian, was called by the daughters of Jethro, an Egyptian man, when he liberated them from the shepherds. He is still the Law Divine, but now that Law in the form of the true scientific of the Church, combatting against the falsity of evil of the old Church, represented by the shepherds. This true scientific is signified by the term-Egyptian man. The scientific truth of the Church is the truth of the WORD in the sense of the letter, which is also called the truth which is from the Law Divine; this is the truth that is first taught to those who are in simple good, and the teaching of this truth marks the beginning of the New Church, and is what is signified by the words of the text, And Moses was feeding the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, priest of Midian; and it is the truth by which the way is prepared for the liberation of the Church. It is clear from what has been said, that the New Church begins with the good which is the essential priesthood, and indeed with the simple good signified by the priest of Midian; nor does it begin till it finds that good, or till it finds those in the Christian world who still remain in the simple faith in the LORD, and are in the effort to keep the Commandments, who think that the Divine Law ought to be obeyed because GOD so commands; nor does the New Church begin as a communion, or body organized of those who are ready for a united effort to obey the Divine Law, until there is in that body-an office of the priesthood, as representative of the essential priesthood of the LORD, and that office has been adjoined to men who are set apart for this use. When this office has been established, then begins,-and not properly before,-the ministry of teaching and leading men by truth to the good of life and thus to the LORD. The communion in which this is done is called a flock, and in the beginning it is the flock of Jethro, priest of Midian, which Moses is feeding. The word translated feed, in the languages of the WORD, signifies also to teach and to rule, showing how the spiritual sense appears in the meaning and use of words in human language; and it is from the same origin that a priest is generally called a pastor or shepherd, and the Church is called a flock. By Midian is signified those who are in the truths of simple good, and by the priest of Midian, that good itself.
5
Simple good is a simple obedience to the Commandments in their literal sense. Now all men, or nearly all men, obey the Commandments in their literal or external form, or wish to have it appear that they do, for the civil law requires it, and there is no civil or social order without it; but for the most part there is no spiritual principle in this civil and moral good; and civil and moral good, unless there be in it spiritual good, is corrupt and dead in the sight of Heaven, though it appears as alive in the sight of the world. The simple good, therefore, who are so often spoken of in the Writings, who are represented by the priest of Midian, and who are receptive of the Doctrines of the New Church, are they who have some spiritual good in their civil and moral good, without which the Heavenly Doctrines are rejected; or if received are merely admired for their intellectual beauty, like one who admires beauty in the female sex, but has no genuine affection for the good which is the origin and soul of beauty. What is it that causes spiritual good to be in civil and moral good? The man who lives in civil and moral good without spiritual good, keeps the Commandments from the world, or because the world commands them; the world is his god, and he bows down before it and worships it, is obedient to its commands, for every man obeys the god that he loves, and every man loves some god, even though that god be a devil. But the man who is in spiritual good, who has this within his civil and moral good, keeps the Commandments indeed for the world, and for life in the world, but not primarily; the world is not the first consideration with him; what the world thinks is not with him the first principle of his action, but what God thinks, and what God thinks is what God commands in His WORD, and he keeps the Commandments of the WORD because God commands them, from a faith in God and in His promise of eternal life to those who live well; and the good so implanted is the simple good spoken of in the Writings, as the ground in man that receives the LORD in His Coming, that receives Moses the Egyptian man, the bearer of the message of the Divine Law, the scientific truth of the Church. Now what are the truths of simple good, signified by Midian? There is no good without truth: where there is simple good there is also the truth of that good, and in the light of that truth, as by a lamp in the darkness of night, man is able to see the LORD in His Coming, and seeing, to receive with affection and love. "In thy light shall we see light." The man who is in simple good reads the WORD, and is affected by what he reads, and by that affection he acquires truths, and stores them up in his mind, as precious treasures, that are to be used for the good of life, the truths that he finds in the WORD of the letter, wherein are contained all that is necessary for salvation, and eternal life; the Divine Mercy could give nothing less, for it is of the Divine Mercy that every man may be saved, and the Divine Mercy provides that every man may he saved who is willing to be saved. The truths of simple-good, that a man finds in the letter of the WORD, who reads from a genuine affection, are such as teach that there is a GOD; that He is one GOD, who rules the universe and all things of it; that there is a Divine Providence; that this GOD commands certain things that are to be done by His creatures; that the LORD JESUS CHRIST is Divine, and manifests GOD unto men; that it is necessary to have faith and charity, and do good works; to exercise repentance from evils, which are to be shunned as sins; that man lives after death; and that there is a Heaven, where he is to live forever if his life has been good in the world; and that there is a Hell, where he is to live forever if his life has been evil; and other particulars that confirm these cardinal points of doctrine. But with these truths are mingled many falses of doctrine, which are taught by a consummated Church, and appear to be confirmed by certain fallacies and appearances that exist in the WORD, and on that account are believed by the simple good; but which-on account of their simple faith-are bent to good with them, and are not interiorly appropriated by them, are easily removed when the blazing light of the New Revelation shines upon them; as it will shine and be received by all who are in simple good, either in this world or that which is to come. The New Revelation comes to them, and the first thing it does is to remove general falses and confirm, enlarge, and expand the truths which they have already learned; to show them new truths in the letter of the WORD, which they had not realized before; especially this, that the LORD JESUS CHRIST is the one only GOD, whom they had always worshiped in their inmost heart, though not formally when they thought from the doctrine of their Church; and they are affected with inmost joy that it was GOD Himself, Who, out of His Divine Love for the human race, came into the world to bring salvation unto men; and also this, that He reveals Himself as the Divine Law, that is to be obeyed in heart and life, that man may receive salvation and live forever. The lesson we learn therefore, from the words that are before us, is this, that the initial state of the New Church, as it exists with the simple good, is that of obedience to the Divine Law; and as the first enters into all which follows, and becomes the all in all things of it, the question for the New Churchman to ask himself is: Am I to become a part of this New Church; and advance with the stream of its progress, and to be carried on, and on, and on, and be gifted with ever-increasing states of a new spiritual life? If so, I must bring myself under obedience to the Divine Law, as revealed to the Church, and continue in that obedience even unto the end. May the LORD help us so to do.- AMEN.
Divine Good is 1894
Divine Good is the very essential of order, all things appertaining to which are of Mercy.- A. C. 1728.
LORD'S PERCEPTION CONCERNING THE DELIVERANCE OF THE SPIRITUAL 1894
(This month's resume of the lessons in the Arcana differs in form from the monthly studies for some time past. A careful reading of the Calendar lessons is taken for granted, and this study aims principally to pass in review and present in connection the particulars of the Internal Sense which may be scattered in the mind. The literal sense is added, but the use of quotation marks enables the eye to pass it easily by on a second reading, if it appears to interfere with the close connection of the internal sense. The Editor would be pleased to hear whether the publication of these studies prove to be of assistance, and he invites comments and questions.)
EXODUS III, 7-22.
IN following the teachings of the Internal Sense of Exodus it needs to be constantly borne in mind that, in general, all those are treated of, who are of the spiritual Church, and pass through temptations, from which they are liberated. Specifically, or in what may be called the internal historical sense, they are treated of, who were in the spiritual world when the LORD was on earth, and who were led forth out of the lower earth, or the pits, to the region of heaven where evil spirits had made for themselves, fictitious heavens.
6
The evil were cast out, and their place given to the good. The LORD refers to this in the New Testament where He says, that He saw Satan as lightning fall from heaven, and again, where it is stated that the bodies of many of the saints that slept arose out of their sepulchers and appeared in the Holy City. (7-8.) The LORD had great mercy upon those who were of the spiritual Church, after they had been infested by falses "JEHOVAH said, seeing I have seen the affliction of My people who are in Egypt," and from His Mercy He brought help against those who wanted to compel the spiritual to serve them "and their cry I have heard from before their exactors," for He foresaw how much the spiritual had been immersed in falses "for I know their griefs." Those who infest the spiritual do so mostly by means of false scientifics, therefore from His Mercy He let Himself down unto them in order to remove them out of the power of the false scientifics which endeavored to destroy the truths of the Church "and I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians," and to elevate them out of the state and place where they were infested "and to make them to go up out of that land," unto heaven, where is the good of charity and the truth of faith "unto a land good and broad," and where from such good and truth there is pleasantness and delight "unto a land flowing with milk and honey." This region of heaven, however, was occupied by evils and falses "unto the place of the Canaanite and the Chittite" and by evils, and by falses from these evils "and the Eniorite and the Perrizite," and by idolatries, in which, however, there was something of good and truth "and the Chivite and the Jebusite." (9-12.) The LORD pitied those who were of the spiritual Church " and now behold, the cry of the sons of Israel hath come unto Me" on account of the effort made by those who were in falses, to subjugate the spiritual "and also I have, seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them,"-an effort, however, which did not succeed, on account of the protection afforded by the LORD. The infesting falses were to be dissipated by the Holy proceeding from the Human of the LORD "and now, go, and I shall send thee unto Pharaoh," whence they who were of the spiritual Church were to be delivered from infesting falses "and lead forth My people, the sons of Israel, out of Egypt." The false scientific mostly infests those who are of the spiritual Church, because they have only a knowledge of the truth, and not apperception of it from good, and they cannot dispel the appearance of truth which adhere to the false scientifics. All this prediction about the Redemption which He was to accomplish, the LORD, when He was in the world, perceived by influx from the Divine Itself within Him He was still in the infirm Human, and, in view of the Divine nature of the work of redemption and salvation to be thus performed, He was in a state of humiliation, perceiving that He was not yet in such a state that He seemed to Himself to be able to approach and remove infesting falses "and Moses said unto God, Who am I that I should go unto Pharaoh," and thus to free those who were of the spiritual Church "and that I should lead forth the sons of Israel out of Egypt?" But He received the answer from the Divine, that the Divine would be in the Human "and He said, because I shall be with thee," and that He might know that the Divine would Proceed from Him "and this shall be to thee a sign that I have sent thee," from this, that when the spiritual should be liberated from the infestation by falses "in thy leading forth the people from Egypt," then He would perceive and acknowledge the Divine from love "ye shall worship God by this mountain." (13-15.) The LORD, in His Human, further perceived from the Divine "and Moses said unto God," about those who were of the spiritual Church "behold, I, I come unto the sons of Israel," that the Divine of the Ancient Church would be with them "and I say unto them, the God of your fathers hath sent me unto you," and if they should ask what His quality is and they say to me, What is His Name," what should be the answer "what shall I say unto them?" First they were to be instructed by the Divine Truth proceeding from the Divine Human of the LORD, that God is, that He created the universe, and that the created universe subsists from Him; in one, that He is the Esse and Existere of all things in the universe "and God said unto Moses, I AM WHO I AM." The attention of the reader is especially called here to the following explanation of these most important words in the Arcana. "It is said twice, 'I AM,' namely, 'I AM WHO I AM,' because the one signifies Esse, and the other Existere; thus the one signifies the Divine Itself; which is called the Father, the other, the Divine Human, which is called the Son; for the Divine Human exists from the Divine Itself; but when the LORD as to the Human was also made the Divine Esse or JEHOVAH, then the Divine Truth, which proceeds from the Divine Human of the LORD, is the Divine Existere from the Divine Esse; hence it may appear that the Divine Esse cannot communicate itself to anyone except through the Divine Human, and the Divine Human cannot communicate itself to any one except through the Divine Truth, which is the Holy Spirit; this is understood by that all things were made by the Word (John i, 3). It appears to man as if the Divine Truth were not such that by it anything could come into existence, for it is believed that it is as a word, which, when sent forth from the mouth, is dissipated; but it is entirely different. The Divine Truth proceeding from the LORD is the verimost real, so that from it all things have come into existence, and from it all things subsist; for whatsoever proceeds from the LORD is the veriest real in the universe; such is the Divine Truth, which is called the Word, by which all things have been made" (A. C. 6880). Especial attention is called to this teaching, because it is the very first thing in which the member of the Church needs to be instructed. The present state of the New Church, not to speak of the Old, illustrates the need of this teaching, as first instruction, that ought to enter into all the subsequent ones. The LORD must be acknowledged as one with the Father, and, as such, the Creator of the Universe; and the Divine Truth proceeding from the glorified Human needs to be seen and acknowledged as the only medium through which any instruction can come as, therefore, the LORD to the Church. Moses, to whom these words were spoken, represents the LORD as to this Divine Truth proceeding-this Word-which is with us in the ultimate forms of the Doctrines of the New Church and of the New and Old Covenants. If this be the first instruction, what is the second? "And He said, thus shalt thou say to the sons of Israel I AM hath sent me unto you," that is to say, the Divine Existere must be in the Church-the Divine Existere, which is the Divine Truth proceeding from the Divine Human. First, God, from whom are all things, must be acknowledged. Secondly, the Divine Truth, which is from Him, must be received.
7
And then, in the Third place, "and God said yet unto Moses thus shalt thou say unto the sons of Israel," the Church needs to be instructed that the Divine of the Ancient Church, "JEHOVAH the God of your fathers,". Who is the Divine Itself and the Divine Human, "the God of Abraham, the God of Isaak, and the God of Jacob," must he in their Church, "hath sent me unto you." For the Divine Human is the quality of the Divine Itself, "This is My Name to eternity," and must be worshiped perpetually, "and this My Memorial to generation, generation." Such, then, was the instruction that was to be imparted to those, who, at the time of the LORDS First Advent, were led forth out of the pits of the lower earth to form a new heaven. (16-20.) The intelligent among -them were to be gathered together by the Law from the Divine, "go and thou shalt gather together the elders of Israel," and they were to be instructed, "and thou shalt say unto them," that the Divine of the Ancient Church; "JEHOVAH, the God of your fathers," was present in the Law, "was seen unto me,"-that is to say, in the Law was present the Divine Itself and the Divine Human of the LORD, "the God of Abraham, of Isaak, and of Jacob;" and they were to be instructed that He was making His Advent unto those who were of the spiritual Church, saying, visiting I have visited you," and recognized the effort at their subjugation made by the infesters, and what was done to you in Egypt," and that He affirmed that He would elevate and free from infestation by scientific falses," and I say, and "make you to go up out of the affliction of Egypt," bring them unto the region of heaven occupied by those who were in falses and evils, "unto the land of the Canaanite and the Chittite, and the Emorite and the Perizzite, and the Chivite, and the Jebusite," where is pleasantness and delight, "unto a land flowing with milk and honey." If the intelligent of the spiritual Church would obey, "and hear they thy voice," then the things which are of the law from the Divine and hence of intelligence, were to communicate with those who were in falses and infested, "and thou shalt enter, thou and the elders of Israel, unto the king of Egypt," and to inflow, "and ye shall say unto him," that the Divine of the LORD had commanded, "JEHOVAH the God of the Hebrews hath met us "that they should live the life of truth in a state entirely removed from falses, although in obscurity, "and now let us go, I pray, a way of three days into the desert," and thus worship the LORD, "and we will sacrifice to JEHOVAH our God." And the Divine would foresee "and I, I know," that the false would oppose itself "that the king of Egypt will not give you to go," and that the power of those who are of the spiritual Church would not prevail against the, evil "and not with a strong hand," but that the Power from the Divine "and I shall send My hand," would prevail against falses, by its own means, "and I shall smite Egypt with all My wonders," which would come in direct contact with them, "which I shall do in the midst thereof." The evil would be driven away, and they who are in truths would be delivered, "and afterward he will send you." (21, 22.) Those who are in falses would fear those who were of the spiritual Church, "and I will give the grace of this people in the eyes of the Egyptians," and they would no longer live in want as to those things which are of the natural mind," and it shall be, when ye go, ye shall not go empty" but the good of every one would be filled with such things as are conducive "and a woman shall ask of her neighbor, and of the guest of her house," namely with scientifics of truth "vessels of silver," and with scientifics of good, "and vessels of gold," and with inferior scientifics corresponding to them, "and garments," and they would be applied to their truths and goods, "and ye shall put them upon your sons and upon your daughters," and such things would be taken away from those who were in falses and in evils thence, "and ye shall plunder the Egyptians."
Title Unspecified 1894
A. C. 9490 All those things were to be founded upon good . . . good proceeding from the Lord as a Sun . . . encompasses . . . heaven in general, . . . the heavenly societies in particular, and every angel in singular.- A. C. 9490.
EGYPT 1894
IN the age of representatives Egypt was the Scientific. There they had great learning, such as we have at the present day. It is the only nation, perhaps, of such antiquity, of whom anything like a complete secular history is extant; an d this is owing to their peculiar genius. The scientific belongs to the natural, it adheres closely to the outward things of nature. Hence their science impressed itself upon the material substances of the earth. Moreover, men who place the all of wisdom in scientifics alone are excessively proud, for they have not enough interior thought to see how insignificant they and their sciences are in regard to heavenly uses. Hence arose their gigantic monuments with complete records of their great doings. In examining their characteristics and life one is fairly amazed at the similarity between their civilization and ours, which is pre-eminently scientific. The chief difference seems to be that we have lost the interior natural scientifics which they once possessed from their knowledge of correspondence; while we have carried the development - of the sensual-corporeal or outermost things of science to the highest perfection that has ever been reached. Bodily comfort is the acme of our civilization. Ingenuity in developing and handling the forces of nature now occupies the first place in the world's estimation, while the spiritual, the rational, and even the interior natural are all receding into the background. In the Ancient Church the science of correspondences was the science of sciences, and, together with that Church, was extended more or less over the whole face of the earth. The Ancient Word was written according to correspondences. In Egypt especially this subject was studied as a science, and, owing to the policy of isolation, it endured there long after it had disappeared-except as remnants in the form of traditions, fables, etc. from the rest of the world. After the Egyptians had been finally vastated of these things, as a consequence of their treatment of the Israelites, and after the judgment had been performed upon them, they abandoned their policy of isolation, and mingled with the rest of the world, especially with the Greeks, many of whom, subsequently, visited their land, and learned something of their mysteries. Aided, perhaps, by these knowledges, the Greeks were enabled, in the Divine Providence, to inaugurate the era of philosophy which is recognized as the parent of our modern civilization. Arising with Thales and culminating in Socrates, and in Plato, founder of the academy, this new star of civilization glittered for awhile in the intellectual expanse, especially in the philosophy of Aristotle, and set again in Egyptian darkness.
8
Aristotle had already obscured this gleam of light with much reasoning, which his disciple, Alexander, finally carried back into Egypt, where Ptolemy Philadelphus, one of his successors, founded the Museum of Alexandria, which was under the presidency of an Egyptian priest. Here philosophy degenerated into mere science, and the dissecting knife took the place of reason. Here was laid the foundation-if not indeed a goodly part of the whole structure-of modern science-laid by such men as Euclid, Archimedes, and Ptolemy. So it will be seen that our science is Egyptian not only in quality, but in lineage as well. But as was the tendency of old, so is it now. The infatuated scientists are delving into the earth, and leaving daylight further behind them at every step. They are exceeding proud of this supposed advancement, branding simplicity, contentment, and wisdom of life, as antiquated and pitiable. Poor blind fools! Can they not see that even-the pure sensual is crumbling to decay? Where is there at this day pure art, pure music, or immortal verse? All that is truly exalted in these departments is of the past; while philosophy, from contemplating the immortal spirit of man, and reading in the phenomena of nature as in an open book, the Divine Love and Wisdom of the Creator, now idolizes a brazen monkey- Science! Blind in the sunlight, like an owl or a bat, she gropes in catacombs, feeling her way from one skeleton to another until she comes to the inner shrine of this her temple, where sits her simian prototype before whom she prostrates herself and offers up her sold and incense. What will become of this scientific civilization, alienated as it is, from spiritual truth, we can only guess. Its weakness is even now manifesting itself on every hand. For, with increase of knowledge, of wealth, of all means for doing every kind of uses, and for, communicating them readily, there results, not love of the neighbor, but love of self, so great, so intense that even now our whole social organism is in distress from lack of confidence. We must not deceive ourselves with all this nineteenth century boasting. The very boasting itself is the worst symptom of weakness. Without humility, without seeing and acknowledging our own evils, and without shunning them, each man for himself to the utmost of his power, there is no basis of confidence, there is no security in the world, there is no possibility for any enduring social or commercial fabric. Our magnified greatness is only misleading phantasy, unless it rests upon the life of charity among the people. True greatness can be attained only through growth in the goods of life, in contentment, in the spirit of self-sacrifice, in conscientious and loyal obedience to the laws of order. Yet all these are being left further behind continually. Men live faster, more selfish lives every day, and hence they are not advancing, as they boast, but retrograding: Now all this is even seen and acknowledged by some of them; but only; as it were, from afar. One hears occasionally amid the din of self-applause the strangely dissonant note of alarm. But the disorders which become apparent to them they attribute to various external causes, such as political "conditions," commercial "conditions," even meteorological, geographical, and other physical "conditions." They then proceed to apply palliative remedies: But in these, as in all other things, they mistake effects for causes, for they will not consent to any exercise of the rationality above the reach of the senses. Such are the Egyptians who afflicted the sons of Israel "with grievous service in mud and bricks" (Exodus 14). To really appreciate the oppugnance of false scientifics to the truths of the Church we must turn our eyes toward. It is not from Egypt without us that the Church suffers, but from the deadly onslaught of Egyptians in the other world. Nevertheless, we are taught "that truths increase according to infestations, which is signified by "as they afflicted him so they were multiplied" (Exodus i, 12). We need not worry, therefore, as to the fate of the Egyptians. The LORD cares for all, and nothing really good can ever suffer hurt. It is only as far as evil has root in us, that falses can be stirred up and infest us, and it is in order that these may be gotten rid of that they are allowed to come out. It is only by purification from evils and falses that we become strong and firm in our faith, and safe from the hells. It is vain, therefore, for us to grieve much about the impious state of the world, for we cannot better it except through the Church. When one state comes to its end interiorly, which is usually while it is vaunting itself in its highest glory, another is built up by the LORD, whereby all who will can be saved. Even now, the Sons of Israel dwell in Goshen, in the midst of the land. Spiritual truths are even now flourishing in the midst of the Egyptian darkness of a vastated civilization-of a science estranged from the truths of the Church. The Church is being established, slowly but surely, in Christendom. -It is afflicted and loathed, but the LORD shall lead them out "with a mighty hand, and with an outstretched arm." The Church will borrow of the Egyptians their scientific treasures, will despoil them of their vessels of gold, and vessels of silver, to make holy vessels for the temple of the LORD, while the Host of Egypt in the pride of its might, glorying in chariots and horsemen without number, shall be swallowed up in the Sea Suph. It may be hard sometimes for a despised and downtrodden community to obey its Divine Lawgiver, and go out from the midst of a mighty people whose power and glory is spread around on every hand. Their might seems to be so well established, so immutable. Their falsities are so thoroughly well worked out and confirmed on all hands. But when we have suffered their persecutions, and have multiplied and fructified sufficiently in sons and daughters, in truths and in affections of truth, we shall be ready to obey the voice of our LORD and go three days into the desert. We must pass through this desert state, vacillating hither and thither, now be holding the glory of the LORD upon Sinai, to-morrow worshiping the golden calf. We must endure wars, pestilence, and famine, for only thus can we be prepared to enter in and possess the land which Jehovah God hath sworn unto our fathers that we should possess it; the land that floweth with milk and honey-the NEW CHURCH.
Good is 1894
Good is not good unless its inmost is celestial.- A. C. 225.
NATIONS OF CANAAN 1894
JANAANITE, [Hebrew]=a merchantman. CHITTITE, [Hebrew] from [Hebrew]; dread. AMORITE, [Hebrew]=a mountaineer. PERIZZITE, [Hebrew]=a countryman. CRTVITE, [Hebrew]=a villager. JEBUSITE, [Hebrew] from [Hebrew]=a place trodden down; a threshing floor. GERGASHITE, [Hebrew] dwelling in a clayey soil.
CANAAN is called the Holy Land, but at the time of the Jews it was rather the reverse of holy, being inhabited by men who were idolatrous and profane (A. C. 1437).
9
The Seven Nations, whom the Sons of Israel were sent to drive out, were nations of the Ancient Church; but the time of the Exodus the Church with them was wholly consummated, and they were steeped in the grossest forms of idolatry. The Canaanites seem to have been the worst of all, and the Church to have become corrupt with them first, for we read that "those who cultivated the doctrinals of faith were called Canaanites, and were separated from the rest of the inhabitants of Canaan" (A. C. 2913). But as the Church declined more and more, all the other nations likewise became corrupt. They then represented so many kinds of evils and falses. But to give a clear idea of their relation to each other they must be described separately. I. The "Canaanites" were the most corrupt of all the nations of the land. They lived in plains near the Great Sea, and along the southwestern banks of the River Jordan. They were of such a genius as to love to live in plains; for "plains" signify the interiors of the natural man, and the "sea" which bordered them signified the external man (A. E. 513; A. C. 1444). Moreover the evil, which the Canaanites represented has its origin in the falses of doctrine and religion, and the cupidities of the loves of self and of the world. Such was "Canaan," the Son of Chain, from the beginning, and his descendants all partake more or less of this character. He represented those who deny the LORD, and love themselves only, and care nothing for the neighbor. Their worship is an external without an internal, on which account he was cursed by Noah. The reason that Canaan was cursed, and not Chain, although he seems to have given the occasion for Noah's displeasure, was "that Chain signifies faith separated from charity in the Spiritual Church, which cannot be cursed, because in the faith of that Church there is holiness, because there is truth; which although there is no faith when there is no charity, still because by the cognitions of faith man is regenerated, it can be adjoined to charity, and thus can in some proportion be a brother, or can become a brother. Therefore not Chain, but Canaan was cursed" (A. C. 1093). Thus all we can learn about his descendants, the Canaanites, shows that this nation was the worst of all who occupied the land at that time. II. The "Chittites" are more favorably spoken of in the Writings than any other of the nations of Canaan. We read the following concerning this nation: "All who were of that Church (the Ancient Church) acknowledged charity as the principal, and all their doctrinals were of charity or of life. Those who cultivated the doctrinals of faith were called Canannites, and were separated from the rest, of the inhabitants of Canaan. Among the better ones of the Land of Canaan were the Chittites, which may also appear from this, that Abraham lived among them, and afterward Isaac and Jacob; and that they were buried there, and that they behaved themselves With piety and modesty toward Abraham. Hence it is that they, as a well-disposed nation, represented and signified the Spiritual Church, or the truth of that Church. But it happened with this [nation], as with the rest of the Ancient Church, that in process of time, they departed from charity or the good of faith, when they signified the false of the Church. But that the Chittites were still among the more honorable-may appear from this, that Chittites were with David, as Achimelech, and Urijah who was a Chittite, whose wife was Bathsheba, by whom David had Solomon" (A. C. 2913). There are one or two features in this passage which deserve special notice. We have here the fullest description of any of the Seven Nations given in the Writings, it describes a nation which was among the best of those who inhabited Canaan at that time; but at the same time, we discover the reason that the Chittite represented interior falses, and is classed together with the Canaanites, who represented interior evil. Raving been originally interior men, the perversions of truth with them were necessarily of an interior kind. The Chittites lived in and around Hebron, a city which represented the Church before Jerusalem began to represent it. It afterward became a priestly city for the Sons of Aharon, and was made one of the Cities of "Amorite," in some places in the Word, signifies evil in general, on which account the Land of Canaan is called "the Land of the Amorite." In these places the Amorite stands for all the nations of Canaan, each of which signifies some particular evil or falsity. In other places the Amorite and the Canaanite are classed together when both represent evils originating in falses of doctrine, and the cupidities of the loves of self and of the world. At the time of the Exodus the bulk of that nation inhabited the region on the other side Jordan, and were the first who were conquered by the Sons of Israel; which circumstance shows that they represented the more external evils which the man of the Church has to overcome In the work of regeneration; thus before he can enter the Church-the Kingdom of the Lord. Their land, too, was given to the Tribes of Reuben, Gad, and half the Tribe of Manasseh, which tribes represented what is external in that Church and introductory to it. Moreover, the Jordan, which separated them from the rest of the Tribes of Israel, was one of the borders of the Land of Canaan, and as such, represented introduction into the Church. Two kings ruled over the whole region from the River Anion to Mt. Hermon- Sihon, King of Heshbon, and Og, King of Bashan. They were the most powerful of all the kings against whom the Sons of. Israel fought; for the Kings of the Land of Canaan were for the most part petty princes, ruling each over a single town and its dependencies. There were also Amorites on this side Jordan, who were among the first that went to meet Joshua, after he had crossed the Jordan. When they saw that Jericho and Ai had been taken, five kings of the Amorites joined their forces, and went to meet Israel. "The five kings of the Amorites represent those who are in falses of evil, and who will to destroy the truths of good of the Church, wherefore they were slain by hailstones from heaven, which signifies that they were destroyed, and perished by their own falses of evil" (A. E. 503). IV. The "Perizzite" is the only one of these nations which is not mentioned in the genealogy of the Sons of Noach. Neither do the Writings state its origin. All the light we have as to its relation to the other nations of Canaan is that the Chittite and the Perizzite signify falses of similar origin; from which it would appear that the Perizzite was likewise an off-shoot of Canaan. Or perhaps it would be more correct to say that this nation, as no doubt all the rest of them, became Canaanites by departing from the true worship of the LORD, and adopting a certain form of idolatry; for "Canaan" stands for such a worship. The falses represented by the Perizzite correspond to the evils represented by the Amorite; the falses of the external man. In two places in the Word these nations are arranged in pairs; each evil with its corresponding falsity, as the Canaanite and the Chittite; the Amorite and the Perizzite; the Chivite and the Jebusite (Ex. iii and Judg. iii), the first two pairs being similar in origin, but differing in degree.
10
The Perizzites lived at one time in the southern part of the Holy Land; at another in the forest country in the western flanks of Mt. Carmel. Here we find again a similar correspondence between the people and the places they inhabited. "Forests" in an evil sense signifies the sensual man, who is in mere fallacies and the falsities derived from them the fallacies and falsities being the Perizzite, and "Mt. Carmel" signifying the Church as to knowledges of good; but when in possession of the Perizzite, knowledges of evil, which are falsities (A. E. 388; A. C. 9011). Thus the Perizzite could not have chosen a more appropriate place in which to ultimate his life and worship. V and VI. The Chivite and the Jehusite may be taken together, as they both represented idolatrous worship in which there were remains of good and truth. For this reason Joshua and the Elders were permitted to establish a covenant with the Gibeonites, who were Chivites; and for the same reason the Jebusites were tolerated in Jerusalem a long time. The Chivites lived in Shechem, and in the extreme northern part of the Land, under Mounts Hermon and Lebanon. The Jebusites inhabited Jerusalem and the neighboring mountains. VII. "Girgashite" also signifies falses from evil, and is mentioned together with the Jebusite. But nothing further is said about this nation, except that it descends from "Canaan," which indicates, that like the rest, it was in idolatrous worship. Nor is it stated what part of the Land of Canaan this nation inhabited. So much about the Seven Nations of Canaan. They represented so many different kinds of evil and falses, which had invaded the Ancient Church, and destroyed it. They also represented so many classes of evil spirits who emerged from their hells at the time of the LORDS Coming, and had taken possession of the world of spirits, where they infested good spirits; on which account they were cast out, and driven back into their hells.
Lord's Kingdom 1894
The Lord's Kingdom on earth consists of all who are in good.- A. C. 2853.
RETROSPECT OF THE YEAR 1894
THE year of the LORD eighteen hundred and ninety-three is past, and a new year has begun. A state of the Church has been completed, and a new state is beginning, a new link in the endless chain of years, which in an unbroken series is to connect this day of small things with the day when the New Church of the LORD shall become established in its strength and glory. "It is granted to man to see the Divine Providence in the back, and not in the face" (D. P. 187). It is well, therefore, at the end of a year, to cast a glance behind us at the course in which the LORD in His Divine Providence has led His Church during the period that is closed. It will afford the Church as a whole an opportunity for self-examination, and for grateful acknowledgment of the Loving-Kindness and Mercy of the LORD toward His Church. A Miracle of Mercy, indeed, is the very existence of the New Church in a world such as this; a Miracle of Mercy is the possibility of any progress whatever of this Church among men of this generation. The obstacles to the internal and external development of the New Church on earth seem, indeed, overwhelming. Yet the New Church has continued to exist, add has even made some progress during the year that is past in the development of the uses that have been given to it. Beginning with the use that is nearest and dearest to most of our readers, we find that the use of
NEW CHURCH EDUCATION
has made considerable external progress during the past year, and this in spite of the present great financial depression in our nation. The Schools of the Academy of the New Church in Philadelphia, in June last, closed their 17th school-year with the graduation of eight male pupils, the greatest number that have graduated at one time, and with the ordination into the Priesthood of the Church of the Academy of the Rev. Messrs. T. F. Robinson and Alfred Acton. The 18th year of the Schools opened on October 2d, with fifty-four students and pupils. The Academy School in Pittsburgh has been blessed with a new home of its own, which was dedicated on January 15th. The teaching force of this School has lately been increased. A new and commodious building, after a long delay, was formally dedicated to the uses of New Church education in Berlin, Ontario, on August 6th. The new ceremonies used on this occasion were particularly impressive. The Academy School in Chicago has increased, during the year, in the number of teachers and pupils. At Parkdale, Oat., a new School of the Academy has been established during the present year, and a school-building is in the course of erection. In London, the present scene of the labors of the Chancellor, two new ministers have been added to the Priesthood of the Church of the Academy, the Rev. Messrs. Ottley and Stephenson, who were ordained on July 23d. A further distinction has been made here between the School and the Church of the Academy, by the appointment of distinct heads for these two uses of the Academy.
THE USES OF WORSHIP
have made a remarkable progress during the year in the direction of external order, power, and beauty. The externals of worship of the Church of the Academy are gradually assuming new and much more beautiful form than have ever been in use in the New Church. New and impressive rites have been prepared for the festivals of the Incarnation (Christmas), the Glorification (Easter), and the Institution of the Church (June 19th). The new music for the Psalms, which is being composed by Mr. C. J. Whittington, of London, and published by the Academy Book Room, is a blessing from the LORD which cannot be sufficiently appreciated. The practice in singing this heaven-born music, and the spiritual teachings that have been given on the subject, have increased the general interest in the cultivation of the Science and Art of Harmony, illustrated in part by the renewed impetus in the formation of Church Orchestras in Societies connected with the Academy and the General Church.
THE ACADEMY LIBRARY.
has been rearranged, classified, and catalogued, and its many treasures thus make more readily accessible. The uses of
THE BOOK ROOM
have been extended. In the publication of the neat biographical sketch of Emanuel Swedenborg, the Schools, the Library, and the Book Room have happily-conspired to produce an acceptable contribution to New Church education and literature.
11
THE GENERAL CHURCH OF THE ADVENT OF THE LORD
has also continued in the performance of its distinctive uses, chief of which is that of proclaiming the Gospel of the Advent and Kingdom of the LORD, and thus, by an interior propaganda of Divine Truth, to effect the internal establishment of the New Church among her members. This use has been actively performed, during the year, by the continuous work of the ministers and pastors of the various Societies of the General Church, and also, when means have been provided, by the occasional visits of the Secretary of the General Church to I the Societies and Circles which are without resident ministers or Pastors. Bishop Benade tendered his resignation of the episcopal office of this Church, but the proposed successor declined the office, and the Bishop resumed the superintendence of the General Church. One of the most important uses of this Church has been the continued publication of the Calendar for the daily rending of the Word and the Writings, a use which provides the Church with daily food of spiritual truth, and which tends to unite the readers into one harmonious, internal choir. This use is much appreciated by the sister Church of the Academy. The local churches of the General Church have made progress during the year. The Church at Pittsburgh, under the ministrations of the Rev. Homer Synnestvedt, is working harmoniously, and the evil effects of the disturbances caused by the former pastor are disappearing. The Immanuel Church at Chicago has enjoyed considerable growth in members and activity, and much interest is manifested in the proposed colonization at Oak Glen, near Chicago. The World's Fair brought many members of the General Church to Chicago, whom a more internal attraction drew to the Church on Carroll Avenue, where new faces were seen every Sunday. The churches at Parkdale, Ont., and Greenford, Ohio, have abolished their former written Constitutions, and have adopted the declaration of purposes and principles of the General Church. The Church at Denver, Col., again enjoys the care of its Pastor, the Rev. Richard de Charms, who, for some time, has labored in the Oakland, Cal., Society. This latter has now withdrawn from connection with the Pacific Coast Association, and some of its members have applied for admission into the General Church. In England, the Church at Colchester, for the first time in its history, enjoys the benefits of having a resident Pastor, the Rev. T. F. Robinson. A small circle of members of the General Church has been formed at the town of Lancaster, in Lancashire. The births, marriages, and deaths that have been announced in New Church Life for the last two years have been almost exclusively those that have occurred within families connected with the Church of the Academy and the General Church. During the year 1892, 23 births, 3 marriages, and 16 deaths were announced, and during the year 1893, 37 births, 8 marriages, and 12 deaths,-an encouraging showing.
THE CHURCH AT LARGE.
Glancing at the history of the Church at large, as represented mostly by the members of the General Convention in America, and the General Conference in England, progress seems to have been made in the direction indicated by the leaders of those bodies. Unfortunately, this has not been the road toward the distinctive development of the New Church in Doctrine and uses, but toward greater affiliation and assimilation with the Old Church, into which the New Jerusalem is supposed to be rapidly descending. For evidence of this state, we need but to refer to the unbounded enthusiasm, the mental intoxication, which has been exhibited in many of the journals of the Church in consequence of the late Parliament of Religions in Chicago. Another peculiar feature of the past year has been the protracted discussion of the position and privileges of woman in the New Church, persistent efforts having been made to force the gentle sex into forensic prominence, and to obscure the Doctrines on Conjugial Love by making a "woman question" of that which ought to be no question at all in the New Church. But it is encouraging to note that voices-though only few-have been raised in defense of truth and justice in the matter of the authority, of the Doctrines, the woman question, and other vital interests. Of the "missionary work," which is considered by these bodies the paramount use of the New Church, very little has been heard during the past year. This is not hopeful, for the use of evangelization is a good and holy use, in itself a sufficient raison d'etre for the existence of churches of the New Jerusalem. In the field of publication by the Church at large, there may be noticed a similar decrease of activity, although the substance put forth by the press is noteworthy. Of the Writings there have been published in America four volumes of the new translation of the Arcana Coelestia (Rotch Edition), three booklets of the Philadelphia Tract Society, and in England a new edition of the Coronis, translated by the Rev. J. F. Buss. Of collateral works no important books have been published with the exception of the Swedenborg Concordance. Books that merit special mention are the Autobiography of the Rev. B. F. Barrett; Consolation, by the Rev. C. Giles; Woman's Place and Work, by the Rev. James Reed; the Magnificat, by a Committee of the Convention; Lessons in Correspondence, by the Rev. W. L. Worcester. A remarkable decrease has taken place in the number of the journals of the Church. Of those which were published during the year 1892 no less than eight have ceased in the past year, viz.: New Church Light, Juvenile Magazine, The Dawn, New Church Tidings, The Bulletin, The New Age, Children's New Church Messenger, and Le Royaume du Signeur. In their stead one new periodical has appeared, L'Eglise de l'Avenir, at Paris. Among the ordinations of the year may be noted those of the Rev. Messrs. P. C. Louis (African), A. B. Dolly, and Lewis F. Bite, in America, and of W. F. Large, J. Howarth, and C. Claxton in England. The Rev. F. Goerwitz, of Switzerland and the Rev. Frank Sewall, of Washington, were invested with the office of ordaining minister at the late meeting of the Convention at New York. The changes in the ministry have been numerous during the year. The Rev. J. J. Thornton has resigned his charge at Melbourne, in Australia, and has returned to England. The Rev. T. A. King, formerly of Baltimore, has become the Assistant Pastor of the Chicago Society. The Rev. John A. Cleare has left Elm wood. The Rev. S. David has resigned from Minneapolis, and the Rev. S. C. Eby, from Peoria. The Rev. J. F. Bouts has been succeeded at La Porte, lad., by the Rev. E. D. Daniels, formerly of Indianapolis.
12
The Rev. Percy Billings has resigned his pastorate at Cleveland, and has left the New Church. The Rev. W. L. Worcester has succeeded the Rev. Chauncey Giles, in Philadelphia. In England the Rev. H. M'Lagan has become the minister of the Society at Melbourne, near Derby; the Rev. Isaiah Tansley has accepted the pastorate of the Heywood Society; Mr. Eby, formerly of Peoria, Ill., is ministering to the Camden Road Society, in London; Mr. Adcock has resigned the leadership of the Liverpool Society, and the Rev. W. O'Mant that of the Society at Ishington, London. An unusual number of ministers of the Church have been removed to the spiritual world within the year 1893. Thus we must note the death of the Rev. R. L. Tafel, of London, the Rev. A. Bellais, of France, the Rev. W. B. Hayden, of Portland, Me., the Rev. John Doughty, of San Francisco, Cal., the Rev. Chauncey Giles, of Philadelphia, the Rev. Henry Cameron, of Blackpool, England, and the Rev. A. E. Ford, of Florence, Italy. Many of these ministers were leaders of the Church and their removal within the short time of one year seems to indicate an impending change in the state of the Church at large.
Brethren 1894
Brethren are so called from love, or what is the same, from good.- A. C. 2360.
Notes and Reviews 1894
THE New Church Almanack for 1894 has been published by Mr. Speirs, at London. It contains, as usual, items of information concerning the societies of the Conference, together with short articles by New Church writers.
MR. Coventy Patmore, an English author, speaks with probation of the (supposed) Swedenborgian idea that Hell is a place "in which everybody is incessantly engaged in the endeavor to make everybody else virtuous-not, indeed, "from any heavenly motive, but only in order to bother each other." It seems that this writer has got hold of the "wrong hell." It is the "heaven" of certain modern reformers he is describing.
THE Commemorative Exercises of the Fiftieth anniversary of the Yarmouth Society held on September 20th, 1893, have been published at Boston in the form of a neat book of 133 pages. The history of this Society, as here described, has not been very eventful, but the publication makes entertaining reading, and will be valuable from the many letters it contains, written by members and friends of the Society in the early days of the New Church in Massachusetts.
The Swedenborg Society, of London, has issued a new catalogue for the year 1894. It contains the titles and price of the Writings in not less than fifteen different languages, Arabic, Danish, Dutch, English, French, German; Hindi, Icelandic, Italian, Latin, Polish, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, and Welsh. Catalogues such as these might become of great value, historically, if the compilers would only remember to add the dates and places of publication of the editions which they advertise.
THE Swedenborg Concordance has now reached its seventieth issue, in which the entries under the letter L are finished, and those under M begin; A number of subjects of great interest are here treated of, the most important, in a theological sense, being those under "Magic," "Male," and "Man," the, last covering not less than 61 columns. The passages on Luther and Machiavelli are of unusual interest. The student of physiology will be thankful for the teachings collected under the headings, "Lungs" and "Lymph."
THE late "World's Parliament of Religions" is hailed as a "New Pentecost" by even a minister of the New Church-the Rev. Frank Sewall (New Church Messenger, Dec. 6th). What evidence is there of Divine inspiration on this occasion? Did the priests of heathendom and fallen Christianity, like Peter, preach repentance and baptism in the name of JESUS CHRIST for the remission of sins? Has even a tithe of "three thousand souls" been added to the number of those who worship the LORD JESUS CHRIST in the Revelation which constitutes His Second Coming?
THE American New Church Tract and Publication Society has added to its series of pocket editions of New Church works two new volumes respectively entitled, The Decalogue and Free Will, and Baptism and the Holy Supper. These, like the little volume on Repentance, Reformation, and Regeneration, consist of the chapters on those subjects contained in the True Christian Religion. Better tracts for evangelistic purposes cannot be imagined; not to speak of the great convenience to the traveling but studiously-inclined Newchurchman afforded by such compact forms of publication.
The Seat of Power in the New Church and the Effective Organization of its Forces is the title of an anonymous pamphlet lately published in London. The author is, presumably, Mr. William Graham, who wrote on the same subject in the last volume of The Dawn. The writer draws a gloomy picture of the present inefficient organization and petrified state of the New Church in Great Britain, but does not counsel wisely as to its revivification. Instead of advising the Church to approach the LORD in the Writings of His New Advent, and to be regulated by the laws of order and government there so clearly revealed, he recommends as the panacea for all the ills of the Church the abolition of all representatives or centralized forms of government and the establishment of a government by a "plebiscite"-i. e., by the direct appeal to and vote of all the members of the Church on all subjects of general government. If literally carried out, what is this but anarchy?
THE Library of the Academy has lately acquired a copy of an edition of The Wisdom of Angels concerning Divine Love and Divine Wisdom, which was printed at Boston in the year 1794, by Messrs. Isaiah Thomas and Ebenezer T. Andrews, of 45 Newbury Street. Notice of this edition was not included in the bibliography of The Divine Love and Wisdom, published in the Life for February, 1891 (page 48). It is a reprint of the London Edition of 1788, which was translated by Dr. Tucker, of Hull. At the close of the volume is printed a catalogue of such of the Writings as had been translated into English at that date. Of these the following are stated as having been reprinted in America: The True Christian Religion. The Doctrine of Life. The Heavenly Doctrine of the New Jerusalem. Arcana Coelestia, Chapters I and II. Treatise on the Nature of Influx. The Doctrine concerning the LORD; The Doctrine concerning the Sacred Scripture. To these should be added A Brief Exposition of the Doctrine of the New Church, published by F. Bailey, at Philadelphia, in the year 1787, and Nine Questions, published at Baltimore, in the year 1792, by S. and J. Adams, together with an account of Swedenborg's Life. All the works, printed at Boston, including The Divine Love and Wisdom, were published at the individual expense of the Rev. W. Hill, a clergyman of the Church of England, who had been the curate of John Clowes, and was a most active promoter of the New Churches this country.
"This is my brother, I see that he worships the Lord and is a good man."- A. C. 2385.
13
HISTORY OF the ARCANA COELESTIA-III.
AMERICAN EDITIONS.
THE first appearance of any part of the Arcana Coelestia as an American publication was in the year 1794, when a small volume; consisting of the exposition of the first three chapters of Genesis (Vol. I, n. 1-319) was published in Boston by Mr. Joseph Belknap ("Apollo Press," No 8 Dock Square). The expense of this publication, it is understood, was defrayed by the Rev. William Hill, a former curate to the Rev. John Clowes, and a talented and zealous Newchurchman, who at the end of the last century preached the Doctrines of the New Church in Philadelphia and Boston. The publication does not appear to have continued beyond this first part. Another sporadic effort to publish an American edition of this work was made in the year 1823, when part of the first volume (n. 1-287) was published in the city of New York by Samuel Woodworth, publisher of the New Jerusalem Missionary. This part, which bears the "First American Edition," was a reprint of the English translation of Mr. Clowes. The publication, not meeting with sufficient encouragement, was discontinued with this first issue. FIRST complete American edition was published in the years 1837 to 1847. The first volume of this edition was issued by the "Boston New Church Printing Society," an organization which was formed in the year 1834 for the purpose of issuing American editions of the Writings, thus making these accessible at a greatly reduced price to the infant Church in this country. (A set of the Arcana Coelestia imported from England previously cost no less than $30.00. The Boston edition could be procured at $15.00. Now the work can be bought for $6.00!) The impression has been general in the New Church that this "Boston edition" was an entirely new translation of the Arcana Coelestia. This, however, is a mistake. In the notice of the first volume it is stated that
"The translation throughout the volume has been hastily revised [on the basis of the previous translation of Mr. Clowes], and many alterations made, of which, though many be unimportant, others were demanded to make the translation departs widely from a literal one." "As the later volumes were published, the revision of the translation was much more slight. It was Then simply examined in proof-for the most part not recurring at all to the Latin, but only making such alterations as were obvious improvements, without endangering the true meaning of Swedenborg. Often there was not time even for this. The translation was revised in England as one volume after another was republished; and the Boston publishers endeavored to avail themselves of the latest edition, presuming that it was the most reliable" (New Jerusalem Magazine, Vol. XXXIX, p. 624, 625).
Among the distinguishing features of this edition the follow may be noted. The constantly interposed and meaningless word "principle," occurring in Mr. Clowes' version; was eliminated. "Bonum" and "bona" were rendered "good" and "goods," instead of "goodness" and "goodnesses." "Voluntarius" was translated "voluntary" instead of "will principle," etc. In general it may be said that the revisors endeavored to restore in the edition somewhat of the distinguishing peculiarity which marks the language of the Writings in the Original. The Boston Printing Society issued Vol. I in the year 1837, Vol. II in the year 1838, Vol. III in the year 1839, and Vol. IV in the year 1840. Then, in consequence of financial embarrassments, the Printing Society discontinued their operations, sold out their interest at considerable loss, and dissolved. In the year 1843 the publication was continued by private persons, who, in that year published Vols. V, VI, and VII, and in the year following, Vol. VIII, and in the year 1845, Vol. IX. Another person assumed the expense of publishing Vol. X, in the year 1846, and two others published, at their private expense, Vol. XI, in the year 1846, and Vol. XII, in the year 1847. None of the volumes were stereotyped, and the "Boston edition," although unquestionably the best the Church in America has yet possessed, has never been republished in any of its volumes. An edition of Vol. I was printed at Boston and New York, in the year 1847, by Messrs. Otis Clapp and John Allen. It was a reprint of the English edition of the year 1837, with this exception, that in the translation of passages from the Word Swedenborg's rendering was restored in place of the authorized version. It does not appear that any subsequent volumes were published in connection with this edition.
The SECOND American edition, in ten volumes, was published at New York, in the years 1853 to 1857, by the "American Swedenborg Printing and Publishing Society," an organization formed for the purpose of "issuing editions of the Theological works of Emanuel Swedenborg at rates as low as possible." The following is a table of this edition:
Vol. I, 1853, Gen. i-xi, n. 1-1382 II, 1854, " xii-xix, 1383-2494 III, 1854, " xx-xxv, 2495-3352 IV, 1854, " xxvi-xxxi, 3353-4228 V, 1854, " xxxii-xl, 4229-5190 VI, 1855, " xli-xlix, 5191-6496 VII, 1855, " l, VII, 1855 Exod. i-xii, 6497-8032 VIII, 1856, " xiii-xxi, 8023-9111 IX, 1857, " xxii-xxviii, 9112- 9973 X, 1857, " xxix-xl, 9974-10,837
This edition was a reprint of the then current English edition. No revision whatever was attempted. From the stereotyped plates issues have been printed again and again, as in the years 1869, 1873, 1875, 1879, 1882, and 1892. In the year 1873 the Society sold twenty-five sets of the Arcana Coelestia to Messrs. Claxton, Renisen and Haffelfinger, of Philadelphia, the volumes bearing that arm's imprint on the undated title-page. During the past forty years not the least improvement has been introduced into the very faulty translation of this edition, which is the one commonly used in this country. The Church has thus had time to get thoroughly weary of the errors of the old version, and many are now looking forward expectantly to the
THIRD American edition, of which the first four volumes have this year been published at New York by the New Church Board of Publication, the expense being defrayed from the Rotch fund. This new edition deserves a more detailed description than can be given to it in this article.
SWEDISH EDITIONS.
THE FIRST Swedish edition was published under the title Himmelska Lonnligheter, at Stockholm and Wexio, in the years 1817 to 1863. Only four volumes were printed. At first the, translator was the Rev. Johan Tybeck, a Lutheran clergyman, who, for his courageous defense of the Heavenly Doctrines, was deprived of his office and much persecuted. He was for many years the I only standard-bearer of the New Church in Sweden and died in the year 1839.
14
After his death the translation was continued by the publisher of the work, Mr. Carl Deleen. The edition was published with some pecuniary assistance from the British Swedenborg Society, appearing in small parts, according to the following table Vol. I, part 1, 1817, Stockholm, Deleen, n. 1-66 2 1819, " " 67-181 3-6 1820, " " 182-691 7-9 1821, " " 692-1113 II, 1-3, 1822, " " 1114-1520 4 1824, " " 1521-1633 5 1825, " " 1634-1766 6-8 1826 " " 1767-2134 III, 1-2, 1827, " " 2135-2494 3, 1828, " " 2495-2605 4, 1842, " " IV, 1859-63, Wexio, Sodergren.
The SECOND Swedish edition was published, in part, by the "Swedenborg Association," of the city Christianstad, in Southern Sweden, also aided by the British Swedenborg Society. The translator was Johan Seven, D.Ph., who received some remuneration for his labors. After his death, in the year 1873, the work was discontinued until the year 1882, when Mr. C. J. N. Manby continued the translation. The publication was taken up by a new Swedish Swedenborg Association, which dissolved a few years ago, after having published the eighth volume of the Arcana Coelestia. The title of this edition is Himmelska Hemligheter. The remaining volumes have not yet been published The following is a table of this edition:
Vol. I part 1, 1861, Christianstad,- Seven, 1-322 2, 1863, " " 323-823 II 1864, " " 824-1382 III 1866, " " 1383-1885 IV 1867, " " 1886-2494 V 1868, " " 2495-3003 VI 1869, " " 3004-3435 VII, 1873, " " 3456-4055 VIII, part 1, 1882, Stockholm, Manby, 4056-4163 " 2, 1883, " " 4164-4247 " 3, 1884, " " 4243-4319 " 4, 1885, Gottenburg, " 4320-4425
THE FRENCH EDITION.
THE French translation of the Arcana Coelestia was, throughout, the work of J. F. E. Le Boys des Guays. Parts of this translation appeared first as installments in the first four volumes of La Nouvelle Jerusalem Revue, a periodical conducted by M. Le Boys des Guays, and printed at St. Armand in the years 1838 to 1847. The whole work was afterward published separately according to the following table:
THE FIRST German edition of the Arcana Coelestia (Himmlische Geheminisse) was published in sixteen volumes, at Tübingen and Bale, in the years 1845-1869. The first four volumes were translated by Dr. J. F. I. Tafel, and were published by him in small parts, the expense being partly covered by subscriptions. After Dr. Tafel, in the year 1863, had passed away from earthly labors, the work of translating and publishing the Arcana was taken up by a few devoted friends of the Church, who had united at the grave of Dr. Tafel. Thus arose a small printing society, which, assisted by Dr. F. E. Boericke, of Philadelphia, published vols V-X, in the years 1865-1867. Vols. XI-XVI were published in the years 1868 and 1869, at the expense of Herr Theodor Mullensiefen, the brother-in-law of Dr. Immanuel Tafel. The translators of the volumes which appeared after the death of Dr. Tafel were Fraulein Julie von Conring and Pfarrer Wurster, of Hohenmemmingen, in Wurtemberg, who each translated every alternate volume until the end. The whole was finally revised by Professor W. Pfirsch, before publication.
A SECOND edition of Vol. I was published at Bale in the year 1867, by the German Printing Society, the translator's name being omitted from the title-page. New title-pages were also printed for the old editions of Vols. II, III, and IV, so as to make these conform to the subsequent volumes. The dates have been omitted, to the confusion of the bibliologist. A second edition of Vol. II was published by Mr. J. G. Mittnacht, at Frankfurt-on-the-Main, in the year 1883. Of Vol. III, a new edition is contemplated by the "Swedenborg-Verein," of Stuttgart. This ends the History of the editions of the Arcana Coelestia, which have been hitherto published.
good 1894
The good which has not its quality from the truths of faith is not Christian good, but is natural good, which does not give eternal life.- A. C. 8772.
SYSTEMATIC DOCTRINAL STUDY 1894
IN order to rightly subordinate the mind to the Divine Truth, doctrinals imbued must be arranged according to their order, of generals, particulars, and singulars. This requires proper method of study. First, by systematic reading, the mind should be impressed with the generals of doctrine, in the Divinely given order of the Writings, especially in that of The Universal Theology. But further rational growth should be secured by the study of subjects, aided by indexes, the Concordance, and by confirmatory natural scientifics. In this connection it is hoped that the enlarged Subject Index, for 1893, issued with this number, will prove suggestive and economical of the student's time.
15
LIFE OF THE NEW CHURCH Various 1894
THE ACADEMY OF THE NEW CHURCH.
Philadelphia.-DURING the Fall term of the Schools Professor Price delivered a number of lectures on language. Professor Odhner delivered three lectures on the history of the Ancient Church, treating especially of the churches and nations descended from the Church Noach. Beside these he 255 delivered a coarse of lectures on the geography and history of Canaan and Egypt. The five priests who teach in the Schools preach and conduct the Sunday services in rotation, as has been the custom for some years. The texts are usually chosen from the current lessons of the Calendar, published by the General Church. On November 19th Bishop Pendleton preached on "The Government of the Church by the LORD as Priest" (Exodus iii, 1. See page 2 of this number). He was followed by Pastor Schreck, who preached, on November 26th, on "The Removal of Sensual Thought" (Ex. iii, 4-5). On December 3d Pastor Price preached on "The Divine Esse and the Divine Existere" (Ex. iii, 14). Pastor Odhner, on December 10th, preached on "The Plundering of the Egyptians" (Ex. i, 21, 22), and Minister Acton, on December 17th, on "The Three Uses of Baptism" Matth. xxviii, 18; 19). The attendance at these services has varied from 119 to 97. Following the course pursued during the two years preceding, on Friday afternoons classes of adults meet at the School Building a North Street for instruction in Hebrew, singing (and practice) of the New Music, and in Doctrine. Bishop Pendleton teaches the latter, continuing the reading of the work on The Divine Providence. On November 24th, instead of the usual doctrinal class, Pastor Jordan, by invitation of Bishop Pendleton, delivered an interesting account of his recent visits, in behalf of the General Church, to the little Circle in Erie, Pa., and to the Societies in Denver Col., and Middleport, Ohio. He exhibited beautiful intaglio in plaster, the work of a member of the Denver Society, a Swedish lady, who studied sculpture under a son of Hiram Powers. To Mr. Jordan's mind it suggested one of the young maidens of a heavenly society described in Conjugial Love, 19, as singing the affection of Conjugial Love one morning in Heaven. It was greatly admired. The Christmas vacation of the Schools began on Monday, December 25th. The schools will re-open on January 8th. London.- A PLEASANT social was held by the Church of the Academy in Brixton Road, on November 9th. A paper on the Science of Homoeopathy was read by Pastor Tilson, and an address on the same subject was afterward delivered by Bishop Benade. Colchester.-WE learn from the Standard that a beginning, on a small scale, has been made here with a New Church School, and is believed that if the effort is persevered it will lead, like many similar efforts elsewhere, to satisfactory results."
GENERAL CHURCH OF THE ADVENT OF THE LORD. 1894
Chicago.- AT a social of the Immanuel Church, on November 30th, the young people gave the company a pleasant surprise in the form of a tableaux, typifying the five successive Churches that have born on earth. The first, the Most Ancient, was represented by two infants adorned with garlands and holding pomegranates, the fruit emblematic of that age. The second or Ancient Church was represented by a maiden clad in blue drapery, with necklace, girdle, pendants, and bracelets of silver, and holding a bunch of white grapes with silver leaves, the fruit emblematic of the age of neighborly love. In the background were charts inscribed with hieroglyphics. The Israelitish Church was represented by a young man robed as a mitred priest. In both hands he held up a large scroll with the Decalogue in Hebrew written upon it, indicating the Divine Commission of the Jews to guard the Word. The early Christian Church was represented by a maiden bound to a cross with fagots about her, depicting Martyrdom. The New Church was emblemized by a representation of its especial gift, and crowning blessing, Conjugial Love, personified by a married pair in classic costume, shove whose heads was suspended a dove. Pittsburgh.-THE Rev. Homer Synnestvedt holds a weekly class for boys and I young men, in which the subject of Conjugial Love is studied. In connection with the doctrinal class, instruction in the Hebrew language is also given, and the new music to the Psalm, is being practiced. On November 30th Mr. Synnestvedt dedicated the new house of Mr. and Mrs. Rott, and a very pleasant social followed the ceremony.
CHURCH AT LARGE. 1894
THE UNITED STATES.
Maine.-THE Rev. J. W. Shilfer, who recently finished his studies at the Convention Theological School, in Cambridge, is at present engaged by the Maine Association to perform general evangelistic work in the State. His visits are much appreciated by small circles and isolated receivers. It is to be hoped that this Association, which enjoys the services of several young and energetic ministers, may now develop new activity. Massachusetts.-NEWS has been given of the sudden, serious illness of the Rev. John Worcester, the General Pastor of the Massachusetts Association, but his speedy recovery as confidently expected. New York.- A MEETING of women connected with the New York Association was held in the city of New York on December 9th- A paper was read on the "Attitude which New Church women should take toward the woman movement of the day?" This movement was supposed to originate from "the woman element in man as well as in woman. For each has both good and truth, consequently both masculine and feminine elements." This view obliterates the real distinction between the sexes. The Doctrines teach that man is masculine and a woman feminine in every part of their bodies, even the smallest, and also in every idea of their thought and in every spark of their affections (C. L. 33). Good in a man is masculine, the good of the love of growing wise, and the truth in a woman is feminine, the truth derived from her love of the man's affection of growing wise. "The two affections of the woman and of the man cannot be united except between two, and never in an individual" (C. L. 175). But it is only too true that the modern "woman's movement" originates in the intellectual effeminacy of many men, and the mannishness of many women, in this age of anti-conjugial love. Maryland-THE New Church Society of Baltimore, led by its new minister, Mr. Hiram Vrooman, has initiated a crusade against social evils rampant in that city, such as the "Sweating System," "Child Labor," "Obscene Literature," etc. and has been joined in this movement by representatives of other denominations. Virginia.-THE little circle of the New Church at Richmond, on November 6th, received a visit from the Rev. Frank Sewall, the General Pastor of the Maryland Association. Several persons were admitted as members of the Church, among them an intelligent negro. A neat "missionary-room" and New Church library has been opened. Ohio.-THE Rev. John Goddard, Pastor of the Cincinnati Society, is at present delivering a series of sermons on the religions of the Orient, regarded from the point of view of the New Church. The ladies of this Society are engaged in a course of study of the history and geography of the "Bible," occasionally calling upon their Pastor for spiritual instruction in connection therewith. Illinois.-THE Rev. L. P. Mercer and his assistant, the Rev. T. A. King, are preaching alternately at the Temple on Van Buren Street, and at "The First Parish Church" in Englewood. The Sower for December presents an interesting picture of a young African Prince, Momolo Massaquoi, arrayed in his robes as hereditary chief of a negro tribe in Liberia. Prince Massaquoi attended this Parliament of Religions in Chicago, and was frequently with the Rev. L. P. Mercer, from whom, with apparent delight, he received instruction on a number of the doctrinals of the Church. It is now proposed to translate a short New Church Catechism into the Arabic language for the benefit of his tribe, which understands that tongue. Iowa.-THE fifth annual meeting of the General Society of the New Church in Iowa was held at Lenox on November 1st. The President of this Society, the Rev. Stephen Wood, as also the Rev. Messrs. Lehnen and Adkins, the other ministers resident in the State, reported considerable evangelistic work and some progress made in the past year. There are now a number of small societies in Iowa-at Lost Nation, Nashville, Norway, Fremont, Lenox, Ferguson, Des Moines, and some other places. Louisiana.-DR. Wm. H. Holcombe, the well-known author and controversialist, died suddenly at New Orleans, on November 28th.
ENGLAND.
London.-THE Swedenborg Society has decided to offer for sale, at greatly reduced prices, and in a new and more attractive binding, their stock of the Latin editions of the Writings. This affords a rare opportunity for the students of the Writings in the original. For further particulars, inquiry may be made at the Academy Book Room. Morning Light, for December 9th, announces the death of Mr. Thomas Robinson, aged-eighty-two years. Mr. Robinson was one of the founders and leaders of the Failswrorth Society, and is known in the Church as the author of several works of spiritistic and otherwise disorderly tendencies which he evinced. Blackpool.-THE Rev. Henry Cameron; an old and well-known minister of the General Conference, died suddenly, of apoplexy,
16
CHURCH AT LARGE. 1894
NEW CHURCH LIFE. PUBLISHED MONTHLY BY THE ACADEMY OF THE NEW CHURCH.
TERMS:-One Dollar per annum, payable in advance. FOUR SHILLINGS IN GREAT BRITAIN.
The EDITOR'S address is 1821 Wallace Street, Fairmount Station, Philadelphia. Address all business communications to MR. CARL HJ. ASPLUNDH, No. 1821 Wallace Street, Fairmount Station, Philadelphia, Pa. Subscriptions are also received through the following agents: UNITED STATES. Chicago, Ill., Mr. A. E. Nelson, 565 West Superior Street. Pittsburgh, Pa., Mr. Wm. Rott, Tenth and Carson Streets. CANADA. Toronto, Ont., Mr. R. Carswell, 20 Equity Chambers. Waterloo, Mr. Rudolph Roschman. GREAT BRITAIN. Mr. E. W. Misson, 20 Paulet Road, Camberwell, London, S. E.
PHILADELPHIA, JANUARY, 1894=124.
CONTENTS. PAGE
Editorial Notes, 1 The Government of the Church by the LORD As a Priest (a Sermon), 2 The LORD'S Perception concerning the Deliverance of the Spiritual (Exodus iii, 7-22), 5 Egypt 7 The Nations of Canaan 8 Retrospect of the Year 10 NOTES AND REVIEWS, 12 History of the Arcana Coelestia, iii 13 LIFE OF THE NEW CHURCH 15 MARRIAGE 16 DEATHS 16 ACADEMY BOOK ROOM 16 on November 22d. It is stated in the Morning Light that the painfulness of this tragic event is intensified and made more lasting by the reflection that the death of this old and esteemed minister was, without doubt, amused by mental trouble, some of which might, perhaps, have been spared him." The cause of this trouble is not stated. Wigan.-THE centenary of the New Church in this town was celebrated on November 11th, by the laying of memorial stones for a new place of worship. This Society was first organized in the year 1793, with three members. After a checkered existence of a whole century the Society is at length enabled to erect a Temple, and to engage its first resident minister, the Rev. Mr. Dufty. The Society possesses besides one of the largest Day Schools of the New Church in Great Britain. It is, however, New Church in name only, being really a secular school, subsidized by the Government, and teaching no distinctively New Church Doctrine.
FRANCE.
Paris.-M. CHARLES Humann, minister of a New Church Society in Paris, has lately published a work of 600 pages entitled L'Evangile Social, by menus of which he hopes to attract some attention to the New Church. The work, however, seems to be of too democratic a tendency to promise any real cure for the manifold disorders from which the French nation suffers.
ITALY.
Florence.- SIGNOR Scocia in the New Church Messenger communicates the news of the death of the Rev. Alfred E. Ford, who passed away from this life on November 19th at the great age of eighty-five years. Mr. Ford was a native of the United Slates, where he had been a well-known minister in the Old Church. His coming into the New Church, some forty years ago, was hailed as a great accession. He was at one time Pastor of the Darby Society, near Philadelphia, but never entered fully into the Priesthood of the New Church, as, from conscientious reasons, he would not accept the Sacrament of Baptism in the New Church. About thirty years ago, for the sake of his health, he removed to Italy, where he has resided ever since, for a long time conducting New Church services in the English tongue at his home in Florence. Mr. Ford is well known in the Church as an able writer on controversial subjects.
AUSTRIA.
Vienna.-THE Monatblatter for November contains an interesting report of a recent pastoral visit made by the Rev. F. Goerwitz to the small Society of the New Church in this city, where he preached, administered the Sacraments, and received some young men into the Church through the rite of confirmation. This Society consists of twenty-seven members, not rich in worldly goods, but earnest in their love for the Doctrines of the New Church. Of the other Society in Vienna, which followed A. Artope in his heresies, nothing has been heard for some time. MR. Franz Krupka, of Buda-Pesth, has lately sought to extend the knowledge of the Doctrines by means of an evangelistic journey to the provinces of Steyermark, Bohemia, and Moravia, where he visited and preached to a number of isolated receivers. A BOHEMIAN translation of Dr. Ellis's book, Scepticism and Divine Revelation, is soon to be published. The translator is the Rev. W. Pazdral, lately of Bohemia, now of Chicago.
HUNGARY.
Buda-Pesth.-THE New Church in this city has of late made considerable progress. There is greater religious freedom in Hungary than in Austria proper, where dissenting religions are still forbidden to hold public meetings. In Buda-Pesth the Church possesses a nicely furnished room, in which public worship is regularly conducted by Herr Franz Krupka, and in which is preserved a small library consisting mostly of New Church works in the German tongue. As yet only two works of the Church have been translated into Hungarian, Letters to a Man of the World, by M. Le Boys des Guays, and Scepticism and Divine Revelation, by Dr. Ellis. It is now proposed to publish one of the Writings, The Doctrine of Life, which was translated by Herr Emerich Arky, an Hungarian Newchurch man, now deceased. The sum of 1,000 marks has been received for this purpose from an anonymous donor. The services are conducted, as a rule, in German, but according to the law of the land the Hungarian tongue must be used from time to time. The Society now numbers thirty-one members. On November 1st the Rev. F. Goerwitz visited and preached to this Society, administering also the Sacrament of Baptism to the leader, Herr Krupka, this being the first New Church Baptism in Hungary. Sad experiences having taught this Society the necessity of external ecclesiastical order, a closer approach has been made toward union with the New Church in Switzerland. An interesting incident of Mr. Goerwitz's visit was the reception into the Church of an intelligent young Roumanian. Friends were present also from the town of Gyorkony, in the Dolnau district, where there is a small circle of receivers, who meet for worship every Sunday.
SWEDEN
Stockholm.-THE first marriage in Sweden, to be conducted according to a New Church ritual, took place on November 16th, when the Rev. A. Bjorck, Pastor of one of the Societies in Stockholm, wedded a lady of his congregation. The Rev. C. J. N. Manby, of Gottenburgh, officiated. Gottenburgh.-THE Society in this city, on November 5th, celebrated the decennial of its institution. A lecture was delivered to a large audience, on the aims of the New Church, by Pastor Manby, and each visitor was presented, as a souvenir of the occasion, with a printed copy of Pastor Manby's interesting essay on "Swedenborg's Writings, and How he Himself Distributed Them," which was read in English at the late New Church Congress in Chicago.
INDIA.
IN the New Church Messenger of December 6th, a letter from the Rev. Willard H. Hinkly announces the loss at sea, in the Indian Ocean, of the well-known New Church colporteur, Mr. John Kelly. Formerly an active worker in the "Salvation Army," Mr. Kelly became acquainted with the Doctrines of the New Church while in Canada, and subsequently became the colporteur of the Toronto Society. Last year he moved to India, where, in Bombay, he was instrumental in organizing a small New Church Society. Not finding sufficient support in India, he determined to join his son an South Africa. While on his way his ship was run into and sunk by another ship in the Indian Ocean, on September 4th. All were saved from the wreck except six Lescar (Hindoo) seamen and Mr. Kelly, the immediate cause of whose death seems to have been the bursting of the steamship's boiler.
NEW CHURCH LIFE 1894
Bound copies of New Church Life for 1893 will soon be ready and on sale. Price to non-subscribers, $1.50; to subscribers, $1.25; 75 cents when complete, well-preserved sets are received in exchange. By mail, 20 cents additional. Earlier volumes, except vol. I, obtainable on same conditions.
JUST PUBLISHED.
A BRIEF ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE AND WORK OF EMANUEL SWEDENBORG, WITH A SKETCH OF HIS PERSONALITY, by the Rev. C. Th. Odhner, with a portrait of Swedenborg, taken from the original oil painting in the possession of the Academy. The work comprises 40 pages, printed on good paper; size, 5x7 inches. Price, including postage: In paper covers. In cloth covers. 1 copy, 15 cents. 1 copy, 25 cents. 10 copies; $1.25 10 copies, $2.25 25 " 2.50 25 " 5.00 50 " 450 50 " 9.00 Academy Book Room, 1821 Wallace Street, Philadelphia.
The affections of man's life's love are led by the Lord through His Divine Providence.-D. P. 200.
Title Unspecified 1894
THE questions of children are means of Divine Provision for their instruction and education, and parents and others who have them in charge need to exercise great care in their attitude toward these questions. The child age is the age of science, and the affection of knowing, which is implanted in children by the LORD as a purely Divine gift, is the source of their many interrogations. As it is the LORD who places them in the child's mind-when the surrounding sphere is an orderly one-the trainer sees in them indications of the child's needs, and of the opportunities for human co-operation with the LORD. To discourage a child in any way whatever, be it by evasive answer or by reference to some indefinite time in the distant future, or, worst of all, by snub or by harsh rebuke, is to check to a greater or less extent the orderly development of an affection which lies at the foundation of all truly human growth. Of course, if a child asks questions at improper times or in an improper manner it needs to be corrected, but the correction should be directed to the child's manner, not against the question, which ought to abide in the mind of the one asked, for a fitting reply at the fitting season.
Title Unspecified 1894
PARENTS are often troubled with what they call "inconvenient questions:" questions which for some reason or other (generally a poor one), they do not see fit, or feel unable to answer. Children are frequently put off with the assurance that "they will learn all about it some future time." By such tactics parents lose most valuable opportunities that they may never have again. There is no question that a child asks that may not be answered, fearless of consequences. If, for instance, a child desires to know how it came into the world, the very question shows that the time has come for it to be instructed on this wonderful and heavenly topic. Put off with an unsatisfactory reply, it will, in many a case, not take the trouble to ask the question again, but the information will come from sources that are anything but heavenly, and this in spite of the strictest precautions. Children cannot be kept out of the sphere of hell that fills the world at the present day, but they can be protected from its death-dealing influences by true instructions imparted by their natural care-takers.
THE "inconvenience" of questions is frequently due to the difference in states between the questioner and the answerer. The adult thinks on the natural-rational plane, the child on the plane of sensual appearances, and the lack of recognition of this leads to perplexities and mistakes. Answers should always be adapted to the state of the questioner. For example, if a child asks whether a fact be true which is recorded in the history of the Word, but which did not actually happen in the natural world, as related, the parent is sometimes at a loss to answer, because he feels that he must present the actual state of the case and yet not undermine the child's simple faith in the letter of the Word. But the answer must be in the affirmative. Everything in the literal sense of the Word is true. Appearances, although fallacious, are truths to him who cannot rise to the rational plane, or ought not as yet to try. If they are not accepted as truths, the very foundation is taken away from under the feet of one who is intended to become a perfect human being. The appearance, however fallacious, clothes the truth, and this makes it true, for that is true the essence of which is true, though the clothing be not true in itself.
Title Unspecified 1894
EVEN the rational mind cannot grasp the absolute truth; this would be to "be like God," who alone has and is the absolute Truth. All men and angels think in appearances of truth. It is true that the sun rises and sets. To disclaim its truth may become hypercriticism and essential falsehood, as in the well-known case of the evil spirit who confirmed that a crow is white. When asked "Does not a crow appear black before the sight?" he answered: "Are you who are a man, willing to think anything from appearance? You may, indeed, say from appearance that a crow is black, but you cannot think it; as, for example, you may say from appearance that the sun rises, progresses, and sets; but, because you are a man, you may not think it, because the sun stands unmoved and the earth progresses; it is a like case with a crow; appearance is appearance; say what you will, the whole crow is entirely white; he also grows white when be is old; this I have seen" (C. L. 231).
Title Unspecified 1894
IF a parent's ignorance stands in the way of an answer, then a confession of it is satisfactory, but the parent or nurse or teacher will find it of great interest to her charge and to herself to acquire the necessary knowledge, if this be feasible, and to impart the desired information.
Title Unspecified 1894
QUESTIONS, we repeat, are placed in the mouth of children by the LORD, and we can have no better indication of the teaching that is needed at any given time than these questions. They are the signs which the LORD gives to us of His interior operation into the child's mind, and of the kind of co-operation He desires from the parent at the time. "He calleth upon Me, and I shall answer him," saith the LORD (Ps. xci, 15), and so when children call upon those who represent the LORD, they must be answered. "The LORD gives that they ask, and what they ask; wherefore the LORD knows this beforehand; but still the LORD wants man to ask first, for the reason that it may be as from himself, and that it may thus be appropriated to him; otherwise, if the petition itself were not from the LORD, it would not be said . . . . [in the Word of the New Testimony] that they shall receive whatsoever they ask for'" (A. R. 376).
affection of truth 1894
The affection of truth can approach the affection of good only through appearances of truth.- A. C. 3207.
18
HABITS OF LIFE Rev. HOMER SYNNESTVEDT 1894
"And thou shalt take two Shoham stones and sculpture upon them the names of the Sons of Israel. . . . And thou shalt put the two stones upon the shoulders of the Ephod, stones of remembrance to the Sons of Israel."-Exodus xxviii, 9, 12.
IN the twenty-eighth chapter of Exodus are described garments of holiness which Moses made, by command of the LORD, for Aaron and his sons, to wear when they ministered. By the Priesthood, the functions of which were performed by Aaron with his sons, was represented the LORD as to the Divine Celestial, which is the Divine Good in heaven, and by their garments was represented the Divine Spiritual, which is the Divine Truth proceeding thence. The supreme end of Divine Love and Mercy is the establishment of a heaven from the Human race. Hence the highest object of all the angels is to co-operate with the LORD toward this great end, first by shunning their own evils, whereby the LORD can dwell with them and they can be in heaven, and secondly by performing the uses to man which are necessary as means of his salvation. All uses of all the angels contribute in greater or less degree to this use. But the central use of all, and the animus in all the rest, is the Priestly use of saving souls, which is represented by Aaron with his sons, and also by the Levites. This use, and the love of this use, is the Divine Good in heaven. It is that essential quality from the Divine which makes heaven to be heaven and without which no use can be a heavenly use, and no man can be a heavenly man or angel. Every use, however low or external, must derive its soul or end from this central use of heaven, the salvation of human souls, the eternal happiness and welfare of others, and this use is peculiarly the use of the priesthood. Hence it is that the Priesthood is called the LORD'S office by way of eminence, although all good uses are the LORD'S if they have this use within them. Hence also it is that the welfare of the Church depends upon the degree of respect and love in which this office is held, not only by those to whom it is adjoined as their peculiar use, but by all in the Church. But the performance of this use presupposes means, and the means thereof are Divine Truths, which are here represented by Aaron's garments of holiness. It is said in the Writings that the duties pertaining to the priestly office are the administration of the things of the Divine Law and Worship, or, in other words, leading by truth to the good of life. What the good of life is and how it is to be attained through truths, shall be considered presently. In general, by the garments of Aaron, as was said, are signified Divine Truths, or the Spiritual kingdom of the LORD where such truths reign. For truths clothe goods as garments clothe the body. Hence all in heaven appear clothed according to the truths with them. As often as their states change, their garments change, too, without their knowing how. It is from this origin that garments such as are here described were put upon Aaron, for each least particular thereof represented, and thus was a sigh of, some spiritual truth. The breast-plate, with its glittering gems, signified Divine Truth shining forth from Divine Good. The Ephod signified Divine Truth there in external form, in which interiors terminate. The robe signified Divine Truth there in internal form, and the tesselated tunic signifies Divine Truth there inmostly, proceeding immediately from the Divine Celestial. The mitre signified Intelligence and Wisdom, and the belt signified the common bond that all should have regard to one end. But we shall not at this time be able to investigate more than the one detail of the holy raiment mentioned in our text: the Shoham stones upon the shoulders, upon which were engraved the names of the twelve sons of Israel. Man has two organs or faculties, both internal and external, for retaining impressions made upon him. (See A. C. 2469-2494.) While he is in this world he has a natural memory, which receives and stores up all the sensible impressions of this world, both affections and ideas, and there is behind this, or above it, the interior memory, proper to his spirit, which at the same time, though not so manifestly, is selecting, eliciting, and elevating into itself all the concomitant affections and ends within the former. Further, the latter is the memory which becomes consciously active in the spiritual state, while the former becomes quiescent and remains closed up beyond the ability of recollection, except when it pleases the LORD for special reasons to open it. It is the desire at this time to examine more in particular the relation of these organs to the understanding itself, which uses them as its storehouses; how the understanding, from its will, chooses from the memory convenient things, arranging and determining them to its uses, and how it rejects other things, relegating them into the shade, so that they do not appear. For after all, the Will is the Life of man, which, through the Understanding, makes use of the memory and its stores in whatever way it desires. The book, written within and at the back, mentioned in the Apocalypse v, 1, represents the memory, but the writing thereon refers more especially to that which is impressed upon the memory-that is, goods and truths. The kind of impressions made by these, and whether it is within the book or only on its back, as also the ability to make use of them, depends entirely upon the state of the will and of the understanding thence. Although every man takes with him the book of his own life, which is opened in the other life, yet not all are written in the Lamb's Book of Life. Every man is said to have an internal memory, called the book of his life, but still we know that only the life of heaven is really life, but the life of the infernals is spiritual death. The things which will make our book really a book of life are the cognitions of good and truth inscribed upon the life itself, the will and the habit, so that it is become part or parcel of our life. To this life it is that the internal memory belongs. The evil have no inch inscriptions in their book, but only natural things, even on the inside of the book; hence with them it could rather be called the book of death, for there is nothing inscribed therein which is truly living. Even the Word of the LORD itself is dead with such, because it is only in the external memory, whence it is afterward given to oblivion, together with other things of this world, because it never affected the will or life, and thus failed to be inscribed upon this book of life. And I saw a throne great and white, and One sitting upon it from whose face fled heaven and earth. . . . And I saw the dead small and great standing before God. And the books were opened and another book was opened, which is of life. A ad the dead were judged from the things written in the books according to their works. And if any one was not found written in the book of life he was cast into the pool of fire (Apoc. xx, 11, 12, 15). How these things are will appear further from the following: And thou shalt take two Shoham stones, and engrave upon them the names of the sons of Israel.
19
Stones everywhere in the Word signify truths, but here, in relation to something written upon them these stones represent the interior memory, upon which were engraved the truths of the Church, which are represented by the names of the sons of Israel. Shoham is a Hebrew word supposed to mean onyx, but the Writings, in quoting, present the Hebrew form without translating it. The word for engraving or sculpturing means to lay open. By sculpture or engraving in stone is signified the memory of things which will remain, as the sculpture of the Law upon the tables of stone, which signify those things which have been impressed upon the memory and life, and thus will remain. Hence it is that these Shoham stones are called stones of remembrance to the Sons of Israel. And thou shalt put the two stones upon the shoulders of the Ephod, stones of remembrance to the Sons of Israel. Hands in the Word signify power, arms more interior power, but shoulders the inmost of power. Hence we are taught in the words of our text that truths of faith are to be engraven upon our life, and to be carried out with all possible power. The coming of the Sons of Israel down into Egypt, where Joseph was dominating, and their being domiciled in the midst of the land, has a similar meaning-that is, the scientifics, which are represented by Egypt, must receive into their midst the truths of the Church, which are represented by the Sons of Israel; and, on the other hand, these truths must betake themselves down into the natural in order to become confirmed and effective. There are, in general, two kinds of scientifics or knowledges-namely, those which refer primarily to things of the world and those which refer to the things of heaven. These latter are called doctrinals or knowledges about the Church, the life of charity and faith, etc. These are what are meant by Egypt, in the best sense, as these are the most important of all knowledges, being the ones which will serve the priestly use of leading to heaven. They are, however, only vessels, in themselves empty and dead, but capable of receiving living goods and truths, by being used for true and good purposes. Then they are like garments of holiness when worn by good priests. As it is written: "All things which are learned and reposited in the memory, and can he called out thence to the intellectual sight, are called scientifics." But scientifics from the Word, or from the doctrine of the Church, are called cognitions of truth and of good. These are likewise reposited in the external memory. All these serve to the sight of the internal or rational man as a kind of mirror for seeing such things as will serve itself. For they fall under the aspect of the internal man, as fields filled with herbs, flowers, grasses of various kinds, and trees, or as gardens of various kinds adorned for uses and for delights, appear to the aspect of the external man in the material world. But the internal sight, which is the understanding, sees nothing else in the fields or gardens of the memory than things which agree with the loves in which a man is; and also which favor the principles which he loves. Wherefore they who are in the loves of self and of the world, see nothing except what favors these. These things they call true, and also by fallacies and appearances they make them appear like truths Then they see such things as concord with the principles so received, which they love because they are from self. Hence it is that scientifics and cognitions, which are things of memory, serve to those who are in these loves as means of confirming falses against truths, and evils against goods, and thus of destroying the truths and goods of the Church. Hence it is that the learned who are such are more insane than the simple, and in themselves deny the Divine Providence, heaven and hell, life after death, and the truths of faith; which clearly appears in the other life, where the learned of the European world, who, at this day, are largely atheists at heart, openly appear as such. For in the other-life, hearts speak, and not mouths. This shows how the true use of cognitions and scientifics is subverted with those who think from the delights of-the loves of self and of the world. "But entirely otherwise with those who think from the delights of heavenly loves, which are the loves to the LORD and toward the neighbor. These, because their thought is led through heaven by the LORD, see and select nothing else in the fields and gardens of the things of their memory than those which agree with the delights of their loves, and concord with the doctrines of their Church, which they love. To them the things of memory are like heavenly paradises, and are represented and signified in the Word by paradises." The only real way to make the truths of the Church our own, to engrave them upon stones with engravings of a seal which cannot be blotted out, is to commit them to life-make them matters of habit, so that they become by frequent practice our second nature. Otherwise we shall only continue to practice and preach them from the external memory, which perishes after awhile, and all is again lost. When a thing is taken up from the memory and practiced a few times, it becomes gradually more easy, and at last natural and spontaneous. It is then, and not until then, a part of man's life, inscribed upon his interior life; and at the same time it disappears from his external memory, and also from his consciousness. No one is conscious of what is entirely habitual and natural unless he is reminded of it. When first born, men know nothing at all. All their life has to be acquired by instruction and practice. A man's book of life, therefore, or his life which he acquires to himself; depends upon his education. For whatever his hereditory inclinations, he can be trained into good habits, and if he is willing, can train himself into good loves; for, of course, whatever is implanted from boyhood does not become his own before- he acts according to it from affection. It then imbues his will, and is no longer put into act from science or doctrine, but from a certain delight imperceptible to him, and, as it were, from disposition or nature. For, as it is written: "Every one acquires a disposition to himself by frequent use or habit, and this from those things which he has learned. This cannot be done before those things which he has imbibed through doctrines from the external man are insinuated into the interior. Then he acts no longer from memory, but from disposition; at length, so that they flow spontaneously into act; for they are then inscribed upon the interior memory, and what this puts forth appears as if innate". (A. C. 3843). Again, it is written (9393): "That truth is said to be received by man which becomes of his life and thus of worship. And it does become of life and of worship when man is affected by it, or loves it, or, what is the same, wills it, and from will, thus from love and affection, does it. Before this it is indeed in man, in his memory, and is sometimes evoked thence to the internal sight or the understanding, from which it again relapses into the memory.
20
But as long as Divine Truth has not entered interiorly, it is indeed with man, but still not implanted in the life or will. For the life of man is his will, wherefore, when truth is called forth from the memory into the understanding, and from the understanding enters the will and from the will goes forth into act, then truth becomes of the life of man, and is called good. This is what is meant by the Divine Truth being made of the life, or the truth of good." It is this to which the Priest is to lead, by truths, namely, to habits of life formed in accordance with truth. "It shall also be told in a few words what the truths of faith from love are. The truths of faith from love are what love dictates, and thus which draw their esse from love. These truths are living, because whatever is from love, lives. Hence, the truths of faith from love are those which treat of love to the LORD and charity toward the neighbor, for these are the truths which love dictates. The whole Word is the doctrine of such verities, for the Word in the spiritual sense treats solely of matters relating to love to the LORD and toward the neighbor. It is from this that the Word is living." If you love a thing, it will have life for you-you will find delight in it, and will persevere in the use and practice of it, until it becomes habit of life. This is the way to form your character and your life. Every one who has the Doctrines, knows to some extent what kind of a life he ought to love. Now if he will be regenerated and thus saved, and so become really a member of the Church, he must show enough love for these Doctrines to put into practice things which he is there taught. It involves at first an effort, a struggle against the evils of old habits, or old ideas. But remember, the Doctrines are not really yours, except so far as you have formed habits in accordance with them. Whatever a man really wants to learn, so as to make any use of it, he must practice constantly. It is so in the first place in learning to walk, and afterward to speak. The child is first shown how, or sees or hears how it is done, and then tries it persistently until he can do it. If a man desires to acquire any accomplishment, he is first led by seeing the desirability of the thing when accomplished. But at first everything is difficult, and the plodding steps through which the goal is attained, are fraught with little of delight, except what is infused by the dominant love of the use. But ease and delight come with practice, and the man enters finally into the use and reward of his efforts. There is no royal road to anything good and useful. Such things are the result of work. If this is so in natural things, how much more must it be true of the spiritual affairs of life? Habits of the faithful performance of ordinary duties, habits of thoroughness, habits of industry, habits of neatness and quickness, habits of promptness, and all the other moral virtues are the result of persistent practice and training. So in habits of thought, from which actions flow. Chastity, frankness, honorableness, and good-will are not natural, but acquired at some time of life, whence ever afterward they become as it were inborn. The earlier such habits are formed the better. Hence it is that our schools are of so great importance-because they contribute most to the Priestly use of saving souls, of leading by truths to the good of life, of forming right habits of thought, affection, and conduct. Men cannot be so easily trained after they leave school. It is in childhood and youth that this training should be done in order that they may progress as they should afterward. When they-enter the uses of life, they should be prepared to give their attention to more interior things, to the spiritual habits of probity, and the exercises of interior charity in their uses, and interior piety in their private life. Let parents see to it, therefore, that children are early trained in those habits which will be the means of leading them finally into the life of heaven. The daily worship and reading of the Word and Doctrines is one of these. It must be so ingrained that one has an appetite for it, and is not satisfied without it. Thus will the LORD Himself, the Good Pastor, be able to feed him day by day and lead him to the waters of rest. He will teach him the way wherein he should go, and from the habit and love of obedience he will walk therein unto eternal life.- AMEN.
All truth in its first infancy 1894
All truth in its first infancy is not truth, but an appearing of truth.- A. C. 8131.
LIBERATION OF THE SPIRITUAL. THE LAW DIVINE 1894
(Whoever has carefully read the lessons in the Arcana Coelestia during the past two months will find the scattered explanations of the Internal Sense brought together here and presented in the form of continuous doctrinal statements. The literal sense is printed in italics, to distinguish it from the spiritual sense. The reader is earnestly exhorted to read the study at least twice-once as written, and then with the omission of the literal sense, when he will see more clearly the continuity and beautiful sequence of the Internal Sense.)
EXODUS IV.
THE liberation of those who are of the spiritual Church continues to be treated of in this chapter; first is described their state, if they should not have hope and faith, that they would carry off falses and evils, and also things profane: these are signified by the three signs. Afterward the Law Divine is treated of, that truth was adjoined to its good; and that thus good has the power of liberating and of insinuating hope and faith: Moses represents the Law Divine as to good, and Aaron as to truth. Finally the Israelitish people is treated of, that it would only represent the spiritual Church, not that this Church could be instituted with them, because they were in externals without internals: this was signified by the circumcision of the son of Zippora and by the b load with which his feet were tinged.
THE LIBERATION OF THE SPIRITUAL.
(1-4.) As indicated in the last chapter, the LORD is here represented, when, as to His Human, He was made the Law Divine, or Divine Truth. From this Law Divine, He thought, "And Moses answered and said"-that those who were of the spiritual Church, and were kept in the lower earth in the spiritual world, would not have faith, and thus would not receive the Law-Divine or the Word "and behold, they, will not believe me, nor will they hear my voice"-and what the Word says, namely, that the Divine is in the Human of the LORD," because they will say, Not seen unto thee was JEHOVAH." And the LORD foresaw what they would be like if they would not have faith, "and JEOHVAH said unto him"-namely, that the power of the Divine Human of the LORD, "what is that in thy hand? and he said, A staff"-when inflowing into the sensual "and He said, Cast it on the earth"-would there be turned into the sensual and corporeal man separate from the internal, "and he cast it on the earth and it became a serpent,"-whereat the LORD was horror-stricken, "and Moses fled from before it."
21
But the Divine provides power to elevate from the ultimate of the sensual, "and JEHOVAH said unto Moses, Send thy hand and take hold of its tail,"-and as man, from looking downward, looks upward, from the power given by the Divine, his interiors are elevated, and with them the sensual also, "and he sent his hand and took hold of it"-and power is communicated to him, "and it became a staff in his palm." (5-7.) As the transmutation of the staff into a serpent and back again into a staff, was to be a natural sign to the sons of Israel that JEHOVAH had appeared to Moses, so for the men of the spiritual Church, who have not perception like the celestial, but learn all things by means of the truth, there is provided by the LORD this spiritual sign, that when the Divine Truth inflows into the sensual, and is there changed into a sensual man separated from the Divine, who ratiocinates from fallacious appearances against the spiritual truths of the Word-he can, by the Divine power, be elevated toward the interiors, and become sound and true, a living embodiment of the Divine Truth and of its power. By this spiritual sign of the LORD'S Providence, Mercy, and Power, are they to be led to have faith about the Divine Human of the LORD, "in order that they may believe that seen unto thee was JEHOVAH"-not, however, a faith that JEHOVAH or the LORD was seen with the eyes, but faith, such as is meant in the spiritual sense; faith in the LORD, the same Divine who was of the Ancient Church, "the God of their fathers"-even the LORD as to the Divine Itself and the Divine Human, "the God of Abraham, the God of Isaak, and the God of Jacob." The first, then, that needs to be established in the Church is the belief in the Divine Human of the LORD, and the belief that this Divine Human, and the Divine within it, is the same as that which was worshiped in the Ancient Church, for thus there is One God in the Church, and One Church. Were the men of the New Church, and the angels of the New Heaven not to recognize that the LORD God whom they worship is the same LORD who was worshiped in the Ancient Church, they would not be conjoined with the Ancient Heaven. All the Heavens form One Heaven, because they acknowledge the One God and Lord, the Divine Human in which is the Very Divine Itself; from eternity and to eternity one and the same. The LORD, when in the Human, foresaw further, what those who are of the spiritual Church would become if they should not have faith, "and JEHOVAH said to him yet again"-namely, that if they should appropriate truth," Put now thy hand into thy bosom "-if they should actually appropriate it, "and he put his hand into his bosom "-that hence would be profanation of truth, "and he brought it forth and behold his hand leprous as the snow." But the LORD foresaw that if they should have faith, "and He said"-and should appropriate truth, "Put back thy hand unto thy bosom"-in actuality, " and he put back his hand unto his bosom"-there would thence, "and he brought it forth out of his bosom?-then be the good of truth, "and behold it was changed back as his flesh"-that is to say, good, which is from truth and according to the truth of the doctrine of their Church; for, this truth, when it is made of the life, is called good. It makes a vast difference in the reception of truth, and in the result of such reception, whether a man have faith in the LORD'S Divine Human or not. In the one case it leads to heaven, in the other to hell. The teaching of the Word in regard to the Divinity of the LORD'S Human and its effect upon man's salvation needs to be most carefully heeded, for this determines the truth or falsity of all that man professes to believe. (8, 9.) If they who are of the spiritual Church have not faith, "and it shall be if they do not believe thee"-and do not obey this annunciation or preaching from the Word: that instead of the spiritual and rational man they would become non-spiritual and non-rational, "and do not hear the voice of the former sign"-then they should have faith in the fore-annunciation from the Word, that they would become profaners of truth, "and they will believe the voice of the latter sign." But if they should have no faith at all that such things will happen, "and it shall be, if they do not believe also these two signs"-and if they do not render any obedience to the annunciation or to the fore-announcement, "and do not hear thy voice"-then false scientifics, "and thou shalt take of the waters of the river will enter the natural, "and thou shalt pour out into the dry"-and the state will be inverted, "and will be the waters which thou hast taken"-that is to say, every truth will be falsified, whence results privation of it in the Natural, "and they will become blood in the dry." Thus the men of the spiritual Church, if they have no hope and faith in the teachings of the Word concerning the efficacy and power of the LORD'S Human, carry off falses and evils and things profane. But, how is it that the Word, written as it is by the mediation of spirits and men, can convey teachings so absolutely essential, that man's salvation is involved in the belief or non-belief in them? Do its teachings indeed bring to us the very Divine Truth which comes directly from the LORD GOD Himself? Is not the Divine above and beyond all human comprehension? It is. And how this unapproachable and ineffable Divine is nevertheless closely conjoined with even such ultimate mediation as the Sacred Scripture, we can learn best from the following:
TRUTH IS ADJOINED TO THE GOOD OF THE LAW DIVINE.
(10-12.) The LORD in His Human perceived from the Divine, "and Moses said unto JEHOVAH"-the certainty, "In me, O Lord "-that the Truth Divine which proceeds immediately from the Divine has no faculty of speaking, "not a man of words am I"-and that from eternity it had not speech, "even from yesterday, even from day before yesterday"-and thus neither has it speech or the faculty of speaking, to eternity, while the Divine inflows into the Human not yet made Divine, "even from now that Thou speakest unto Thy servant;"-for voice and speech coming immediately from the Divine is not heard or perceived, "because heavy of mouth, and heavy of tongue am I." From the influx from the Divine, the LORD in His Human perceived further, "and JEHOVAH said unto him"-that enunciation-that is to say, confession of the LORD and the preaching of faith in Him," Who hath put a mouth to man"-and non-enunciation, "or who hath put the dumb"-and the non-perception of truth, and thence non-obedience,-"or the deaf"-and faith, through cognitions and non-faith through non-cognitions, "or the seeing, or the blind"-all come from the influx of life from the Divine, "have not I, JEHOVAH"-as modified in the reception, even as health and death come from the influx of the sun's life into plants, when received either in good or in poisonous plants. So the Human of the LORD lives from the Divine, "and now go"-and the Divine is in all and single things which proceed from the Divine Human, "and I, I shall be with thy mouth, and shall teach thee what thou shalt speak."
22
(18-17.) The assurance is given, "and he said, In me, O Lord"-that the Divine Truth proceeding from the Divine Human will be enunciated mediately, "send, I pray, by the hand mayest thou send"-for by the Divine clemency," and enkindled was the anger of JEHOVAH against Moses"-there is the doctrine of good and truth, "and He said, Is not Aharon thy brother the Levite"-which will preach, "I know that speaking he will speak, he"-and will receive, "and also behold he goeth forth to meet thee"-and will perceive the Divine Truth proceeding immediately, "and will see thee"-and will be affected with love, "and will be glad in his heart." The Divine Truth proceeding immediately from the Divine Human will inflow into the doctrine of good and truth, "and thou shalt speak unto him"-which will enunciate what proceeds from the Divine Human," and shalt put the words in his mouth"-and thus the Truth Divine which proceeds through the Divine Human from the Divine Itself; "and I, I shall be with thy mouth"-is with those things which are from that Truth Divine, "and with his mouth"-as, for instance, with those things which are of the doctrine of good and truth. Thus the Divine is in all and single the things which happen, "and I shall teach you what ye shall do." There will be doctrine for the spiritual Church, "and he shall speak, he, for thee unto the people"-and also truth of doctrine which likewise proceeds mediately from the LORD, "and it be, he shall be to thee for a mouth"-and this will conjoined to the Divine Truth which proceeds immediately from the LORD, "and thou shalt be to him for God" and in the truths will be Divine power, "and this staff thou shalt take in thy hand"-whence is illustration and confirmational truths, "with which thou shalt do the signs." Where the mediation is of the LORD'S own Providence, and is received in a sphere of humility before Him, the Truth immediately proceeding, which in reality is the good that comes from the LORD, is in it. So regarded, the literal sense of the Word, though written by men through the intervention of spirits, is holy and Divine; so regarded, the Doctrine of the New Church, though written by a man, is holy and Divine; so regarded, the preaching of and from the Word, effected by the Divinely instituted mediation of the priesthood, is holy and Divine. This close affiliation and conjunction between the Truth that proceeds immediately from the Divine and the truth that proceeds mediately, was perceived by the LORD in an interior state of the good of Divine Love-Moses was in Church the mount of God and so it is to be received by man in a state of interior love of those things which are of the LORD. (18-20.) This state of the LORD, when He was in perception as the Truth Divine, was succeeded by another, which was a continuation of His former life, "And Moses went and returned "-in simple good, "unto Jethro his father-in-law"-wherein the LORD as the truth from the Divine proposed to elevate Himself unto a more interior and more spiritual life in the natural, "said to him, I will go,-I pray, and will return unto my brethren who are in Egypt"-which he perceived beforehand, and will see whether they are still living." His present state of simple good assented to this and longed for it and Jethro said to Moses, Go in peace." In this state of the truth of simple good He received still further illustration and confirmation from the Divine, "and JEHOVAH said unto Moses in Midian"-concerning the spiritual life in the natural, "Go, return to Egypt"-that the falses that endeavored to destroy the life of truth and good were removed, "because dead are all the men that sought thy soul." Good adjoined to the Truth from the Divine," and Moses took his wife"-truths also from this marriage of good and truth, "and his sons"-and those things which-would serve the new understanding that would be of the life among those who are in the spiritual Church, "and made them ride upon the ass"-did the LORD have in the natural mind, "and he returned to the land of Egypt"-all from Divine Power, "and Moses took the staff of God in his hand." (21-23.) The LORD perceived from the Divine, "and JEHOVAH said unto Moses"-that when He should be elevated unto the interior and more spiritual life in the natural," When thou art going to return to Egypt"-He would have means of power from the spiritual, "see all the portents which I have put in thy hand"-against infesting falses, "and thou shalt do them before Pharaoh." They who are in falses and in evils from them, and in evils and the falses from these, are obstinate, and will not let those who are infested go free, "and I, I shall make firm his heart and he will not send the people"-but they are to be exhorted, "and thou shalt say unto Pharaoh"-from the Divine, "thus called JEHOVAH"-that those who are in spiritual truth and good have been adopted," My son, My first-begotten, is Israel"-and they are commanded, "and I say unto thee"-that they should abstain from infesting the truths of the Church, "send away My son"-which are to be elevated in to heaven, to perform uses from there, "and he shall serve Me"-but if they are obstinate unto the last, "and refusest thou to send him away"-then faith without charity, in which these infesters are, will be extinguished, and the truth with them will be devastated, "behold I, I kill thy son, thy first-begotten."
THE ISRAELITISH CHURCH MERELY REPRESENTED THE CHURCH.
(24-26.) The spiritual Church, which has thus far been treated of, was to have been instituted among the posterity of Jacob, but as they were in externals without an internal, "and he was in the way in the inn"-and opposed themselves to the Divine, "and JEHOVAH met him"-the representative Church could not be instituted with them, "and He sought to kill him"-because of their quality, which was shown by the representative Church by truth," and Zipporah took a rock"-which removes filthy loves and lays bare the internal, "and out off the foreskin of her son"-"and which showed the quality of the natural at that time, "and made to touch his feet"-namely, that it was full of all violence and hostility against truth and good, "and she said, Because a bridegroom of bloods art thou to me"-still it was permitted that the representative of a Church (not a representative Church), might be instituted among the posterity of Jacob, "and He ceased from him"-and although their internal-was full of violence and hostility against truth and good, still circumcision would be received as a sign representative of purification from filthy loves, "then she said, A bridegroom of bloods unto circumcisions.
GOOD OF THE LAW DIVINE ACQUIRES THE POWER FOR INSINUATING HOPE AND FAITH.
(27-31.) As to the truth of doctrine into which the truth proceeding immediately from the LORD was to inflow, it perceived from the Divine, "and JEHOVAH said unto Aharon"-that it would be conjoined with the Truth proceeding immediately from the Divine, "go to meet Moses"-where previously there had not been conjunction, "to the desert."
23
The Conjunction of the truth proceeding immediately from the Divine, with the truth proceeding mediately, was effected in the good of love, "and he went and met him in the mountain of God" from affection, "and kissed him"-and the truth immediately proceeding from the Divine of the LORD inflowed into the Truth which proceeds mediately, and gave instruction in the single things of doctrine which proceed, "and Moses told Aharon all the words of JEHOVAH with which He sent him"-and imparted illustration and confirmation, "and all the signs which He commanded him." In the life from the conjunction of the truth immediately proceeding with the truth mediately proceeding, "and Moses went and Aharon"-the chief-things of wisdom which the spiritual Church has, were established, "and they gathered together all the elders of the sons of Israel"-and hence the doctrine from the Divine was enunciated and preached, "and Aharon spake all the words which JEHOVAH spake unto Moses and was confirmed to the comprehension, "and did the signs in the eyes of the people"-thus instilling the faith and the hope," and the people believed, and they heard"-that those who are of the spiritual Church will be liberated and saved by the Advent of the LORD, "that JEHOVAH had visited the sons of Israel"-after so many temptations, "and that He had seen their affliction." At this doctrine, they who were in truth and they who were in good were in humiliation, "and they bended themselves and bowed themselves."
Thus fallacies and appearances 1894
Thus fallacies and appearances, which in the time of ignorance are truths, are dissipated and dispelled.- A. C. 8131.
FINE LINEN OR COTTON? 1894
THE Greek word "byssus" has been translated "fine linen," in the Authorized and Revised Versions of the Word, and by all the translators of the Heavenly Doctrines, including the compiler of the Concordance. Swedenborg retains the Greek word, which had found its way into the Latin language. What material was so denominated in ancient times has been a subject for conjecture among scholars, but their general trend is to the conclusion that it was a kind of fine cotton. Although cotton has become well known among Europeans only within the last two centuries, modern researches have shown that it was largely used in Asia and Africa, notably in India and China, centuries before the Christian era. Also in the countries where the Ancient Church flourished, as in Assyria and Egypt, it was well known and used. In the Doctrines it is stated that "Byssinum is called xylinum" (S. S. 814), "xylinum is byssinum" (A. C. 5319), "byssus is also xylinum" (A. E. 1143); etc. There is no question, that xylinum is the Latinized Greek word for cotton. The Latin term gossypium, which means cotton, and which is used by the moderns as the botanical designation of this plant, does not occur in the inspired Writings; but in the Animal Kingdom, Swedenborg uses it in the translation of the French word "coton." In n. 81 (note n) of the work referred to, Swedenborg quotes in French, Winslow's description of the nervous coat of the esophagus, in which he compares the tissue to "coton." In n. 76 Swedenborg translates this word-"gossypium bombycinum vel xylon": "silky cotton, or xylon." This explicit translation, which amounts to a definition, would seem to settle the question to the Newchurchman. When it is said in The Apocalypse Explained, n. 1143, that "byssus was a kind of very bright linen," the term "linen" may be looked upon as used in an extended sense, as when we speak of a person's linen, meaning, not only garments made from the flax plant, but from hemp and cotton as well.
natural appearances of truth 1894
The natural appearances of truth are full of fallacies; but when they are with those who are in good, then they are not called fallacies, but appearances, and even in some respect truths.- A. C. 3207.
SPIRITUAL WORLD AT THE TIME OF THE LAST JUDGMENT 1894
(Delivered by Mr. Joseph F. Boyesen on the occasion of his receiving the degree of Bachelor of Arts.)
IT is a fact well known in the New Church that when the LORD made His First Coming into the world the Hells had risen up to such an extent that the power of Hell prevailed over the power of Heaven and in the earth the power of evil over the power of good, whereby a total damnation stood before the doors and threatened, and that JEHOVAH GOD by His Human, which was the - Divine Truth, took away this impending damnation and thus redeemed both angels and men; and that without His Coming into the world no flesh could have been saved. This was at the time of the First Coming of the LORD. But our faith reads that It is similar at this-day. For at the time of the Second Coming of the LORD the Hells in their hatred had again collected and risen up to destroy the Heavens. Evil spirits in their insane fancy had elevated themselves and built their own imaginary Heavens. They had claimed the foundations of Heaven, and the Heavens, deprived of their foundation, were tottering. In the earth the power of evil again prevailed, the Church, instituted at the LORD'S First Coming, had left her LORD, its consummation was at hand, and all mankind, even they who were willing to follow their LORD, were in danger of being swallowed up in the total consummation and damnation of the first Christian Church. But in the Human Glorified The LORD had taken unto Himself His Great Power and had begun to reign. From the very beginning of the first Christian Church He had been collecting the faithful; He had commenced the formation of the New Heaven, from the good who had lived after His First Advent, out of which Heaven, when fully established at the Last Judgment, the New Church would descend. Until that time the evil were permitted to do their worst; the LORD let them work their consummation to the full, and all for the sake of some good; but when the increase of evil was too great, when there was nothing but terror before the eyes of the angels, and when there was the abomination of desolation and vastation in the earth, the LORD dispersed the imaginary heavens, drove the inhabitants thereof to Hell, and established in everlasting security the New Heaven. This New Heaven and New Church are signified by the New Heaven and New Earth which John saw, and the seeming or imaginary heaven, and the Church in connection with it, are signified by the former Heaven and former Earth, which were passed away-that is, which were abolished by the LORD. The increase of evil at the consummation of a Church creates such a disorder in the Spiritual World, both in Heaven and the world of spirits, that a judgment by the LORD is necessary for the restoration of order.
24
The world of spirits is filled with persons who outwardly appear good, but internally are devils; and such persons also build the imaginary Heavens, pretending that they are angels and that the places where they dwell are Heavens, by which they infest good spirits and angels in various ways. By means of their assumed civil and moral life, yea, spiritual life, they establish open intercourse with the external of Heaven or the ultimate Heaven, which is collected from the simple good who think naturally and but little spiritually, and consequently look principally to externals, but who nevertheless are internally good. There are many reasons why the LORD permits such evil spirits to be in converse with the good; the principal one is this, that by their semblance of a spiritual life in externals and their imitation, as it were, of internal piety and sanctity, they are able to perform various offices to the simple in connection with them; for the simple look no farther than to see what is external and apparent to their eyes. Those hypocrites are able to discourse piously with them, to implant religion in their minds, and to lead them to think of Heaven and Hell. In this way the imaginary angels are of service in leading numbers to a life of good and therefore into the way of Heaven. On account of this the imaginary heavens are necessarily tolerated until the Judgment. If they were separated before, it would bring ruin upon those in the ultimate Heaven who would be brought into destruction with them, for they are conjoined with the imaginary heavens as to their externals. The internals of virtue of which they are really separated are as yet closed. If, therefore, these evil spirits were forcibly removed before the appointed time, Heaven would suffer in its ultimates; and yet it is the ultimate upon which the superior Heavens subsist, as upon their own basis. Nevertheless the life of Heaven is endangered by this communication of the seeming Heavens with the ultimate Heaven, and would finally be destroyed if the LORD allowed that communication to remain uninterrupted, for the arts and devices of these fancied angels become more and- more cunning and treacherous in proportion as their internal hatred against the LORD and is Heavens, and their inherent lust of seducing and destroying the good yearn for ultimation. But there is one class of simple good spirits who become sorely aggrieved by the infestations of the imaginary Heavens and are brought into fear of damnation and of evils and falses from Hell and of severe temptations. These are by the LORD removed from consort with imaginary Heavens and are sent into what is called the "lower earth" which is next above Hell, under the world of spirits, where, by communion with the Heavens and by conjunction with the LORD, they are held in safety until the Last Judgment, when, together with the rest of the good spirits, they are elevated and formed into the New Heaven. There is yet another class of spirits from the world, namely those who are in spiritual good. These cannot, of course, be in consort with the imaginary Heavens, nor are they sent to the lower earth, but, after preparation, they are elevated above the ultimate or lowest Heaven into the internal of Heaven, also called the "superior Heavens," which Heavens likewise suffer from the presence of the evil, in consequence of which these Heavens are not fully formed till a little before the LORD executes the judgment and likewise after, it, when the New Heaven is being finally established, of which they then are to constitute a part. It is important here to bear in mind this teaching, that each Heaven by itself is distinguished into a lowest, a middle, and an inmost Heaven. Such as now described; is generally the condition of the world of spirits and Heaven at the consummation of a Church on earth. The Heaven of the Most Ancient Church was not fully formed until there was a judgment at the consummation of that age, when the good in the world of spirits or in the ultimate of Heaven, were liberated by the separation and rejection of the imaginary heavens, which had been forming since the first decline of that Church, and thus when the simple good in the lower earth were raised up out of the darkness induced upon them by these heavens. The LORD'S Providence with regard to the Heaven of the Second Age or Church, namely, that which continued from the flood down to His own time was altogether similar. This Heaven was in like manner not fully formed until the consummation of that age, when the Lord came in the flesh and effected a judgment. Swedenborg says: "At the time of the first Advent of the LORD, the Hells"-that is, the imaginary heavens-"had grown up to such an extent that they filled all the world of spirits, and thus not only confuted the ultimate or lowest Heaven, but also assaulted the middle Heaven, which they infested in a thousand ways, and which would have gone to destruction unless the LORD had protected it." This disorder, which had been increasing ever since the fall of the Ancient Church, was dispelled by the LORD in His Human. His Divine Truth dispersed the imaginary heavens, liberated the angels and the good spirits of the Ancient Heavens, and delivered the simple good from their bondage in the lower earth. The Ancient Heavens were then re-created or re-established, and after that time no one could ever enter them; they were, like the Most Ancient Heaven, closed. But Heaven was not as yet entire. The Natural Heaven was not yet formed. This is the New Heaven which John saw, and which the LORD fully established about the time of the Last Judgment. Let us see from whom this New Heaven was formed. We are taught that it was composed of all those persons who, since the Coming of the LORD, had lived in faith and Charity: and being formed of all who had been of such a quality, it follows that it was composed of both Christians and Gentiles, but chiefly of those who had died as infants in all parts of the world, since the LORD'S Coming-all those, therefore, in the spiritual world, who could receive the Faith of the New Heaven. This faith could be received by all those Gentiles who had lived according to the precepts of their religion and by all those Christians who had thought of the LORD'S Human in a becoming manner. Those also who had worshiped One God under three persons, but who at the same time had not had an idea of three Gods, could likewise receive that faith, for these had worshiped the LORD alone and regarded his Human as Divine; but they who had cherished no other idea of the LORD'S Human than as of the human of another man, and they who had confirmed themselves in an idea of three Gods could not receive the faith of the New Heaven. Before all these persons were collected together and formed into the New Heaven, the progress of which to all eternity will remain uninterrupted by the hells, the world of spirits had an appearance similar to that which it previously had presented at the end and consummation of a Church. There were the imaginary heavens, where men are just and sincere for the sake of civil and moral laws, but not for the sake of Divine Laws; where they are in the doctrinals of the Church, which are also taught but never lived,- and where various offices are filled and uses done, but this not for the sake of uses.
25
These Heavens therefore were such as is the world and the Church upon earth, among those who do good, not because it is good, but because they fear the laws and the loss of fame, honor; and lucre; they who do good-from no other origin do not fear God but men, and are destitute of conscience; they are like Christians in externals, but in internals they are devils. There was the external of Heaven, or the ultimate Heaven, consisting of simple good in connection with the imaginary heavens. These simple good possess some religion, are in truths of a common or general nature from the literal sense of the Word, and, like the feigned angels of the imaginary heavens, they frequent Churches, listen to discourses, and receive the LORD'S Supper, but give little spiritual thought to God, Salvation; and Eternal life. In externals they are the same as the devils with whom they associate, but in internals they are nevertheless good. While this association continued, the internals of both the evil and the good were closed by the LORD, so that no injury should e done to the good. This ultimate Heaven is "the sea" spoken of in the Apocalypse, and its conjunction with the imaginary heaven is understood by John seeing "as it were a sea mingled with fire;" by "fire," here, being under the love of evil and thence the evil of life. The imaginary heavens are signified by "the Dragon and his beasts," that were cast into the lake of fire and brimstone (Rev. xix, 20; xx, 10). There was also the "Lower Earth," in which dwell who were hated, abused, and rejected by those who were in falses from self-derived intelligence, on account a life conformable to the truths of the Word and on account of their acknowledgment of the LORD'S Divine Human. These desire to know truths, but cannot, by reason of the falses abounding in the Church, and they are meant in the Apocalypse by "the souls of them that were beheaded for the Testimony of JESUS CHRIST, and for the Word of God;" and also by "the souls under the altar, that were slain for the Word of God and for testimony which they held." In many parts of the Word mention is made of people being slain, thrust through, and dead, by which is meant that they were rejected by those who were in evils and falses. The same is signified by "the dead" where it is said that "the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished;" and elsewhere by the prisoners and by them that are bound in the pit and delivered by the LORD. We are told that they live cheerfully with another in this their place of retreat, and worship LORD, knowing nothing about Hell; and that they who are there are at times elevated by the LORD after Judgment (for the Last Judgment was not effected at once, but gradually and at intervals), and when these are elevated those who are meant by the Dragon removed. This is what is meant in the Word by "the graves being opened and the dead rising again." While this state of disorder continued in the spiritual world, the LORD was gradually preparing for a final and universal Judgment, which He executed when the imaginary heavens had multiplied to such a degree as to intercept the spiritual light and heat in their descent from the superior Heavens to men upon earth, and when the assaults made by them upon Heaven became intolerable. All the good in the world of spirits and in the ultimate Heaven, who as yet were but in generals of Doctrine, could do little to oppose the destructive doctrines advanced by the imaginary heavens, as these increased and elevated themselves higher and higher upon the mountain of their fancied spiritual elevation, even till they not only reached the ultimate Heaven, but became confounded with its societies. They could not meet the ratiocinations and hypocritical insinuations and deceits of these devils. The blasting doctrines belched forth attempted the destruction of the simple doctrines of the angels; they came over their societies like a chilling, freezing sea-wind-like the increepings of a poison as a plague, that threatens to produce intoxication, delirium, gangrene, mortification, and death, and the angels became alarmed, yea terrified and at length fell into despair. It seemed to them as if they were being deprived of their very life. They looked unto the LORD, but there was no help. "They looked unto the earth; but, behold, darkness and sorrow, and light was darkened in the Heavens thereof"-"The earth quaked before them, the Heavens trembled, the sun and the moon were dark, and the stars withdrew their shining; for the day of the LORD was great and very terrible." It is every in temptation; the Lord appears to be absent and no help is seen. It is written: "And therefore shall the LORD wait that He may be gracious unto you, and therefore shall He be exalted that He may have mercy upon you. For the LORD is a God of Judgment, blessed are all they that wait for Him. For the people shall dwell in Zion at Jerusalem; thou shalt weep no more. He will be gracious unto thee at the voice of thy cry: when He shall hear it, He will answer it." The LORD had not forsaken them. He was near, yea, nearer to them than ever. His time had now come and the Sign of the Son of Man appeared in Heaven. He revealed the Spirit and Life of His Divine Word; He revealed Himself, His Divine Human, the Very Divine Truth Itself, which is Himself; and all the good spirits and all the angels of Heaven knew their LORD and received Him with songs of praise and thanksgiving. The Divine Truth, which reveals the internal character of every one, was made manifest, and the LORD came to judge the evil. The truths of the natural sense of the Word could not do this. Only the truths, which the evil would reject and the good receive, could produce judgments and separation. The devils of the imaginary heavens rejected the Divine Truth in its fullness and glory, and were no longer able to retain the semblance of angels; while the same truth liberated the simple good of the external or Heaven from their connection with these devils, who then no longer had angels with them from whom to induce upon themselves the sphere of sincerity and sanctity. The imaginary heavens were thus dispersed and cast down into Hell and the ultimate Heaven was broken up. "The sea was no more." All the simple good and the angels of Heaven, who so long had suffered from the invasion of devil-intruders, as if freed from a deadly disease, gained new life and were formed into the New Heaven, and all the simple good in the lower earth were released and elevated into their places in this New Heaven. This the LORD did, by the Omnipotence of I His Divine Human, during the year of 1757. Thus in His Glorified Human He preserved from everlasting destruction the whole human race by overcoming the Hells and bringing them under His obedience to eternity; and the angels of the New Heaven, in the enjoyment of increased light and life and in exultation over the salvation of mankind, raised this song of Thanksgiving and Praise to the LORD, the Creator, Liberator, and Preserver of All: "Great and marvelous are Thy works, O LORD, God Almighty; just and true are Thy ways, Thou King of Saints. Who shall not fear Thee, O LORD, and glorify Thy Name! For all nations shall come and worship before Thee; for Thy Judgments are made manifest."
26
good that is 1894
The good that is [in appearances with those who are in good], in which is the Divine, causes them to have another essence.- A. C. 3207.
"OTHER GODS." 1894
BAAL, [Hebrew]=Lord; The God of Tyre. CHEMOSH, [Hebrew]=Subduer; The God of Moab. MILCOM, [Hebrew]= King; Gods of Ammon. MOLECH, [Hebrew]=King; Gods of Ammon. ASHTORETH, [Hebrew]=Goddess of Sidon. DAGON, [Hebrew]=Diminutive of [Hebrew]=fish; The God of Gaza and Ashdod. BEELZEEUB, [Hebrew]=Fly-Baal; The God of Ekron. BAAL PEOR, [Hebrew]=The God of Mt. Peor, in Moab.
"Thou shalt have no other Gods before My Faces." "I am Jehovah, there is none else; beside Me there is no God" (Isaiah xlv, 5). These and similar injunctions were constantly repeated to the sons of Israel; but the necessity of their constant; repetition in the Old Testament cannot be fully understood until the signification of these gods, and the horrible practices connected with their worship, are known. Of the gods of Canaan we know nothing. Their names are nowhere mentioned in the Word; nor are their attributes. The above-named deities were worshiped by nations bordering on the land of Canaan; but from the nature and attributes of these gods, we may in a measure judge what the character of the gods of Canaan may have been. The nations in and around Canaan had certain ceremonies and religious practices in common. They all offered incense to their gods; and they all offered sacrifices, human as well as animal. (See Pa. cvi, 38.) Baal, Chemosh, Milcom, and Molech are supposed to have been, essentially the same gods under different names. But this can scarcely have been the case; whatever the resemblance between them in same respects, there must have been a different idea represented by each of them. We are taught that: "In ancient times they distinguished the Supreme God, or LORD, by various names, and this according to His attributes. They of the Ancient Church by all of these denominations understood only one God, namely the LORD, whom they called JEHOVAH. But after the Church had fallen away from good and truth, and at the same time from that wisdom, they began to worship as many gods as there were denominations of one God; insomuch that every nation and at length every family acknowledged one of them for its own god" (A. C. 3667). Thus, although these gods were originally orderly representations of the LORD'S attributes, they were changed into opposites, when the Church had fallen away from good and truth. Each nation then adopted those most agreeable to its genius. Hence, we must conclude that the gods of each nation represented the particular evils and falses of that nation; and, instead of the gods of several nations being identical, each deity must have had a separate origin-in other words, each nation must have had its own peculiar conception of its gods different from those of other nations. The following description of the above-named deities will illustrate this point. To begin with Baal: I. "Baal" Is said to have been the Sun-God of Tyre, as "Ashtoreth" was the Moon-Goddess of Sidon. Their chief temples were located in Tyre and Sidon respectively; but their worship was general throughout Phoenicia, and spread even beyond its borders. As Solar-God, Baal was represented as a man, from whose head emanated rays of light; sometimes he is represented as holding bunches of grapes and pomegranates in his hands. His image rode upon bulls. Being the greatest of all the gods, to him the highest honors were due. Accordingly he was to be propitiated, not only with incense and ordinary offerings, but on special occasions human sacrifices even had to be offered to him. And to make the offering acceptable to the god, the victims had to be chosen from the noblest families in the land. Baal was originally a man (T. C. R. 292), to whom divine attributes were ascribed; a custom common in ancient times. But his origin, like that of other gods of antiquity, was no doubt forgotten in the course of time, so that in later ages, he was known only as a deity. "Of all the gods, the Baalim were the worst." They signify the love of one's own intelligence. "And there were many idols called Baalim, because many errors sprang from the love of one's own intelligence" (Adv. P. iv, p. 225, and n. 7593). Thus the worship of Baal was simply the worship of self, which is the worst form of idolatry. For there are three universal forms of idolatry; the first is of the love of self; the second of the love of the world; and the third of the love of pleasure. These three forms of idolatry were represented by the three sons of Terah; Abram, Nabor, and Haran (A. C. 1357). This, by the way, explains why the sons of Israel so frequently fell into this particular form of idolatry. Self-love was the predominating evil with them; hence they were exceedingly prone to the worship of Baal. Under Ahab and Ahaziah, Baal worship was established throughout Israel and Judah. It is asserted by some that Baal was worshiped under two distinct characters. We have spoken of him as god of the Sun, represented with rays of light emanating from his head. But sometimes he is represented with a bull's head; and in religious processions his image was carried on bulls. Some special attribute of the god was of course indicated thereby. The nature and attributes of the gods of antiquity were always indicated either, by their form or by emblems attached to their images, suggestive of their attributes. The "hull" and the "calf" figure prominently among these representatives. Mythologists, who explain all religions as so many forms of nature-worship, see in these emblems nothing but symbols representing various powers of nature. According to their theory the "bull" is the symbol of the creative powers of nature; attached to Baal it would indicate that this was one of the attributes ascribed to Baal. But in the light of the Writings Baal appears in quite a different character. As Sun-God he represents self-love. Baal generally has this signification, but sometimes he represents the evils of both the love of self and the love of the world; and the delights of the latter love are represented by the "bull," for a "bullock" signifies the delights of pleasures, the delights of cupidities, and the delights of the love of self and of the world. Children were sacrificed to this idol, which signifies the extinction of goods and truths. II and III. "Molech" and "Milcom" were gods of the Ammorites. Molech, like Baal, was represented in the human shape with a bull's head. Milcom probably resembled him in most respects. To both gods children were sacrificed, The mode of sacrificing was the most cruel that could be devised.
27
The image of the god, which was of metal, was heated, and the victim placed in the outstretched arms of the idol, from whence (to quote Dr. Dollinger) "it rolled into the fiery lap below. The parents stopped the cries of their children by fondling and kissing them, for the victim ought not to weep, and the sound of complaint was drowned in the din of flutes and kettle-drums. Mothers, according to Plutarch, stood without tears or sobs; if they wept or sobbed they lost the honor of the act, and their children were sacrificed notwithstanding." (Story of Phoenicia, p. 113.) Sacrifice to Molech signifies the destruction of the truths of the Word and the Doctrines of the Church by application to the filthy loves of the body. The Jews celebrated the worship of Baal and Molech in Tophet-the valley of Hinnom-the most appropriate place for such abominable practices; for "Tophet" and "the Valley of Hinnom" signify hell. There were other places where altars were set up for Baal and Molech, but the Valley of Hinnom is more frequently mentioned in the Word than other places, evidently on account of its signification. It is the "Gehenna" of the New Testament. The term occurs frequently in the Writings, where by it are signified some of the worst hells. IV. "Chemosh." Concerning this god our information is very scanty. All that is known about him is that he seems to have been the chief god of Moab. His signification is not given; but as he was a god of Moab he may have been similar to Baal-Peor, of whom below. V. "Ashtoreth" and "Astarte" seem to be two different forms of the same goddess. Although differing in name and differently represented, their attributes are identical. Each is regarded as goddess of the moon, consort of Baal, and Queen of Heaven. There has been considerable speculation among the learned as to the form under which Ashtoreth was represented. Some suppose that she was worshiped under the form of an emblem rather than of a statue. However this may have been, Ashtoreth is sometimes called the "Great Goddess of Sidon," and is no doubt also meant by the "Queen of Heaven" in Jeremiah, chap. xliv, 17. The plural form "Ashtoreth" also occurs in the Word. Astarte was the Guardian Goddess of Sidon. She is represented under various forms. Some hold that Astarte was usually represented as a goddess with four wings, holding a dove in her hand; others, as a goddess with a mural crown on her head, with sceptre and spindle in hand. Sometimes she is represented with a cow's head; or even under the form of a cow. "Her golden statue rode next to Baal in a chariot drawn by lions. A precious stone placed upon her head illuminated the whole temple by night." Her worship was of the most revolting character. To understand to what depth of depravity the devotees of this goddess had sunk, it is only necessary to quote the words of Mesha, king of Moab. Mesha speaks: "And Chemosh said to me, Go, take Nebo against Israel. . . . I took it, and slew in all seven thousand [men, but I did not kill] the women [and] maidens for [I] devoted them to Ashtar- Chemosh." (Fresh Light from the Ancient Monuments, p. 78.) Is it surprising that Ashtoreth is in the Word called "the abomination of the Sidonians"? Ashtar- Chemosh was simply the Ashtoreth of Moab, who was worshiped with similar rites. It is stated by those who are considered authority in such matters that the Hebrew Asherah [Hebrew] (which is uniformly translated by "grove" in the Writings) is translated "Astarte" in several ancient versions. If the two are really identical, and there are indications to that effect, this would at once show why the Sons of Israel were so severely prohibited from worshiping the "Grove," and why they so frequently lapsed into this peculiar form of idolatry-why they so often "forgot Jehovah their God and served Baalim and the groves." There are passages in the Word which seem to indicate that such was really the case. We read that "graven images of Asherah" were set up by Solomon and other kings after him in the Temple at Jerusalem. These images are supposed to have resembled the Sacred Tree so frequently met with in the Assyrian sculptures; which is not altogether improbable. The Writings teach that the "images of the grove" (or Asherah) were representations of the groves in which the Ancients worshiped; and as they worshiped in groves of various kinds of trees, these images may have differed according to the kind of grove that was represented. There is also a variety of representations of the Sacred Tree to be found in the Assyrian sculptures, undoubtedly representing various kinds of groves. Now Asherah is frequently spoken of in the Word in connection with Baal, just as the Phoenicians associated Ashtoreth with Baal. We read of "vessels that were made for Baal, and for the grove (Asherah) and for the host of heaven" (II Kings xxiii, 4). Again, we read in I Kings xviii, 9, that "the prophets of Asherah eat at the table of Jezebel." Now Jezebel was the daughter of Ethbaal, king of Tyre, who was also high-priest of Ashtoreth; and it was she who introduced the worship of Baal and Ashtoreth into Israel. Taking all these things into consideration it would seem that under "the image of a grove" was really worshiped the "Great Goddess," "the abomination of the Sidonians." This image was generally placed near the image of Baal, the place which Astarte occupied in the temples of Phoenecia. VI. "Dagon" was the God of Ashdod. He is several times mentioned in the Word. His image was singular; the upper part man, the lower fish. The Philistines represented their god in this manner from their knowledge of Correspondences; for "a man" signifies intelligence, and "a fish" sciences, which two make one (S. S. 23). This god does not seem to have had any attractions for the Sons of Israel, for we nowhere find that they worshiped him. VII." Beelzebub" was the god of Ekron. His name signifies the "Lord of flies." In the New Testament he is called "Satan," because by him is meant the god of all falsities. Nothing is known about him except that he "could drive away flies" (T. C. R. 630), if this statement is meant at all seriously. He must have been regarded as a god of prophecy, because Ahaziah, king of Israel, sent to him, to consult him concerning his recovery from a grievous disease. VIII. "Baal Peor" was a form of Baal, worshiped at Mount Peor in Moab. The Sons of Israel, reduced by the Moabites, once joined in the worship of this idol, and ate of the sacrifice, for which they suffered severe chastisement. "JEHOVAH said to Moses: "Take the heads of the people and hang them up to JEHOVAH before the Sun; and of the people twenty-four thousand men were slain on that day" (Num. xxv). This punishment signifies condemnation on account of the destruction of good. He must have represented the sun, for in the Writings his worship is called sun-worship (A. R. 53). The worship of each signifies the worship of self. His worship, like that of Astarte, was of a licentious character. Such were the gods whom the Sons of Israel worshiped, when "they forgot JEHOVAH." And so attractive to them is as this worship that neither promises, nor threats, nor punishments could restrain them for any length of time from falling into these abominations.
28
Both the signification of these gods and the practices connected with their worship, as well as the unconquerable tendency of the Sons of Israel to fall into these particular forms of worship were truly cause enough to call for the repeated warnings and severe denunciations against them occurring throughout the historical parts of the Word.
Truths are truths 1894
Truths are truths according to the correspondence between the natural and the spiritual man.-H. D. 27.
CONFIDENCE 1894
(Delivered by Mr. D. H. Klein at the closing exercises of the Academy Schools, June 12th, 1893.)
"The Universal of faith on the part of man is, that he believe in the LORD, for by believing in Him conjunction with Him is effected, by which is Salvation; to believe in Him is to have trust that He saves; and because no one can have trust but he that lives well, therefore this also is understood by believing in Him."
ALL things in heaven and in the world refer themselves to good and truth, because both good and truth are from the Divine from Whom is all things. Love and wisdom, charity and faith, will and understanding, and affection and thought, are but members of the infinite series, which are referable to good and truth. In this series, charity and faith are the members with which we are at present most concerned, for confidence or trust is most intimately associated with them. In the Faith of the New Heaven and of the New Church, the Universal of Faith on the part of man is, that he believe in the LORD. To believe in the LORD is to have trust that He saves. There can be no belief-no sincere faith-without this trust or confidence. Neither can this confidence exist unless there be the good of life-unless the truths of faith which make up a belief believed, in the doing of good works, which are the operations of charity. Confidence thus refers to both charity and faith. It is an attribute of faith, without which it could not exist. It is a firm belief inspired from an affection in the heart, and is not a mere intellectual effort or feat of the understanding. Confidence in the LORD is from an affection in the heart, or, rather, it is the reception in the will of the Divine influx flowing into the souls of all men, telling them that GOD is, and that HE is ONE. The worship of Him from the faith of charity is part of this acknowledgment and reception. The truths of faith given by revelation show the way to this acknowledgment of the heart, and man, from the faculty given him by the LORD, can either receive or reject them. Man takes this faith-purely intellectual at first from the Word by means of natural light, in which it is knowledge, thought, and persuasion; but in such as believe in Him, the LORD causes it to become conviction, trust, and confidence. Thus the natural or purely intellectual faith, becomes spiritual, and by means of charity, truly living. The LORD effects this by speaking to the heart of man, for speaking denotes influx, and heart denotes the will; therefore speaking to the heart denotes influx into the will, and thence confidence. Then takes place a marriage, because the confidence or the good of the will goes forth to meet the truth of the understanding. It does this when it lives the truths of faith, and becomes the good of life. There is also a spurious confidence, which is a perversion of the real, and is often mistaken for it. It is that apparent confidence which is with those who have made faith without the goods of charity, saving. It is the confidence of faith alone, cold and unnatural, unresponsive to the warm heart-beats of affection and love. With such, the trust or confidence which they call faith, is either spurious, or is such as may exist even with diabolical spirits when in the state of persuasion from the love of self and of the world. One of its qualities is the seeming conviction that man may come into heaven without any regard to the affections in which he has lived through the whole course of his life. It is a false confidence, coming into existence when man is at the point of death, or taking place in disordered states of the mind and body, when the lusts of selfish and worldly loves are at rest. But with those who are in the evil of life, when that crisis leaves them or is changed, such deceitful confidence altogether vanishes. This confidence is the confidence of separated faith, which is dead. The LORD is infinite love. The essence of love is to give of itself to others; For that reason the LORD created man, that he might receive this love, and as an inhabitant of His heavenly kingdom enjoy the delight of the performance of uses. The LORD is ever watchful of this purpose, guarding tenderly and solicitously the life of every man born into the world. He does so by means of the operations of His Divine Providence. But because at this day the LORD is recognized by but few, when He, by means of His Revelation, manifests to us something of the operation of this Providence, men will not believe. They have departed from the innocence and simplicity of the ancient churches, and have become rooted in that confidence in self, which regards every man as the arbiter of his own fortune, and scorns the thought of a beneficent ruler and guide. To such a man, it appears as if he were acting from himself on this earth. He is left in freedom to direct his thoughts and affections as he pleases. All the acts of his life appear as the effect of his own prudence and foresight. Yet it is the LORD who has given to him an understanding, that he may act as of himself-not from himself-in all the things which confront him in his daily life, and may rationally form judgments which may guide him. But man, instead of recognizing from whence he derives these powers, and applying the gifts which the LORD has given him, to the spiritual use for which they were intended, has regarded them as qualities of his own, self acquired, and to be used in advancing only his natural prosperity. He does not recognize that every event of his life is the effect of an all-ruling Providence, nor does he put the least trust in that Providence, because he has no confidence in the LORD, and no recognition of Him from the faith of charity. His confidence is all in self. It is entirely sensual, and because it does not rise above the plane of the senses, and is nothing but a confidence that he is wiser than others, he cannot weigh and explore himself, because he does not think interiorly. He is a creature of vain imaginings and fantastical delusions, and his only confidence is in the things which he speaks and does, because these are the things which he loves. His understanding, no longer the guide but the slave of his will; denies the origin of the gifts which the Divine Providence has bestowed, and all these are looked upon as the legitimate result of his own prudence and foresight. Such is the false confidence of the purely sensual man.
29
But to the man of the Church there is a confidence far different from this in the effect it has on his life in both this and the other world. It is a confidence acquired only after struggles and temptations in subduing the hereditary evils to which he inclines, and through which, the devils, operating, seek to destroy that trust and confidence in the LORD'S Providence which alone lead to the life of heaven. Man knows from revelation that the LORD forever has in view that which tends most to his good; that He is always seeking what is best for him; and that He regards not only his life on earth, but his eternal existence in the other world. How easy it appears to acknowledge this in the understanding! How readily and comfortably it falls into the mind of man, when the current of his life runs smoothly and evenly, in full accord with his private aims and desires! It is only when in his life there occurs a stage, where, in order to live the doctrine of the Church, he must sacrifice that to which his worldly prudence leads him to cling, that his confidence is put to the test. Then comes the struggle. He rebels against the hard conditions which a life according to the truth imposes upon him. He wavers when he is called upon to do an act which his natural prudence condemns. Happy indeed is he then, if he allow his trust and confidence in the Divine Providence to be his guide, for, conscious of the Infinite Mercy of the LORD, he places himself in the I stream of that Providence. Once grounded in this confidence and conviction, his life assumes a new phase. He is no longer concerned about the future; for he knows that if he but endeavor to live the life of charity, he need have no care for the evils of the morrow. The trials of the world cannot touch him. The whips and scorns of time affect him not. To him there is no misfortune, and the loss of wealth and position, although they may cause him some temporary anguish, do not make him yield to despair. He feels strength and security in the confidence that the LORD is ever regarding that which conduces to his eternal happiness. As he proceeds, it is sometimes granted him to see the operations of the LORD'S Providence in particular cases of his past life, and his confidence is thus confirmed, strengthened, and renewed. He is like a traveler who, ascending a mountain, pauses upon the brink of some rocky projection to gaze upon the distant prospect of the land in the valley below. He traces the path by which he came, through all the tortuous windings of' his painful journey. Now it leads through brakes and thorny hedges, through forests dark and lonely. Sometimes its course is through green fields fragrant with the perfume of flowers and grasses, only to stop abruptly again, at some surging stream, impassable, except with great danger. But as he looks, he sees that while his path was often hard and toilsome, it ever tended to his present resting place. He sees that the broad road which he had been tempted to follow was false and treacherous, and that where he had kept to the narrow path through dismal swamps, it had only been to save him from more terrible dangers, threatening on the other road, which at the time had looked so fresh and promising. He sees these things because he can now view them from above, and in clear light, which he could not do below in the shade of the valley. He sees the top of the mountain in the near distance, and although the way is still hard he has confidence and is not afraid. So it is with man, as in the evening of this, his mortal life, standing at the day-dawn of another world, he looks back and sees the operations of the Divine Providence; sees that where he swerved from the path of truth the LORD still kept him in the stream of the Divine Permission, allowing a lesser evil an order that is greater might be prevented. There is still another confidence to be spoken of which affects us all as members of the LORD'S New Church on earth. It is the confidence in one another so essential to the welfare of our beloved Church; the confidence that each one having at heart its growth and prosperity is seeking to overcome those evils to which his hereditary inclines, and which he has made his own by actual life. We must have this confidence if our word is to prosper. Without it there is no unanimity, no affection, no progress in the living of the truths which we have Seen taught. As the line of demarcation between us and the Old Church grows more and more distinct, as we slowly cast loose one by one from the moorings which hold us to it, our relations to each other must necessarily become more intimate. Our evils and shortcomings will clash more frequently, and the exercise of patience and forbearance will become more imperative in order that we may preserve inviolable that confidence so necessary to our existence as an organized body of the Church on earth. We are all essentially evil. We must recognize this and allow our fancies to draw no ideal pictures of the New Church as being made up of perfect men and women, and so lose confidence in them when their evils appear and hurt us. The evils of a New Church man or woman are often more apparent to us and affect us more than those which we see in members of the Old Church. This is because the latter are not in temptation, and it is far easier for them to accommodate their externals. Therefore we must help our fellow-members in the Church by making them feel that they have our confidence and trust in their general endeavor to live the life of charity. Let us not seek out their faults with the penetrating eye of our own conceits. While we recognize them, let us not dwell on them, but rather regard the good qualities which we find. Moreover is it especially necessary to guard against allowing ourselves to form a judgment of any individual from any one act of evil which we may see him commit. Let our confidence be more fixed in his general character. How bitter would it be to us, in our struggle to live according to the truth, to feel that because of one act of evil we had lost the confidence of our fellow-men and women of the Church. What is it that makes us seek for flaws in others? To be so ready to take them up, and feel something of a secret exultation when we find them? Is it not that by doing so we elevate ourselves in our own eyes and indulge in a selfish delight at the thought of being better than they? Is it not because we are like the hypocritical Pharisee, who said, "O LORD! I thank Thee that I am not like one of these"? Ah, let us look to ourselves, examine into the interior motives which prompt our actions, see how utterly selfish are our thoughts, how evil our will, and then in a proper spirit, of humility approach the LORD in acknowledgment of our shortcomings, seeking in our life to avoid condemnation of others both in our thoughts and acts. Let us not condemn or curse them. Let us rather try to act in reciprocation of that spirit which prompted Baalam, when, from the heights of Peor, he gazed below upon the quiet camp and peaceful tents of Israel. He heeded not the voice of Balak to curse the sons of Israel, but under the command of the LORD, blessed them with the blessing: "How good are thy tents, O Jacob! thy tabernacles, O Israel! As the valleys are they planted, as garden by the river, as the sandal-trees which the LORD hath planted, as cedar-trees beside the waters."
30
Let us recognize the goods and truths of the Church represented by the camp of Israel, which are in its members. There is another confidence, which exists in a relation of life that lies at the very foundation of the interior life of the Church- Conjugial Love. The states of this love are innocence, peace, tranquillity, inmost friendship, full confidence, and a mutual desire in the minds and hearts of the consorts to do every good to each other. As this love is the love of all loves, so its confidence is the most interior of all confidences, for it conjoins the souls and hearts of two, to all eternity. On the part of the wife it is a full trust in the guidance of the understanding of her husband, which she knows is governed by the truths of the Church, and a sense of security in the knowledge that he is ever guarding her tenderly, seeking to protect both her natural and her spiritual life, and teaching her how to shun those evils which both consorts must mutually shun in order that they may enter the LORD'S kingdom in heaven. With the husband it is the confidence he feels in the affection of his wife, who is ever endeavoring to keep alive the friendship and confidence of their conjugial relation; it is in the strength and support he feels in the reciprocation accorded him, and in the tender sympathy with which he is cheered by her in the struggles of his daily life. Yet, taken all in all, everything of confidence refers to the LORD. From whatever point of view we look at the subject we are always referred to the source of all good and truth, of all trust and confidence. We could have no confidence in one another if we had no confidence in the LORD. We could have no confidence in temptation, did we not receive it from the LORD. Conjugial Love itself could not exist. The LORD seeks confidence from us. He says, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any one hear My voice and open the door, I will come in and sup with him and he with Me." The LORD is always knocking, always desirous of entering with all of His Divine Love, always seeking to inspire that confidence in us which is the entrance to salvation's way. No matter how far man may have been led from the path of charity and faith, the LORD is still ever merciful. He never deserts man, bowed down under the weight of the evils of self, and freighted with worldly aims and desires. His ineffable grace and love is with him always if man will but believe in Him. To believe in Him is to have trust that He saves, and because no one can have trust save he who lives well, this also is understood by believing in Him. Happy are all who confide in the LORD.
Lord appears 1894
The Lord appears to every one such as he is who receives.- A. C. 3235.
Notes and Reviews 1894
ONE Fold and one Shepherd is the title of a new work from the graceful pen of Mr. George Trobridge, the author of The Letter and the Spirit. The book treats of the true basis of Ecclesiastical union from the avowed standpoint of the Revelation to the New Church.
THE New Church Pacific is now conducted by Mr. Frederick H. Dewey as editor, and shows no signs of decrease in vigor or interest under its new management. It is proposed to make this journal the organ and property of the Pacific Coast New Church Association.
THE New Church Magazine for January contains an interesting biography of the late Rev. Chauncey Giles, from the pen of the Rev. John Presland. Mr. Samuel J. Lereshe contributes a Christmas Sonnet of a reverential character, and a pleasing, poetical study of Lord Tennyson's poem, "The Flower."
IN the "Retrospect of the year," which was published in the last issue of the Life, the long list of lately defunct New Church journals included The Juvenile Magazine. It seems that this obituary notice was premature, as this journal is still being published under the editorship of the Rev. Isaiah Tansley.
Harolden, a paper published at Stockholm by the Rev. A. T. Boyesen, in its December issue, advertises a Swedish Total Abstinence journal, which offers, as a special attraction a serial story, entitled Nemesis; or, the Avenging Hand of God. This in a periodical professing to be "A Message of the Second Advent of the LORD in the Writings of the New Church!"
OF THE ninety-eight ordained ministers who are mentioned in the last Journal of the General Convention as connected with that body, sixty-five are actively engaged in the uses of the Church in this country, twenty-five are not engaged in ecclesiastical work, four reside in foreign countries, three have died since the last general meeting, and one has left the New Church.
THE Morning Light is pleased at the possibility of men of different religions coming together without quarreling, but thinks that the pleasure in contemplating the late "Parliament of Religions" in Chicago "will be lessened if the ultimate result be to lead men to think that doctrine is of no importance, and that the worship of an unknown God is as helpful as the worship of JESUS CHRIST." It seems that the sober after-thought is beginning to awaken.
THE Concordance, in its seventy-first issue, contains the doctrinal passages on "Manna," "Manners" (Morals), "Mantle," "Marble," "Mark" (Character), and begins the extensive and important subject of "Marriage" under which heading are classed the teachings concerning Conjugial Love. By the substitution of the Anglo- Saxon "marriage" for its Latin equivalent "Conjugialis," the subjects "Marriage" and "Conjugial Love" are brought side by side in the alphabetic order of the Concordance.
WITH the December issue for 1893, the New Jerusalem Magazine has ceased to be published in its old form and under its old name. It will henceforth appear as a quarterly publication of one hundred and forty-four pages, bearing the title New Church Review. A diminished number of subscribers is the principal reason for this change. An Index of the "New Series" of the Magazine, extending from the year 1877 to 1893 is appended to this number, which closes the seventeenth volume of the new series, and the sixty-first volume of the whole series. The new Review will be conducted by the Rev. T. F. Wright, as editor-in-chief assisted by the Rev. Messrs. James Reed, Samuel M. Warren, and Julian K. Smyth.
THE New Church Messenger calls attention to the modern fashion of "making a fad" of the gentile religions and philosophies of the Orient. While maintaining that justice should be done the faiths of the Orient, the editor recognizes that the modern extravagant exaltation of Orientalism is not only unjust, and a silly fad of the hour, but that it is spiritually hurtful in leading away from the true worship of the LORD. But the movement is growing, and may be more than a fad. As the mysterious and magical religions of Egypt and Persia revived and found worshipers and erected temples and the effete civilization of Ancient Rome, so in this fin du isecle, Buddhism and Mohammedanism are being promulgated by active missionaries in Christian countries. The vastation of the old Christianity is progressing.
31
LIFE THE NEW CHURCH Various 1894
THE ACADEMY OF THE NEW CHURCH.
Philadelphia.-THE Festival of the Incarnation was celebrated by the Schools of the Academy on December 23d at 3 P.M. The service was in general the same as the one used the year before, though with some modifications. The Hall of Worship was richly and tastefully adorned with festoons in green, and with inscriptions and emblems formed with pressed autumn leaves. Over the entrance to the Hall was suspended a new and beautiful inscription in gold on white background, of the prophecy of the LORD'S Advent in Genesis. The Orchestra, for the first time during the fall term, accompanied the singing. The offerings were many and varied, among, them two handsomely carved oak chairs for the chancel. New school-badges, consisting of a circular red button with white rim on a gold stick-pin, were distributed to the former and present pupils of the Schools. A new and most impressive feature of the service was the chanting by the priests as they left the chancel and retired to the vestry: "Save Thy people, and bless Thine inheritance, and feed them and uplift them, to eternity" (Ps. xxviii, 9), as set to music by Mr. C. J. Whittington. On the following day the Sacraments of Baptism and the Holy Supper were administered. Four adults, two men and two women, who during the fall term have been attending the services of the Church, were baptized. The most holy Sacrament of the Supper was then administered to ninety-one communicants. On December 31st and January 7th in place of the usual sermon, Bishop Pendleton read the Teaching Concerning Charity, as revealed in the True Christian Religion and in The Doctrine of Charity. On January 14th a new pupil was introduced into the Church and the School by the Sacrament of Baptism. On the same day the Rev. Homer Synnestvedt, of Pittsburgh, preached on the subject of "Sodom, the Love of Self." In the evening the members of the congregation, by invitation of Mr. and Mrs. John Pitcairn, attended a Feast of Charity, which was given in the Hall of Worship. One hundred and eight guests were seated at the six tables and twenty of the young people attended to their wants. Bishop Pendleton and his wife presided, together with Mr. and Mrs. Pitcairn. The host, acting as toast-master, with a few introductory words of welcome, read from The True Christian Religion the description of Feasts of Charity in the Primitive Christian Church, and indicated the uses of such in the New Church of the future. In responding to the first toast, The Church of the Academy Bishop Pendleton announced the historical fact, new to most of the guests, that on his day, twenty years ago, the first step was taken toward the organization of the Academy of the New Church. This day, therefore, would henceforth be known as "The Founders' Day." To the second toast, The Church and its Worship, Pastor Schreck responded, dwelling upon the remarkable development, in late years, of the external order and beauty of the worship of the Church of the Academy, and upon the heavenly blessings involved in the new music that is being given to the Church. Responding to the third toast, The Development of the Doctrine of Authority in the Church, Pastor Odhner traced the historical origin and growth of this doctrine from the first beginning of the Church to the present day. Minister Alfred Acton responded to the fourth toast The Church and Conjugial Love and Minister Synnestvedt to the fifth and last toast, The Schools of the Academy. Each response was followed by a chorus appropriate to the toast. At the close of this most delightful Feast Bishop Pendleton, on behalf of the assembled guests, presented to Mr. and Mrs. Pitcairn, in commemoration of the tenth anniversary of their wedding, a large illuminated inscription, containing these words from Conjugial Love, n. 180: "The States of Conjugial Love are Innocence, Peace, Tranquillity, Inmost Friendship, Desire of Heart to do all good to the other, Confidence, Blessedness, Happiness, Joyousness, Pleasure, and, from the eternal Fruition of these, Felicity of Life." Pittsburgh.-THE Christmas celebration of the Pittsburgh School was exceptionally well attended, and was conducted by Head-Master Czerny, assisted by Candidate Boyesen. The services included unisonal and responsive readings, lessons in the Word and the Writings, an address by the Head-Master on the reasons for the Advent of the LORD into the world, musical selections of Psalms sad anthems, offerings (of which wore than half were books), and distribution of fruit. The school-room was prettily decorated with evergreen and with bunting in red and white. A representation of the annunciation to the shepherds was much enjoyed by the children. London.-THE closing exercises of the Academy School were held on December 16th. Essays were read by several of the children, and prizes and "honorable mention" were awarded to a number of the pupils for bad conduct and improvement in work. The lady teacher, Miss Warland, has been constrained to relinquish the school-work on account of ill health. On December 24th the Christmas Exercises, in connection with the School, were conducted by Bishop Benade, Head-Master Bostock and Minister Stevenson. Offerings for the school were presented by the scholars. After the service tea was provided for the scholars and the friends present. On the following day Christmas services of the Church were held, in the Hall of Worship, when the Holy Supper was administered to sixty-two communicants. An orchestra accompanied the singing of the Psalms. At the close of the service Christmas offerings were received for the Church. Berlin.-IN the Berlin Church the Festival of the Glorification was celebrated on December 24th by both morning and evening services. The former was a Glorification of the LORD from the Word in the Letter and in the Spirit in the form of selections read by the two priests in alternation, the congregation responding by singing selections-ten in all-from the Word, in Hebrew, Greek, and English, set to the new music. The evening service was especially for the bringing of offerings. On December 25th the Holy Supper administered, the service being in German. Tue ball of worship was decorated with evergreens, holly, and flowers, texts from the Word, in Hebrew and Greek, in the form of transparencies, and with representations of the Annunciation to the Shepherd; and of the Stable, the Birthplace of the LORD.
THE GENERAL CHURCH OF THE ADVENT OF THE LORD.
Chicago.- A MEMBER of the Immanuel Church, reviewing the Church life there since last spring, writes that during the summer services were held both in the city and at Oak Glen, the prospective home of the Church and of the School. During the World's Fair, among other visitors were Bishop Pendleton, Pastors E. C. Bostock and E. J. E. Schreck, and Minister Synnestvedt, each of whom conducted a service. At the Fair often large parties of members and friends would meet toward evening to enjoy together food and the beauties of illuminated "Fairyland," lit by the evening glow and later by the magic touch of science. In October, regular Church work was resumed: the Sunday morning Doctrinal Class, in The True Christian Religion; Sunday Worship, and the Friday Classes. At the same time, also, the Academy School opened. In all these there was the greater zeal and interest, because of the coming separation which will occur when part of the Society move to Oak Glen an advance of the rest. Pastor Pendleton has usually chosen his texts from the current Calendar Lessons. Among the subjects have been: Rewards and Punishments in the Education of Children; The Law of Retaliation; and The Divine Providence (in two sermons). At the Christmas Festival the Pastor told the children, in words suited to their understanding, how grateful they should be that the LORD was born into this world, for by it He made it possible for them to go to Heaven. Friday evenings, after the common supper, doctrinal instruction on the work Conjugial Lore begins at eight o'clock, taking the form of written addresses: these, following the order of subjects in the work itself, treat of the origin of the holiness of that love and of its essentiality to the regeneration of man. For some weeks past, however, this hour has been given up to instruction in pronouncing Greek and Hebrew as preparation for singing the new songs published in those languages. Here, as wherever used, the new music is appreciated as a gift which meets a great need in the life and worship of the Church. Comparison of the different anthems seems hardly profitable, since the music of each is so adequately adapted to the words. In addition to the tableaux of the five Churches, given by the young people, on November 30th, was one representing reception of the New Music, lately bestowed upon the Church, and gratitude therefor. Three maidens were seen, in a pretty group, dressed in Greek costume, in colors to represent the three planes of the mind-pink, blue, and green-and adorned with smilax and flowers. Together they held a sheet of the music, upon which fell a stream of light, thus representing influx from above. As the scene was disclosed, the maidens, aided by others out of sight, sang the first section of the beautiful Nineteenth Psalm. The final tableau, representing the Academy, showed a maiden in graceful Greek costume-white chiton and red himation, with red ribbons crossing the breast on whose head was a golden crown, and holding with one hand a large banner of red and white, inscribed with "Nunc Licet" in large gold letters, and the other the Academy seal, in gold on white background. The whole audience joined in singing "Hail, Academy." The orchestra practices Sunday afternoons. At Christmas the flute and trombone were added to the strings which play during services. All the rooms in the Church and School Building have been recalcimined in tasteful colors under the supervision of an artist, one of the members.
32
CHURCH AT LARGE 1894
NEW CHURCH LIFE. PUBLISHED MONTHLY BY THE ACADEMY OF THE NEW CHURCH.
TERMS:-One Dollar per annum, payable in advance. FOUR SHILLINGS IN GREAT BRITAIN.
The EDITOR'S address is 1821 Wallace Street, Fairmount Station, Philadelphia. Address all business communications to MR. CARL HJ. ASPLUNDH, No. 1821 Wallace Street, Fairmount Station, Philadelphia, Pa. Subscriptions are also received through the following agents: UNITED STATES. Chicago, Ill., Mr. A. E. Nelson, 565 West Superior Street. Pittsburgh, Pa., Mr. Wm. Rott, Tenth and Carson Streets. CANADA. Toronto, Ont., Mr. R. Carswell, 20 Equity Chambers. Waterloo, Mr. Rudolph Roschman. GREAT BRITAIN. Mr. E. W. Misson, 20 Paulet Road, Camberwell, London, S. E.
PHILADELPHIA, FEBRUARY, 1894=124.
CONTENTS. PAGE EDITORIAL NOTES 17 Habits in Life (a Sermon) 18 Liberation of the Spiritual. The Law Divine (Exodus iv) 20 Fine Linen or Cotton 23 The Spiritual World at the Time of the Last Judgment (a Thesis) 23 "Other Gods" 26 Confidence (a Thesis) 28 NOTES AND REVIEWS 30 LIFE OF THE NEW CHURCH 31 BIRTHS 32 DEATHS 32 THE UNITED STATES.
Illinois-THE fifty-fourth annual meeting of the Illinois Association was held at Chicago November 24th to 26th. The attendance was not large, and the reports showed decreased activity. The Societies at Henry, Canton, Olney, Peoria, and Joliet are without ministers: No general missionary is now employed by the Association, but some evangelistic work has been performed during the year, by the Rev. Messrs. Bartels, Rich, and Landenberger. A new Constitution was adopted at the meeting, looking toward a more compact organization. The Rev. A. J. Bartels, at the meeting, traced the slowness of the growth of the New Church to its true source, namely, the wrong idea of Newchurchmen who claim "that by-little or much,-goodness and truth among people outside of the New Church, was the New Church itself;" this naturally would cause indifference toward the organization of the Church. The Rev. Thos. A. King is not, as was stated in the last issue of the Life, "assistant" to the Rev. I. P. Mercer, but these two gentlemen are, together, the Pastors of the Chicago Society. Louisiana.-THE death of Dr. William H. Holcombe removes an important factor in the life of the present state of the Church at large. His numerous writings have been read and admired by thousands, and have done much to hasten the vastation of the old, disorderly state of the Church. While New Church journals are ringing with the praises of this late writer, whose style was certainly charming, the heresies which he promulgated seem to have been entirely overlooked. Though personally a man of generous impulses, and apparently loving the Doctrines of the Church as he understood theme he permitted himself to be the mouth-piece of all manner of deceiving spirits, defending and spreading abroad most destructive notions. The pseudo-spiritualism of T. L. Harris, the pseudo-celestialism of G. W. Christy, the would-be redemption of the hells, the confusion of the relation between the sexes, and of the essential nature of the LORD, faith-cure-ism, hypnotism, etc., all found in him a ready defender. Whatever may have been the animating affection, his works hardly warrant his canonization by the periodicals of the Church. California.-THE Rev. J. S. David, who formerly ministered to the Parkdale, Ont., Society, and, later, to the New Church in Minneapolis, has now settled in San Francisco, and has been preaching to the O'Farrell Street Society. He may be called to the pastorate left vacant by the death of the Rev. John Doughty. The Society at Riverside is reported as in a vigorous and harmonious condition, with an increasing membership. The Rev. B. Edmiston is the Pastor of this Society. Missouri.-THE Society in St. Louis is said to have passed through a crisis, but is now, apparently, gaining new strength and increase. Eight members have been added to the Society during the past year. The Pastor of the St. Louis Society, the Rev. J. B. Parmelee, recently visited Sandoval, Ill., to conduct a service in commemoration of the death of Mr. Henry Sherman. After the service he introduced into the New Church, by Baptism, the young widow of the deceased and her family of little children. The business men of the town who attended the service, were so pleased with the teachings of the New Church on the subject of the eternal life that they have requested Mr. Parmelee to give them further teaching, and have collected funds to secure another visit. New York.-THE American Swedenborg Printing and Publishing Society have determined to raise the scale of prices of their publications' of the Writings, thereby restoring these to the ordinary prices of the American book market. Massachusetts.-DURING the continued illness of the Rev. John Worcester many of his duties as the General Pastor of the Massachusetts Association are performed by the Rev. James Reed, the pastor of the Boston Society. The membership of this Society has slightly decreased during the past year.
CANADA.
THE Toronto, Ont., Society held its annual business meeting on January 2d. The reports showed a somewhat decreased attendance at morning worship, but an increase in the membership, which now counts ninety-nine persons. A subscription has been opened in the interest of the widow of Mr. J. H. Kelly, who some years ago was the colporteur of the Society.
GREAT BRITAIN.
THE Rev. J. J. Woodford has accepted a call to the Pastorate of the Queen's Park Society in Glasgow, where the Rev. J. J. Thornton, lately of Melbourne, Australia, has officiated for some months. An effort is being made to establish a New Church Society in the East End district of London. A hall has been hired for Sunday services, and public lectures have been delivered by some of the New Church ministers in London. A Mr. Marchant, of the Christian Evidence Society, has recently been lecturing against the New Church in this neighborhood. The "New Church Home Reading Union" has now reached the fifth year of its existence, and has grown in membership, during the past four years from 91 to 230. The Union is principally intended for the instruction of isolated receivers. The Rev. J. F. Buss conducts the reading, explains points of doctrine, replies to questions, etc. It is now proposed to remunerate him, to some degree, for his laborious work. In the death of Mr. T. H. Elliott, at Paris, on December 11th, the Church in England has lost one of its most active workers. Mr. Elliott was for twenty years the Secretary of the Swedenborg Society.
AUSTRIA.
THE "Verein der Neuen Kirche" in Vienna, which accepted the heresy of Albert Artope, and drove out from their connection all those who faithfully adhered to the Writings, have not prospered. Their organizations may, however, be kept up for a short time, in consequence of a donation recently received by, but not extended for them.
AUSTRALIA.
To the unusually long list of New Church ministers who during the past year entered the Spiritual world, should be added the name of the Rev. E. G. Day, who died lately at Adelaide. According to Morning Light Mr. Day "was a profound student of Swedenborg, and a preacher of a type now becoming rare among us." There now remains but one ordained New Church minister in Australia.
GERMANY.
THE followers of the late Albert Artope have now established an "International Union of the Religion of the Spirit," the fundamental doctrine of which is the divinity of mankind. This is the final outcome of Artope's teaching that "Self-knowledge is knowledge of God." And this heresy has been embraced by many former members of the New Church and was encouraged even by ministers of the General Convention!
SWITZERLAND.
ON December 10th the New Church Society in Zurich, of which the Rev. Fedor Goerwitz is the Pastor, adopted the designation "Congregation of the New Church in Zurich," instead of the old and less ecclesiastical name, "Section Zurich of the Swiss Union of the New Church." Modifications of the statutes of the Society were also adopted.
Title Unspecified 1894
New Church Life Vol. XIV. No. 3. PHILADELPHIA, MARCH, 1894=124. Whole No. 161.
A. C. 5321 Nothing whatever of doctrine can proceed from the Divine Itself except through the Divine Human, i. e., through the Word, which in the Supreme Sense is the Divine Truth from the Lord's Divine Human.- A. C. 5321.
Title Unspecified 1894
As the narrative of the literal sense of the Word, concerning the bondage of the Israelites in Egypt, proves most attractive to the natural mind, carrying one in imagination to that remote period, and enkindling a lively sympathy for the down-trodden race which ultimately, under the leadership of Moses, forsook the land of service and entered the land of promise-so the narration of the Internal Sense concerning the infestation of the spiritual, who were kept in the lower earth in the spiritual world, acquires an increasing hold on the mind once informed of it, and awakens emotions of pity and love for the people of the spiritual Church, and of admiration and adoration for their Divine Deliverer.
Title Unspecified 1894
THE story of the liberation of the spiritual, as told in the Internal Sense of the fifth chapter of Exodus, published herewith, is intimately connected with the history of the work of Redemption which the LORD performed when He was on earth. So important is the story, so beautiful is the consecutive narrative as revealed in the Arcana Coelestia, that it is a matter of no little astonishment that it is not more familiar to Newchurchmen. As familiar as children are with the story of the birth of the LORD and the attendant circumstances of the visit of the wise men, the annunciation to the shepherds, etc., so familiar should the adult Newchurchman be with the story of the redemption performed by the LORD, while He was on earth, for those in the other world who were awaiting His Advent, that He might lead them forth out of the midst of the infesting spheres of hell in the lower earth into the new Heaven which He promised to establish for them.
Title Unspecified 1894
THE perusal of this story demonstrates beyond cavil that the narrations of the memorable things seen and heard by Swedenborg in the spiritual world are part of the, revelation of the Internal Sense and cannot be severed from it. It is stated in the doctrine concerning Redemption, in The True Christian Religion (n. 123), that "the height and inundation of hell over all the world of spirits at the time of the LORD'S Coming was not made known to any one, for it is not revealed in the literal sense of the Word." But it is revealed in the Internal Sense of the Word made public in the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg. And the account there as that On the Last Judgment and on Babylon Destroyed are part of the Internal Sense.
Title Unspecified 1894
THE teaching of the editorial notes of the February Life seems to have interested a number of parents, and one or two of the questions suggested by them may, in turn, interest others. Queries a father: If the plane of appearances, in which the child is, should be made the basis of the instruction, should the child be allowed to rest in the appearances of nature! He relates, that, when taking a walk with his little boy, five or six years of age, the latter noticed that wherever they went, the sun accompanied them, its relative position to them, as compared with terrestrial objects, remaining the same; and he exclaimed, "O papa! see! the sun is going with us all the time!" The father's impulse was to explain to the child that the sun was standing still. Such an explanation would have been uncalled for at the time, and the desire to give it arose from the father's own state, unadated to that of the child. The child was too young to understand the scientific truth, nor had he asked a question that might imply a preparedness to receive even the beginning of a notion of the distinction between the reality and the appearance. He was impressed with an appearance which, although fallacious to a reasoning adult, was, to the child, a truth. His delight in the phenomenon of the son's accompanying his father and himself, might well be deepened, for no doubt, it was the occasion for the storing up of celestial remains. There was something of love for the sun in it. It was a representation, to the tender little natural mind, of a vital spiritual truth: that the LORD, the Sun of Heaven, in His Divine Providence, Divine Omnipotence and Divine Omniscience, accompanies man in the entire course of his life. The spiritual truth could not be comprehended by the child; its external representation, in the appearances of nature could be received. It would do injury to the child's state, and affect the remains to be stored up, were such an appearance ruthlessly brushed away. "Universal Nature is a theatre representative of the Kingdom of the LORD," and in this theatre appearances play a most important part. The wise parent is concerned more with the spiritual import of the representatives in nature than wit their literal truth, for that spiritual internal is the real essence which, unseen, affects and prepares the child for rational states later on. A mind that, in the setting of stage scenery, sees only the wooden frame and the canvas and paint, and loses sight of the beauty of the scene portrayed, is lacking in an important element of human intelligence. When, the time comes for the child to be instructed concerning the fallacy in the appearance of nature, the attentive parent and teacher will receive clear indications thereof in the child's discoveries and questions.
Title Unspecified 1894
MOST mothers are surprised at the early age at which children question them concerning their origin, and are not a little perplexed how to answer. The very fact that the age is such a tender one, is food for reflection. Infants are under the care of celestial angels up to their fifth to seventh year. They are in the state of innocence, and the true and direct answer to such questions is sure to be received in innocence, and to be assigned by the angels, under the guidance of the LORD, to a lovely and holy place in the child's mind.
34
The fear that causes mothers to hesitate in giving an answer comes from the knowledge that, sad to say, the wonderful and holy subject of gestation and birth is defiled and profaned in this "wicked and adulterous generation." But they should bear in mind that their little children, although, from inheritance, inclined to evils of every kind, have not yet had opportunities for their evil inclinations to manifest themselves; evil thoughts have not yet been roused from without, and their minds are therefore in a better state than they ever will be again in their coming childhood and youth, to receive the first intimation or instruction concerning their origin from the very mother who is caring for them so lovingly. It is not necessary, nor is it appropriate, to enter into full explanations at once; these may follow as indications point to them:- But if a child is simply told by his mother, in language accommodated to his comprehension, how, in the beginning, his life had been intimately bound up with hers, the child will be delighted and satisfied, and love his mother yet more tenderly.
In the Church 1894
In the Church no other truth is given than what is of the Lord; truth which is not from Him is not truth.- A. C. 2904.
USES OF BAPTISM Rev. ALFRED ACTON 1894
"And Jesus coming spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto Me in Heaven and on Earth; go ye therefore, teach all nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit."-Matt. xxviii, 18, 19.
"THE first use of Baptism is introduction into the Christian Church, and at the same time then insertion among Christians in the spiritual world. "The second use of Baptism is, that the Christian may know and acknowledge the LORD JESUS CHRIST, the Redeemer and Saviour, and may follow Him. The third use of Baptism, which is the final use, is that man may be regenerated" (T. C. R. 677, 681, 684).
THESE words were spoken by the LORD after He had fully glorified His Human by uniting it with the Divine. After that act of glorification He manifested Himself not as the JEHOVAH of old, an invisible God, but as JEHOVAH appearing and made visible in the Son, the LORD JESUS CHRIST, to Whom was given All Power in Heaven and on Earth. This new manifestation of the LORD was also the beginning of a new Church, which would receive and worship Him in that manifestation; for every new revelation or appearance of the LORD is the first of a New Church which He then establishes. Hence, after the Glorification, He commanded Baptism as the sign introductory to the Christian Church then established from Him: The disciples went forth and baptized into the belief and acknowledgment of the LORD as He had manifested Himself to them, and the rite has been retained even to the present day, as the rite introductory to the Christian Church. In the infancy of that Church this rite of Baptism was something more than a mere external ceremony, for there was an obscure perception that it involved more than the mere external act-that it was a spiritual act and pertained to the regeneration of man; for Paul says, "Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism unto death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life." But as the love of dominion and of self-intelligence began to obsess the Church, men lost all sight of spiritual things and buried themselves in the dry bones of mere letters, until at the present day nothing else is thought of. Careless and heedless of spiritual things-the real and substantial and living things of the spiritual world-the Church has clung with all its love and thought to the unreal and dead things of the world. The Word itself is regarded as a book written by human hands, and its every utterance as relating to merely mundane and sensual things. Can it be wondered then that the Holy rite of Baptism commanded in the Word is looked at, not from its real, substantial, and living spiritual use, but from the external by which that use is covered? Viewed thus, what else is it than the pouring of water on the head, and what has this to do with salvation? It is thus that baptism is interiorly thought of in the so-called Christian Church, a church alive only to the interests of this world; the rite is kept up merely because it has for aces been enjoined upon the Church as Holy and Divine. Where the Holiness, or where the Divinity, is altogether unknown, and the ignorance is not of innocence. The external ceremony is indeed retained, but it is a shell whose kernel, eaten up by worms, is entirely devoid of life. "Its use maybe compared to a temple sun into the ground by reason of its antiquity, and buried in dirt and rubbish up to its roof, over which both young and old walk, ride, or drive their carriages, not knowing that any such temple is under their feet and hidden away from their sight, containing in it altars of gold, walls covered on the inside with silver and ornaments of precious stones; and these cannot possibly be dug up and brought to light except by means of the spiritual sense which is at this day discovered for the New Church for the sake of use in the worship of the LORD" (T. C. R. 669). Baptism, as to its uses, is indeed such a beautiful temple, covered beneath the filth and dross of the external thoughts and lives of the natural man. Old and young, wise and simple, daily pass it by, seeing only the dust which they themselves raise, not even guessing at the existence of this holy temple with its glorious beauty, and its brilliancy and splendor from the gold and precious stones within. And yet, despite this, by the Divine Providence of the LORD, the external rite or ceremony of Baptism has been kept up as a ceremony of the Church, in order that when its use should be revealed, in the revelation of interior things, there might be a plane in the minds of men into which those internal things might inflow, and by which they might be received. The doctrine of Baptism could not have been received by the New Church unless Baptism itself were known previously, and in some manner acknowledged. But now that the use of the preservation of the rite for the sake of the New Church has been accomplished; now that Baptism is established in that New Church, from a living internal; the external will be mote and more openly rejected by the Old Church. Indeed, signs of this rejection can be seen now in the many cases where it is openly avowed that Baptism is merely the convenient or orthodox means of naming a child. In the Israelitish Church circumcision was instituted as a sign that a man was of that Church. Every male child and every stranger was circumcised before he was admitted within its pale. Circumcision it was which distinguished the Israelitish Church from all the Churches round about. Hence the Israelites were called the" circumcised," and the Gentiles the "uncircumcised," or "foreskinned."
35
This Church, however, was not truly but a mere representative of the Church, and within the Israelites merely external worship and adoration proceeded from fear of punishment or hope of gain, and not from the heart or love, that which does not proceed from the heart is merely external. Nevertheless, everything of their Church represented a true internal Church. Thus circumcision of the foreskin represented the casting off the lusts of the flesh and purification from them, which is the real and genuine means of introduction into the internal Church. And when the LORD came on earth as the Divine Truth, the Divine Teacher, He brought the merely representative Church to an end by revealing the truths themselves which that Church represented, for He revealed Himself Whose Coming that Church foreshadowed. Hence He established a New Church which should worship Him in His revealed Truth, as the One only God of Heaven and Earth. He then instituted Baptism "in place of circumcision, to the end that this Church might be distinguished from the Jewish, and that it might be more readily known to be an internal" (T. C. R. 674), for the washing of baptism manifestly represents the cleansing and purification from evils; not so circumcision. But it must be borne in mind that this use of baptism, as being a sign distinguishing a Christian from all other, is not only or principally of this world. Indeed, if only for this world, it is comparatively of little use, as there is no external sign by which one baptized can be from one not baptized. No. The knowledge acknowledgment of the true use of Baptism implies the knowledge and acknowledgment of the spiritual world; for the use of baptism, a rite of a spiritual church, is an internal or spiritual use, operating having its existence in the spiritual world, and is thence an external or natural use, subsisting and ultimated this world. And just so far as there is denial, whether internal or external, of the existence of the spiritual world, or, which is the same thing, just so far the belief in the other world is a belief in an unreal place, an airy nothing, something intangible, less real than the world around us, just so far is there an interior rejection of Baptism, because a rejecting of its spiritual uses; and it is in this that we see the internal reason of the prevalent ignorance as regards this holy rite. As to their thoughts and affections all are in the spiritual world, for thoughts and affections are entirely independent of the laws of this world, by which the body alone is bound. And since thought and affection make the internal man, which is his spirit, therefore all men as to their spirits are in the spiritual world. In that world, as in this, they are arranged into societies, but with this difference, that while in this world societies are arranged according to external conditions, in the other world each one has his position according to his idea concerning the LORD. Thus Christians, who believe in one God, and He the LORD, are in the centre, Mahometans are around them, idolaters around these, and Jews at the sides. Unless there were this arrangement, unless we were associated with those spirits with whom we think and will, all would be turmoil and disorder, for all our thought comes from spirits, and if we were not kept in the society of Christian spirits, Mahometan, idolatrous, or Jewish spirits would adjoin themselves to us, and incline us to their heresies, bending our thoughts this way and that, and altogether depriving them of steadfastness and certainty. It is the same on earth. Men who think together on any subject join one with the other, and form societies, and by mutual help and sympathy they are helped to remain firm and grow in their belief; but should they become separated and isolated, that belief will become weak, and they will become vacillating, being swayed and influenced more or less by the opinions and beliefs of those around them. In both worlds it is true that strength is in unity. This order, or arrangement into societies, in the spiritual world and in this, could never be established unless there were distinctions, or things distinguishing, between the different religions-distinctions of thought and will; and these distinctions, in their turn, could never be made and maintained unless there were some mark, sign, or badge expressive of them. In like manner, "an army of soldiers would not be efficient unless the men were arranged in an orderly manner and formed into divisions and these into battalions, and these again into companies, with subordinate leaders, appointed to the command of each body, and one supreme commander over all: where would be the efficiency of these arrangements and divisions without signs, which in armies are called standards, to point out to every man his proper station? By these means all act in the field of battle as one man, whereas, were these means of order wanting, they would rush headlong against the enemy, open-mouthed like so many dogs, with tumultuous sounds and empty fury, till they were all cut off by their opponents, not so much because of superior courage as of better discipline. For what can a disunited mob do against a well-disciplined army?" (T. C. R. 680). It is to prevent confusion such as this, and to prevent the mixing indiscriminately of diverse religions, that to each religion has been appointed a sign by which all belonging to that religion can be known and kept in the company of kindred spirits. Such a sign is Baptism. For Baptism is not an act of this world. This world is an effect from the other world as a cause, just as every motion and set of our body is an effect from the thought and will as a cause. We, in this New Church, are not alone; we are here-a Church-because a similar Church exists in the other world. It is from the other world that the New Church descends, as we read in the Apocalypse, that the New Jerusalem descended from God out of Heaven. And, because the New Church descends from Heaven, therefore it continually subsists by connection with the Church in Heaven. What takes place in the Church here also takes place there, and what takes place there also takes place or the two exactly correspond. Thus, we are taught that when one is marked with the sign of Baptism, and is thus formally received into the Church on earth, that sign is immediately marked on his spirit, and being seen in the spiritual world, by it he is known there, as belonging to the Church. He is then received into the Society of Christian spirits, who guard and protect from infestation by other spirits; without this sign man would be subject to the company and infestation of spirits of every belief, who would apply themselves and infuse into him an inclination in favor of their own religion, and so draw away his mind and alienate him from true Christianity. (See T. C. R. 678.) Therefore, as we are taught, "The first use of Baptism is introduction into the Christian Church, and [mark well] at the same time insertion among Christians in the spiritual world" (T. C. R. 677). When the Christian Church was first established, Baptism introduced into the society of all those in the other world who believed in the LORD JESUS CHRIST, and patiently awaited His Coming. But as the Church declined from its primitive faith there were fewer and fewer of such spirits, and the world of spirits became more and more populous with those who rejected and contemned the LORD.
36
These attacked and infested the others, to such a degree that they almost deprived them of life, and then, when the end was nigh, when despair seized them, and the thick darkness of night enveloped them, the LORD, the Liberator and Saviour, came with power, and revealed Himself as the very Divine Truth made manifest. He came to Judgment, and, by their reception or rejection of Himself, He divided between the good and the evil. The good, who received Him, He formed into a New Heaven, from which proceeds the New Church; and the evil were dispersed and cast forever into Hell. He thus left the Old Church and established the New; or, He was rejected by the Old Church, in his Coming, and He established a Church among those who received Him. The societies, therefore, in the other world, which are now connected with the Old Church are such as reject the LORD. Those connected with the Roman Catholics do not approach Him directly, but through the Virgin, the Pope, and the Saints, thus in reality through self. Those connected with the Unitarians reject Him altogether, esteeming Him as another man, thus they really worship themselves. Those connected with the Protestants acknowledge three Gods and approach the one, by the others, in reality acknowledging no God. In truth all, interiorly, altogether reject the LORD, for they reject the Divine Teaching concerning Him, which is Himself. Baptism into the Roman Catholic Church, introduces into Roman Catholic Societies in the other world; and in like manner with Unitarians and others of the Consummated Church. Such society we must shun, both in this world and in the other, as dangerous to our spiritual welfare. We of the New Church are therefore commanded "to baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit," into the name of the LORD JESUS CHRIST, who is One with the Father, and to Whom was given "All power in Heaven and on Earth." It is into the society of Christians, who thus acknowledge and worship the LORD, that Baptism in the New Church introduces; and it is only when one is thus introduced that he can really understand and acknowledge the Doctrines of the New Church; for he is then in the New Church, both externally and internally, thus fully; and from the Society with which he is connected he receives an interior inclination to the Doctrines, from which he may have perception of them. When infants, children, or adults, are baptized they are indeed received into the Society of Christians, both in this world and in the other, but they are not fully received before, by instruction, they are enabled to perform uses in that Society-to think and will with it, and from rational thought and will to act one with it. We say that children are in the Church when they are baptized, but, while they are in the Church still they are not of the Church, but only in its sphere, until they are able freely and rationally to join in the uses of the Church. The same applies to adults, when they are baptized; in fact to all who are in the states of preparation. Baptism into the New Church, as was said, brings the consort of men in the other world (as in this) who believe that the LORD is the One only God, and that He has again revealed Himself, in the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg, and has established a New Church which is to be the crown of all the Churches and which will endure forever; and these men infuse into the men baptized an interior inclination for the same truths. But this inclination is internal and of the spiritual mind, and it cannot be manifested in the natural mind unless there be vessels to receive it; for interiors feel and act according to reception in exteriors (A. C. 10,243). The only vessels which are receptive of this inclination are those knowledges and doctrinals to which the inclination turns. It is the duty of the parents who have their children baptized into the New Church to provide them with the knowledges and doctrinals of that Church, by which their inclination to that Church may be established and made firm, and may at length become their own, and they themselves become component parts of the Church. It is the duty of such parents to teach their children the Word, in the Letter, and also in the Spirit as contained in the Writings of the Church; and if they cannot do this themselves, they are to entrust it to those who are engaged in that use. It is the imperative duty of the parents themselves to read, learn, and meditate on the teachings of the Word, that they may initiate their children into knowledge of the truths of the Word, and love for them, and obedience to them. It is their duty to co-operate with the spiritual Society into which they have caused their children to be introduced, and as that Society carefully guards those children from all attacks and infestation by spirits who do not confess the LORD from Old Church spirits who reject Him-so must the parents carefully guard them from infestation in this world, from contact with the evil and false influences of the Old Church, that their young and tender minds may be in a state receptive of the Doctrines of the New Church, and of the interior inclination, to those doctrines which their spiritual associates give them. The bringing of children to be baptized involves the acknowledgment of the whole teaching concerning education; for Baptism is for the sake of education. It is because New Church parents have neglected to co-operate with the Christian Society in the other world, and; while setting their children apart in that world as being of the New Church, have allowed, nay, encouraged, them to associate in this world with the Old Church,-because they have neglected to teach them the Doctrines of the New Church to which Baptism inclines them,-that so many children baptized into the New Church have drifted away and become of the Old and dead Church. Such parents are responsible before the LORD. For in giving their children to be baptized, they solemnly avow their desire and purpose that those children shall be instructed in the Heavenly Doctrines and be gradually initiated into the full and rational acceptance of them; but this their solemn avowal their after conduct disregards, and ruthlessly tramples under foot. It is similar in the case of adults who are baptized, except that they must themselves learn, from reading, teaching, and preaching, and they are themselves responsible for the future course. When the instruction, which Baptism prepares the mind to receive, is completed, when the child arrives at adult years, the parents are no longer responsible for his actions. With his knowledges and his doctrinals, the man must go forth. As if himself, he must acknowledge the LORD and in humility and obedience follow Him. The parents are responsible for his preparation for such living acknowledgment, but the man himself must use the means with which in former states he has been gifted. Baptism in itself cannot save a man; it is only a means, though one the power of which cannot be overestimated; an external, which without its internal, is like dwelling in a mausoleum where the ground is full of corpses, and bones are piled around the walls-while frightful spectres fly beneath the roof.
37
There must be an internal within; the man must not only be called a Christian, he must became a true follower of Christ. The name of the LORD signifies not only His name, but also acknowledgment of Him; as He Himself says, "He that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God" (John iii, 18); and again "Where two or three are gathered together in My Name, there am I in the midst of them" (Matt. xviii, 20). Here Name plainly means acknowledgment of the LORD as the Redeemer and Saviour, attended with obedience to Him and at length faith in Him. "What is the name of a Christian, so long as a man lives like a barbarian, and in opposition to the precepts of Christ, but like looking to the sign or standard of Satan, in place of that of Christ, Whose name was nevertheless, woven into it, in Baptism in threads of gold?" (T. C. R. 683). Or "like a servant who engages in the service of a master, and receives his livery, and then runs away, and in that livery, serves another?" (T. C. R. 681.) Hence we come to the second use of Baptism-which follows as a consequence from the first-"That the Christian may know and acknowledge the LORD JESUS CHRIST, the Redeemer and Saviour, and may follow Him." This second use of Baptism has been altogether too little prominent in the minds of New Church people; nay, often it is entirely lost sight of. The dangerous and false idea seems too common that the Doctrines should first be rationally and scientifically known, before a man can properly be baptized into the New Church. By such a also idea, emanating from the deadly hatred of the enemies of the New Church, and fostered in the hot-bed of human pride and self-conceit, men are deprived of the most valuable and indispensable aid to their reception of the Doctrines; the society and the sympathy, the influx and the influence, of the New Church men and spirits; and, on the other hand, they are rendered easy prey to the infestation of spirits who indeed profess to be of the Church but are of the synagogue of Satan; who indeed profess the Doctrines with their lips, but do so, not from the light of Heaven, but from the lumen of their own intelligence, interiorly rejecting the Church and all things of it. They who enter the Church from themselves, do not enter the Church, for they worship, not the LORD, but their own intelligence, which they trust and follow. Men do not come into the Church that they may be baptized, but they are to be baptized that they may come into the Church. They are to be introduced into the Society of Christians, that they may learn to become followers of Christ. The Divine Teaching is clear, and cannot be misunderstood except by the owl-like vision of conceit. "Baptism and the Holy Supper are two gates to eternal life. Every Christian man is intromitted and introduced by Baptism, which is the first gate, into those things which the Church teaches from the Word concerning the other life, all of which are means by which man can be prepared and led to Heaven. The other gate is the Holy Supper. There are no more universal gates" (T. C. R. 721). It is sufficient that a man have the perception that the teachings of the New Church are of the LORD, and this perception-more or less clear-the LORD will give; sooner or later, to every man who is in the good of life, who obeys the Divine Truth as far as light has been given him to see it, and strength to do it. It is sufficient, we repeat, that a man have this general perception, and he is then ready for the introduction, by Baptism, into the society of Newchurchmen in both worlds, that he may receive the help of their sphere of love and affection, and may thus know and acknowledge the LORD JESUS CHRIST and follow Him. The acknowledgment of the LORD involves the acknowledgment of every Doctrine of the New Church. From these two uses of Baptism-initiation and instruction-comes the third and final use, which is the end on account of which the two former exist, namely, "That a man may be regenerated (T. C. R. 684); for when a man acknowledges and follows the LORD, then He, the Regenerator, will regenerate and save him-that is, by His Divine Power; remove the evil loves that are within him and implant in their place the loves of Heaven, from which spring new delights and new life to eternity." To Him was given "All power in Heaven and on Earth." It is this end of Regeneration which is represented in the ultimate act of Baptism, and is present in that act; for the end is First and Last. Water represents the LORD as to the Divine Truth, and the baptizing or washing represents the cleansing and purifying from evils by the Divine Truth. These then are the three uses of Baptism, uses which following-one after the other cohere together and make one; Introduction among Christians: Instruction and acknowledgment: Regeneration, or the entrance into Heaven. It is from His Divine Love of saving every man for Heaven, that the LORD has establishes His Church; in which He can be known and acknowledged; It is from this Divine Love that He instituted Baptism, an introduction to that Church, that man may be helped and strengthened in the Church. And therefore it was that the LORD, from this Divine and Infinite Love, after the Glorification by which He acquired all power in Heaven and Earth to regenerate man, gave the Divine command, "Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. And lo! I am with you always, unto the end of the world."- AMEN.
Conscience 1894
Conscience does not come from natural or hereditary good, but from the doctrine of good and truth, and a life according thereto.- A. C. 6208.
INFESTATION OF THE SPIRITUAL. 1894
EXODUS V. THIS chapter, in the Internal Sense, continues to treat of the infestation of those who are of the Spiritual Church, by falses. It will be remembered that the people treated of in the Internal Sense were living in the lower earth in the spiritual world at the time that the LORD was Incarnate, and that this narration is intimately connected with the LORD'S Work of Redemption, and with the Glorification of His Human. First, they are treated of who infested, that they did not at all attend to the Divine exhortation: then, that they infested afterward still more, injecting fallacies and fictitious falses, which they who were of the spiritual. Church could not dispel; and because thus they could not remove from themselves those who infested, they lamented before the Divine. In order to enter fully into the states, here portrayed in the Internal Sense, the description of the people here treated of (n. 7090), and of the method of infestation (n. 7111; 7122, 7127, 7147), ought to be before the reader.
38
THE INFESTORS DO NOT ATTEND TO THE DIVINE EXHORTATION.
(1-4.) The Divine Law-that is to say;- the Word, such as it is in its Internal Sense, thus such as it is in the heavens,-and Doctrine-that is to say, the Word, such as it is in its literal sense, thus such as it is in the earths, "And afterwards came Moses and Aharom"-exhorted those who were against the truths of the Church, "and said unto Pharaoh"-from the Divine Human of the LORD, "Thus saith JEHOVAH the God of Israel"-that they should desist from infesting them, "send away My people"-so that from a glad mind they might worship the LORD, even in the obscure of faith in which they are, "and they shall make a feast to Me in the desert." But they who infested thought the contrary, "and Pharaoh said"-about the LORD to Whose exhortation they were to hearken, "who is JEHOVAH whose voice I shall hear"-the exhortation, namely, that they should desist from infesting those who were of the spiritual Church, "to send away Israel"-for they cared not for the LORD, "not know I JEHOVAH"-nor would they desist from infesting, "and also Israel I shall not send away." But they were exhorted that the God of the Church, Himself, had commanded, "and they said, the God of the Hebrews hath met us"-that those who were being infested should be in a state utterly removed from the false, although in the obscure of faith, "let us go, I pray, a way of three days into, the desert"-so that they might worship the LORD," and we will sacrifice to JEHOVAH our God to avoid the damnation of the evil and the false, "lest perchance He fall upon us with the pestilence and with the sword." But they who were in falses made answer, "and said unto them the icing of Egypt"-that the Divine Law and Doctrine of the spiritual should: not deliver them from their troubles, "wherefore, Moses and Aharon, draw ye the people away from their works"-but that they should live in combats,"-go unto your burdens."
THEY INFEST STILL MORE, INJECTING FALLACIES AND FICTITIOUS FALSES.
(5-9) According to the will of those who infested the truths of the Church, "and said Pharaoh"-the multitude of those who were of the Spiritual Church, "behold many now are the people of the land"-were not infested enough, "and ye make them cease from their burdens." The lust of infesting the truths of the Church in that state when the angels were dissipating their fallacies and falsities, "and Pharaoh commanded in that day"-led those who proximately infested and those who proximately received the infestation, "the exactors: in the people, and the moderators thereof"-not to add the lowest scientifics (by means of which, as they were filled with fallacies of the senses, they perverted goods and truths) to the fictitious and false things which they injected, "saying, do not add to give straw to the people, to brick the bricks"-as they had done in the former state, "as yesterday, day before yesterday"-so that those who were of the spiritual Church would be compelled to acquire these lowest scientifics for themselves, "they shall go, and gather for themselves straw"-while the fictitious and false things in abundance, which they had in the former states, were to be injected, "and the measure of the bricks which they are making yesterday, day before yesterday, put upon them without diminution, "do not take away from them"-because they were not sufficiently assaulted," because remiss are they"-whence it was that they thought so much about the worship of the LORD, "therefore they cry, saying, let us go, let us sacrifice to our God"-therefore the attack must be increased, "aggravated shall be the service upon the men"-so that the effect would come to pass, "and they shall do it "-lest they should turn themselves unto truths, "and shall not have respect unto the words of a lie." Those who proximately receive and communicate the infestations, are simple upright spirits, who especially serve this use, as, although good, they are not intelligent enough to penetrate the evil designs of the devils. By means of arts that are known only in the other life, they are injected unto the society with which they prepare communication for themselves, and this is done by those who infest, and are signified by "exactors." Thus the hells maintain a communication on their side, and those who are infested have communication on their side. The infestation is permitted to attain the end of removing falses and insinuating truths; since, if the falses and evils which adhere to them from the life in the world and are in their memory, be not revealed, the good and truth which they had made their own in the life of the body, could never come forth. The combat by which the removal is effected takes place actually, by evil spirits exciting falses and by the angels excusing them and insinuating truths. This is the reason why in the letter of the Word, the exactors are represented as operating upon the people of Israel by command of Pharaoh, while Moses and Aharon influence them from the LORD. The angels enable them to resist the infestations of evil spirits by means of the very scientifics which the evil take from the letter of the Word and from general doctrines, to confirm their falses. This is the "straw" for making the bricks for the Egyptians. And by the angels insinuating truths into these general doctrines, those who are infested have some life. When the evil spirits see this, they clot to take away the ultimate scientifics, thereby depriving the good whom they infest of the means of defending themselves, and opening them to the aggravated assault of the infernals. (10-13.) In conformity with the evil plans hatched out by the infestors, from their infernal lusts, those who proximately infested, and those who proximately received, were sent forth, "and went forth the exactors of the people and the moderators thereof"-giving those who were of the spiritual Church to perceive, "and said unto the people, saying"-concerning the infestations, "thus said Pharaoh"-that they would no longer have the most general scientifics from their infestors, "by no means give I you straw"-but that they would have to acquire them from elsewhere, wherever they could, "ye, go ye, take to you straw from where ye may find"-while the falses would be injected without diminution "because not shall be taken away from your service anything." Thus they diffused the natural man in every direction, "and dispersed itself the people in all the land of Egypt"-to find any scientific truth, "to gather stubble for the straw." Those who proximately infested insisted, "and the exactors were urgent"-that they should serve their so-called falses in every state, "saying, complete your works, the word of a day in the day thereof"-as their own so-called truths, "as if there were in it the straw." (14-18.) The simple spirits who proximately received the infestations and communicated them to those who were of the spiritual Church, were injured by the injected falses, "and smitten were the moderators of the sons of Israel"-they being injected by the infestors, to the society of the spiritual, "whom the ezactors of Pharaoh placed over them." They were injured because they did not do as they were enjoined; they did not receive and communicate the injection of falses, "saying, wherefore do ye not complete your statute to make bricks "-as in the former state, "as yesterday, day before yesterday"-so also in the future, "also yesterday, also to-day."
39
Those who proximately received and communicated the infestations, "and the moderators of the sons of Israel came" attested their indignation before those who infested, "and cried unto Pharaoh"-that thus they could not perform the office enjoined upon them, "saying, wherefore doest thou so to thy servants?"-because scientifics containing the truth were no longer furnished, "straw none is given to thy servants"-and yet they still sustained the injected falses, "and bricks, they say to us, make ye"-and thus the falses did injury, "and behold thy servants are smitten"-and thus they themselves would he guilty because they did evil, "end sinned hath thy people." But they were answered, "and he said"-that they were not yet sufficiently assaulted, "remiss are ye, remiss"-and that therefore they cherished-the thought of the worship of the LORD, "therefore ye say, let us go, let us sacrifice to JEHOVAH"-that, in consequence, the infestation was to be continued, "and now go, serve"-without such scientifics, "and straw shall not be given you"-and that, in addition thereto, falses in abundance would be injected, "and the measure of bricks ye shall give."
LAMENTATION OF THE SPIRITUAL.
(19-21.) Those who proximately received the infestations and communicated them apperceived that they were near being damned, "and the moderators of the sons of Israel saw themselves in evil"-because nothing of the injection of falses was diminished, "saying, do not take away from your bricks anything "-in every state, "the day in the day thereof"-and they thought of the Divine Law and the Doctrine from it, "and they met Moses and Aharon"-which then were made manifest when falses did not infest so much, "standing opposite them in their going forth from Pharaoh "-and they perceived, "and they said unto them"-the Divine disposition, "JEHOVAH see upon you and judge"-that their compliance with the Law Divine and the Doctrine was a matter of aversion to all those who were in falses, "because to stink have ye made our odor in the eyes of Pharaoh and in the eyes of his servants"-from which circumstance these were so ardent to destroy the truths of the Church by falses, "to give the sword into their hand to kill us." (22, 23.) The LORD, in His Human, complained, from the truth which is of the Law Divine, "and Moses returned unto JEHOVAH and said"-that those who were in truths and goods were infested too severely, "LORD, why hast Thou done evil to this people?"-when yet the Law proceeding from the Divine seemed to say differently, "wherefore is this, Thou hast sent me?"-and that when the commandment, from those things which are of the Law Divine, appeared to those who are in falses, "and from this that I came unto Pharaoh to speak in Thy Name"-then by injected falses those seemed to be injured who were in the truths and goods of the Church, "he did evil to this people"-and that they were not exempted from the state of infestations from falses, "and liberating Thou hast not liberated Thy people."
Title Unspecified 1894
T. C. R. 637 Those who from natural goodness only, do good, and not at the same time from religion, after death are not accepted.-T. C. R. 637.
UNLESS man be instructed 1894
UNLESS man be instructed in the truths and goods of faith, and these be made rules and principles of his life, in vain he expects heaven, howsoever he may have lived; for without those man is as a reed which nods at every wind, for he is bent equally by evils as by goods, because he has nothing of truth and of good made firm with him.
CELEBRATION OF FOUNDERS' DAY 1894
ON January 14th, as noted in the February Life, the inception of the Academy was celebrated by a supper, given by Mr. and Mrs. John Pitcairn, as the first of a series of social meetings of the Philadelphia Church of the Academy. The capacity of the Assembly Hall was taxed to accommodate the hundred and ten persons and the six tables, arranged transversely in the room, between which the young waitresses passed with difficulty. But bright was the scene, bright the tables and the faces around them, and bright the conversation, and the songs which supplemented the responses to the toasts, which latter were most suggestive and instructive, and are given herewith from stenographic reports. The regular toasts and those responding to them were: 1. "The Church of the Academy," Vice- Chancellor Pendleton. 2. "The Church and its Worship," Pastor Schreck. 3. "The Development of the Authority Doctrine," Pastor Odhner. 4. "The Church and Conjugial Love," Rev. Alfred Acton. 5. "The Church and its Schools," Rev. Homer Synnestvedt. The responses are published just below. After the regular toasts, some others were offered informally, among them: to Chancellor Benade; to the nine new members introduced into the New Church by Baptism during the past year; and to Mr. William M. Carter, associate member, departed this life on the day of the celebration; this toast was honored in silence, standing. At one point in the evening the Toast-Master favored the company with " Our Glorious Church," sung to the music composed for him by Mr. Whittington. It is hardly necessary to enlarge upon the enjoyableness as well as the usefulness of such consociations nor upon the importance of the development of Feasts of Charity in the Church.
THE CHURCH OF THE ACADEMY.
In the first place, I have an announcement to make that may be a surprise to most of you. This day, the fourteenth of January, is the natal day of the Academy, the day that the Academy was born into the twenty years ago. It is generally thought that it was the 19th day of June, 1876, and that indeed is true, because then was the complete organization of the body known as the Academy of the New Church; but its initial organization was on the 14th day of January, 1874, twenty years ago. There were four persons present at the meeting. Two of them are present this' evening, Mr. Pitcairn and Mr. Childs. The other two were the Chancellor-Father Benade-and Mr. Ballou, now of Colorado. These four met in Pittsburgh and began the organization with which you are familiar. You are also familiar with the objects for which it was organized, namely, in order to maintain the doctrine that the LORD GOD JESUS CHRIST reigns in the Church by means of His own Divine Revelation which He has made through His servant Emanuel Swedenborg. At that meeting, however, the prominent thought was not only that this doctrine should be announced to the New Church, but also the annunciation of the teachings of the Doctrines concerning the consummated state of the Christian world. This was not known or understood or acknowledged in the New Church at large, at that time, nor is it in the Church at large, now. It was decided at this meeting to print a pamphlet, which Mr. Benade was to write, and to bring this Doctrine before the New Church. That pamphlet was not written at that time, but after the Academy had its more complete organization the serial called Words for the New Church was started, and the first number contained, not the article of which I speak, concerning the state of the Christian world, but it contained, and rightly, the first essential of the Academy, which is the Doctrine of the LORD'S Second Coming in the Writings of the New Church.
40
The second number, which came out a few months afterward, contained the paper in question, concerning the state of the Christian World, announcing what that state is, from Divine Revelation-that it is evil, which is the prevailing state; internally evil, though apparently good in externals in many ways. There was no regular record made of the date of the meeting, which for a long time was a matter of doubt. Two or three years ago investigation was started and it resulted in finding a cheek in the archives of the Academy, dated January 14th, 1874-a check which was written for the purpose of defraying the expenses of that publication. Still it was not accurately established that the check was written at the meeting, or on that date. Those who were present felt quite sure that such was the case, but it was not absolutely established. But within the last two weeks it has been absolutely established, for the first time, by a discovery by Mr. Pitcairn, of an entry in his books, which establishes the fact that this first or initial organization of the Academy was on the 14th of January, 1874; and so this is the first time that date has been celebrated. But I have no doubt it will continue to be celebrated from now on, and will be known as Founders' Day, the day in which the Academy first became an ultimate body. The name "Academy," however, was not chosen at that time, but afterward. On this day twenty years ago, in what was done there, was begun a judgment in the Church and a separation which has been going on from that time to the present, and will continue to go on. The New Church cannot be established without judgment, and so without separation, and it is of the Divine Providence that that doctrine which is the carrying out and the ultimating of the judgment and separation, was the prominent idea at this meeting-recognizing the state of the Christian world-which means recognizing the distinctness of the New Church; that the New Church is not distinct and does not exist as a reality among men until it is separated from the old, until its members have withdrawn themselves from the old and met together to organize, "that the New might be established; nor until they have separated themselves not only externally, but also internally; have rejected the falses of the old and condemned the evils, and are in the endeavor to shun those evils-for we inherit them-acknowledging that those evils are sins against God; that the Christian world is in those evils and so that we are in them, and that they must be shunned as sins against God. This idea is fundamental to the existence of the New Church. The first fundamental is the acknowledgment of its God, who is the LORD JESUS CHRIST, in His appearing in His Word, which is now opened in the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg; and following that is the acknowledgment of this thing, the distinctness of the New Church. This meeting was the first time that that idea was crystallized and took an organized form in the world. At first, then, the prominent idea in the Academy, was to announce these two things: the importance of the acknowledgment of the LORD in His Second Coming, and that distinctness of the New Church and of separation from the old: separation in its religious life, that its idea of God might not be profaned and defiled; separation in its social life, that conjugial love might be preserved in its purity, and that there might be marriages in the Church (for we are taught that marriage in the Church is the very means by which the Church is established,-that there is no real marriage between those of different religions); and separation also afterward in the educational life. From conjugial love, you know, flows the love of offspring; and the love of offspring involves training and education, -and, in the New Church, training and education not only for life in this world but for life in the other. The Academy soon saw that this was the great use before it, and in this it is carrying out actually and in daily uses the acknowledgment of the LORD in His Coming, and carrying out the distinctness of the New Church and separation from the old, separating them in their school life from the old, and in all the particulars of their school life; the teachings forming a new education from beginning to end, according to the Doctrines of the Church, with new sciences and new principles of education in every particular. The history of the New Church for the past century, when read in the time to come, will appear to those in the future, as indeed it does appear now to those who are able to see it, as a history of lamentation over the loss of the children, and reminds us of what is said of "Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not;" because by that is meant the principle of innocence and its destruction; and indeed to allow the children to go away from the Church and to be infected with the false ideas in the world, is to destroy all spiritual life in them-as we are taught-which is of innocence; and Rachel, the internal affection of the Church; weeps over those. In the LORD'S Providence, and in His Mercy, the Academy came to see this, and to be affected by it; to see the great importance that the children should be brought up in the Church, in order that the Church may be conserved and continue to exist in the world; and in this use is the great promise for the future. It is said in Isaiah, "Watchman, what of the night?" and the watchman said: "The morning cometh, and also the night." By that is meant that in the New Church there will be light, but in the old, still the darkness. That is the answer that the watchman gave, and the light is continually rising and growing, and the mind of the Church will be continually more and more illustrated to see the use of this Church; to see and understand, and more fully to carry out that use which is before it, which is the greatest use in the world at the present time; and it is a matter of great thankfulness to the Divine Providence that He has led us to see this use, and to endeavor with all our might to obey Him in carrying it out.
THE CHURCH AND ITS WORSHIP.
THE essence of worship is humiliation-the acknowledgment that all that is of one's self is evil, profane, dead, cadaverous; and all that is from the LORD is alone good; that from Him is everything of life. Without humiliation worship is an outward gesture, empty, powerless the mark of hypocrisy, the forerunner of spiritual death and decay. When worship is penetrated from the inmost with the spirit of humility, self lies prostrated, a lifeless vessel, at the feet of the LORD, Who alone is good, the Divine Good, Who alone is the Divine Love and Divine Wisdom, Who alone is Life, and the Source of Life, Who alone is the Active from Whom alone every active proceeds, and from Whose Pace of Divine Love, from Whose Hands and Feet of Divine Power, from Whose garments of Divine Truth and Divine Light-proceeds the sphere of good, the good of love and charity, which quickens the lifeless vessel and raises it upon its feet to glorify its Creator and Maker, bringing it into conjunction with Himself.
41
Conjunction with the LORD by love and charity-this is worship. In continual worship is man while he is in the good of love, and of charity. The angels are in such continual worship. With them is perpetual Sabbath. With them is the Kingdom of the LORD, from eternity to eternity the same. But man, while he lives in the world, must needs be also in external worship. By external worship internals are excited; by external worship, externals are kept in a state of holiness, in order that internals may inflow. By external worship man is imbued with cognitions and thus reared for heaven. By external worship man is gifted with states of sanctity, though he be ignorant of it at the time; and these states of holiness are preserved by the LORD for him for the use of eternal life. Whether the beloved Church of the Academy have developed in the way of real internal worship we leave to the Divine Judge of our hearts. We hope it has. There is an internal worship in which it has progressed beyond expectation, the internal worship which is the worship of an internal Church-the internal; worship which consists in the daily and diligent and faithful performance of the uses of charity which have been committed to that Church: the use of evangelizing the Second Advent of the LORD, and the judgment that the LORD has performed at His Second Advent; the internal use of charity in the education of the young, and also of those who are older, in order that they may come into true worship, into conjunction with the LORD. And as to our external forms of piety, those also have grown beyond our expectation, since the time that it was ultimately realized that the Academy needed to assume to itself external worship also. The pause of silence, the prayer, the reading of the Word, the reading of the Doctrine, the uplifting of the voice in song and praise of our LORD JESUS CHRIST-these externals have all been developed, and they have affected the externals of every one of the worshipers more powerfully than any worship has heretofore. And why? To single out one of the features of our worship, the New Music: why is it that the new music affects so powerfully the men and women who come to worship here? Is it because of its classical beauty? If we will examine, we will find it is not that, but it is the spirit of humility that runs throughout it: whether it rises into magnificent chords, or whether it comes to us in soft and low and sweet melodies; whether it bursts forth in the jubilee of glorification, or whether, self-contained, it sounds virgin pure, tender, pathetic, sweet, and prayerful-it breathes throughout, humility. Man is nothing; the LORD, our God and Saviour, is everything. And this humility, in music, born of the reception, into an upright mind, of the Divine Truth which proceeds from the LORD, Who is the Bridegroom and Husband of His Church, this humility it is which enables the music to affect our externals with such sanctity,-which enables it to excite internals, the internals of love of the LORD and charity toward the neighbor, within us. It is this which gives to the external a holiness in which the internal can rest and abide. And this principal characteristic of the music it is which, when running through all other external forms of piety, makes them powerful, enables them to carry out with Divine Power that mission which the LORD has entrusted to them. The music that has been given us is sacred music. It is made sacred by the Divine Truth which inflows from the LORD Himself. In it the LORD reigns, the LORD as the Word. Not, as in other music, is the music made the master and the words of sacred meaning made the servants, to be adapted to the music; but the LORD Himself, the Word, is King, and the music is but His handmaid who waits upon her Master's every nod and beck and knows no will but His. Such may our worship ever be. Certain features of our worship have extended into the home, such as the pause of silence, the reading of the Word in the language in which it was revealed by the LORD, and in the reading of which there is effected association with the celestial heavens, the heavens nearest to the LORD Himself; and conjunction with the LORD, in the very ultimates of His Own Divine Truth and Divine Good. Another feature that has found its way into the home worship is the use of the new translation of the Word, where as far as possible the effort is made that human conceit may be eliminated, and where the LORD alone is followed as He has given us a true translation in the Writings of His chosen Apostle. Another feature is the use of the Internal Sense in connection with the Literal Sense, in order that when the mind dwells upon the most ultimate forms of the expression of the Divine Truth they shall be instinct with the life and soul which the LORD Himself has breathed into them from His own mouth, in order that the men who receive these ultimate vessels may also have breathed into their internals the breath of lives, which is the breath of the Divine Proceeding of Good and Truth coming from the LORD alone in His glorified Human, Who alone can be worshiped where He is seen and acknowledged in every single point of the external worship, as well as the internal worship,-the internal worship which consists in the discharging of the functions of charity. This as well as other features of our public worship have found their way into the home worship. So, on the other band, the Calendar, that was prepared in order to give direction to the home worship, has found its way into our public worship, being used as a guide to the selection of texts for our sermons. So are the home and the Church being united closer and closer, and may the Divine Blessing rest upon the reciprocal conjunction between the home and the Church; and when we are at worship, be it in the home or in the school, or in the church, may the LORD be with us and help us, that we may put away every thing that savors of the love of self and of the world, in order that we may be filled with true humility from Him alone: or else our prayers will not be heard; they will not ascend to Him; although our external worship be holy, although our demeanor and our speech devout, although we may lead a moral life, yet our prayers will be-but the breathing forth of the natural man into the air of this world, and will not be heard in heaven. But where true humility enters into the acts of worship, where the moral life is moral from a spiritual origin, there the LORD Himself will draw the prayers of man through heaven unto Himself, the glorious Divine Man.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE "AUTHORITY DOCTRINE" IN THE CHURCH.
THE Development of the Authority Doctrine involves two things: first, acknowledgment of the LORD; secondly, obedience to the LORD. These two make everything of the Church. They are the fundamentals, the essentials of the Church, and on the existence or non-existence of these two have depended the rise and the fall of every Church that has been on this earth.
42
In the Golden Age the perception of the LORD'S authority was the chief of all perceptions. The Word with them was written on their hearts, and they believed in His authority as readily as a man who has sight acknowledges that all light is from the sun. The denial of the LORD'S authority caused the fall of the Most. Ancient Church. The Serpent said, "In dying thou shalt not die." The Word of the LORD was doubted, and this was the beginning of the fall. In the Silver Age the Church was restored by the acknowledgment of the LORD in the Word that was then given to mankind, and by entering into that saving Ark the Ancient Church was established; but that Church, also, fell by perverting and denying the Word and its authority, when men began to build a tower of their own self-made doctrines. In the Brazen Age, blind obedience and acknowledgment of the laws of Moses were the sole means of the subsistence of the Israelitish Church. Here the Doctrine of Authority was received and developed in ultimates. In the Most Ancient Church there was perception of the Truth in the Ancient Church there was understanding of the Truth; in the Jewish Church was the blind faith in the Truth. All these are necessary in order to make a complete acknowledgment of the Divine Authority of the Truth. We must believe it blindly and unquestionably. We must also strive to understand it rationally, and by lovingly obeying it we will come to the perception of what is meant by the Authority of the Divine Truth. When, finally, no one any longer obeyed His Word, the LORD came into the world to restore His Authority. He Himself came to submit His Human to the authority of the Word, by fulfilling the Commandments and the prophecies concerning Him. He thereby made His Human the Word itself. On this Rock He built up the Christian Church, which was a Church as long as followed the Divine authority of the Truth then revealed. But that Church also fell by the denial of the authority of the Divine Revelation which had been given to it, and by perverting it and substituting man-made doctrines. At last, when the "Abomination of Desolation" had come to a consummation, the LORD made His Second Advent-came again as Divine Truth, in the highest, in the most perfect form that had ever been revealed to mankind; and thus He restored faith in the LORD; He restored the Doctrine of Authority by revealing to the understanding of man the sole and exclusive Divinity of the LORD JESUS CHRIST. That is the basis of the "Authority Doctrine." The first of all Newchurchmen upon earth, Emanuel Swedenborg, was "a man under authority." He believed firmly and faithfully in what has been called "The Academy Doctrine of Authority." (It is not the "Academy" Doctrine, but it is the New Church Doctrine and Swedenborg's Doctrine.) He believed that these Writings which he had been instrumental in giving forth to the world were not of him, but of the LORD; that not a word had been received by him from himself, or from any spirit or angel, but from the LORD alone, while reading the Word. That is the "Authority Doctrine" in a nutshell. In the New Church, when it first began to be established, one hundred and fourteen years ago, there was no thought of denying anything that the Writings contained. The Doctrine of the Authority was the very corner-stone of the first general organization of the New Church. The very first resolution, passed unanimously by the First General Conference, held in London in the year 1789, affirmed that doctrine: "I. Resolved Unanimously, That it is the opinion of this Conference that the Theological Works of the Hon. Emanuel Swedenborg are perfectly consistent with the Holy Word, being at the same time explanatory of its internal sense, in so wonderful a manner that nothing short of Divine Revelation seems adequate thereto. That they also contain the Heavenly Doctrines of the New Church, signified by the New Jerusalem in the Revelation; which Doctrines he was enabled by the LORD alone to draw from the Holy Word, while under the Inspiration and Illumination of His Holy Spirit." At the first general meetings of these early New-churchmen entire harmony and mutual love prevailed in consequence of this common faith in the Authority of the Writings. All their endeavor was then to find what the Writings taught on any subject, and to form the Church accordingly. But this heavenly state of innocence and peace did not last long. As in the Garden of Eden so also in this new Paradise which the LORD had opened to mankind, there was present the serpent, the sensual,-self-intelligence,-ever-inducing doubts. When, therefore, the time came to ultimate the organization of the New Church, to establish her priesthood, and to order her laws according to the Writings, conflicts began to arise, differences of opinion came to the surface, and some who held the wrong opinion confirmed themselves in it by denying the authority of the Writings, saying, "This is only Swedenborg's idea, it is not the Word." Then began the conflict on the "authority question," which has remained the "burning question" in the history of the Church for now more than a century. The very first champion for the authority of the Writings was the first priest of the New Church, Robert Hindmarsh, who was the formulator of the resolution of the First General Conference before quoted. Another of the early "authority men" was a countryman of Swedenborg's, Augustus Nordenskjold, who in a work published one hundred and four years ago first put forth the idea that the Writings were the Latin Word, confirming this by the inscription which was upon the cross of the LORD, where in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin it was written that He was the King of the Jews; he therefore called the Writings, the Third Testament. From that time on there has been a continual warfare in the New Church. Battle upon battle has been fought, and the battle-fields have mostly been the periodicals of the Church; although the real combat was not on earth, but in the spiritual world, where Michael's fight against the Dragon meant more than "a war of words." The first controversial battle was in the periodical called Aurora (published in London in the year 1799), where the first denial of the authority of the Writings was put forth into words. In this conflict or controversy the idea was for, the first time expressed that the Writings are the internal sense of the Word. Then the scene of the conflict seems to have changed from England to America. Here, where the minds of men were, if possible, in even greater freedom than in England the Church seems to have developed in more internal forms than in England where it first started. Here early in the century was fought a great battle in the Church, between Philadelphia and Boston, or between those who believe in the Writings and those who deny them, although professing to believe The heresy had been developed that there was a conjugial relation between a pastor and his Society. This involved a great many falsities, and is the basis of the downfall of the New Church as represented by the bodies from which we have separated.
43
It involved the acknowledgment of the body of the Church as a spiritual mother; it involved the terrible heresy that the priesthood is to teach- from their own good and not from the LORD'S Truth; beside many other things which you may have heard of. The first men to point out and fight this heresy were Philadelphians-Jonathan Condy and Daniel Lammot, and after them Richard de Charms. The last name especially, we venerate, inasmuch as to him can be traced the present movement. Many were the battles and many were the hearts that bled in consequence until the Authority Doctrine gained one victory, and that was when the idea was put forth of Swedenborg's infallibility, as it was called. We do not now call it so. We call it the infallibility of the LORD'S Revealed Truth. This was in the "forties." It occasioned a great outcry in the New Church, and was vigorously combated, both in England and here. Still, the true understanding of the "authority-Doctrine" had not yet been reached. They did not yet understand that the Writings were the Word and were the Divine Human. This grand truth, which is the key to a rational understanding of the Heavenly Doctrines, was first proclaimed by the Rev. William H. Benade, the present Chancellor of the Academy. This was first done in the year 1868, but it was neither understood nor received by others at that time. The very men who followed him did not understand it. It took them twenty years to learn what he meant. But then the conflict began in full earnest both in England and here. In England, after the time of Hindmarsh, the Church had lain fallow and in a most miserable state, and hardly any body raised the standard of the authority of the Writings. The first man to raise that standard was an American, the Rev. Prescott Hiller, whose name I wish to honor. For some forty years he seems to have been the only defender, in England, of the Divine origin, inspiration, and infallibility of the Writings. But the war raged especially America, where the attacks upon the Infallibility of the Word and the Writings were put forth by professed friends, priests, and teachers of the Church. In the periodicals of the Church, at the meetings of the Convention, and on all occasions, the authority of the Writings was denied, making necessary at last the organization of which we are now celebrating the-birthday. Many have been the books and pamphlets and articles that have been written on the subject of the Academy's Authority-Doctrine." Of late we hear not much about, it because the cannon of the enemy have been silenced, they can say no more, and the Church which believes in; the authority of the Writings-that is, of the Divine Truth as revealed to the New Church-has been consecrated and confirmed more and more as a battalion fighting under Michael. The lines have been drawn more and more closely. In the history of the Church we have seen that the acknowledgment or non-acknowledgment of the authority of the Truth has caused the rise or fall of every Church, and so it will cause the rise or fall of every form of the New Church that can possibly be established. As long as the Academy holds to the authority of the Writings, so long will the Divine Omnipotence be with it, for authority means power. As long as this Church blindly, and understandingly, and lovingly, follows the LORD, Who speaks to her out of the Writings, so long will she go forth to conquer; for the Leader and Hero and Victor of this Church is One to Whom was given "all Authority in heaven and on earth."
THE CHURCH AND CONJUGIAL LOVE.
WE are taught in the work on Conjugial Love that Swedenborg, in order to learn about the marriages of the different ages that have been since the establishment of the Most Ancient Church on earth, was permitted to go into various societies in the other world. He first went to the society or heaven where were the Most Ancients, and there he learned about their conjugial love as it existed with them in its purity. Then he went to the society of the Ancients or men of the Silver Age, and there conjugial love also existed, but not in so great purity. Then he went to the Copper or Brass Age, and lastly to the Iron Age, and we are then taught that the conclusion which was drawn was, that conjugial love had proceeded from the East to the South, from the South to the West, and from the West to the North, in those four societies, and that as it proceeded, so it has decreased, until in the Iron Age there was no conjugial at all, and men became merely corporeal-sensual; and the Servant of the LORD observed that conjugial love decreased in proportion as the worship and love of God decreased. He then went to an evil society, a society of wicked spirits, represented by the iron mixed with clay, seen by Nebuchadnezzar in the image. There he was threatened by the people, and some so-called wise men took him aside to talk with him. In the course of conversation he spoke to them about religion and conjugial love and they said, "What has religion to do with conjugial love? Nothing whatever." And when he told them they were foolish and stupid, they were angry and indignant, and called the rabble to assault Swedenborg, to attack him, to murder him, if possible; but the LORD protected him, and serpents and wild beasts were sent into the city, and the inhabitants thereof fled in terror and dread, and were cast into lakes of fire and sulphur. Swedenborg was informed then by the angel that to that place great multitudes are coming every day from the Christian world, who are spiritual and natural adulterers. Swedenborg then asked him why he said spiritual adulterers. The answer was, because every adulterer from confirmation is also an evil-doer and an impious man, a man without any piety; and then the angel uttered this statement, which is full of significance, which is indeed one of the most important short statements with respect to conjugial love that we have: "Every step and every progress made from religion and into religion is a step and a progress from conjugial love and into conjugial love, which is peculiar and proper to the Christian man." Swedenborg then asked what the conjugial was and the answer was, "the conjugial is the desire of living with one wife alone, and this desire the Christian man has according to his religion." After that, the glorification-that glorious glorification from East to West and from North to South of the heavens was heard, being a glorification and celebration of the LORD that He had come again and instituted a New Church in which the conjugial can be again resuscitated, because it is resuscitatable. This point, that conjugial love and religion, or conjugial love and the Church, go hand, in hand, is one which we, as brethren, meeting together this night-brethren in the Church meeting for social intercourse, meeting for the social life of charity-will do well to reflect upon, that we may be mutually strengthened in following the LORD and thus receive the benefits which He so freely gives, and especially this highest blessing, conjugial love. Conjugial Love is according to the Church with man, and this cannot be mentioned too often or thought of too much. The more we think of it the more will we, see within it.
44
Conjugial love exists with man so far as wisdom exists with him, for wisdom is the Church. The elevation of all love is by truth. Good without truth does not exist; it exists only by truth, and truth it is which elevates the man to good. And so in the conjugial, it is by means of truth that the conjugial can exist with man and be elevated more and more. We are taught that the. Church comes to the wife through the husband; that the husband receives Divine Truth from the LORD, and the wife receives it through the husband, if the husband truly receives it. If the husband receive Divine Truth and by that become wise in loving and obeying the Divine Truth, then he turns his whole thought and whole affection to the wife, and the wife perceives this, and her love can be conjoined with his wisdom; and when the man receives truth and by applying it to his own life-at first by force and then from love-when the man thus receives truth, and when the wife thus receives the truth of the man, which is affection for her alone-then the LORD, into that truth thus received by the consorts, insinuates good, and that good is conjugial love. It is a free gift and given in ways and in degree unknown to the consorts. Conjugial love is according to the state of the Church or of wisdom with man. It is important for us all who are of the Church to know and realize this. It is a glorious revelation. It is a revelation of the means to conjugial love. We must learn the truth; we must force ourselves to obey the truth and come out of those evil states of Sodom and Gomorrah which are revealed to us; and so far as we do this the LORD will inflow into that truth-because He is that truth-with Divine Good; and that Divine Good conjoined to Divine Truth is the conjugial with us. We are apt to think, and it has been thought in the New Church, that marriage is the conjugial. There are two things, conjugial love and love truly conjugial. Conjugial love is natural; love truly conjugial is spiritual. Conjugial love must have love truly conjugial within Marriage indeed initiates to conjugial love, for love truly conjugial can be ultimated then, and can exist more and more interiorly. But marriage must not be mistaken for love truly conjugial. Love truly conjugial exists in the spirit of man, and it exists so far as man receives truth from the LORD and by wisdom from that truth, by a life according to it, receives the LORD within it as the Divine Good. Conjugial Love is according to the state of the Church with man. We are taught in Heaven and Hell that we can know something of the, supreme innocence of the celestial angels by considering the state of infants. An infant depends for its every want upon the parent. It has no anxiety-it turns to the parent for everything it wants. It knows or thinks the parent can give everything. There is implicit trust. In like manner we can see something of what conjugial love really is, from looking at conjugial love in its infancy or in the external; and it is in its infancy or external when evils are more or less quiescent, in the first states, of marriage, and in the states immediately preceding marriage. There, in its loveliness and sweetness, with all its delights and pleasantness, it reveals to the man who will see it, the quality of the delights and pleasantness of love truly conjugal, as the LORD has now revealed it to the New Church, and as He has made it possible for every Newchurchman now to receive. The LORD has given us this bright, this shining, this precious jewel, the chief jewel, the chief adornment, and the most precious treasure of the Christian man; and He has given it freely to every man of the New Church who will receive Him as He has now revealed Himself to us in the Church
THE CHURCH AND ITS SCHOOLS.
IT is in the schools of the Academy that we see presented before us what the Academy is to us and to the Church at large, and to the world. The schools of the Academy are its means of ultimating and carrying forth into the world its duties, its sacred trust from the LORD, and in this ultimation we see that the Academy stands for nothing less than the presence of the LORD with us as the Instructor and Educator. It is the LORD alone Who is the Priest of the Church, and it is the LORD alone Who is the Instructor and Educator. It is He alone Who is able to teach every man, woman, and child, and Who is able to lead them; because from Him alone comes all that is heavenly, all that is good. Of ourselves we are nothing but evil, we in the valley of the shadow of death. But He leadeth us out. Though we dwell in the valley of the shadow of death, we shall fear no evil, for the LORD'S rod and His staff they will support us. It is the LORD who from first infancy fills the mind, or fills the most tender vessels of the infant, with that which is to be the basis of love and wisdom in the following age. It is He alone who puts in all the gentle little affections, and the beginnings of thought which form the basis of that which makes the human mind, and which develop into the minds of men and women. It is the LORD alone in later age who puts into the heart the affections, through the angels, which lead to good; and He puts into the mind, through instructors, the truths which contain those affections and which render them effective; for, as was just now so beautifully shown, the state of the Church is the married state, which consists in the conjunction of good and truth-in the insinuation, into vessels formed by the LORD, of affections of charity, affections of love for the neighbor, and, in the most complete form, conjugial love in its fullness, as existing in the tender love of conjugial partners. It is the LORD alone who gives this, and He does it by no other means so perfect and so efficacious as through the schools of the Academy. They are our everything; they are the hope of the future. The world, the Church in the world, and the heavens, which rest upon the Church in the world-all depend upon this work, and nowhere is it being done as it is here right in your midst. You cannot thank the LORD too much for this.
Every one is called brother 1894
Every one is called brother by the Lord who has anything of the good of charity from the Lord.- A. C. 5686.
Notes and Reviews 1894
THE "New Church Evidence Society" of London has lately published a work by the Rev. Thomas Child on The Interpretation of the Scriptures (122 pp.). The substance of the volume has appeared in the Morning Light.
MR. L. P. FORD, of Kent, England, has published, for free distribution, a pamphlet with the title, Death to the "Dragon" and Welcome to the "Bride," being an account of discussions between "Satisfied" "Good Will," and "Progress," on the absolute necessity of the performance of systematic uses or good works outside of the general uses of publishing, preaching, and teaching of the organized bodies of the New Church.
45
THE first instalment of a New Church Portrait Gallery has been published by Mr. Speirs, of London. It contains the portraits of the' Rev. Dr. Jonathan Bayley and the Rev. John Presland, together with short biographical accounts of these well-known ministers. The second number will contain the portraits and memoirs of the Rev. Dr. R. L. Tafel and the Rev. Chauncey Giles. The price of each number is one shilling.
THE history of the Church may be divided into two most general chapters: the history of the Revelation of Divine Truth, and the history of the reception of this revealed Truth among men. The history of the New Church may thus be divided into the history of the publication of the Writings, and that of the reception by men of the Heavenly Doctrines. The first chapter must be written before the second. Hence is evident the use intended in the publication of the bibliographical accounts of the Writings of the New Church, which from time to time have appeared in the Life. They are not intended as mere records of conditions, but as documents in the history of the Writings, which forms the first and the inmost of New Church History.
UNDER the heading "Fine Linen or Cotton?" it was stated in the February Life (p. 28) that "the Latin term gossypium, which means cotton and which is used by the moderns as the botanical designation of this plant, does not occur in the inspired Writings." The Rev. J. F. Potts, compiler of the Concordance, refers us to two places where it occurs (T. C. R. 79:4 and 644.). In connection with this he states that he is gradually accumulating material for a supplement to the Concordance, to contain such entries are inadvertently omitted during the publication of the Work. He invites every one interested to assist him to perfect his work in this manner. The passages to which he refers us, speak of cotton with which certain men stopped up their ears, but throw no further light on the question discussed last month.
THE Morning Light for February 8d quotes from an old London newspaper, the Lloyd's Evening Post, dated June, 1768, the following item of "news": "Stockholm May 27.-Emanuel Swedenborg, formerly assessor of the a the Royal College of Mines, who has made himself famous by his visions and pretended discourses with deceased persons, lately embarked for Holland in order to print his last works. He is in the eighty-first year of his age, and foretold before his departure that his voyage, which is the tenth he has made to foreign countries, would be his last; but that he should return and die in his own country. He has published several works upon theology and mineralogy, which have been well received." This anecdote is of interest, as fixing, proximately, the date when Swedenborg entered upon his last foreign journey (which was the twelfth, not the tenth). A part of the prediction attributed to him was fulfilled, as is known, but he never returned to Sweden. It may be remembered that he is said to have foretold, correctly, the exact date of his arrival in Stockholm, when he left London, in the year 1766.
NUMBER 72 of the Concordance continues the entries under the heading of "Marriage (or Conjugial Love)," and treats further of the connected subjects of "Married Partner," "Marry," and "Matrimony." The theological mind will find food for reflection in the articles on the "Masorites," "Maturity," "Measure," "Meat Offering," "Meditation," and "Medium," while philosophical and scientific minds will be delighted with the teachings collected under the headings of "Mars," "Martyr," "Mary," "Mathematics," "Matter," "Mechanics," "Medicine," "Medulla," "Melancholy," "Melanethon," and "Melody." While some may stand dismayed at the ponderousness of certain articles in former numbers of the Concordance, no such concern need be felt with respect to the present issue, which teems with a great variety. In the notice of the preceding number mention should have been made of the account of the marriage, in the spiritual world, of a Swedish nobleman, Count Jacob de la Gardie and the Russian Empress Elizabeth, as described in The Spiritual Diary, n. 6027. This lengthy number was written by Swedenborg in the Swedish tongue. A fac simile of the manuscript was published in the fourth volume of the Diary by Dr. Immanuel Tafel, who was not able to descipher the handwriting, and it has never before been translated into English. The translation in the Concordance was furnished by Professor C. In. Odhner, of Philadelphia. It is of peculiar interest, as presenting a detailed description of a courtship and marriage in the spiritual world. Important, historical information is also given of Peter the Great and Queen Ulrica Eleonora.
THE account of the marriage, referred to above, calls to mind the use and need for the compilation of a Book of "Fragments," of the theological notes by Swedenborg, which are to be found scattered in various works, but which had never been brought together in an English translation. Among these may be mentioned his "notes" to the True Christian Religion, the untranslated, Swedish portions of the Diary, his theological correspondence with Dr. Beyer, and other friends, besides many other things of great value.
New Church Messenger for February 4th gives an interesting extract from an account of the "Parliament of Religions" as reported by a Buddhist priest to a gathering of his co-religionists at Tokio. It would seem that some of the gentile visitors misunderstood the intention of those who had called together the "Parliament," or at least of the Newchurchman who originated the first idea of this "omnium gatherum." The Buddhist understood that "the Parliament was called because the Western nations have come to realize the folly and weakness of Christianity" which as he truthfully states, "is deeply believed in by very few." "The great majority of Christians drink and commit various gross sins, and live very dissolute lives although it is a very common belief, and serves as a social adornment."
The New Church Standard for February is a publication of unusual interest. The editorial notes treat of the state of the Christian world in relation to Conjugial Love, confirming the revelations of the Heavenly Doctrines on this subject by extracts from the writings of competent modern observers. The picture here presented of the universal prevalence and growth of adultery, licentiousness, prostitution, and immorality in France, Germany and England is truly a picture of Hell in all its horror. But if Newchurchmen refuse to believe in the revelations of the Writings as to the totally corrupt state of the Christian World, can they be expected to be convinced by even the hard logic of facts and figures?
IN the same issue of The Standard the Rev. James P. Buss concludes his paper on "The Right of Conjugial Love to rank as one of the Writings of the Church," the first instalment of which appeared in the January number. This paper of historical importance was written two years ago for the purpose of dissuading the General Conference from the momentous action, which subsequently was taken, of ruling out the work of Conjugial Love from among the Writings of the New Church (!) The convincing and eloquent appeal of Mr. Buss was, however, in vain, as were also his efforts to have his paper published in any of the organs of the Conference. This accounts for its present appearance in The Standard. Most ably and completely the writer here meets the various shallow objections that have been raised against the Divine origin and authority of this work, so that there is literally "no loophole of escape" for any one whose eyes have not been entirely blinded by prejudice. The paper deserves general and careful attention.
THE Rev. Willard H. Hinkley, pastor of the Brookline, Mass., Society, contributed to the pages of The New Jerusalem Magazine a series of studies on the Book of Daniel. These studies have been collected into a little volume; entitled The Book of Daniel: Its Divine Character and Spiritual Meaning, published by the Massachusetts New Church Union.
46
To the original study of each chapter there, has been prefixed the full text of the literal sense of that chapter, according to the Revised Version, and this is followed by a list of the places in the Writings where the spiritual sense of the Book has been revealed and explained. The author seeks to impress upon his reader that the literal sense is not of the first importance in the Word, and warns him against the tendency of modern criticism to explain the apparent inconsistencies of the merely literal sense. Still, he satisfies the craving of the natural mind as far as he can by adducing results of modern researches so as they throw light upon the history involved in the narrative concerning Daniel. The author's main contention is the spiritual meaning of the Book, and he has succeeded in giving a good and very attractive sketch of its internal sense-mainly of the internal historical sense. It is little more than a sketch. Certain leading thoughts are elaborated briefly, but, as a rule, the essays present only the general contents of the respective chapters. But, though general in its character, the volume leads to a good understanding of the Book of Daniel, and tends to increase, in great measure, one's love and veneration for the Word. It cannot fail to arouse a profounder interest in the more interior mysteries contained in that prophetical Book, an interest which the author provides to satisfy by means of the invaluable references to the Writings given with each chapter. Whoever will read this treatise, be he priest or layman, will spend delightful hours in its company. Books of this kind, which treat directly of the Sacred Scripture in the immediate light of the Heavenly Doctrines, will do vastly more toward the lasting establishment of the New Jerusalem than most of the ordinary missionary tracts and books published in the interests of the New Church. The volume sells for $1.25, and may be ordered from the publishers, the Massachusetts New Church Union, 16 Arlington Street, Boston, Mass., or from the Academy Book Room, 1821 Wallace Street, Philadelphia.
Communicated 1894
Responsibility for the views expressed in this Department rests with the writers.
QUESTIONS ON THE CALENDAR LESSONS: 1894
EDITOR OF NEW CHURCH LIFE. DEAR SIR:-In following the Calendar Lessons I often am obscure as to the meaning of the explanations given in the Arcana, and I find others are troubled in the same way. Your monthly summaries are very helpful but do not always tell all I want to know. I notice your readers do not often ask questions, but since you have invited them I think perhaps we are neglecting not merely a privilege, but a duty; for as I understand it, an efficient clergy requires an active and responsive laity-one that asks questions. So here is a first attempt to atone for past deficiencies. 1. In the summary in the January Life, page 6, column 2, it is said that the Divine Human exists from the Divine Itself (or the Divine Esse) but that the Human was made the Divine Esse: How can what is from another become that other? Or, how can the Divine Esse (as is there said) communicate Itself by the Divine Human, which is the Divine Esse? 2. On page 7, middle of column 1, why are the "things of the Law" spoken of as if able to act, as persons-that is, they receive instructions to communicate with those in falses-and yet are to inflow, which seems to involve impersonality? 3. The infesters are said to be commanded to live the life of truth. Of what use is such instruction in the other life, where reformation is no longer possible? Hoping you will kindly give me an answer, especially to question 1, I am, very respectfully, Q.
ANSWER.
1. AN error in quoting from the Arcana Coelestia has no doubt helped to obscure the understanding of the teaching in the mind of our correspondent. In the passage referred to, in the Life for January, a line was omitted. The sentence in the middle of the right-hand column, page 6, should read "hence it may appear that the Divine Esse cannot communicate itself to any one except through the Divine Existere-that is, the Divine Itself [could not communicate itself to any one] except through the Divine Human, and the Divine Human cannot communicate itself to any, one except through the Divine Truth, which is the Holy Spirit." The supplied line restores the correct category of terms, and, therefore, of ideas. Our correspondent will find some help in New Church Life for November, 1892, page 165, where a related question was answered. Briefly, he has fallen into an error similar to the one there discussed, namely, the error of confounding what proceeds from the LORD, with what has been created by Him. "What proceeds from the LORD is the LORD" (A. C. 8864, 9407). The Divine Truth which proceeds from the Divine Human bears the same relation to it that the Divine Human bears to the Divine Itself, or the Divine Existere to the Divine Esse. As "Q" correctly implies, what is from another, in the sense of being a separated entity, cannot become that other. Hence it is that" the finite cannot proceed from the Infinite-but the finite can be produced from the Infinite" (D. P. 219). A human son whose soul is an offshoot of his human father's soul, is a separated being, and cannot become his human father. In the case of the LORD, His soul was not an offshoot of His Father's Soul, but was the Divine Father Himself and He is called "Son" only in adaptation to the appearances in which men's ideas are involved. The merely human, which clothed the Divine, was not "made Divine" in the sense of its material and natural substances being transmuted into Divine substance, but in the sense that the merely material and natural substances were laid off, and that the Divine took their place in the ultimate sphere of human existence. 2. Truths and goods are the only living things. When a man is said to do or say a thing, it is the good and truth in him, or the evil and the false, as the case may be, which really do and speak; and, as goods and truths are the living-things in man, the communication between them, in man's mind, is a living one, although man is very rarely aware of it. Influx is not, properly, predicated of impersonal things, but of things truly human; derivatively it may be predicated even of the operations which take place by means of the body. When a man speaks a word, his breath inflows into the air, and is communicated, though mostly in an imperceptible manner, to the person addressed. In fact, much of the feeling of sympathy or antipathy is excited, in personal intercourse, by the interior quality of the breath as bearer of the thoughts, and by these as bearers of the affections. 3. The third question arises from a misunderstanding of the text. The passage referred to relates that the infesters should be communicated with, "that the Divine of the LORD had commanded, 'JEHOVAH the God of the Hebrews hath met us'-that they should live the life of truth in a state entirely removed from falses, although in obscurity, 'and now let us go, I pray, a way of three days into the desert.'" The context shows that "they" refers to those of the spiritual Church, who were to be liberated, represented by the Israelites-not to the infesters, represented by Pharaoh, as supposed by our correspondent.-EDITOR.
47
LIFE OF THE NEW CHURCH Various 1894
THE ACADEMY OF THE NEW CHURCH.
Philadelphia.-"THE Divine Mediation by the Holy Spirit" (Exodus iv, 11) formed the subject of Bishop Pendleton's sermon on the LORD'S Day, January 21st. Pastor Schreck, on January 28th, preached on "The God of the Ancient Churches, the God of the New Church" (Exodus iv, 5). The Sacrament of Baptism was administered on this occasion, by Bishop Pendleton, to a lady of the congregation. The two hundred and sixth anniversary of Swedenborg's birthday was celebrated on February 29th, by a lecture delivered in the evening before the Congregation and the school by Professor Odhner. The lecturer briefly reviewed the leading events in Swedenborg's life, and continued with a sketch if the rise and progress of the New Church in Sweden, England, America, on the Continent of Europe, in Australia, South Africa and in India. The lecture was illustrated by the stereopticon, exhibiting the portraits of such representative men of the New Church as John Clowes, Robert Hindmarsh, Joseph Proud, Manoah Sibly, Judge John Young, John Hargrove, Richard de Charms, and others. The attendance was good, in spite of inclement weather. On February 4th, Pastor Price preached on the subject of "Purification" as represented by Circumcision (Exodus iv, 24-26). In the afternoon of the same day a memorial service was held in the Hall of Worship, commemorating the departure of Mrs. J. P. Stuart into the spiritual world, on February 2d. After the usual opening, with the LORD'S Prayer and the Sanctus, Bishop Pendleton read from the Heavenly Doctrine, n. 223-228. A silent pause was followed by the singing of Hosea, vi v. 1-3. Pastor Odhner read Heaven and Hell, n. 432, 433, 436, 437; Bishop Pendleton read Psalm xc, and the anthem Psalm xvi was sung. Pastor Odhner then gave an outline of lives of the former Mr. Stuart, and his wife who had now followed him to the Spiritual World twelve years later. Then, in announcing the beautiful anthem, Psalm xxiii, Bishop Pendleton dwelt on the Spiritual Resurrection which takes place when man consents to let the LORD lead him, throngh the "valley of shadow," or temptations, to the blessedness and satisfaction of life in the LORD. Mention was made also of the decease, on February 3d, of Mrs. Andrew Klein, of Brooklyn, also a member of the Academy. The newness and the impressive and elevating quality of the service were much enjoyed. During the same afternoon the remains were being interred beside those or Mr. Stuart, in the burial-ground of the former Delaware County Society at Darby. Candidate R. H. Keep read the burial service. On February 11th, Pastor Odhner preached on the subject of "Influx, immediate and mediate" Exodus iv, 27-31), and Bishop Pendleton, on February 18th, on the subject of "The Spirit and the Letter" (Exodus v, 1). The second of the congregational socials, which were inaugurated on the "Founders' Day," took place on Friday evening, February 18th, in place of the usual classes for singing and doctrinal instruction. Bishop and Mrs. Pendleton were assisted in receiving this time by Dr. and Mrs. G. R. Starkey. The marked feature of this occasion was the quiet but intense enjoyment of all, and the appreciation of these socials as answering to a very real need in the Church life. A new Roster of the Schools went into effect on February 4th. During the month on Mondays, in the first school hour, lectures on the subject of "The Word" have been delivered by Bishop Pendleton. Professor Schreck began a series of lectures on "Charity," which will be continued in March. A gown for the use of the professors has been designed, and is worn for the present at the daily opening services of the schools, and at the lectures. Some of the young pupils in the Boys' School have printed and published the first number of a little paper called The Juvenile, probably the smallest ever published in the Church. Berlin.- Swedenborg's Birthday was celebrated by the Berlin School of the Academy, with a social held in the school building, in the morning. The time was spent in games and dancing. During the partaking of refreshments there was a social talk about Swedenborg, which was much enjoyed by the children. The celebration by the congregation took place in the evening, opening with a supper. After the tables were removed, dancing was the order of the evening, members of the orchestra furnishing the music. During an intermission cake and wine were distributed and toasts were drunk to "The Church," "Emanuel Swedenborg," "The Academy," "The Parkdale School and Church," and "The Head-Master and Pastor in Parkdale." There were many expressions of delight because of the happiness of the Church in Parkdale, in having entered into its new home. At a late hour the celebration closed all feeling that it had been an occasion great use and pleasure. In the evening of February 18th, a memorial service was held to commemorate the resurrection of Mrs. Elizabeth Rothaermal, who, on the 15th, at the advanced age of 73, passed into the other world after a long and painful illness, whither a much-loved husband had preceded her by seven years. The two were pioneers in the Church to which they bequeath thirty grandchildren. Of these, nineteen are receiving or are about to receive New Church education in the Berlin and Parkdale schools; one is an adult, in the sphere of the Church here; of the other ten, five, in far-off California, are receiving home-training from their New Church father. Parkdale.-THE school here, after having been suspended for some time, owing to the lack of a place in which to hold it, was reopened on Monday, the 22d of January, in a new building which has been erected by the Church here for that purpose. The schoolroom is 19 by 15 1/2 feet, and is very comfortable and suitable for its use. On this occasion it was well filled with children and their parents, some of the latter having to sit in the entrance hall. The first official act in the building was the baptism of two boys, candidates for admission to the school, who were then formally received as pupils. After this followed the opening exercises, including the singing of [Hebrew] and the recitation of the Ten Commandments in Hebrew. Before concluding, the Head Master in an address, dwelt upon the great cause there was for thankfulness to the LORD for having provided such a suitable home for the school; and pointed out that those who had been instrumental, under the LORD, in having the building erected had done this especially for the sake of the children, that they might be saved from Old Church influences and he educated for heaven; for, apart from the necessities of the school, the old place would have been sufficient for worship for some time. Ten boys are attending the school this session, aged from eight to fourteen years. There are also four or five girls who would attend if a lady teacher could be supported, but financial difficulties prevent this for the present. The hall for worship in the same building was opened on the following Sunday.
THE GENERAL CHURCH OF THE ADVENT OF THE LORD.
Chicago.-IN the Immanuel Church the anniversary of Swedenborg's Birthday was recognized by a social. On February 13th Mr. and Mrs. Hugh L. Burnham gave a birthday party, at which the guests wore Greek costumes. Brooklyn.-ON February 3d, Mrs. Rosina Klein, the wife of Mr. Andrew Klein, passed into the spiritual world on her fifty-sixth birthday. Mrs. Klein was a native of Baden, but at an early age was brought to this country, where she subsequently was married. Together with her husband she began to study the Doctrines of the New Church in the year 1869, and from that time has remained a steadfast and most affectionate member of the Church. Through all the changes and vicissitudes of the German New Church in New York and Brooklyn she adhered loyally to the faith in the Divine Authority of the Heavenly Doctrines, and until the day of her death remained a loving and active member of the Church of the Academy, and of the General Church of the Advent of the LORD A funeral service for her family and relations was conducted by Pastor Jordan, Sunday, February 4th, and a memorial meeting for the members of the Church on the following evening; after the religious services the company partook of bread and wine, while thought and speech lingered on the things of the Church, especially upon the resurrection in the spiritual world of the beloved mother and friend who was now ministered unto by celestial angels.
THE CHURCH AT LARGE.
Maine.-THE Society at Bath, on January 14th, commemorated the fiftieth anniversary of the dedication of the New Church Temple in that city. Accounts were read of the beginning and development of the New Church in Bath. The present Pastor is the Rev. G. H. Dole, formerly of Gorand Rapids, Michigan. During the services Mr. Y. W. Shafer was ordained a Priest of the New Church, by the Rev. Dr. Samuel F. Dike. The Doctrines of the New Church were introduced into Bath as early as the year 1810. The Society was first organized in the year 1829, and the present Temple was dedicated in the year 1844. Massachusetts.-IN consequence of the continued severe illness of the Rev. John Worcester, the Newtonville Society, of which he is the Pastor, at a meeting held on January 6th, unanimously passed a resolution, requesting him to hold himself free from the performance of any actual work for the Society during the present year in order to regain his health and strength, the salary to continue as usual. Mr. Louis G. Heck, formerly of England, but now a student in the Convention's Theological School at Cambridge, has been engaged to conduct the re-
48
CHURCH AT LARGE. 1894
NEW CHURCH LIFE. PUBLISHED MONTHLY BY THE ACADEMY OF THE NEW CHURCH.
TERMS:-One Dollar per annum, payable in advance. FOUR SHILLINGS IN GREAT BRITAIN.
The EDITOR'S address is 1821 Wallace Street, Fairmount Station, Philadelphia. Address all business communications to MR. CARL HJ. ASPLUNDH, No. 1821 Wallace Street, Fairmount Station, Philadelphia, Pa. Subscriptions are also received through the following agents: UNITED STATES. Chicago, Ill., Mr. A. E. Nelson, Chicago Agent of Academy Book-Room, No. 565 West Superior Street. Pittsburgh, Pa., Mr. Wm. Rott, Pittsburgh Agent of Academy Book-Room,, Tenth and Carson Streets. CANADA. Toronto, Ont., Mr. R. Carswell, 20 Equity Chambers. Waterloo, Mr. Rudolph Roschman. GREAT BRITAIN. Mr. E. W. Misson, Agent for Great Britain, of Academy Book-Room, Burton Road, Brixton, London, S. W.
PHILADELPHIA, MARCH, 1994=124.
CONTENTS.
PAGE EDITORIAL NOTES 33 The Uses of Baptism (a Sermon) 34 The Infestation of the Spiritual (Exodus v) 37 Celebration of Founders' Day 39 NOTES AND REVIEWS 44 COMMUNICATED: Questions on the Calendar Lessons 46 LIFE OF THE NEW CHURCH 47 ANNOUNCEMENT 48 BIRTH 48 DEATHS 48 Academy Book Room 48
ligious services of the Society during the vacation of Mr. Worcester.
New York.- AT a meeting of the New York Society, held on January 24th, it was resolved to sell the lot and temple building, on Thirty-fifth Street, where the Society has worshiped since the year 1869, and to purchase a lot and erect a temple and parsonage on the west side, where the great majority of the members reside. Pennsylvania.-THE "Swedenborg Publication Association," of Philadelphia, has published its twenty-first annual report. This institution is now under the management of a daughter of the late Rev. B. F. Barrett, the former manager of the association. THE Society in Pittsburgh, of which the Rev. John Whitehead is the Pastor, held its annual meeting on January 8th. The Pastor, in his address, referred to the former connection of the Society with the General Church of Pennsylvania, asserting, as at other times, that that Church had departed from the true order of the New Church, by adopting a form of government similar to that of the Roman Catholic Church. The Society has received seven new members during the year, and has lost two by death. The present membership is fifty-two. THE Rev. A. B. Doily, who is the missionary of the Pennsylvania Association, Preaches monthly, by turns, in Allentown, Lancaster, Harrisburg, and Norristown. The Society at Allentown, which is connected with the Association, consists of seventeen members. The Lancaster Society has been increased by sixteen new members. ON January 19th the American New Church Tract and Publication Society held its annual meeting. During the year thirty-eight thousand volumes have been published, of which ten thousand were an edition of The Nature of Spirit, by the Rev. Chauncey Giles, printed for free distribution at the World's Fair. Twenty-one thousand copies of the "Gift books" have been distributed to Old Church clergymen during the year 1893. Ohio.-The League, a monthly paper published by the young people connected with the New Church in Cincinnati, has been discontinued, owing to the difficulty in finding an actively interested editor for it. THE Cincinnati Society is contemplating the purchase or a lot for the erection of a new church edifice in a more central part of the city. ONE of the oldest and most widely known members of the New Church in Ohio, Mr. Lemuel Powell, for many years a member of the Society in Middleport, recently passed into the spiritual world at the great age of eighty-three years. The house of worship of this' Society was erected mainly through his efforts. He was much opposed to the distinctive office of the Priesthood in the New Church, but is said to have moderated his views considerably within the last few years. In personal appearance he much resembled his brother, the late Rev. David Powell. Illinois.-THE Rev. L. G. Landenberger has been engaged as a missionary of the Illinois Association. A SERIES of sight public lectures on the General Doctrines of the New Church was delivered by the Rev. J. B. Parmelee, at Sandoval, in the southern part of this State, during the month of January. Great interest is said to have been excited by the lecturer. Missouri.-The American New Church Society in St. Louis is reported as making progress, under the pastoral leading of the Rev. J. B. Parmelee. Lately a number of new members have been added to the Society. California.- SOME of the New Church people resident at Riverside, Southern California, are planning the organization of a co-operative New Church colony, to engage in fruit-growing and general farming; and they invite New Church families to join in the enterprise. Olive trees, well rooted, and one year old, are advertised for sale by J. M. Edmiston, West Central Avenue, Riverside, California. They will be sent, securely packed, to any part of the United States for fifty cents a tree, or three trees for one dollar.
CANADA.
THE Toronto Society has adopted the collection of chants and hymns recently published by the General Convention under the title, The Magnificat. In his sermon, on January 21st, the Pastor, the Rev. G. L. Allbutt, expressed his regret that the Committee of Compilation had introduced some hymns into this book in which the word "cross," and kindred expressions in relation to the Passion of the LORD, were too frequently used, and without the proper qualification, when other words would have brought out the distinctive doctrinal position of the New Church much more emphatically.
ENGLAND.
THE New Church Society in Blackpool, which held its annual meeting on January 17th, has more than doubled in membership and attendance during the past year. This is said to have been due solely to the ministrations of the new Pastor, the Rev. A. E. Beilby. Not often can a New Church Society report a similar increase. THE Rev. W. T. Lardge, of Clayton-le-Moors, has accepted the pastorate of the New Church Society at Preston, which has been vacant since the removal of the Rev. Isaiah Tansley to Heywood last summer. THE Liverpool Society has lost one of its most prominent and active members, by the death of Dr. E. M. Sheldon, on November 28th. The son of a prominent Newchurchman Dr. Sheldon was connected with the Church during his entire life, and took an active part in the meetings of the General Conference.
SWEDEN
THE work on Conjugial Love in a new translation by the Rev. C. J. N. Manby, is now being published as a whole, by the New Church Publishing Association, of Stockholm. THE Nya Kyrkans Tidning, edited by the Rev. A. Bjorck, has been increased from 16 to 24 pages. This monthly is now reported as self-supporting, being perhaps the only journal of the Church, of which the same can be said. It is to be regretted that an advertisement of the Swedish organ of Spiritism is admitted into its pages. THE fund for the erection of a Temple of the New Church Society in Stockholm has been increased by over 8,000 crowns, during the past year.
HUNGARY.
THE New Church Society in Buda-Pesth celebrated the Birth of the LORD into the world with a pleasant and useful festival. The public betrothal of two of the members of the Church took place at the same time. This is probably the first time in the history of the New Church on the continent of Europe, when "the consent has been confirmed and established by a solemn betrothal" (C. L. 301). The appeal of the Buda-Pesth Society, for aid in the publication of the Doctrine of Life in the Hungarian tongue has received some liberal responses
ANNOUNCEMENT 1894
BROWN-ROSCHMAN.-Mr. and Mrs. Richard Roschman desire to announce to the members of the Academy and to those of the General Church of the Advent of the LORD, the approaching nuptials of their sister Miss Minnie Roschman, of Berlin, and Mr. Charles Brown, of Parkdale, which will be celebrated on Thursday 4 P. M., March 8th, 1894=124, in the chapel of the Academy of the New Church, in Berlin.
JUST PUBLISHED 1894
LESSONS IN ANATOMY FOR THE CHILDREN OF THE NEW CHURCH. Part iii, The Tongue. Price, 25 cents; postage, 2 cents. For sale at the Academy Book Room, 1821 Wallace Street, Philadelphia.
49
He who wishes to be wise 1894
New Church Life Vol. XIV, No. 4 PHILADELPHIA, APRIL, 1894=124. Whole No. 162.
He who wishes to be wise, not from the world but from the Lord, says in his heart that the Lord is to be believed-that is, what the Lord has spoken in the Word.- A. C. 128.
Title Unspecified 1894
THREE distinct things are involved in the Advent of the LORD; first, the utter lack of knowledge of things Divine on the part of the devastated Church, and hence the utter lack of anything that may truly be said to be of the Church; secondly, the Judgment; and thirdly, the establishment of the New Church, which shall acknowledge the LORD as the Redeemer and Saviour. Dwelling upon any of these three, without due regard to the others, leads to fallacies, which, when confirmed, turn into falses, to the injury of the Church. On the part of those who have made it their avowed mission to publish abroad the Doctrines of the New Church, there has been, and still is,-a widespread disregard for the three essential circumstances of the LORD'S Advent. The latest evidence of this disregard is furnished in the new addition to the periodical literature of the New Church, a notice of which will be found elsewhere.
Title Unspecified 1894
FROM the two leading editorial articles the reader learns that The New Church Review knows of a "revealed system of spiritual truth," and that, finding a world which "is sincerely anxious to know the truth," it has set itself the task of bringing together the revelation of truth on the one hand and the truth-seeking world on the other. The object would seem most laudable were there sufficient assurance, first, that the Review's acknowledgment of the revealed system of spiritual truth is such a one as that system itself calls for, and, secondly, that the assumption concerning the world's sincere anxiety to know the truth, is well established.
Title Unspecified 1894
THE Review starts out with the statement that
"The New Church is witness to the fact that there has been given to the world, through the writings of Swedenborg, 'servant of the Lord Jesus Christ,' a revealed system of spiritual truth which is serving to unfold the inner meaning of the Sacred Scriptures, according to a rational law of spiritual interpretation, and causing the great truths of the Christian religion to be seen in new light."
Were this description of the purpose of the Writings of the New Church given for the first time, it might pass unchallenged, on the plea of insufficient information. But the controversy over the parallel assertion of the Vice-President of the General Convention, that "the Doctrines are not the LORD-they are the means of coming to the LORD," had developed the important difference between this dogma and the true teaching that the Doctrines are the Internal Sense of the Word, that they are thus the LORD; and had brought to light the injury that is done to the Church by the adoption of the dogma that the Writings merely "serve to unfold the inner meaning of Sacred Scripture." The erroneous conception of the real quality of the Writings has led to the suppression, in the Review, of the truth, vital to the establishment of the New Church, that the LORD has made His Second Coming by means of a man before whom He has manifested Himself in Person, and whom He has filled with His Spirit to teach the Doctrines of the New Church, through the Word, from Him.
Title Unspecified 1894
THE non-acknowledgment of the Writings as the Second Coming involves the non-acknowledgment of the utterly devastated state of the Christian world, and the non-acknowledgment of the Judgment performed by the LORD at His Coming. And is not this state of non-acknowledgment due to a trust in one's own observations, one's own conclusions, one's own intelligence, instead of in the Word? The Review's attitude toward the state of the Christian world proves this. It has trusted its own senses, instead of consulting Divine Revelation, which presents a very different picture of the Christian world. It is unnecessary here to restate the teachings of the Word on the subject, as they have been frequently presented. A mere reference to the passages of the Word collected in the Doctrine concerning the Lord, n. 4, and to the general trend of the Internal Sense of the Prophets and Psalms, will suffice at this time. Strange as it may read, the Review, unwittingly, itself confirms the teachings concerning the evil and truth-shunning state of the Christian world, saying, "The religions world seems to have no real expectation that Its Lord will make available to its use a Divinely given, clearly written, abundantly Illustrated system of truth which shall serve as His authoritative interpretation of His teachings. The age seems to have no general wish for such a revelation."
With strangest inconsistency it continues:
"It is sincerely anxious to know the truth. At no period since the Christian Church began, does there appear to have been such a truth-seeking and truth-loving age as this present time in which we live."
Then the Review returns to its first conception:
"At the same time there is much confusion of thought, and often times religion seems to be more positive in what it rejects and denies than in what it actually, and hesitatingly, affirms.
An attempt to harmonize these contradictory statements follows farther on:
"At the present time the Christian world is intent apparently on trying to and out these things for itself. Whatever truth there is to be known, it expects to know by means of its own earnest investigations. It looks with suspicion upon anything which is offered as a 'revelation.' It is not unfriendly; it is not indifferent to the truth; it simply is not in a mood for revelation.
Ah! there is the trouble! "The Christian world is intent on finding out these things for itself"! The Review manifests at best but a compromising spirit, by inserting the palliative word "apparently," which is not warranted at all under the teachings of the LORD'S Word. Truly, "the world is in no mood for revelations," it is in no mood for the LORD GOD, for He is known only in and by Revelation.
Title Unspecified 1894
THE Review's description of the Christian world is its strongest condemnation, justifying as it does the claim of men like Mr. Huxley, that the "religious" part of the Christian world is rapidly falling into the attitude of his own class.
50
The Review could hardly have given a better authenticated description of the mental state which Mr. Huxley has denominated "agnosticism." The agnostic is "sincerely anxious to know the truth. He is intent apparently on trying to find out things for himself. What ever truth there is to be known, he expects to know by means of his own earnest investigations He looks with suspicion upon anything which is offered as a revelation, he is not unfriendly; he is not indifferent to the truth, he is simply not in a mood for revelations.
Title Unspecified 1894
DOES not the Review see that it has fallen into the lamentable error of confounding the thirst for knowledge and investigation, which the LORD has implanted in the natural mind of man-of the evil as well as of the good-with the love of truth, which comes from an internal affection, and which turns as naturally to Revelation as the flower dues to the sun? Is it not very sad that a New Church periodical should confound distinctions so important, so essential, so vital, that the Divine Wisdom itself has deigned to approach to earth in order to convey the knowledge of them, and to institute a New Church, which shall treasure this knowledge, and form its judgment accordingly.
Title Unspecified 1894
THAT there is much inquiry and mental activity in this age is admitted, being evident to every one. That the inquiry is directed to spiritual things, is emphatically denied. The activity is limited entirely to the field of the sensual and natural mind. The natural and sensual rational, self-vaulting Reason, is very active. Not so the spiritual rational. This is closed by the very affection of which the Review witnesses when it say that "it is not in the mood for revelations." If the world is not in this mood, then the "truth," which it is " sincerely anxious" to find, is not the truth of faith, but merely natural truth, mere science. The truths of faith can be known only by revelation from the Word (A. C. 865, 8944, et at.). Even investigations like those that are classified as modern Biblical science, deal with merely natural lungs, indeed ofttimes with things so puerile that one is amazed at the structures which human conceit rears thereon, and at the admiration expressed by men from whose learning one might reasonably expect some judgment. Their investigations are not for the purpose of discovering the ONE LORD GOD JESUS CHRIST. They are simply a pursuit, by the natural mind, in quest of food on which it may batten. The Christian Church has slain her LORD, and the natural mind is dividing His garments. Not "misconception and prejudice," merely, "have prevented the many from making any serious effort to know the fundamental principles of this new Christian theology," but internal rejection of the LORD and confirmed interior love of evil.
They who are in evil 1894
They who are in evil do not believe, but they who are in good.- A. C. 4368.
TO HIM who wishes to be wise from the world 1894
TO HIM who wishes to be wise from the world, things sensual and scientific are the garden; his Eden is the love of self and of the world; the East is the west, or himself; his river Euphrates is all his scientific, which is damned; the second river, where is Assyria, is insane reasoning, thence falsities- A. C. 130.
LOVE OF ADULTERY 1894
(One of a series of sermons on the Decalogue, preached by Candidate Joseph E. Boyesen to the Pittsburg Society, in the summer of 1893.)
Thou shalt not commit adultery."-Exodus xx, 14.
Ye have heard that it was said to them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: but I say unto you that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart" (Matth. v, 27, 28). "So far as any one shuns adultery of every kind, as sins, so far he loves chastity" (Doctrine of Life, n. 74).
CONCERNING Conjugial Love, the holiest and most excellent of loves, all mankind must needs have remained in densest ignorance but for the LORD'S mercy in coming again and revealing the quality of this Love, from Himself out of Heaven and, ignorant of this, men would never have known what an enormous and utterly profane evil is the love of Adultery. From anything on earth, it was not possible to restore the knowledge of Conjugial Love. The Love itself-having perished under the overwhelming lusts of men's evil loves, there was no longer any knowledge of its sanctity and purity, and the Revelation given by the LORD at His first Coming being totally perverted, such knowledge was inevitably lost. Nothing could be known from historical records, for the ages of the Ancients, with whom Conjugial Love was in its purity, and was the love of loves, passed away before the time when historical writing came into use. And thus it was impossible on earth to acquire any knowledge concerning their marriages, from which to learn the heavenly nature of Conjugial Love. But the LORD is ever merciful. He has come among men a second time, and now reveals this Love and its chaste delights to those who are willing, by means of His opened Word, to be made spiritual from Him; and at the sane time by His Divine Light He discloses the love of Adultery with its sinful pleasures. And it has also pleased the LORD to unfold by a spiritual way what was the nature and quality of Conjugial Love among those who lived in the golden age and in the ages following, which have their names from silver, copper, and iron. For it was given Swedenborg to visit the eternal dwelling-places of the people of these several ages, whence he learned from their own mouth what Conjugial Live was with them during their abode here on earth. The angel who was appointed by the LORD a to be guide and companion to Swedenborg, on this his journey in the spiritual world, to learn the nature and quality of Conjugial Love in the Golden Age and in the ages following having conducted him through the heavens inhabited by those most ancient people, from which was seen the sanctity and purity of that love in earliest times, which, however, successively fell away from its primitive excellence,-said to Swedenborg: "Are you desirous of seeing the age which succeeded these Ancient ones, and to know what its quality formerly was, and still is? Follow me and thou shalt see." This angel now took him through a formidable forest, where were lakes in which appeared crocodiles; and between the lakes terrible dogs, some three-headed like Cerberus, some two headed, all looking at them with a horrible hungry snarl and fierce eyes; and they saw dragons and leopards, such as are described in the Revelation. And then they passed through a sloping wilderness, not lees terrible, consisting of heaps of stones, and ditches between them, out of which crept hydras and vipers, and flew forth venomous, flying serpents; after which they descended by a long, steep descent, and at length came to the valley, inhabited by the people of that region.
51
In conversation with them Swedenborg learned their ideas of marriage and Conjugial Love; and concerning this region and the people therein, to which he had been led in order to discover what Conjugial Love became in process of time, and still is at this day, the angel afterward spoke the following words: "Into this region new-comers from the earth daily enter, and the former inhabitants are by turns separated and cast down in the gulphs of the west, which appear at a distance like lakes of fire and brimstone. All in those gulphs are spiritual and natural adulterers. . . they are shut up in eternal working-houses, where they labor for food, for clothing, and for beds to lie on; and when they do evil they are grievously and miserably punished." Swedenborg then asked why he said that they are spiritual and natural adulterers, and had not said that they are evil-doers and impious. The angel replied, "Because all those who repute adulteries as nothing-that is, who believe that they are not sins, and do them from the confirmed and thus the intended idea that they are not sins-are in their hearts evildoers and impious; for the human Conjugial and Region go together in every step; every step and every course, from Religion and in Religion, is also a step and course by the Conjugial and in the Conjugial, which is peculiar and proper to the Christian man." On being asked what the Conjugial was, the angel said to Swedenborg: "It is the desire of living with one wife alone, and this desire every Christian man has according to his religion." There are few at this day who will believe that the delight of Adultery is very Hell with man, but that the delight of Marriage is even Heaven with him. How many at this day can believe that Adultery is the fundamental love of all the diabolical and infernal loves, but that the chaste love of Marriage is the fundamental love of all the heavenly and celestial loves? And who would understand and be willing to believe that so far as man is in the love of Adultery he is in all evil love, but that so far as he is in the chaste love of Marriage so far lie is in every good love? Tell a man of the present Christian Era that an adulterer does not believe anything in the Word, not anything of the Church, yea, that in the heart he denies the existence of a God, but that he who is in the pure love of Marriage is in Charity and Faith, and in love to the LORD, and he will think you a wild fanatic. Tell him that the chastity of Marriage makes one with Religion and with Heaven, but that the lasciviousness of Adultery makes one with atheism, naturalism, and Hell, and he will think you insane. In the world, called Christian, so few are those who have the intelligence to understand or the will to believe these things, that they may be compared with doves in a wide wilderness. Marriages had been esteemed most holy in most Ancient times, but were afterwards wretchedly perverted into adulteries. Men more and more immersed themselves into the loves of self and the world, until at this day they are in the infernal belief that adulteries are not detestable and abominable, and that marriages do not differ from them in their essence, but only as to order. Hence they are not only ignorant of the quality of conjugial love, but they scarcely know there is such a love. The end of the Church has come when the Heavenly Marriage of good and truth, the source of Conjugial Love, is destroyed; thus when every good and truth of the Word is devastated, when adultery is not made a sin against religion, and when, moreover, religion is not made a matter of life, but only a matter of form-good and useful for children and the simple, and serviceable to preserve order in society, and to secure an honorable appearance before the world. Religion, therefore, is nothing any more. The Consummation of the Age, predicted by Daniel, when there will be the abomination of desolation and great affliction, such as there has not been from the beginning of the world, is now at hand, for adulteries prevail in the world in a degree such as has not been since the creation, and Conjugial Love is extinct; the greatest prize that can be obtained by man on earth, the richest bounty of Infinite Love toward men, has been cruelly perverted and destroyed. The angels of Heaven, we are told, grieve over this condition of the Christian world, yet they entertain the hope that Conjugial Love will be revived by the God of Heaven, who is the LORD, because they know that it can be revived (C. L. 81). By believing adulteries lawful and perceiving them more delightful than marriages, the men of the present Church have departed from the LORD, shut Heaven to themselves and opened Hell. By committing them from the leave and consent of their will and from an aversion to marriage, they have become so sensual and corporeal, that they do not believe anything of Heaven and the Church-yea, hold such things in aversion, whereas the poisonous exhalations ascending from the Stygian waters of Hell, which are all reasonings in favor of Adultery, are received with greatest delight: reasonings, namely, that marriages and adulteries are similar, but that marriages must be for the sake of order and on account of the education of the offspring; that adulteries are not criminal, since from them offspring is produced equally as from marriages; that they cause no injury to women, and, further, that by them, like as by marriages, the procreation of the human race is promoted-such reasonings obsess the minds of most men of the present day. That Marriage is Heaven, and Adultery, Hell, cannot be seen better than from the origin of each. The origin of Conjugial Love is the Love of the LORD toward the of Conjugial whence there is the marriage of the LORD with the Church, and the conjunction of the LORD with every man in whom the Church is. The conjunction of the LORD with the man of the Church is the conjunction of good and truth, which is called the celestial marriage, and from this exists Love truly Conjugial between married consorts, who are in such conjunction with the LORD. The origin of Conjugial Love is, therefore, from the LORD alone, and with those who are in the conjunction of good and truth from Him. Thus the origin of Conjugial Love being the marriage of good and truth, which in its essence is Heaven, it is evident that due origin of the love of adultery is the marriage of evil and falsity, which in its essence is Hell, consequently that Marriage and Adultery are opposite to each other as Heaven and Hell are. How holy Marriages are, in themselves, may appear from this consideration, that from them not only the earths but also the Heavens, are filled with inhabitants, thus that they make one with the end of creation. The earth may indeed be filled with inhabitants by fornications and adulteries as by Marriages, but not Heaven. Add to this, that from Conjugial Love, or from the marriage of good and truth, the angels of Heaven-derive all their intelligence and wisdom, all the innumerable delights of their life, all the beauty of their form and countenance, all their innocence and peace, yea, in short, that Conjugial Love is the source of all they are, all they have, and all they enjoy, and it may be seen how holy marriages ought to be held by the man of the Church, and hence how profane and detestable he ought to consider adulteries.
52
It will be remembered that the angel who conversed with Swedenborg, spoke of spiritual and natural adulterers, and also in general explained what he meant thereby; but from the explanation, in the various senses of the Word, of the precept "Thou shalt not commit Adultery," it will appear more clearly what is meant by spiritual and natural adulterers. In the natural sense, to commit Adultery not only means committing fornication, but also acting obscenely, speaking lasciviously, and willing and thinking what is unclean. Thus this precept refers as well to the actions of man as to the intention and desires of his will. In the spiritual sense, to commit Adultery means to adulterate the goods of the Word and to falsity its truths; and in the supreme sense, to commit Adultery is to deny the Divinity of the LORD and profane the Word. In the explanation of these senses the following is said in the Doctrine of Life for the New Jerusalem: "The natural man does not know that to commit Adultery also means to adulterate the goods of the Word and falsify its truths, and, still less that it means to deny the LORD'S Divinity and profane the Word. Hence he does not know that Adultery is so great an evil, that it may be called devilishness itself; for he who is in natural Adultery is also in spiritual Adultery, and vice versa" (ii. 74). In the light of this Teaching it appears that they are adulterers in the highest sense who deny the Divinity of the LORD and profane the Word, for thereby the Marriage of the LORD with the Church is broken, which Marriage solely exists from and depends upon the acknowledgment of the Divinity of the LORD and the Holiness of the Word. To adulterate the goods of the Word is to apply them to evils. Thus, when the goods which are taught in the Word are done from selfish ends, they are adulterated. For when they are not done for the sake of the neighbor and the common good, which is the end for which the LORD gives them, they are perverted, and the Marriage which exists between uses and the love of the neighbor is destroyed. And to falsify the truths of the Word is to apply them to the confirmation of what is false and evil. Take as an example the false dogma of Salvation by Faith Alone, and the life justified thereby, which men support by the truths of the Word. To do this is to commit spiritual Adultery, for, instead of using the truth as a means of leading to Heaven, it is used as a means of furthering man on his way to Hell, whereby the truth is separated from its connection with the LORD and thus deprived of its saving virtue. It may easily be seen that, in the natural sense, to commit Adultery is also to act obscenely, to speak lasciviously, and to think and will what is unclean, because such things are against Chastity, and all things which are against Chastity are Adulteries, because they destroy the Conjugial, which is Chastity itself. This is confirmed by these words of the text: "Ye have heard that it was said to them of old time, Thou shalt not commit Adultery: But I say unto you that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed Adultery with her already in his heart." From this it appears what is meant by committing spiritual and natural Adultery; but let us understand the statement that-"He who is in natural Adultery is also in spiritual Adultery, and vice versa." That he who is a natural adulterer is also a spiritual adulterer is evident from this, that, in prostituting the uses of Marriage, a man also falsifies the truths of the Word and adulterates its goods, since these uses are taught in the Word. The same person cannot but also deny in life the holiness of the Word and the Divinity of the LORD, for were he in the true acknowledgment of these things he would not act directly contrary to the Divine Command of the LORD: "Thou shalt not commit Adultery." It is also manifest that he who is in spiritual Adultery is also in natural Adultery, the two being related to each other as cause and effect. We know that spiritual Adultery abounds to a dreadful extent, since else the Church would not be at its end; and that natural Adultery is equally prevalent there is not only abundant evidence in what is done in the world, but also in what is related concerning spirits in the other world who are from the Christian countries of this earth, as also in what is revealed concerning the general character of Christians. Experiences related by Swedenborg show that they who deny the LORD'S Divinity and the holiness of the Word, and also they who falsify truths and adulterate goods, account Adulteries as nothing, and are, as it were, carried into them. And as to what is directly said concerning the general character of Christians, there can be no stronger evidence than the following passages: "Adulteries are accounted as nothing in the Kingdoms where the Church exists" (A. C. 8904). "At this day (the hell of adulterers) is growing, especially from those who are from the so-called Christian world and have had all the delight of their life in Adulteries" (A. C. 824). "In Christendom at this day Adultery is general. The reason is that they do not make the Doctrine of Faith a matter of life, and thus are spiritual adulterers" (S. D. 5339). "At this day there are more Adulteries in the Christian world than in any other Religion" (A. C. 8904). "The Christian world is worse than the Antediluvian one, in that it regards Adulteries as nothing" (S. D. 3598). "As to Adulteries and principles concerning them (in the Christian world) Hell is, as it were, open and received; not so much so outside of it" (S. D. 5832). Such is the real character of most Christians, appearances to the contrary notwithstanding Most people indeed seem to have an horror for crime; they are seized with pain at any least reference to the common evils of the day and carefully avoid the parts of the Word referring to them; and, besides this, the world is full of "charities." But all this cannot be but mostly external, for ignorance does not bespeak nor promote the morality of any one, and all these numerous charities merely prevent, but do not cure evils. Indeed Marriage itself is with many deemed a very good thing to prevent Adultery. Thus they think that when the necessary ceremony has been performed they can live as they please, and can by no means be charged with Adultery. They do not consider that there can be as much of lasciviousness in Marriages as out of them, and that he who does not shun lasciviousness in any form whatever is an adulterer whether he is married or not. This truth also is wholly unknown to them, that if married co sorts do not live according to the truths of the Word and shun all the lusts of their will, having regard to being one in minds to eternity, their love for each other is the love of Adultery, the love of satisfying their sensual appetites. Since, therefore; there is really nothing at all known in the world about the Chastity of Marriage, men cannot teach the shunning of the sin of Adultery, except as regards illegitimate conjunction, and even this they do not teach is to be shunned as a sin against God.
53
The internal sin of Adultery, such as exists in the minds of men, in every unclean thought and desire, in every perversion of a truth in favor of an evil life, in every sacrifice of a good to the attainment of worldly glory and honor-such sin is not taken into account, and if the sin of the spirit is not shunned there can be no real shunning of the external sin; for it is written, "He who is in natural Adultery is also in spiritual Adultery, and vice versa." "There are various causes which make a man seem chaste, not only to others but also to himself, while yet he is altogether unchaste; for he does not know that lust, when it is in the will, is a deed, and that it cannot be removed, except by the LORD, after repentance. Abstinence from the doing does not make any one chaste, but abstinence from the Willing, when he can do, because it is a sin, does; . . . if he abstains from Adulteries from any natural or moral law, and not at the same time from a spiritual law, he is inwardly an adulterer and whoremonger" (T. C. R. 316). Hence no man knows what the Chastity of Marriage is, unless he shuns, as a sin against God, the lasciviousness into which he is born and to which, of himself, he continually inclines; and in order to be able to do this he must look to the LORD and pray to be delivered out of the spiritual Adultery in which he is. One may live externally a most chaste life and yet, in the sight of the LORD and of Heaven, be an adulterer. Hence is seen the truth of the test, that "So that as any one shuns adulteries of every kind, as sins, so far he loves Chastity." The reason that the enormity of adulterous love is not known in the world is because Conjugial Love is unknown; and indeed men are loath to learn about it, fearing the light of reality thrown upon a love, dear and delightful to them as very life itself. Indeed in the New Church there is, among many, a similar unwillingness to receive the Divine Teaching concerning Conjugial Love, and from what other cause proceeds this negative state, except from not wishing to see and shun their evils. Otherwise why it is so slowly recognized in the Church what is the state of the Christian world? Examine the history of the New Church and it will be noticed that where the Doctrine of Conjugial Love was known and received with delight, there first was recognized the real state of the Christian world, the foundation evil of which is the love of Adultery. Consider whether anyone can know what is false and evil, unless it be known what is good and true, and whether any one can know what is really unchaste, dishonorable, unbecoming, and ugly, unless it be known what is chaste, honorable, becoming, and beautiful. In like manner, who can clearly discern what is the quality of Adultery, unless he has clearly discerned what is the quality of Marriage? and who can make a just estimate of the filthiness of the pleasures of adulterous love, but he that has first made a just estimate of the purity of Conjugial Love? (C. L. 424). Man and woman both are unchaste from their birth, and Conjugial Love cannot be established in them, unless from being natural they become spiritual. Man is created the affection of truth, and woman the affection of good, and it is only so far as each becomes receptive of that influx from the LORD for which they were created, that they can enter into the chaste Love of Marriage, and be in Love truly Conjugial. Even as truth loves good, so man should look to his Creator and love to receive from Him that good which is intended for him, namely, Intelligence and Wisdom; and even as good loves truth, so woman should regard the LORD'S Divine Truth and love the Wisdom it imparts. This makes man a true man, and woman a true woman. And so far as man, by the reception of intelligence and wisdom from the LORD, becomes more and more a man; and so far as woman, by the reception of the affection of the LORD'S Truth, and the love of that Wisdom which the Lord Alone gives, becomes more and more a woman, thus so far as each individually conjoins good to truth in their minds and hearts, so far can they be united as truth and its good, and become "one flesh" in the eternal bonds of Conjugial Love. As it is in the spiritual mind of man that good and truth are received, in this mind it is that the very masculine and feminine reside, hence also Conjugial Love, for this Love is the love of a truth-for its good and of a good for its truth. From which it appears that Conjugial Love is the love of one man for one woman, whose love is for that one man, and the desire of living with each other alone, and none other. In the natural mind, on the contrary, dwells the love of Adultery, the delights of which are from the merely natural senses, whence there is the lust after variety. In order, therefore, that man may enter into Conjugial Love, his spiritual mind must be opened, which is effected by the love of performing uses. But uses which are done, be it remembered, receive their quality from the end for which they are done, so that uses which are done from the love of self are by no means genuine, but are only the very external form in which genuine uses terminate. Uses, done from self, though they may be useful to others, are not uses with the man himself, and do nothing toward furthering him in spiritual life, since not being done from love to the LORD and the neighbor, they are void of that life which is in all true uses. Genuine uses, by which the Conjugial is established and perfected, consist in the performance of them from love guided by Wisdom from the LORD. They exist from love to the LORD and the neighbor. And while use is not the merely external which is done, without the proper internal, neither is love to the LORD and the neighbor anything, when not ultimated in uses. Uses are, indeed, done in the world by those of the matate Church, but they are done for the sake of self and the world, for few, if any, think of fulfilling the functions of their employment and the duties of their office as the means of entering into the true love of performing uses. Would not men ridicule and scorn the idea of doing uses for the sake of use to the neighbor? Men of to-day do not love uses, nor do they love the truths by which they may come into the right performance of uses, but instead centre all their energy in mean and artful contrivances, by which to circumvent the neighbor; and neither do the women love the truths leading to spiritual life, but rather love to listen to the trifles and flatteries which men whisper in their ears, and to stimulate the men in the pursuance of their selfish endeavors. Man, instead of being the love of truth, is the love of the false; and woman, instead of being the love of good, is the love of evil. Thus as far as Hell is removed from Heaven, so far are man and woman from being what they ought to he; wherefore their conjunction cannot be Marriage, but Adultery. Therefore the first happy state of Marriage and the intimate conjunction of the partners at this time, which might have introduced into Conjugial Love, and the full performance of spiritual uses, are, with most, soon after the nuptials, succeeded by indifference, cold, and separation, and this because they do not strive to receive spiritual life from the LORD, do not perform uses from love to the neighbor, but only from love of gratifying self by ease and comfort, by honor and glory.
54
After the first love is spent, then Marriage, which truly is and should be Heaven upon earth, instead becomes the means of so completely manifesting and ultimating evils of life that it often results in nothing short of a veritable Hell upon earth. Even to such a degree is Conjugial Love lost to men at the present day. Wonder not, then, that to-day is the Consummation of the Age; or that to-day also is the Coming of the LORD again, to save all flesh. And as the loss of this love threatened all mankind with total damnation, so is the restoration thereof the only means of securing its Salvation. The great and blessed gift of Conjugial Love may therefore be hoped for by every one who is sincerely and faithfully striving to become a true member of the LORD'S New Church. For this is the promise of the Revelation for that Church, that Conjugial Love will be revived by the LORD after His Coming, and will be the portion of those who, from Him, by means of the Word, are made spiritual. Thus as the true Church is established-as Heaven again is with men on earth-will each of its members meet, even here in this world, that beautiful and lovely companion, provided from eternity; by their Loving Father in the Heavens, with whom they will dwell forever in the inmost blessedness and peace of Conjugial Love and the holy worship of Him who is the Giver of this unbounded happiness. Hear in conclusion the following words, spoken to Swedenborg by an angel of the highest Heaven: "These wives who now seem like young virgins, were in the world infirm old women; and their husbands who now seem in the spring of youth, were in the world decrepit old men; and all of them were restored to this prime of their age because they mutually loved each other, and from Religion shunned Adulteries as enormous sins," and he added: "No one knows the blessed delights of Conjugial Love unless he rejects the horrid delights of Adultery; and no one can reject these delights unless he is under the influence of Wisdom from the LORD; and no one is under the influence of Wisdom from the LORD, unless he performs uses from the love of uses."
PRAYER.
LORD and Saviour, Who by Thy Second Coming best become immediately present with the men of The New Church, from Thine Own Infinite Union with that Church, as the union of the Bridegroom with his Bride, we thank Thee for the restoration of Love truly Conjugial, and pray to become worthy of this Thy Great Mercy. Help us to become truly citizens of Thy New Jerusalem, in which Conjugial Love, the holy love of one man for one woman, will again, as in Most Ancient times, be the most precious jewel, the end and goal of life on earth.- Amen.
Title Unspecified 1894
A. C. 6047 When [the Word is searched from the affection of truth] then man is enlightened by the Lord.- A. C. 6047.
PROMISE OF DELIVERANCE 1894
EXODUS VI.
IN the preceding chapter those have been treated of who were of the spiritual kingdom of the LORD, that they were infested by falses, and finally, that on account of those infestations they were near despair; now they are raised up by the hope and the promise that they will be surely liberated; this thing is treated of in the internal sense in this chapter; and is signified by what JEHOVAH spake unto Moses. Afterward is described the spiritual Kingdom of the LORD, as to faith, and as to charity, and then as to doctrine, then also as to the reception of the Law Divine: Reuben and Simeon, and their families, represent those things which are of faith; Levi and his families, those things which are of charity; Aharon and his families, those things which are of Doctrine; and Moses those things which are of the Law Divine.
THE HOPE AND PROMISE OF LIBERATION.
(1.) They who were of the spiritual Church were instructed concerning the Law Divine, "And said JEHOVAH unto Moses"-from which they would have manifest perception what would happen to those who infest, "Now thou shalt see what I shall do to Pharaoh"-that with all force and power they will flee from them, "because with a strong hand shall he send them"-and that with all force and power they will drive them away out of their neighborhood, "and with a strong hand shall he expel them from his land." (2-8.) They were instructed anew, in continuation of the former instruction, and spake God unto Moses"-and the instruction was confirmed from the Divine, thus irrevocably "and said unto him, I am JEHOVAH"-that the LORD, as to the Human, must undergo temptations and that so also must the faithful, and that afterward they are consoled," and I appeared unto Abraham, and unto Isaak, and unto Jacob, in God Shaddai"-and that in the state of temptations, those who are of the spiritual Church do not think about the Divine things which are of the Church, "and by My Name JEHOVAH I was not known to them"-and still they are conjoined, at the time, with the LORD, through His Divine Human," and also I raised up My covenant with them"-by which conjunction they are elevated into heaven, "to give them the land of Canaan"-where are those things which are of faith and charity, concerning which they have been instructed, and according to which they have lived," the land of their sojournings, in which they have sojourned." The LORD knows their pain from the combat, "and also I, I have heard the groaning of the sons of Israel"-with those who are in falses, "that the Egyptians make them to serve"-and they will be exempted from them, because of the conjunction, "and I have remembered My covenant." The Law Divine will give those who are of the spiritual Church to apperceive, "therefore say to the sons of Israel"-the confirmation from the Divine, "I am JEHOVAH"-that the LORD will exempt them from the infestation of those who are in falses, "and I shall lead you forth from under the burdens of the Egyptians"-and fully from the effort of subjugation, "and will liberate you from their service"-and will lead them forth from hell, from Divine power, "and will redeem you with a stretched out arm"-according to the laws of order from the Divine Human of the LORD," and with great judgments"-and they will then be added to those in heaven who there serve the LORD," and I will take you to Me for a people"-and will also receive the Divine, "and I will be to you for a God"-and will then apperceive that the LORD alone is God, "and he shall know that I am JEHOVAH your God"-Who liberated them from infestations by falses, "leading you forth from under the burdens of Egypt"-Who from Divine Power elevates unto heaven, where the Divine Human is All, "and I will lead you down unto the land which I lifted up My hand, to give it to Abraham, to Isaak, and to Jacob"-and where they will have the life of the LORD to eternity, "and I will give it you an inheritance." And this hope and promise is again- confirmed from the Divine, "I am JEHOVAH."
55
(9-13.) They who were of the spiritual Kingdom of the LORD were exhorted in this manner by the Law Divine, "and spake Moses thus unto the sons of Israel"-but they did not receive the exhortation from faith and obedience, "and they did not hear to Moses"-because of the state which was near despair, "for anguish of spirit"-induced by the infestations by mere falses, "and for hard service." The instruction continues, "and JEHOVAH spake unto Moses, saying"-that those who infest by mere falses must be admonished, "Come, speak unto Pharaoh king of Egypt"-that they should go away and leave them, "and he shall send the sons of Israel out of his land." It must be borne in mind that all this instruction took place while the LORD was in the world, making His Human, Divine; and that while in the Human, when it was being made the Law Divine, He was thus operative in the spiritual world, Himself instructing those who are of the Spiritual Kingdom, in the lower earth. At the time of which the present verses treat, He thought, "and spake Moses before JEHOVAH; saying"-that the spiritual would not receive those things which were announced to them, "Behold the sons of Israel have not heard me"-and those who are in falses would not receive, "and how shalt Pharaoh hear me"-for to them He was impure, "and I am uncircumcised of lips;" for those who are in falses call the truths which are from the Law Divine, false, and the falses which are contrary to the truths which are from the Law Divine, they call true, for they are utterly opposed; hence the truths of Doctrine appear to them impure. Again came there the new instruction from the Law Divine, "and spake JEHOVAH unto Moses and unto Aharon"-concerning the commandment to those who were of the spiritual Kingdom of the LORD, "and commanded them unto the sons of Israel"-and concerning the admonition to those who infested by mere falses, "and unto Pharaoh king of. Egypt"-that they are to be liberated, "to lead the son of Israel out of the land of Egypt."
DESCRIPTION OF THE SPIRITUAL KINGDOM OF THE LORD.
We come to one of the passages in the Sacred Scripture which perplex by reason of the multiplicity of names, the connection between which- in the internal sense is not particularly explained. But if the reader will refer to the general explanation conveyed in n. 7231, and will bear it in mind while reading the following attempt at a connected rendering of the internal sense, he will receive much light. He will then see that the order in which the names occur is one that indicates the progressive order upwards, or inwards, in the regeneration of the Spiritual Church-a progress which begins with the acknowledgment of faith in the understanding, and ends with the very essence of the Church-charity. (14-25.) These are the chief things of the Spiritual Church, "These are the heads of the house of their fathers:" From the things which are of faith in the understanding, "the sons of Reuben, the first-born of Israel, Chanoch and Pallu, Chezron and Carmi"-and which are truth faith, "these are the families of Reuben"-there progression toward the things which are of faith in act, "and the sons of Shimeon, Jemuel, and Jamin, and Ohad, and Jachin, and Zochar"-and which are of truth in act outside of the Church, "and Shaul, the son of a Canaanitish woman"-all of which are truths and goods of faith in act, "these are the families of Shimeon." And from these again, there is a progression toward those things which are of charity, "and these are the names of the sons of Levi according to their nativities, Gershon, and Kehath, and Merari"-according to its quality and state, "and the years of the life of Levi; seven and thirty and a hundred years." In the life of charity there are successively developed several classes of goods and truths; a first class of derivations of good, and of the truth from good, "the sons of Gershon, Libni and Shimei, according to their families"-a second class of derivations of good and of the truth from good, "and the sons of Kehath, Amram, and Jizhar, and Chebron, and Ussiel"-according to their quality and state, "and the years of the life of Kehath, three and thirty, and a hundred years"-and a third class of derivations of good and truth, "and the sons of Merari, Machli, and Mushi." These are all goods and truths from charity, "these are the families of Levi according to their nativities." Good derived from charity is conjoined with relative truth, "and Amram took Jochebed his father's sister to him to wife" and from this conjunction springs the Doctrine of the Church and the Law from the Divine, "and she bare to him Aharon and Moses"-according to the quality and state of derived good, "and the years of the life of Amram were seven and thirty and a hundred years." From the second class of the derivations of good, and of truth from good, are successively derived good and truth from this good, "and the sons of Jizhar, Korach, and Nepheg, and Sichri." From the same class there is a second derivation as to good in truth, "and the sons of Ussiel, Mishael and Elzaphon, and Sithri." In the Doctrine of the Church, above referred to, as derived from the second class, good and truth are conjoined, owing to the influence of celestial love, "and Aharon took Elisheba, the daughter of Amminadab, the sister of Nachashon, to him to wife"-from which conjunction faith and charity are derived, "and she bare to him Nadab, and Abihu, and Eleasar, and Ithamar." There was an iterated derivation from the second class, "and the sons of Korach, Assir and Elkanah, and Abiasaph"-expressing the quality of the goods and truths, "these are the families of the Korachites." In the doctrinals derived from the very doctrine of charity," and Eleasar the son of Aharon"-good and truth were conjoined, "took to him of the daughters of Putiel to himself to wife"-whence there were derivations, "and she bare to him Pinchas." These are the chief things of the Church as to charity and faith thence, "these are the heads of the fathers of the Levites according to their families." (26-30.) From the charity and faith just described the doctrine and law Divine are with those who are of the spiritual Church, "this is Aharon and Moses"-which commands, "to whom JEHOVAH said"-that those who are of the spiritual Kingdom of the LORD shall be liberated from the neighborhood of those who are in falses, "Lead forth the sons of Israel out of the land of Egypt"-according to the genera and species of good in truths, "according to their armies." From them comes the admonition to those who infest by mere falses, "these were speaking unto Pharaoh, king of Egypt"-that they should leave them, and not infest, "to lead forth the sons of Israel out of Egypt." This is from the Law from the Divine; and from the doctrine thence, "this is Moses and Aharon." In that state, when it was commanded through the Law from the Divine to those who were of the spiritual Kingdom of the LORD; when they were still in the neighborhood of those who are in the hells, "and it was in that day JEHOVAH spake unto Moses in the land of Egypt"-they were again instructed anew," and spake JEHOVAH unto Moses, saying"-and it was Divinely confirmed, "I am JEHOVAH"-that those who infested by mere falses were to be admonished from those things which inflow from the Divine, "Speak unto Pharaoh, king of Egypt, all that I am speaking to thee."
56
And the LORD thought about the Law Divine with those who are in falses, "and Moses said be ore JEHOVAH"-that it is impure to them, "Behold I am uncircumcised of lips"-and that thus those will not receive, who are in falses,- "and how shall Pharaoh hear me?"
Scientifics 1894
Scientifics are then ruled by truths when truth is acknowledged because the Lord hath said so in His Word.- A. C. 6023.
LANGUAGE V. 1894
[For instalment IV of this series see Vol. XIII, page 87.]
State.
UNDER the head of State may be placed all that can ever be said of anything in actual existence. Since in previous lectures the Esse, Essence, and Existence of language have been treated of, this brings the work to the State of Language.
Etymology.
The word at ate is derived from the perfect participle of the Latin verb sto "I stand," the etymology of which was given under the head stare, in the lectures on the Existence of Language. It was shown that the existence of a thing is the coming forth of its inmost, by its internal, and presenting itself "standing" in ultimate form. In its root, state signifies "to stand;" but we may make a substantive of the word stand, as when we ask the question, What is Mr. `s stand on this or that matter? that, is what is his state, or the attitude or condition of his mind in regard to the thing discussed? Is he favorable, or unfavorable, or indifferent? Is he for or against? Is he, as regards the question, good or bad? Or, returning to the root idea of the word "stand," what position does he hold? The English noun "stand," however, has in this respect a somewhat circumscribed range of meaning. State is the quality, kind, or condition of a thing, and of it may be predicated progression or retrogression; growth or decay; superiority or inferiority; and genius. As Esse answers to the question, Why? Essence, to the question, How? and Existence, to the question, What? so State answers to the question, What kind? Genus is the Latin word for "kind," but it is used more in scientific classification than to indicate the quality of a thing as to excellence or inferiority. By the genus of a language we mean, whether it is spiritual or natural; if spiritual, whether heavenly or infernal; if natural, of what nation. This now prepares us for the history, description, and classification of language as an existing thing. In order, therefore, that this consideration may begin with internal things, and from them proceed to external, let us try to get a conception of the Language of the Angels. That Divinely inspired guide-book for travelers going into the other world, the work Heaven and Hell, contains, among its invaluable stores of information, three divisions on the language of the Angels; one division is about the Speech of Angels, another, about the Speech of Angels with Man, and the third, about Writing in Heaven. Thus when man's time comes to leave this world for his final home and sphere of usefulness in the other, he will not be obliged to go among a people concerning whose language he has no knowledge. Will it not be worth while to make use of this instruction, especially as we are assured that it is absolutely and Divinely true? Stop and think what an effort you would make, were you about to start on a journey into a foreign land, to learn something of the customs and manners, and especially of the language of the people among whom you expected to travel. How necessary it is for you, if you intend to take up your abode in a foreign land, not only to know something of the language of that land, but to be master of it. If it be of so great importance to know the language of those among whom we are to dwell for the short space of our earthly life, what then must be the importance of knowing the language of those among whom we are to dwell forever. The greatest importance is not, however, the having a foreknowledge of the language, customs, manners, and so forth, of the angels, thus of heaven; for if man lives so as to come into heaven, all that is freely given when he arrives; but it is to have knowledge that may make a plane for the extension of thought into which angelic wisdom may inflow and assist man in regeneration.
THE SPEECH OF ANGELS.
"The angels speak among themselves just as men in the world do, and also about various things, as about domestic affairs, civil affairs of state, the affairs of moral life, and about the affairs of spiritual life; nor is there any difference, other than that they speak more intelligently than men, because they speak from more interior thought. It has been given me often," says the servant of the LORD "to be in company with them, and to speak with them as friend with friend, and sometimes as stranger with stranger, and then, because I was in a state similar to theirs, I knew not otherwise than that I was speaking with men in the world. "Angelic speech is just as much distinguished into words as human speech; the words are also just as sonorously pronounced and sonorously heard, for the angels, like as men, have a mouth, tongue, and ears, and they also have an atmosphere in which the sound of their speech is articulated; but it is a spiritual atmosphere which is accommodated to the angels who are spiritual. The angels also breathe in their atmosphere, and by means of breath pronounce their words as men do theirs. "All in the whole heaven have one language; they all understand each other, from whatever society they are, whether from a neighboring society or a distant one. Language is not learned there, but is inseated in every one, for it inflows from their affection and thought. The sound of their speech corresponds to their affection, and the articulations of sound which are words, correspond to the ideas of thought from their affection and because their language corresponds to these things, it is also spiritual, for it is affection sounding and thought speaking."
It will be well to note that, in the above quotations, we have given us a universal definition of language. Spoken language is made up of wards, which are articulated sounds. Sound is from affection, but affection alone has nothing definite in it, and comes into no real existence except by thought; but thought directs affection, determines it, and gives it definite form, so that it may be brought to operate on what is outside of itself; so, articulation from thought directs the sound produced from affection into definite portions, articulations, or joints. Articulations in the human body are its joints, and articulations in words are the joints in them that divide them into distinct sounds. Without articulations in the body there would be no movement, hence no power, but by means of them the body is enabled to modify its form, to move from place to place; and to perform actions separate from itself in the natural world. What, for instance, would the human hand be without its many articulations? A mere lump, and of no use. But with its jointed fingers and thumb what a wonderful implement it is, and what innumerable things it can do. It is the just representative and significative of power.
57
So with the sound of the voice; without its articulations, what meaning has it? Listen, for example, to the cooing or wailing of an infant. What definite meaning does it express? None whatever, except to indicate the general affection of delight or undelight. But just so soon as thought begins to dawn in the infant mind, the little one begins trying to talk by articulating its previously unmeaning sounds, but as at first there is but little of thought, so, consequently, there is but little of definite articulation, and the child's first attempts at talking are only babbling. Let there be one example of articulation of sounds. The Latin word for speech, used in the portions of Heaven and Hell quoted in this article, is Loquela. This word contains the vowels, or sounds, o, e, and a; also the consonants or articulations l, qu, and l; these are combined in the following manner: The o is given a definite direction by the preceding l, and the two are pronounced together, making the syllable lo; the o is joined to the e following, by the sound qu, so that it does not flow into the e and commingle itself therewith, but is joined or jointed to it in a definite manner; so again the e is given definite direction by the preceding gu, and by the following l is prevented from commingling itself with the following a, which is given direction by the l. The result of the combination is that instead of having an indefinite sounding of the vocal chords, as would be the case if affection alone ruled, we have the three distinct sounds o, e, and a, linked together in a definite way to produce the word loquela which expresses a definite idea of thought. The text continues:
"He who attends may know that all thought is from the affection which is from love, and that the ideas of thought are the various forms into which the general affection is distributed; for there is given no thought and idea at all, without affection-their soul and life is thence. It is on this account that the angels, from speech alone, know the quality of another from the sound, the quality of his affection, and from the articulations of the sound, or from the words, the quality of his mind. The wiser angels know from the series of speech what the dominant affection is; for they attend especially to this . . . wherefore they know the whole state of another. That this is so has been given me to know from much experience. I have heard the angels revealing the life of another solely from hearing him. They said further that they knew all things of the life of another from some ideas of his thought, because they knew thence his ruling love, in which are all things in order, and that the book of man's life is nothing else. "Angelic Language has nothing in common with human language, except with some words which sound from a certain affection, yet not with the words themselves but with their sounds. It has nothing uncommon, because it is impossible for the angels to utter a single word of human language. This was tried but they could not do it; for they cannot utter anything but what altogether agrees with their affection. Whatever does not agree is repugnant to their very life; for life is of affection, and from this is their speech. It was told that the first language of men in our world agreed with angelic language-because they had it from heaven, and that the Hebrew language agrees in some things."
In respect to Angelic Language having nothing in common with human language, it may be said that this is to be understood in the light of other teachings; for it is said above that "Angelic speech is just as much distinguished into words as human speech; it is also just as sonorously pronounced and sonorously heard." The angels cannot utter a word of any human language, because human language is pronounced by means of vibrations of the natural atmosphere, whereas the angels live, breathe, and speak, in a spiritual atmosphere, between which and the natural atmosphere there is a discrete degree, which cannot be passed except by correspondence. Between Angelic language and human language there is a discrete degree, as between what produces and what is produced. Man's language is a product of the language of the spiritual world. He speaks because angels and spirits speak; angels and spirits speak because the LORD speaks-that is, proceeds. Angels cannot speak human language because that would be to set the natural atmosphere in motion, and for this they lack the requisite natural organs. Yet they have a mouth and a tongue, yea, all the organs, and much more perfect than in man, but they are spiritual, of spiritual substances, and cannot operate upon natural things. But the angels can speak with man in his spiritual part, and man, from them, since he has natural organs, adapted to the natural world, can speak by setting in motion the atmosphere and producing natural sounds, which, however, are not what was spoken to him by the angels, but only Correspondents thereto. It is to be noted that angelic language has something in common with some words of human language, "yet not with the words themselves but with their sounds"-that is, with their affections.
"Since the Speech of the Angels corresponds to their affection, which is of love, and the love of heaven is Love to the LORD and love toward the neighbor, it is evident how elegant and delightful is their speech, for it affects not only the ears of those who hear, but also the interiors of their mind. There was a certain spirit, hard of heart, with whom an angel spoke; he was so affected by the angel's speech that he shed tears, saying that he could not resist, because it was love speaking, and that he had never wept before. "The Speech of the Angels is also full of wisdom, since it proceeds from their interior thought, and their interior thought is wisdom, like as their interior affection is love; love and wisdom conjoin themselves in their speech; whence it is so full of wisdom that they can express in one word what man cannot express in a thousand. The ideas of their thought comprehend such things as man does not grasp, still less can he utter them whence it is that those things that are heard and seen in heaven are said to be ineffable, and to be such as ear never heard, and eye never saw. That this is so, has also been given to know by much experience. "I have sometimes been led into the state in which the angels are, and in that state I have spoken with them and at that time I understood everything; but when I was remitted into my former state, and thus into natural thought proper to man and `wished to recollect what I had heard, I was unable to do so, for there were a thousand things that had not been adequated to the ideas of natural thought, thus they were not expressible, except only by variegations of the light of heaven, and thus by no means by human words. "The ideas of the thought of the angels, from which are their words, are also modifications of the light of heaven, and the affections from which is the sound of their words are variations of the heat of heaven, since the Light of Heaven is Divine Truth or Wisdom, and the Heat of Heaven is Divine Good or Love."
In Arcana Coelestia, number 1646, where the Speech of Spirits and Angels is treated of, it is said:
"The Speech of Angels sometimes appears in the World of Spirits, and thus before the interior sight, as a vibration of light or of a resplendent flame, and this with a variation according to the state of the affection arising from innumerable distinct things thus represented."
There it appears that the tense of sight comes into the matter of language. Every one knows that written language depends entirely on sight for its understanding and interpretation. Written language does not even exist to the man born without sight, except by the mediation of one who can see, wherefore it still depends upon sight. As to sight, how much is added to the delight and understanding of conversation when we are able to see, in a clear and pleasant light, the sparkling eye of mirth and good feeling, the tear-dimmed eye of pity and compassion, the smile of approval and encouragement the frown of disapproval and reproof, and all outward signs of varying emotions, which chase each other over the face of an animated speaker, as the lights and shadow chase each other across a meadow on a day in summer, intermittent with clouds and sunshine.
58
What, then, must sight be to the angels, who have features so flexible and expressive that they may not be compared with the features of a man, and who, in addition to this, live in an atmosphere which reflects in beautiful forms outside of them, all their inmost affections and thoughts?
"Since the Speech of Angels proceeds immediately from their affection, they can express within a minute more things than a man can express in half an hour, and they can also, by a few words, express the things that are written on several pages. This has also been proved to me by much experience. The ideas of the thought of the angels, and their speech, make a one, as the efficient cause and the effect; for there is presented in words in effect what in the ideas of thought is in the cause: whence it is that each word comprehends in itself so many things. The single things of the thought and the single things of the speech of the Angels, appear also, when presented to view, as in a thin wave or circumfluent atmosphere, in which are innumerable things in their order, and which enter and affect the thought of another. The ideas of the thought of every one, whether Angel or man, are presented to view in the light of Heaven when it pleases the LORD." (See Heaven and Hell, n. 234-340.)
true order is 1894
The true order is, to be wise from the Lord-that is, from His Word; then all things follow, and [man] is illustrated in rational and scientific things also.- A. C. 129.
ROBERT HINDMARSH 1894
A BIOGRAPHY.
(The printed documents upon which this sketch is based are referred to in the text. For the sake of brevity, initial letters are used in referring to The intellectual Repository (=I.) and Hindmarsh's Rise and Progress of the New Jerusalem Church (=R.).)
THE history of the Priesthood of the LORD'S New Church contains no name more worthy of remembrance than that of Robert Hindmarsh. The founder of the first organization of the Church, the first receiver of her Baptism, the first ordainer of her Priesthood, the unwearied translator and publisher of her Doctrines, a hero of Michael defending her Faith against the Dragon, the deepest and soundest of her early theologians, in short, the high-priest of the Church for half a century; in all these lights Robert Hindmarsh stands forth pre-eminent in the early annals of the New Church. The present sketch is the first attempt that has been made to give a connected outline of the life and work of Robert Hindmarsh. Viewed as a whole, that life and work may be said to represent the principle of the ultimation of the Heavenly Doctrines in the organized form of the visible Church. In all that is distinctively of the New Church, Robert Hindmarsh was the great exponent and defender. May the lesson of his life tend to promote that heavenly use which he himself so deeply loved and so faithfully served, the establishment of the New Jerusalem, distinct from the Old, on every plane of life.
I.
CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH.
ROBERT HINDMARSH was born at Alnwick, in Northumberland, England, on November 8th, in the year 1759. His father, James Hindmarsh, who had formerly been writing master at the Methodist Seminary, called Kingswood School, near Bristol, at that time was an itinerant preacher in John Wesley's newly-founded sect, and finally became the first public preacher of the Heavenly Doctrines of the New Jerusalem. Brought up by this religious father, Robert Hindmarsh was early imbued with love for the Word of God and for the spiritual things of the Church (I. 1835, p. 401). His education was continued at the Kingswood School. Here the young boy soon became conspicuous for a remarkable degree of "clear-headedness," an ardent love of knowledge, and an extraordinary facility for acquiring and retaining it. So great was his progress that when, at the early age of fourteen years, he was taken out of school, he was regarded by his masters as one of the principle ornaments of the institution. He had then acquired an elementary knowledge of the sciences, and great proficiency in the Greek and Latin languages, particularly in the latter, which he could read and write with facility and correctness. His studies did not cease with his short school life, but in the course of time, by a wide and systematic reading, he acquired extensive and well-balanced learning. The Word of God continued the favorite subject of his attention, and in order to gain a correct understanding of its teachings he began an independent study of the Hebrew, and in time acquired a high degree of proficiency in that sacred tongue. After leaving school he was placed by his parents with a printer in London, where he learned the printer's trade. While yet a very young man, he established a printing office of his own, and conducted this business successfully for many years. In the year 1787, he received an honorary appointment as "Printer to His Royal Highness, the Prince of Wales." Though born and bred in the very focus of Methodism he never formed any attachment to the doctrines and discipline of this sect, but searched diligently for a religion that would appeal to his understanding rather than to unreasoning sentiments. He early discerned the divisions and the doctrinal confusion in the Christian Church. The dogma of the three persons in the Godhead was especially offensive to him. He states that by examining the sacred Scriptures he arrived at the conclusion-obscurely seen at first-that the LORD JESUS CHRIST could be the only Divine Person, who as Creator is called "Father," as Redeemer, "Son," and as Comforter and Regenerator, "Holy Spirit." Thus he was prepared by the Divine Providence to receive the heavenly light which was soon to shine upon him out of the Writings of the New Church, and to take up the sacred work of publishing these through the press.
II.
RECEPTION OF THE DOCTRINES.
HE first heard of Swedenborg's name in the year 1778, when the work Heaven and Hell, translated by the Rev. Thomas Hartley and Mr. William Cookworthy, was being printed in London, at the office of Mr. James Phillips. Robert Hindmarsh was at that time an apprentice in a printing house connected with that of Mr. Phillips, and he thus came to hear of the very curious book that was to be published, and about the extraordinary author, "Baron" Emanuel Swedenborg. Though his curiosity was then greatly excited to learn something definite about the state of man after death, the current reports about Swedenborg's unsoundness of mind discouraged him from investigating the book for himself (R., p. 9).
59
But his interest had been aroused, and he was led to continue his inquiries on the subject of eternal life. Thus it came to pass that on the first of January, in the year 1782, while on a visit to his father, then stationed in Canterbury, the conversation turned to the subject of Swedenborg and his Writings. On inquiring where these books could be obtained the young man was referred to a Mr. George Keen, a Quaker then residing in the same town, who was said to possess some of them. Calling the following day upon this gentleman, who subsequently became a member of the New Church, Hindmarsh was favored with the loan of the works Heaven and Hell and The Intercourse between the Soul and the Body.
"These works," he informs us, "I read with the utmost avidity, and instantly perceived their contents to be of heavenly origin. I therefore as naturally embraced and delighted in them, as the eye embraces and delights in objects that reflect the golden rays of the rising sun. The same day that introduced me to a knowledge of these Writings, introduced me also to the first interview with the young lady [Sarah, daughter of Mr. Henry Paramor], who, on the 7th of May following, became my wire. . . Thus I found myself doubly blessed by the events of the before-mentioned day" (B., p. 11).
At that time but few of the Writings were translated into the English tongue, and Hindmarsh, therefore, speedily procured a full collection of these Writings in the original Latin, which he now began to study with ever-increasing delight. Business cares demanding most of his attention in the daytime, he borrowed from the night many an hour for his favorite studies, even taking books to bed with him, and reading until sleep overtook him (I. 1835, p. 402). Like most new receivers of the Heavenly Doctrines, he confidently expected that every person of sound judgment or common sense would receive these with the same ease and delight as he. But in this he soon found himself grievous y disappointed. Wherever he turned with his treasure of heavenly truth he met with naught but contempt or ridicule. Swedenborg was universally considered a madman or an impostor, and even the loving father of our young Newchurchman earnestly warned him against the "dangerous vagaries" of the "Baron." Robert Hindmarsh and his young wife, who shared in his convictions, thus found themselves alone, in the great world of London, in their faith in the LORD at His Second Advent (R., pp. 11, 12, 14).
III.
THE BEGINNING OF THE NEW CHURCH.
AFTER a year had thus passed be at last found three other readers of the Writings, Mr. Peter Provo, a surgeon, Mr. William Bonington, a clock-case manufacturer, and John Augustus Tulk, Esq., a gentleman of wealth. In the year 1783 these persons were invited by Robert Hindmarsh to meet regularly for reading the 'Writing', at his house in Cherkenwell Close, not far from the spot of Swedenborg's last residence on earth. After these meetings had continued for a time, the friends agreed to call a public meeting of all readers and friends of the New Doctrines who Were definitely known as such. This meeting was accordingly held on the fifth of December, 1783, at five o'clock in the afternoon, at the "London Coffee House" on Ludgate Hill. Five persons were present at this meeting, the only addition to the former number being Mr. William Spence, a surgeon. The repeated occurrence of the number five in connection with this, the first public meeting of the New Church, was remarked upon as significative of the fact that the New Church was to begin among a few (A. R. 546). From lack of a secluded apartment at the Coffee House the meeting was immediately adjourned to the neighboring "Queen's Arms Tavern," where, among other things, it was agreed to meet again on the following Thursday for further consultation. Robert Hindmarsh thus describes the sphere of this meeting, which was so pregnant with the most important consequences:
"To hear the story of each other's first reception of the doctrines, and to observe the animation that sparkled in the eye and brightened up the countenance of each speaker as it came to his turn to relate the particulars of that, by him, never to be forgotten event, was itself a little heaven. . . . Our spirits were elated by the meeting. Three or four hours passed swiftly away; and soon after nine o'clock we adjourned, highly gratified with ibis first public interview of congenial minds, and determined to prosecute our plan of holding up to the view of the world a Light, which could no longer be concealed in a secret place, nor hid under a bed or a bushel" (R., p. 16.)
During the following week a room was engaged at the "Inner Temple," near Fleet Street, and an advertisement was inserted in some of the London journals, extending a general invitation to all readers of the Writings to meet together for the purpose of joining in an effort to promulgate a knowledge of the New Church. In accordance with this invitation a second meeting was held on December 12th, when the five gentlemen mentioned above, were joined by two zealous and intelligent receivers of the Doctrines, Mr. Henry Peckitt, a retired and wealthy surgeon, who had been an interested reader since the year 1777, and Mr. James Glen, a Scotchman, of eccentric manners but of profound insight into the Heavenly Doctrines (R, p. 11). These and successively others, who joined the meetings, brought increased strength and impetus to this circle of New Churchmen who, in January, 1784, organized into a Society with the designation: "The Theosophical Society, instituted for the purpose of promoting the Heavenly Doctrines of the New Jerusalem, by translating, printing and publishing the Theological Writings of the Honorable Emanuel Swedenborg." Of this Society, Robert Hindmarsh was Secretary, and his name appears as such at the close of the first printed document of the Society, a circular address "To the Christian World at large, but more especially to the Clergy," explaining the nature and intentions of the institution, and inviting the co-operation of all who sympathized with the undertaking. This was dated January 15th, 1784 (R., pp. 23, 24, 25). The news of the formation of the "Theosophical Society" now spread rapidly in London, and the membership increased greatly within the period of the following three or four years. A number of gentlemen of talents, distinction, or means associated themselves with the new movement. Meetings were held not only on Thursdays, but also on Sunday evenings, at which the Writings were read and discussed, and measures were considered for the promotion of the heavenly uses of the Society. At these meetings Robert Hindmarsh acted as Reader. Among the earliest additions to the membership the following were the most noteworthy: Benedict Chastanier, a French surgeon, resident in London, and one of the most active of the members; Augustus Nordenskjold and his brother Carl Frederic, two Swedish noblemen, both well-known in the history of the Church; Charles Bernhard Wadstrom, a learned Swede, who is famous as the first agitator against the African slave-trade; Henry Servante, distinguished for his zeal, intelligence, and activity; Manoah Sibly, bookseller, and afterward one of the foremost ministers of the Church; James Hindmarsh, who, through his son; had become thoroughly convinced of the truth of the Heavenly Doctrines; F. H. Barthelemon, musical preceptor to the Royal Family, who made the first efforts to develop music in adaptation to the truths of the Church; John Flaxman, the celebrated sculptor, whose work bears distinctive traces of New Church influence; and Lieutenant-General Rainsford, afterward Governor of Gibraltar, besides a number of others.
60
The proposed work of translating and publishing the Writings was begun in the year 1784. The first work to be published was The New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Doctrines translated by Mr. Prove and Robert Hindmarsh; and published at the joint expense of the "Theosophical Society" in London, and the "Manchester Printing Society," which, at this time, was being formed through the influence of the Rev. John Clowes, Rector of St. John's, in Manchester (R. Appendix). In the same year Robert Hindmarsh edited and published, at his own expense, the first Latin edition (4to), of Summaria Expositio Sensus Interni, the manuscript of which had been brought to London by the Nordenskjold brothers (B. Appendix. See New Church Life, 1893, p. 27). About this time Robert Hindmarsh became instrumental in the planting of the New Church on the American Continent. James Glen, while on his way to Demerara, in British Guinea, where he was to settle, paid a visit to the United States in order to announce the new Gospel of the Second Advent of the LORD. On June 5th, 1784, he delivered a public lecture on the Doctrines of the New Church, in an auction-room in Philadelphia. His efforts meeting but small response, he soon left this city to visit Boston, where he also delivered a lecture. After his departure from Philadelphia a box of New Church books arrived, addressed to them by Robert Hindmarsh. No claimant appearing, the books were subsequently sold at public auction; A number of the purchasers became zealous Newchurchmen, notably, the Hon. John Young, of Greensburg; and Mr. Francis Bailey, of Philadelphia, who became the first publisher of the Writings in America (R., p. 28) In the following year, 1785, Robert Hindmarsh, in conjunction with four other gentlemen, undertook the great work editing and publishing, at their joint expense, the first Latin edition of Apocalypsis Explicata, which was among the manuscripts brought from Stockholm by the Nordenskjolds. This work was published in four volumes, extending over a period of four years. During the publication the following striking incident took place. Mr. Henry Peckitt, as one of the editors, had in his possession the manuscript of the second volume. One night a fire broke out in his neighborhood, which soon laid his own home in ashes. Mr. Peckitt himself narrowly escaped with his life, and in the excitement forgot the precious manuscript in his possession until the fire had consumed his valuable library of several thousand volumes. Next morning, while he was despairingly searching amongst the ruins, a neighbor informed him that some books had been picked up in the street, where they had been thrown at random by a fireman. What was his joy in finding among these books the priceless manuscript, preserved from injury in every respect. A few days afterward, while the "Theosophical Society" was holding its usual meeting, Mr. Peckitt entered with the manuscript under his arm. Bursting into tears he placed it on the table, exclaiming, "There, the greatest treasure which I had in my house is preserved in safety, and for the sake of that I willingly submit to my great loss" (R., pp. 32, 33). Robert Hindmarsh, at this period, performed another important service to the Church, by obtaining from Mr. Richard Shearsmith, in whose house Swedenborg had expired, a legally sworn affidavit, emphatically denying the current report that Swedenborg, a few hours before he died, had retracted all his theological writings (R., p. 37). Many of the members of the "Theosophical Society" at this period attended the Sunday services conducted at the "London Asylum for Female Orphans," by the Rev. Jacob Duche. This eloquent preacher is famous in American history as having read the opening prayer in the First Congress of the United States, held in Philadelphia in the year 1776. Later, being suspected of sympathy with the English, he was forced to leave this country, and settled temporarily in London. Previous to his exile (which lasted only a few years) he had embraced the Doctrines of the New Church, and now incorporated these in his sermons, though with the greatest caution of expression. From the teachings and example of him, and of the Rev. John Clowes, in Manchester, many of the early receivers of the Doctrines were led to hope that the truths of the New Church would gradually find their way into the Established Church, thereby effecting a general reformation, and rendering unnecessary, nay, disorderly, any separate establishment of distinctively New Church worship. But Robert Hindmarsh and some other more clear-sighted students of the Doctrines were not deceived by this seductive hope-which the subsequent history of the New Church proved to be most delusive. To them the reformation of a dead Church seemed impossible, while, on the other hand, they heard the Divine Voice calling: "Come out of her, My people."
Notes and Reviews 1894
THE series of Lessons in Anatomy for children of the New Church, prepared by Miss Evelyn E. Plummer has now been continued by the publication of a treatise on The Tongue (pp. 84). Following the plan of the preceding treatises on the Eye, the Ear, and the Nose, this highly useful little work presents a simple but sufficient anatomical description of the human tongue, its location, shape, and structure, its ducts, papillae, membranes, muscles, and blood-vessels, and its mani old and important uses, as well as its abuses, and ends with an interesting comparative account of the tongues of various animals. Based upon teachings from the letter of the Word, and enlivened by numerous extracts from Swedenborg's Scientific Works, and from the Writings of the New Church, the instruction here imparted concerning the Tongue is useful and delightful to young and old alike, and forms a living stone in that temple of true Science which the New Church must, and to some small extent has begun to erect, for her worship of the LORD on the ultimate plane of life. It is to be regretted that the present publication has not been issued in a form more corresponding to the preceding Lessons, or more suitable for preservation and use in the schools. Orders for the work should be addressed to the Academy Book Room (see page 64).
The New Church Review, the first quarterly number of which has appeared, is a handsome publication of one hundred and sixty pages. In character and construction it does not differ essentially from its predecessor, The New Jerusalem Magazine. The contents are varied and interesting, but some of the articles lack that distinctive, unequivocal tone to which readers of the Writings are accustomed.
61
The Rev. W. L. Worcester's extended account of the life and work of the Rev. Chauncey Giles contains much of permanent value, but it presents a too partial description of the character of the late President of Convention. The Rev. Julian K. Smyth presents an essay, "Christianity and Orientalism." "Planetary Limitations in Theology" is a paper by the Rev. Frank Sewall, treating of the relations of the race upon this earth to those upon other planets, in regard to the incarnation of the LORD. Mr. Charles C. Bonney describes the "Genesis of the World's Religious Congress of 1893," which took place in his own mind, professedly under the influence of the Doctrines of the New Church. the Editorial Department includes short editorial articles, biblical and doctrinal studies and reviews of current literature. A study by the Rev. S. M. Warren on the use of the terms "conjunction" and "union" in the Writings, merits especial mention as a valuable contribution to the literature of the New Church. The New Church Review is the second quarterly journal to be so designated; the first was published in Chicago during the year 1882. Quarterlies have had but small success in the past history of the Church; but there is no doubt that such a publication may perform important and lasting uses if conducted on loyal and distinctive principles, and for the instruction of the New Church.
Communicated 1894
Responsibility for the views expressed in this Department rests with the writers.
"EPIDEMIC MAN AND HIS VISITATIONS." 1894
(A review of a book with the above title, by J. J. Garth Wilkinson, M. D., Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.)
WHEN one comes into the intellectual presence of Dr. Wilkinson, he instinctively bows his head. No other modern writer has so grasped the intimate relations of the human race-each to all and all to each-and its relations to the spiritual realms above it, and to the material realms below. He uses his dissecting knife most adroitly in laying bare the human mechanism which obtains and runs through the physical, scientific, civil, social, and professional planes of human life. He wields it no less skillfully when he employs it in exposing the disordered tissues of the body politic. A long and interesting essay might be written on the peculiarities of his style displayed in the subject-matter of his many treatises. It is difficult to give any adequate idea of the graceful activity of his mind as he lights up the subject he touches. His thoughts, which often seem intuitive, scintillate with propositions that are very suggestive. We have space here only to observe that his style is sometimes obscure, and his sentences often involved. This may be due to the embarrassing wealth of language at his command. One of his personal friends once said: "A trouble with Dr. Wilkinson is his extraordinary knowledge of words." Apparently, his urgent eagerness to utter them sometimes causes them to tumble over each other. From the volume before us we are tempted to make copious extracts. In the presentation of his subject the author appears to lack method and proper arrangement, which renders it difficult to follow him; he presents the "Epidemic Man" as a typical entity which none of us has seen, except dimly-a personification of epidemic disease. The Doctor gives him an uncouth human form, with abnormally developed parts. All that prevents him from being a monster is that the principal deformities are two in number, and partly balance each, other. To explain: the type is made up of Cholera and La Grippe. Cholera has its birth and early growth in Asia; especially in the indescribably filthy slums of India-the resorts of the pilgrims. There are found the most offensive cess-pools, the waters of which are considered sacred. In these waters the pilgrims bathe their filth-laden bodies; and then drink the same, post ablutione. The result of this disgusting practice is-a plague! And this prowls over the whole civilized world. This constitutes one of the bloated deformities of the "Epidemic Man." Its fellow deformity-La Grippe-has its birthplace in Russia. Here, then, we have the dual form of the plague: Asiatic Cholera and Russian Influenza. The Doctor's theory of those diseases is of deep interest. He maintains that neither of them has its seat primarily in any of the viscera; but that it is in the nerves which, emanating from the great Sympathetic System, supply the viscera with vitality. In both kinds of infestation there is more or less paralysis of those nerves. "When the paralysis is complete, death is almost immediate. In the cholera attacks recorded in India, sentries died on duty as it were with violent deaths. Such deaths occur in Hamburg to-day." He records other similar evidences. Again:
"In influenza the brain sometimes, the heart, the longs, and any other organs, even the voluntary system, are cut off from their nervous life: the organs may be themselves intact. . . . It is the complement of cholera, differing from it in this-that cholera is abdominal nerve paralysis as central, and influenza more general, nerve paralysis of other organs, often embracing the liver also. Almost sudden death takes place sometimes in both cases."
This statement partly confirms a long-entertained opinion, that La Grippe is a scourge more to be dreaded than cholera. Dr. Wilkinson, who is very skeptical of the germ theory, and of infection in general, is of the opinion that these diseases may start up spontaneously.
"It has never been proved that every infections case has had an infectious antecedent. The fact that diseases are coincident does not point to the conclusion that they have existed from the beginning of time: this we know they have not; for man, the subject here, has not so existed."
He makes vigorous war upon quarantine and pest-hospitals. This warfare against his professional brethren is only a little less bitter than his past and present onslaughts against vaccinators, bacteriologists, and vivisectors. "Compulsion of removal from the family is an outrage against human nature; a crime of physicians laying hold of government force. It ought to be resisted." He recounts three stages of the horrors attending the practices of the pest-hospitals, and concludes: "Here the manufactory of fear is on a huge commercial scale-a Reign of Terror, and despotism of its free trade-and here, if infection exist, is the concentration and emporium of it." The details of events in the hospitals at Hamburg, and of those which he himself has witnessed, are almost beyond belief.
"I take it for granted that if medical autocracy were abolished, not one-tenth of the lately-recorded cholera deaths would have taken place in Hamburg." "Considering also, that the disease, after killing all it can now about 8,000 in one second-rate city-dies out totally irrespective of the doctorate, from lack of any more susceptible people to slay. What worse could happen if there had not been a single doctor in Hamburg?'
What is the Doctor's remedy?
"It should plainly be the rule in all infected homes-leave the people where they are. Let cholera and all epidemics lie where they happen. Left alone they will exhaust themselves."
62
Doubtless there is wisdom in this proposition. He devotes a number of pages to tracing all physical diseases to man's spiritual diseases. In this he follows the law of' correspondence; and those pages are lull of very suggestive matter. In chapter V: "Sin corresponds to Disease, and brings it forth," he treats of the national sins which produce plagues. For some cause best known to himself, he singles out our country as an illustration. In this he affords a partial answer to the well-known prayer
"Oh! would the gods the giftie gie us To see oursels as ithers see us!"
If we began to look for it, we should find large correspondence around us for events like cholera. Coming out of the pit of evil-do not forget that-look at the malignity of the Christian nations. Look at 'America for the Americans.' Well? Should it be for Englishmen as are Ireland, Scotland, Canada, India, Australia, and numerous other parts of the earth? But what provokes this outcry? Our tariff law which "is making a hot-bed of riches for the land of the almighty dollar, and especially for its officials and legislators" "And there is joy in America over every European that perishes, over every industry that is broken up; joy of express malignity. The thing is a deadly presence in human nature." This is so extravagant it is funny. Americans may plead guilty to worshiping the "almighty dollar;" but if that deity has any more ardent, loyal, and devoted worshiper than the trine which embodies the deity of "pounds, shillings, and pence," we have failed to find them. Is it any wonder that he seriously asked:-"What has this to do with cholera?" He appears to see the absurdity of thus calling names; for he exclaims: "the good Americans will not chide me." Yet in almost the same breath he declares: "At present I feel and know that the United States is the greatest enemy that my county has on earth, and that, practically and ex animo, it avowedly hates all nations but itself." It appears to disturb the Doctor that Brother Jonathan is so true to his inheritance. We could quote much more to the same purport. Here is one extract which is a good specimen of his descent from dignity, as well as of his style and mode of thought. He introduces it as a foot-note:
"A reported school-answer by an American boy to the question, 'What are the boundaries of American?' is as follows: 'America is bounded on the north by the Aurora Borealis, on the south by the Antarctic Pole, on the east by the rising sun, and on the west by the Day of Judgment.' It is too pregnant a piece of gifted influx for comment here. It may prophesy that the bad American, armed with power on all lands and seas, will be the Red Indian of the world for a time; that the good America, hidden under the bad for that time, will be a new birth not now calculable, at length bringing that continent spiritually into its own station in the Man who is Humanity."
We would humbly and respectfully suggest that he apply to the mental state evinced in the above, his proposed treatment for cholera-passivity and letting alone. The Doctor's speculations upon the origin of the North American Indians are very interesting. He thinks he is in possession of valid evidence that they migrated from Asia into the northwestern part of American, and in time traversed the two continents. The marks of their Oriental origin are not available, because the regions to which men emigrate impress the invaders with their characteristic influences with sufficient force to obliterate the mental records which they brought with them. He concludes that those Indians are the descendants of the Ancient, and possibly, of the Most Ancient Church, and thinks he sees in young America the oldest of the nations, "for it is the end of the West and the end of the East;" later Europe meets pre-historic Asia on the shores of the so-called New World. His theory is that the earth's physical features mold the characters of the people who inhabit different regions; and it is partly borne out by the fact that animals appear to partake of the character of their several habitats. How far it is in accord with the doctrine of the spiritual influx is another matter. In his "conclusion" (page 120), he draws an analogy between the resistless operation of physical laws and the derivation of disease from vice; once engendered it increases hereditarily. The "greater man," Humanity, suffers from spiritual and from bodily disease; the latter being the limitation and outlet of the former. The real enfranchisement from disease must progress on both planes, by knowledge of the cause of the disease to be treated and by the application of correspondences in selecting the remedial means, in the light of gifted perception.
EDITORIAL NOTE Editor 1894
THE above account of Dr. Wilkinson's work will be read with interest by many. There is always much instructive speculation in the works of that well-known writer. His references to national evils may well be pondered. When he cites the American tariff law, he does so in illustration of the universal selfishness which prevails among all nations of the Christian world. We do not agree with our contributor that it is intended as an especial thrust at the Americans. In the words of Dr. Wilkinson, "the thing is a deadly presence in human nature," not only in American nature. The author is quite justified in feeling that the United States, so far as it seeks merely its own enrichment, is an enemy of his native country; and the American partisan press, which has gloated over the effect of tariff measures in the way of driving British workmen nearly to starvation, may justify him in his view of the case. But, selfish principles, when adopted by a country, are inimical, not to other countries only, but also the country itself which adopts them. "Evil slayeth the wicked." If tariff or free-trade laws are adopted from purely selfish purposes, the selfishness will react upon the community that adopts them. But when a policy is adopted clearly from love of one's country, so that the benefit accruing to it may ultimately benefit other nations-if, in other words, charity in its extended as well as in its limited form, be the animating soul in the adoption of national policies, lasting good will be the result. Love of self is orderly, but only when it is in the last place and made subservient to the love of others. Unfortunately, nations show the prevalence of the consummated state of the Old Church by their intense selfishness and hostility toward other nations. Their laws are framed so as to benefit them without any regard for the neighbor. And so it comes about that as a current political question, free-trade on the one hand, and the so-called protective tariff on the other, represent simply a difference of opinion as to which policy will most benefit its respective votaries. To the New Church citizen it should be a question as to which is most in accord with the laws of charity.
Title Unspecified 1894
A. C. 129 He to whom it is a principle to believe nothing before he sees and understands, never can believe.- A. C. 129.
63
LIFE OF THE NEW CHURCH Various 1894
THE ACADEMY OF THE NEW CHURCH
Philadelphia.-ON February 25th Minister Acton preached to the Church of the Academy on the subject, "Infestation" (Exodus v, 6-9), and, on March 4th, Pastor Jordan, on "Miracles" (Exodus iv, 29-31). Pastor Schreck preached on the subject of "God Shaddai, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob" (Exodus vi, 3-5), on March 11th to March 18th, the festival of His Glorification of the Human of the LORD Wits introduced by a service in commemoration of the state of His Humiliation and His work of Redemption. The ritual on this occasion consisted of a modification of the one used last year, and included the singing, for the first time, of Psalm xviii. On the following Sunday (Easter) the Glorification itself was the theme of the service, which, in general character, resembled that of the week before. All the priests who teach in the Philadelphia Schools took part in these services, which, each lasted about two hours. In the choral work the orchestra gave important support to the singers, the accompaniments sung very beautiful and expressive of the affections contained in the passages sung. Bishop Pendleton's doctrinal class, which has heretofore occupied the last hour of the Friday Evening Classes, has been transferred to Sunday evening, taking the form of a regular service, beginning at 8 o'clock. The change was inaugurated on March 4th, Bishop Pendleton officiating. After the usual opening ceremonies, and an ensuing pause of silence, a chapter of the Word was read, followed by an anthem, and anther pause. Bishop Pendleton then read numbers 216 and 217 of the work on The Divine Providence, following this with instruction of further elucidation of the subject. He then invited the audience to present questions, in written form, on the subject of the lesson, to be answered on the Sunday evening following, at this point in the order of service. In the absence of questions on this he first of the evenings, Bishop Pendleton devoted the time to explaining the uses to be subserved by thus "Pause of Silence" which of late has been introduced into the worship, namely, to afford the worshipers opportunities for rest, composure, meditation, and silent prayer. Genuine worship requires the subsidence and humiliation of the natural man. For these ends the meat perfect silence possible, in the congregation, a desirable, sin in" of another anthem, and the reception of the offertory, were followed by the usual formal closing.
On February 28th Professor Schreck began a series of three lectures on the Doctrine if Charity. During the past month Professor Odhner has lectured to the School on the life and work of Robert Hindmarsh, the first priest of the New Church, the subject matter being embodied in the biographical sketch beginning in this number of the Life. Mr. Hermann Faber, thus teacher of drawing, has delivered three illustrated lectures on the Art of Printing, Wood-engraving, Entaglio-cutting, and Lithography.
Pittsburgh.-THE Academy School celebrated Washington's Birthday by an evening entertainment, the chief feature of which was a series of tableaux representing different phases of Washington's career. Minister Synnestvedt gave a preliminary address, inculcating patriotism; and a biographical outine of Washington's career The first tabeau showed Washington as a boy, confessing to his mother his having caused the death of a valuable colt, which he had been trying to break in, its violent efforts having occasioned the rupture of a blood-vessel, this scene embodying the same principle as the well-known cherry-tree story. In the second tableau Washington appeared as a youthful surveyor; for this occupation he had given up an appointment as midshipman in the English navy, procured for him by a friend of the family. Admiral Vernon, for whom Mount Vernon was named. The third scene showed the young hero planting the English flag on the smoking ruins of Fort Duquesne, near the subsequent site of Fort Pin, from which came the name "Pittsburgh." The fourth, was an interior view of Mount Vernon, with Washington, now married, playing whist in the company of English guests. Then followed allegorical representations of "Columbia," "Uncle Sam," and "Columbia Guarded" (a Continental officer, defiant, with sword drawn). The historical representations were continued with "Valley Forge," "The Surrender of Cornwallis," "After the War" (Washington, as President, holding a reception with his wife, in Philadelphia), and in conclusion, "Martha Washington's Tea," a home scene. Mr. Synnestvedt's explanatory remarks added much to the interest of the exhibition. The costumes displayed taste and ingenuity. Later the chief actors went through the stately minuet ha costume, and two dances more brought a long and pleasant evening to a close.
Berlin.-THE young men connected with the congregation of the Church of the Academy in this town have lately formed a "gymnasium" among themselves for mental as well as physical culture. At a late meeting this subject was considered: "What uses can we as young men perform for The Church?" Out March 8th the wedding of Mr. Charles Brown, of Toronto, and Miss Minnie Roschman, of Berlin, was celebrated. The chapel was beautifully decorated with flowering plants and evergreens. In front was a large inscription in gold letters on a red ground, with the words: "May there be a blessing." (See Conjugial Love, n. 20.)
CHURCH AT LARGE. 1894
Massachusetts.-THE twenty-seventh annual meeting of the Massachusetts New Church Sabbath- School Conference was held in Boston on February 22d. A paper on "The Bible in the Sunday-school" caused some discussion as to the, usefulness of making a separation of the inspired Word from the Apostolic writings, "some being in favor of it and others opposing." What conceivable ground can Newchurchmen find for opposing such a distinction?
Connecticut.-THE Connecticut New Church Association held its annual meeting at Hartford, on February 21st, about fifty persons being present. This Association is pursuing as its principal use the distribution of New Church books among the clergy of the Old Church in the State. This work has been done now for many years, at a great expense, but with small, if any, apparent results.
New York.-THE thirtieth annual meeting of the New York Association was held in New York City on February 22d. Two hundred persons attended the meeting. The general work of this Association has been confined to assisting, in some small measure, the smaller Societies in its connection. The larger Societies were reported as being for the most part in statu quo. A resolution giving to every individual member of the Association the power of voting at the annual meetings, thus abolishing the present system of representation by delegates, was deferred until next year. Arrangement was made for one or more meetings of the Association during the coming year, each to be devoted to the consideration of "some particular doctrine in its more interior aspect." This fund for a General Pastor was abolished, to the great satisfaction of The New Christianity, which hopes that this Association, which "has come so near to the grave in its old and priest-directed way," will now also abolish the office itself of the General Pastorate. Our contemporary is misinformed. The office does not exist in the New York Association. And surely no association has been less "priest-directed" than thus one of the State of New York, where radicalism has been dominant ever since the days of Professor Bush. Maryland.-THE Ministers connected with the Maryland Association held their annual Conference at Baltimore, on February 21st. Thus Rev. Hiram Vrooman, of Baltimore, read a paper on "The Genus of the present man of this last Dispensation", in which he prophesied "a sweep of sudden changes, and apparent catastrophes, such as the world has never before experienced" during the present generation. The Rev. Louis Rich, of Richmond, read an essay on thus duty of Newchurchmen not to neglect the study of this Word in its literal sense. This Rev. Frank Sewell, of Washington, presented an interesting study on "The Heavens in their historic order," maintaining that this four ages of gold, silver, brass and iron did not represent the four general and successive Churches that have been on earth, but were all included in the history of the Most Ancient Church itself. THE Maryland Association held its thirty-third annual meeting at Baltimore, on February 22d, about two hundred and fifty persons attending. This Association has gained twenty-one new members, and lost eighteen, during the past year. During the meeting, the Rev. Hiram Vrooman, of Baltimore, was ordained into the Ministry of the New Church.
Washington, D. C.-IN response to thus call for contributions to thus "Colored Mission of the New Church in Washington, over two thousand dollars have been collected. An architect is now engaged upon the plans for a plain little building, which will serve as a temple and school-room for the African New Church Society.
Ohio.-THE New Church Society of Middleport and Pomeroy, on March 10th, passed a resolution dissolving its connection with the Ohio Association.
Illinois.-THE church building of the former German New Church Society in Chicago, was exposed for sale, the little Society having disbanded.
AFTER an extended evangelistic visit to the various little Societies of this New Church in thus State, the Rev. L. G. Landenberger reports his increased conviction that a stronger external organization and greater efforts of parents to bring up their children for the Church, are at present much needed.
California.-THE Pacific Coast Association held its fourth annual meeting at San Francisco, on February 3d. The Rev. Joseph Worcester was chosen President of the Association, to succeed the late Rev.
64
CHURCH AT LARGE. 1894
NEW CHURCH LIFE. PUBLISHED MONTHLY BY THE ACADEMY OF THE NEW CHURCH.
TERMS:-One Dollar per annum, payable in advance. FOUR SHILLINGS IN GREAT BRITAIN.
The EDITOR'S address is 1821 Wallace Street, Fairmount Station, Philadelphia. Address all business communications to MR. CARL HJ. ASPLUNDH, No. 1821 Wallace Street, Fairmount Station, Philadelphia, Pa. Subscriptions are also received through the following agents: UNITED STATES. Chicago, Ill., Mr. A. E. Nelson, Chicago Agent of Academy Book-Room, No. 565 West Superior Street. Pittsburgh, Pa., Mr. Wm. Rott, Pittsburgh Agent of Academy Book-Room,, Tenth and Carson Streets. CANADA. Toronto, Ont., Mr. R. Carswell, 20 Equity Chambers. Waterloo, Mr. Rudolph Roschman. GREAT BRITAIN. Mr. E. W. Misson, Agent for Great Britain, of Academy Book-Room, Burton Road, Brixton, London, S. W.
PHILADELPHIA, APRIL, 1894=124.
CONTENTS.
PAGE EDITORIAL: Notes 49 The Love of Adultery (a Sermon) 50 The Promise of Deliverance (Exodus vi) 54 Language V 56 Robert Hindmarsh (a Biography) 58 NOTES AND REVIEWS 60 COMMUNICATED: "Epidemic Man and His Visitations" (a Review) 61 LIFE OF THE NEW CHURCH 63 BIRTHS 64 MARRAIGE 64 ANNOUNCEMENT 64 ACADEMY BOOK ROOM 64 John Doughty. The New Church Pacific was accepted as the property and organ or this body. Three new ministers of the Church have connected themselves with the Association during the last year: the Rev. Messrs. David, Higgins, and Dr. Samuel Worcester. Thus meeting was attended by twenty-one male and sixteen female delegates. During the meeting arm "Evidence Society" was formed for thus Pacific Coast.
CANADA.
THE Toronto Society has lately purchased a portion of the stock of New Church literature belonging to the "Equity Chambers Book Room." The Star in the East states incorrectly that this Book Room has now "been given up."
ENGLAND.
A CRUSADE against the New Church was begun last month, at Failsworth, by a Mr. Walton Powell, Agent of the London National Anti-Infidel League. Mr. Powell's public assaults on the Doctrines of the New Church in general, and upon Conjugial Love especially, have been described as extremely coarse and brutal. They have been publicly answered by the Rev. Peter Ramage, in a lecture at Failsworth, on February 22d, before an audience of seven hundred persons. A "New Church-Women's League" was formed at a late enthusiastic meeting in London. The uses of the organization have not yet been specified. THE Rev. J. J. Woodford has resigned his pastorate of the South Manchester Society, to take charge of one of the Societies in Glasgow.
SWEDEN.
SWEDENBORG'S birthday was celebrated by the two New Church Societies in Stockholm by special lectures, delivered by the Rev. Messrs. Boyesen and Bjorck. A brown-tint reproduction of Swedenborg's portrait, which is preserved at the royal castle of Gripsholm, accompanies the February number of Nya Kyrkans Tidning.
ANNOUNCEMENT 1894
BERLIN, ONTARIO.-Mr. and Mrs. Adam Glebe desire to announce to the members of the Academy, and of the General Church of the Advent of the LORD, the approaching nuptials of Mr. George Kuhl and their daughter Agnes, which will be celebrated on Thursday, April 26th in the chapel of the Academy of the New Church in Berlin.
WANTED 1894
FOR the Library of the Academy of the New Church, a copy of De Charm's Newchurchman Extra, No. 1, Philadelphia, 1843, pp. 156. Any one able and willing to dispose of a copy of this work will please communicate with CARL HJ. ASPLUNDH, 1821 Wallace Street, Philadelphia.
DIRECTORY 1894
Schools of the Academy of the New Church.
Philadelphia.-Theological School and College, and School for Girls, 1821 Wallace Street. School for Boys, 1828 North Street. Bishop Benade, Superintendent; Rev. Eugene J. R. Schreck, Dean of the Faculty. Chicago.-434 Carroll Avenue. Rev. Wm. H. Acton, Head-master. Pittsburgh.-Wallingford Street, Shady Side. Rev. Andrew Czerny, Head-master. Berlin, CANADA.-King Street. Rev F. E. Waelchli, Head-master. London, ENGLAND.-Burton Road. Rev. Edward C. Bostock, Head-master. Parkdale, CANADA.-Rev. Eugene S. Hyatt, Head-master.
Places of Worship of the Academy of the New Church and of the General Church of the Advent of the LORD.
Philadelphia.-1826 North Street. Bishop Pendleton in pastoral charge. Services on Sundays at 10.44 o'clock A. M. Berlin King Street. Rev. F. E. Walechli, Pastor. Chicago.-434 Carroll Avenue between Ada and Sheldon Streets. Rev. N. D. Pendleton, Pastor. Services will be held every Sunday during Summer at 11 o'clock A. M. London, ENGLAND.-Burton Road, Brixton. Rev. Robert J. Tilson, Pastor. Services morning and evening. Pittsburgh.-Wallingford Street, Shady Side. Rev. Homer Synnestvedt, Minister. Renovo, PA.-Rev. Ellis L Kirk, Pastor. Services every Sunday. Greenford.-Regular monthly visits by a Pastor. Allentown.-Hersh's Building, Hamilton Street, corner of Lumber. Services conducted every Sunday by a visiting minister. Brooklyn, E. D., N. Y.-172 Broadway. Services every Sunday with occasional visits by ministers. Colchester, ENGLAND.- Services every Sunday, with regular visits from a minister. Liverpool, ENGLAND- Services every Sunday, with occasional visits from a minister. Denver, COLORADO.
JUST PUBLISHED 1894
THE BOOK OF RUTH, for the use of students. A literal translation by the Rev. Enoch S. Price, B. A, TA. B. Price, 26 cents. The above small work has been prepared to assist those using the Book of Ruth in beginning the study of Hebrew. For sale at the ACADEMY BOOK ROOM 1821 Wallace Street, Philadelphia, Pa. And at its agencies in Chicago, Pittsburgh, Berlin, Can., Toronto, Can., and London, England.
RECENT PUBLICATIONS.
A BRIEF ACCOUNT OT THE LIFE AND WOOK OF EMANUEL SWEDENBORG, WITH A SKETCH OF HIS PERSONALITY. By the Rev. C. T. Odhner. With a portrait of Swedenborg, taken from an original painting. 41 pages, 5x7 inches. Paper, 15 cents; cloth, 25 cents. A number of the facts here related have not yet appeared in any biography, such as Swedenborg's descent from Gustavuis Vasa, the complete enumeration of his various foreign journeys, his introduction into the Royal Academy of Sciences, by Linnaeus, and three successive manifestations of the LORD before him. The above work has been prepared for the use in the day-schools and Sunday-schools of the New Church. Its use is, however, not limited to schools, for to every New Churchman it furnishes a brief but accurate outline of the life of the Servant of the LORD, and to the world at large it offers a concise and satisfactory reply to the question, "Who is Swedenborg?"
LESSONS IN ANATOMY FOR CHILDREN OF THE NEW CHURCH.
PART I. The Eye. 40 pages. PART II. The Ear and the Nose. 51 pages. PART III. The Tongue. 34 pages. PART IV. The Skin. In Preparation. Price of the two parts published, 25 cents each; postage, 3 cents. "There is a correspondence of all man's organs and members, both interior and exterior, with the Gorand Man."- A. C. 3624. ACADEMY BOOK ROOM. 1821 Wallace Street, Philadelphia, Pa.
65
Lord as King 1894
New Church Life Vol. XIV. No. 5 PHILADELPHIA, MAY, 1894. Whole No. 163.
The Lord as King governs all and single things in the universe from Divine truth, and as Priest, from Divine Good.- A. C. 1728.
Title Unspecified 1894
THE editorial notes in the January issue treated of government of the Church by the priesthood, and the position was maintained that the LORD our REDEEMER and SAVIOUR is the Governor of the New Church, not in name only, but in reality; that He has given the laws which govern the Church, and administers them immediately, as well as mediately; mediately through human servants whom He coils to the office of the priesthood; that He calls them, not because He needs them, but, because, in accordance with the laws of His Divine Providence, given by Him for the purpose of enabling men to help themselves and their fellow-men, they need these and similar positions of use and trust in order that His design maybe carried into effect. It was further maintained that, as the LORD in the One and Only Head of the Church, so in the various churches, greater and lesser, or general and particular, there must necessarily be one chief governor, in accordance with the principle that parts are like the whole. The government is of the LORD and from the LORD, not of and from men.
Title Unspecified 1894
BUT, it may be objected, Does it not, then, follow, that the head of any one of the general churches, of which the New Church will consist, is absolute in his church? No. He is amenable to the Divine Law revealed to the Church by the LORD. But who is to punish him if he does contrary to the Law? Ought there not be some provision made, by the institution of some court, to try him and to pass sentence upon him? No. Because this would be to place such a court higher than the highest ruler. Such a court, whether consisting of one or more, would be in the direction of the establishment of the papacy, because it would assume functions which the LORD has reserved to Himself. The New Church is neither a papacy nor a monarchy nor an aristocracy nor a democracy; it is a theocracy. The LORD is her immediate Ruler. But the LORD makes use of human means? Yes, and where His immediate government is concerned He chooses His means Himself. It is not for human prudence to provide them for Him. The LORD will Himself provide them. At different times and under different conditions they will necessarily be different; and as it would be presumption to dictate to a chief-priest what steps he ought to take under certain circumstances; and what class of men to use for the purpose of correcting evils in his district, so it is worse than presumption to provide for conditions which, the LORD, as Chief Ruler, Himself controls.
Title Unspecified 1894
THE LORD has revealed certain laws for the guidance of His subordinate priesthood, and in these laws provision is made for the orderly subordination of lower prefects under higher ones; but no provision is made for any human intermediation between the highest governor of any church and the LORD Himself. Supposing, for argument's sake, that a court higher than the chief priest were instituted: who would preserve it in order if it went wrong? The final appeal must in any and every case rest with the LORD. And when the scale of appeals has been mounted step by step from inferior priest to the one next higher, and so to the highest, is it not better to recognize at once the final appeal to the LORD, than to try to put it off by again descending a step or two?
Title Unspecified 1894
NO human devices can cover all evils that may be committed, and provide for their rectification. Such a thing as a government, in which evil is always prevented, or even always punished, is absolutely impossible. The Divine Government itself permits evils, and the reasons therefor are clearly and unmistakably set forth. If a chief governor does wrong and that wrong must be corrected, the LORD will see to that correction more certainly and effectively than any men possibly can. A wise human governor overlooks many a fault committed by his subordinate officials, and so if a chief governor should commit faults without immediate cognizance being taken of it by the Supreme Ruler of the Church, the men of the Church may rest content, with firm reliance upon the inscrutable but inerring wisdom of the LORD.
Title Unspecified 1894
The fifth kind of profanation is by those who attribute Divine things to themselves.-D. P. 231.
Title Unspecified 1894
EVER on the look-out for things that are "new, in the religious world, the New CHURCH Messenger has discovered a "New Judaism," in the utterances of one Josephine Lazarus. Whither the newness points, the Messenger does not specify, but from the general tenor of its articles in the past, it is not difficult to perceive that this "New Judaism" is to be held up as one form of the New Church. Although the greater part of the editorial article which hails this New Judaism consists of quotations from its prophetess, one looks in vain in them for anything savoring of the Doctrine of Heaven. In this, as in other cases, the Messenger makes the common mistake of confounding Unitarianism (or Arianism) with the New Church. The very passage to which it calls especial attention, as "recognizing the type of character given to the world in the natural life of the LORD," i.e. a Unitarian expression of the most pronounced sort. "Christianity as a sect or creed," Miss Lazarus says, "has no compelling force for Judaism. The inquisition could not make Christians of us, nor can all the mild but zealous efforts of the Presbyterians ever make a single honest convert. That which alone has power supremely to attract is the divine-human life of which the type has been given to the world by a Jew."
66
It is very strange, it is unspeakably sad, that intelligent men who profess the Doctrines of the New Church should run after phrases whose empty tinkling they mistake for the mellow tones of the bells of the new evangel,-phrases, that to them sound like New Church terms, but which express falses utterly opposed to the truths of the New Jerusalem. In the above declaration of the Jewess the LORD is not acknowledged in His Divine Human; as the utterly superficial Newchurchman may vainly imagine. The sentiments expressed are of the stock thought of a consummated Church. The LORD is spoken of, not as the One God incarnate, but as a Jew-a Jew, however, who was a "type" of that divine-human life which every one can attain. Is not the holy term "divine-human" profaned by such a use of it? And when the Editor of a professing New Church paper publishes it to the world, with his exultantly favoring comments, does he not share in this fearful profanation? The New Church has reached a calamitous state, indeed, when its leaders and public teachers hail every infernal simulation of the true doctrine, as the very breath of heaven, as the very embodiment of the principles of the New Church, whose origin is Divine. The kindly reception and adoption of sentiments such as those quoted above are a disgrace and an outrage upon the New Church, and if continued will lead the followers of the self-blinded teachers more and more deeply into the obscurities and darknesses of a Pharaonic mind, out of which the leaders were originally appointed to lead them forth.
Title Unspecified 1894
D. P. 231 The sixth kind of profanation is by those who acknowledge the Word and yet deny the Divine of the Lord.-D. P. 231.
DIVINE MEDIATION BY THE HOLY SPIRIT PENDLETON 1894
"And the LORD said unto him, Who hath put a mouth to man, or who hath put the dumb, or the deaf, or the seeing, or the blind, have not I, the LORD? And now go, and I, I shall be with thy mouth, and shall teach thee what thou shalt speak?"-Exodus iv, 11, 12.
THE Holy Spirit is not a Divine Person, or a God by Himself, one of three Divine Persons, who are Gods; but it is the LORD JESUS CHRIST Himself, in His manifestation, operation, and presence with angels, spirits, and men, to instruct, reform, regenerate, and save. Or, in the language of the Doctrine, The Holy Spirit is the Divine which proceeds from the One God-Who is Infinite, Omnipotent Omniscient, and Omnipresent-by His Human assumed in the world. The Holy Spirit in its essence is GOD Himself, but in the subjects where it is received it is the Divine proceeding. The Divine which proceeds from the one GOD, by his Human, which is called the Holy Spirit, passes through the Angelic Heaven, and by the Angelic Heaven into the world; thus by angels into men; and hence it passes by men to men, and in the Church, especially by the clergy to the laity. But though the Holy which proceeds from the LORD, which is called the Holy Spirit, is continually given, still it recedes if the LORD be not approached. The Divine proceeding, or the Holy Spirit, is in the proper sense the Holy WORD, and the Divine Truth therein and the operation of the Holy Spirit is instruction, reformation, and regeneration, and thence vivification and salvation. The Holy Spirit, then, is the Divine Mediation of the LORD with men, the Divine Means by which the LORD accommodates the Infinite Ardor of His Love, and the Infinite Splendor of His Wisdom, to the needs and conditions of the human race; and this Mediation is effected through the Angelic Heavens and the World of Spirits; or through angels and spirits, and finally through men to men in the world. The Divine Human of the LORD is immediately present with men, that is, present without the mediation of angels and spirits; but this presence is not perceived by man; not even by any angel it is the presence of the Divine Truth immediately proceeding from the Divine Human of the LORD, and is represented by Moses, especially where he says that he is not "a man of words," and that he is "heavy in mouth, and heavy in tongue." But the Divine Truth proceeding mediately from the LORD-that is, through the medium of angels, spirits, and men which is thus heard and perceived by man-is represented by Aaron; and hence of Aaron the LORD said to Moses, "He shall speak for thee to the people, he shall be to thee for a mouth, and thou shalt be to him for a God." Hence to Aaron was given the Priesthood, by which mediation is effected in the Church. The mediation is the Divine Mediation by the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit therefore is the Divine Truth proceeding through the medium of the Heavens and the world of Spirits, to men. The subject then of our present consideration is, The necessity of the mediation of Truth, by angels, spirits, and men, in order that there may be a Church upon the earth and that men may be prepared by the Church, for Heaven and eternal life. "And the LORD said unto him, Who hath put a mouth to man, or who hath put the dumb, or the deaf, or the seeing, or the blind, have not I, the LORD? And now go, and I, I shall be with thy mouth, and I shall teach thee what thou shalt speak." And in verse 15, similar words occur, where the LORD speaks to Moses concerning Aaron, "And thou shalt speak unto him, and thou shalt put words in his mouth, and I, I shall be with thy mouth, and with his mouth, and I shall teach you what you shall do." Without the Mediation of the Divine Life, which is by the Divine Truth through the Heavens, there could be no human life upon the earth-that is to say, without the presence with men, of angels and spirits, through whom mediation is effected, no man could live; if angels and spirits were removed from association and consociation with man, he would fail down as in a swoon, and immediately expire. This in general with all men; and what is true in general with all men, is strikingly true specifically with the Church; for without the presence of angels and spirits with the Church, and in the Church, in its instruction, in its worship, in its uses, and in the individual lives of its members; without the sphere, a holy sphere, by which the Divine of the LORD is made mediately present-made present through consociation with such inhabitants of the spiritual world as are themselves in the truth and good of the Church . . . . and so without the presence of the Divine Holy Sphere of the LORD, which is the Holy Spirit, so made manifest and so accommodated to man, making a spiritual atmosphere in which the man of the Church is to breathe, and breathing live-man could no more live a spiritual man, and the Church could no more live a spiritual Church, than the lungs could breathe without the air, or than the brain could animate without the ether This is what is taught in the words of the text. The LORD says "Who hath appointed a mouth to man?" which signifies that without mediation there could be no thought.
67
The mouth is that by which is speech, and spiritual speech is thought; for when man is thinking he is speaking, and if he is not speaking exteriorly by the mouth with men, still he is speaking, but in this case he is speaking to spirits, though himself unconscious of the fact. If the thought be the thought of truth from good, he is speaking with good spirits, and they are speaking with him; indeed they are inspiring his thought, and without such spiritual inspiration he could think no thought of truth whatever; he would be a dead man in all things spiritual. If a man be deprived of air-does not breathe-he cannot speak; he dies, and so if a man be deprived of the air of Heaven, which angels and good spirits bring by their presence, he cannot spiritually breathe, he cannot spiritually speak, he cannot spiritually think, he cannot spiritually live. If there were not men in the world, with whom "a man can talk, and communicate his thought in the doing of uses, and from whom he can receive thought communicated by speech in return, man would die, for he cannot live alone. And if there be not spirits present in the World of Spirits with whom man can talk, as it were, when he is alone, neither could man live alone, for it is written, It is not good that man should be alone. And the same thing is true of the Church unless there be a common sphere of thought from consociation and communication with those who are of the Church in both worlds, the Church cannot live, it expires and dies, its perpetuation is impossible. There must be those who are of the Church in the world with whom man can communicate his thought, and from whom he can receive communication of thought or instruction, in return; and there must also be good spirits present with whom man can talk when he is alone, and who can then inspire him to true thought and to good act, or there can be no spiritual life with man, no Church upon the earth. Who hath put a mouth to man hath not the LORD'S. The LORD hath done this, the LORD hath appointed this communication and consociation that the Church may exist, and that man may live; and of this it is said that The LORD breathed into his nostrils the breath of lives, and man became a living soul. If what has been said were taken absolutely, or without qualification, or modification, or without the consideration of another truth which is taught in the following words of the text, it would follow as a conclusion that no man is saved except he be in the communion of the Church; and this is indeed true, but the text teaches how it is to be understood, and that it is a truth of wider explanation than would appear at first sight. For it may be asked, Is the Divine Meditation limited to those who are of the Church? Is it confined to those who are in the open reception of the truths of the doctrine of the Church, and who are in a common sphere from a common affection, and a common thought and the common performance of the uses of the Church, from that common affection and thought? The Divine Mediation is not so limited: it is as universal as the Divine Omnipresence; but can operate and be received only when there is a genuine Church somewhere upon the earth, even though this Church be confined to a few. For this reason the LORD always provides that there be a Church in some region of the earth where the Divine Mediation can operate in its fullness and in its power; by which all others, who are willing, may be held, not in a state of the Church, but in a state of preparation for the Church, into which they are afterward to be introduced, if not in this world, yet in the next. Those who are of the Church are said to have a mouth, but those who are not of the Church are said to be dumb and deaf: Who hath put a mouth to man, or who hath put the dumb, or the deaf I In the Church the Divine Mediation is full; the men of the Church communicate with each other and consociate together, by the thought of truth, and by the wood of the use of the Church; and that special mediation that is effected by the priesthood, is there in its full operation, and the LORD Himself by that office, as by a mouth, speaks to His Church, even as Aaron was to be a mouth to Moses; and so the Divine Mediation that is effected by Spirits and angels is in its full and in its power; and so the men of the Church are in internal communication with angels and good spirits, by spiritual thought from spiritual affection. But those who are out of the Church have not this mouth; they are dumb and deaf; they cannot speak, they cannot hear. But there are two things to consider; dumbness and deafness are curable or incurable according to the conditions that exist with the patient. Who of the spiritually dumb and deaf, or those out of the Church, are curable and who are incurable? That is, with whom can the truth have my healing power or effect, and with whom can it not? To be dumb is to be without the truth of genuine doctrine, and hence an inability to speak the truth, or to think from doctrine and according to doctrine; to be deaf is to be in no perception of the truth, and thus in no obedience to it-for man is in the endeavor to obey that which he perceives to be true-but there is no perception where there is no illustration, and there is no illustration where there is no instruction nor the reception of true doctrine by instruction; the truth most be known before it can be perceived. Those who are incurably dumb and deaf in spiritual things, are they who internally deny GOD, who love and will evil, who are in hatred of the neighbor; all their intention in evil, and all the thought which is the thought of their will. They may speak outwardly in favor of an upright, civil, moral, and religious life, and so in their merely external thought be in some sphere of the Divine Mediation through Heaven; but when they are in their internal thought, which is the speech of their spirit-when they meditate alone-then they give themselves up wholly to their evil inclination and think only what is evil, from evil delight,-that is, they talk with evil spirits, and evil spirits talk with them and inspire them to commit all manner of evil. They therefore communicate and associate with evil spirits in the World of Spirits, who are preparing for their life in Hell, and have no consociation, in their interior thought, with good spirits who are preparing for Heaven. They are thus, in their internal and real life, out of the sphere of the Divine Mediation by the Holy Spirit, out of the stream that flows down from Heaven into the world-a sphere that is healing and saving of all the spiritual ills that man has. They are dumb because they have not a single thought that is a confession of GOD or the LORD, nor a thought of shunning any evil as a sin against Him; they are deaf because no truth is heard by their internal thought, for there is no light, there by which they can see light, and because no light, no perception, and because no perception, no affection of obedience to the truth; in short, a state of spiritual anarchy or lawlessness reigns; in their interiors, and hence they are incurable. Those who are "deaf" and "dumb" in spiritual things, but who are curable, who are not yet of the Church, but may be spiritually healed, and thus received into the New Church and the New Heaven, are of three classes, namely infants and children, the simple among Christians, and upright Gentiles.
68
These are said to be dumb because they are not yet capable of spiritual thought, because they are in ignorance of spiritual things of doctrine, because there is with them no confession of the LORD from rational affection and acknowledgment; and they are said to be deaf because there is as yet no perception of spiritual things, and hence no spiritual obedience For spiritual obedience with man is from a perception of the truth; obedience merely natural is the believing and doing of the truth which is dictated by and other, and which a man does not see in the light of his own mind. This latter is the state of children and the simple; hence they are said to be spiritually deaf. Their faith and obedience is based on the authority of those in whom they have confidence. But their state is not like that of the incurably dumb and deaf, of whom we have spoken, even though they be in a similar ignorance; for the ignorance has an entirely different ground and origin. We have seen that the state that is incurable is a state of confirmed and willful denial of GOD, and, of hatred of the neighbor; that they who are in it have put themselves out of the stream of the Divine Mediation, and have broken off all communication, separated themselves, from all consociation with wood spirits, in the interiors of their thought. But this is not the state of the simple in heart and faith-of who are capable of being healed of their spiritual infirmities; these are not out of the sphere of the Divine Mediation, but the Mediation differs, or rather varies from that which is with those who are of the Church. We have seen what the latter is, that it is by a state of active thought in spiritual things, with those who are of the Church, who are therefore consociated with those in the spiritual world, who are in a like active thought in spiritual things, from acknowledgment and affection; for every man is consociated with spirits who are in a state similar to his own, the wise with the wise, the intelligent with the intelligent, and the simple with the simple. The Divine Mediation then, with the simple good, is by spirits of a similar character, those in the World of Spirits who have not yet been instructed, or who are not capable of a state of interior illustration in spiritual things. Therefore, their thought of spiritual truth, so far as they think, is passive thought, and will continue to be so, so long as they receive truth upon the authority of others, without discrimination as to what they receive, whether it be false or true; not having perception by which they can see truth in rational light. Who hath put a mouth to man, or who hath put the dumb, or the deaf, or the seeing, or the blind, have not I, the LORD? The seeing are those who have faith and understanding by instruction in the things of Heavenly Doctrine, and the blind are those who have not such instruction, and so `are in ignorance. Hence the seeing are those who are of the Church, and are in the truth of the Church and are able to be in those truths and understand them, because they are in consociation with spirits who are hr such understanding of truth; and these are themselves consociated with the angels of the superior Heavens, who are in the clear light of the Sun of Heaven, and by whom the truth is mediated to such spirits, and by these to the men of the Church. The "blind" are those who are not of the Church, who are either in no understanding, because they are willfully blind and do not desire to know; or who are blind from mere ignorance, and who desire to know. The latter will be taught, and will receive teaching; the former will never learn, because they will never wish to learn. The Divine Mediation, which is the Holy Spirit, is successive-that is, through angels, from angels to spirits, through spirits to men, and through men to one another A in the world; and in the Heavens it is successive, through the celestial Heaven, then through the spiritual Heaven, and from this into the natural Heaven, and through it by the world of spirits into the world. It will thus be seen that the Divine Mediation is not complete until they are these successive steps or degrees of Mediation-that is, until there are three Heavens, and until there is a genuine Church in the World of Spirits, and a genuine Church in the natural. Or, to view the subject more fully, there is not a complete Divine Mediation until the LORD glorifies His Human, orders and forms the three Heavens, executes Judgment in the World of Spirits, and performs the work of Redemption, and begins a new spiritual Church; and in the light of this we can see the meaning of the words in John (vii, 39), Not yet was the Holy Spirit, because JESUS was not yet glorified. Before the LORD'S Coming into the world, there was indeed a Divine Mediation, but not that Divine Mediation which is signified by the' Holy Spirit, but that which is signified by the term, "Spirit of Holiness," which occurs in the Old Testament. Only the Celestial Heaven then existed, "and hence the Divine Mediation was effected through the Heaven, and then through Heavens that were as it were Heavens, and through a Church that was as it were a Church. Divine Permission was given that evil spirits should occupy the regions of the Heavens below the Celestial; and that evil men should take possession of the Church on the earth,' who were of such a character-both the spirits and the men-that by a pious and holy external they could represent Divine things, and a kind of Mediation be effected, through them, to the simple good in the World of Spirits and on earth. Without this Divine Permission before the LORD'S Coming, the human race on this earth would have perished, and the Heaven of this most Ancient Church have been transferred elsewhere. From this teaching we can also see that the Divine Mediation is not complete in successive order until the LORD'S Second Coming, for not until then, by the formation of the Natural Heaven, were there three Heavens in successive order; not until then could there be a genuine Church in the World of Spirits, nor a truly spiritual Church in the natural world. Previous to this, throughout the period of the first Christian Church, an imaginary representation of a Heaven was permitted, below the Ancient Heavens, and an imaginary representation of a Church on the earth, in order that there might be the representation of a full Divine Mediation with men, that the human race might be preserved until the fullness of time, when the LORD is ready to institute His Crowning Church, when the mystery of God is consummated, as He declared to His servants the prophets. And this explains why the LORD, in predicting His Second Coming in the Gospel of John, speaks of it as the Coming of the Spirit of Truth; signifying that then will be a full Divine Mediation between God and man: "When He, the Spirit of Truth is come, He will lead you into all truth." The Divine Mediation is then full, because then, consociated with the Church, will be the three Heavens in successive order, Celestial, Spiritual, and Natural-Heavens of real angels in whom is the conjunction of good and' truth; and then, consociated with the Church on earth, will be the Church in the World of Spirits, composed of good spirits who are preparing for Heaven; and the Church on the earth will be composed of men, who, from their inmost heart, will acknowledge the LORD; and inspired by Him, immediately from Himself, and mediately through angels and good spirits; they will shun evils as sins, and do the uses of charity from a spiritual ground, leading to a spiritual end, which is salvation and eternal life.
69
And in the Church will be a priesthood that will be affected solely by a love of saving the souls of men, and this love will reign in all their labor, and thus they will be inspired to teach the truth, and nothing but the truth, and by truth to lead men to the good of life and thus to Heaven and the LORD. And by this Divine Mediation in Divine Fullness, such as has never been since the creation of the world, a Church is to be established which is to be the crowned Queen of all the Churches that have existed in the world, and is to endure forever. Has this Church yet begun? Do these conditions exist with us? We can only say, Let us hope in the LORD'S Mercy. Amen.
Title Unspecified 1894
The royal itself and the priestly itself is holy, whatsoever be the quality of him who ministers.- A. C. 3670.
FIRST THREE DEGREES OF VASTATION 1894
EXODUS VII.
THE reader is admonished that although in the internal historic sense, those are treated of who were in the lower earth at the time of the LORD'S Coming into the world, and who were redeemed by Him from the power of the infesters, and out of whom a New Heaven was formed, yet the Word treats here likewise of those who were in a similar condition at the time of the Second Coming, and out of whom the New Heaven was formed at the time of the Last Judgment; and still further is he admonished that the Word here treats of all at this day who come into the other world, and are in obscurity in regard to matters of faith, and are infested by the evil, who had professed faith in the world. The bearing of the internal sense upon these will become clear to the reader if he will again refer to the Arcana Coelestia, n. 7273, 7295, 7296, 7317. In the internal sense, by the eleven plagues with which the Egyptians were smitten, is described the process of vastation of those who are in evils and falses. Vastation is the gradual deprivation of all good and truth. In the present chapter the first three degrees of this vastation are treated of. In the first, with them mere fallacies began to reign, whence were falses; this is described by the serpent into which the staff of Aharon was turned; in the second, truths themselves, with them, became falses, and falses truths; this is described by the blood into which the waters were turned; in the third degree, from falses they reasoned against the truths and goods which are of the Church; this is described by the frogs from the river. The reader is again advised to read the following study twice; once as here presented, and then with the omission of the literal sense,' when he will see more clearly the continuity and beautiful sequence of the Internal Sense;
THE INFESTERS ARE ADMONISHED BY THE DOCTRINE OF TRUTH.
(1-7.) The further instruction, how those who are in falses, and infest, are to be proceeded with, "and JEHOVAH said unto Moses"-is to this effect: the Divine Law, or what is the same thing, the Divine Truth, has power over those who are in falses, "See I have given thee a god to Pharaoh"-from this Divine Law is Doctrine, for every true teaching is from the Divine Truth, "and Aharon thy brother shall be thy prophet." The Divine inflows immediately into the Divine Law, which receives it, and communicates it, "thou, thou shalt speak all that I shall command thee"-to the Doctrine, which receives the influx from the Divine Law, and communicates it to those who are in falses (for, the evil learn in the other world the truth governing their life and the life of the good), "and A harem thy brother shalt speak unto Pharaoh"-and the doctrine communicated to them teaches them that they must recede from the infestation," and he shall send the sons of Israel out of his hand." But from the evils which originate from their false principles they are obstinate, "and, I shall harden the heart of Pharaoh." Before being condemned to hell they are to be admonished in every way, nor is there to be anything lacking in the admonition, "and I shall multiply My signs and My prodigies"-where they are who infest, "in the land of Egypt." But they who are in falses will not receive the admonition of the doctrine of truth, "and not shall listen to you Pharaoh"-therefore, by the Divine power, they will be compelled, "and I shall give My hand against the Egyptians"-so that those who are in goods and truths will be delivered, "and I shall lead forth My armies, My people, the sons of Israel"-from the infestations, "out of the land of Egypt"-according to the laws of order, "with great judgments"-so that the infesters will have fear for the Divine, "and the Egyptians shall know that I am JEHOVAH"-when they notice that the Divine power is directed against them, "when I stretch out My hand upon the Egyptians"-and when they will see those delivered who are of the spiritual Church, "and I shall lead forth the sons of Israel out of the midst of them." What was said was also done, "and did Moses and Aaron, as JEHOVAH commanded them, so they did." The state and quality of the Law from the Divine, "and Moses was a son of eighty years"-and the state and quality of the doctrine, "and A harem a son of three and eighty years"-with those who were in goods and truths, when they were commanded, "when they spake unto Pharaoh"-is indicated, but what this state and quality are has not been particularly revealed, as they comprehend too much.
MERE FALLACIES BEGIN TO REIGN.
(8-13.) The instruction continues, "and JEHOVAH said unto Moses and unto Aharon, saying"-that if they who are in falses and infest are in doubt about the Divine, "When Pharaoh shall say unto you"-and therefore want to be confirmed of its Divine character, "saying, Give for you a prodigy"-then the Law Divine is to inflow into doctrine and to communicate with it, "and thou shalt say unto Aharon"-that it should show its power "Take thy staff, and cast it forth before Pharaoh"-by this that mere fallacies, and falses from the fallacies, will reign with them, "it shall become a water-serpent"-and whatever truths they had, which they used in their, intercourse with the simple good, would no longer be with them. This was so effected, "and came Moses and Aharon unto Pharaoh, and did so, as JEHOVAH commanded"-and mere fallacies, and falses from fallacies, reigned with them, "and Aharon cast forth his staff before Pharaoh and his servants, and it became a water-serpent." Those who were in evils resorted to the abuse of Divine order, "and Pharaoh, also called the wise men and the sorcerers"-thus, to appearance, in a like manner perverting the ends of order, "and they did, also they, the magicians of Egypt, with their incantations, so"-showing by power from order, that they became stupid as to the perception of truth," and they cast forth every one his staff, and they became water-serpents."
70
They have the power of inducing such stupidity by abusing the laws of order, and then those whom they make thus stupid regard falses as truths; but this power was taken away from them, "and the staff of Aharon swallowed up their staves." They who were in evils from falses became obstinate, "and strengthened was the heart of Pharaoh"-and did not receive, "and he listened not unto them"-according to the prediction, "as JEHOVAH had spoken."
TRUTHS BECOME FALSES; AND FALSES, TRUTHS.
(14-24.) The Divine instruction, how further it is to be done, "and JEHOVAH said unto Moses"-is to the effect, that, as they made themselves obstinate not to leave those whom they infested, "Heavy is become the heart of Pharaoh, he refuseth to send the people"-their attention is to be elevated toward confirmation still greater, that it is the Divine which admonishes them to desist from infestations, "go unto Pharaoh in the early morning"-then those who infest would be in falses from fallacies, "behold, he goeth forth unto the waters." The Law Divine was to inflow with those who infested, according to the state of their false, "and stand thau over against him by the bank of the river"-to ihow power like the former, "and the staff, which was turned into a serpent, take into thy hand"-and to issue the command, "and thou shalt say unto him"-from the Divine of the Church unto those who infested, "JEHOVAH God of the Hebrews hath sent me unto thee, saying"-that they should leave those who are of the spiritual Church, "Send My people"-so that they may worship the LORD in their obscure, "and they shall serve life in the desert"-and that as they had not obeyed," and behold thou host not listened even hitherto"-now, in order that they may have fear for the Divine, "thus said JEHOVAH, in this thou shalt know that I am JEHOVAH"-power will be shown over the falses which are from fallacies, "behold I, I smite with the staff which and my hand upon the waters which are in the river"-which will falsify truths, "and they shall be turned into blood"-and the scientific of truth will be extinguished by the falsification, "and the fish which is in the river shall die"-and they will be averse to it, "and stink shall the river"-so that they will want to know hardly anything about it, "find labor shall the Egyptians to drink the water from the river." This is executed, "and JEHOVAH said unto Moses"-the power of doctrine is directed against the falses which are with those who infested, "Say unto Aharon, take thy staff, and stretch forth thy hand on the waters of Egypt"-against the doctrinals of the false, "upon their streams, upon their rivers"-against the scientifics serving the falses which are of the doctrinals, "and upon their pools"-and wherever there is anything false,-"and upon every congregation of their waters"-and they will falsify truths, "and they shall be blood"-whence results a total falsification, when the false reigns and man lives according to his innate and acquired evil, "and there shall be blood in all the land of Egypt"-a total falsification, indeed, of the good which is of charity, and of the truth which is of faith, "and in the woods and in the stones." And so it was effected "and Moses; and Aharon did so as JEHOVAH commanded"-a strong power was directed against the falses, "and he lifted up the staff, and smote the waters which were in the river" so that all those who infested might apperceive it; "unto the eyes of Pharaoh; and unto the eyes of his servants."-From this came the falsification of every truth, "and turned were all the waters which were in the river into blood"-and the scientific of "truth was also extinguished," and the fish that was in the river died"-and they became averse to it, "and the river stank"-so that they wanted to know hardly anything about it, "and the Egyptians could not drink the water from the river"-and there was a total falsification, "and the blood was in the whole land of Egypt." But the falsifiers among the infesters effigied the like, "and the magicians of Egypt did 50 with their incantations"-so that the infesters remained obstinate, "and strengthened was the heart of Pharaoh"-and did not receive, nor did they obey the Divine admonition, "and he did not listen unto them"-according to the prediction, "as JEHOVAH spake"-but they thought and reflected from falses, "and Pharaoh looked back, and came unto his house"-and resisted from the will, and hence were obstinate, "and did not set his heart also unto this"-and they pervestigated the truth which they might apply to falses, "and all the Egyptians dug around the river waters to drink"-because they could not apply truths to mere falses," because "they could not drink of the waters of the river."
FROM FALSES, THEY REASON AGAINST TRUTHS AND GOODS.
(26-29.) That state came to an end after the truths had been falsified, "and fulfllled were seven days after JEHOVAH smiting the rivers"-and the Divine gave a new instruction, "and JEHOVAH said unto Moses"-that the infesters should be commanded, "Come unto Pharaoh, and thou shalt say unto him"-that they should leave those who are of the Church, so that they may, in freedom, worship their God. "Thus saith JEHOVAH, Send My people and they shall serve Me." And if they do not relinquish them, "and if thou refusest to send"-they will reason from mere falses, "behold I shall affect thine every border with frogs"-and the reasonings from these falses, "and the river shall make to creep forth frogs"-will fill the mind even to its interiors, "and they shall go up and come into thy house, and into the chamber of thy couch"-unto the inmosts, "and upon thy bed"-and they will fill all things which are in the natural, "and into the house of thy servants and into thy people"-and will enter into the delights of the cupidities, "and into thine ovens and into thy kneading troughs," that is to say, it will be the delight of their life to reason from falses, and thus to deceive and seduce others; and indeed the reasonings from falses will be in all and single things, "and into thee, and into thy people, and into all thy servants shall go up the frogs."
All Priests 1894
All Priests whosoever or of whatsoever quality they are, by virtue of the priestly [with them, represent the Lord).- A. C. 3670.
INSTRUCTING CHILDREN CONCERNING GENERATION 1894
[An Address to Parents by the Head Master of the Berlin School.)
THE subject before us is of the highest importance to New Church parents and teachers, one which most interiorly concerns the eternal welfare of the children with whose care the LORD has entrusted us, namely, how are we to properly instruct them concerning the manner of their birth, so that they may have pure and, heavenly ideas on this subject? How are we to protect them from entering into the so generally prevailing state among the young at this day, of impure and infernal affection, thought, action, and speech, in regard to the holiest things of Conjugial love? In short, what instruction must we give them so that they may comprehend the meaning of the Commandment, "Thou shalt not commit adultery"?
71
Parents do not generally realize that they are largely to blame for the injury their children suffer by imbibing impure ideas, for they fail to forestall such ideas by instilling pure ones. Confidence is not invited. The subject is avoided. When the child comes to its parents at an early age and desires to know where it comes from, or how it was born, it either receives an evasive answer or told a lie. The child grows older, and before long learns the truth from others, but in an impure and perverted form, and, conscious of the carefulness of its parents to conceal this knowledge from it, what else can it conclude than that the matter of birth must be something impure? The child adopts the same course as its parents, and conceals its knowledge from them. The parents converse with each other or with their friends before the child in a covered or hidden manner, thinking the child does not understand, and the child is careful not to betray its knowledge; often the child is sent from the room, after a hint has been given as to what is to be talked of; and it goes, fully knowing what is likely to be said. All the while the parents are confident that the child is very innocent; they even guardedly test it at times to see whether it does know anything on the subject, and the child as guardedly shows how innocent it is. Thus do parents and child mutually deceive each other. As the child grows older, parents cannot help knowing that it has knowledge on this subject, and the child is aware that the parents know of its knowledge; but the state of silence is generally continued; it is tacitly understood that this matter must by no means be talked of. The mutual confidence so necessary at this age is entirely lacking. Such is the general state. There are indeed exceptional cases, where children grow to quite an age before they acquire the knowledges mentioned; yet this is not a desirable state, for they are in constant danger of receiving what is perverted; and sooner or later they will learn, and then, how are they likely to answer for themselves the question, Why did my parents conceal this from me? The eternal welfare of the child demands that it be properly taught by parents and teachers on this subject. Great is the responsibility resting with us if we do not do so. We are hindering the attainment of that for which the child was born, namely, the eternal happiness and the joy of conjugial love, which is the Love of loves, of Heaven and of the Church. In Conjugial Love, n. 229, we read "The Divine Providence of the LORD is most singular and most universal concerning marriages and in marriages, because all the delights of heaven flow from the delights `of conjugial love, as sweet waters from the fountain head; and therefore it is provided that conjugial pairs be born; and these are continually educated under the auspices of the LORD for their marriage, neither the boy nor the girl knowing it." The LORD should be looked to as the Educator of all children, and we should regard ourselves as mere instruments in His hands for the performance of this use. If, in doing it, we would be in the stream of the Divine Providence, let us see to it that the children be "continually educated for their marriage," by so leading that there may be implanted in them celestial and holy remains for their future married state; by imparting to them the knowledges which will enable them to look with pure delight upon all things of marriage; by guarding them against the lascivious states which emanate from hell and fill the world at this day. With angels and with regenerated men there is jealousy for conjugial love-that is, zeal that conjugial love be not injured. In [Conjugial Love, n. 367, we read: "Zeal for love truly conjugial is the zeal of zeals, because that love is the love of loves, and its delights, for which zeal is excited, are the delights of delights, for that love is, as was shown above, the head of all loves. . . . Since the zeal of conjugial love is the zeal of zeals, therefore it is called by a new name, Jealousy (zelotypia), which is the very type of zeal." The true Newchurchman will have jealousy, not only for the preservation of conjugial love with himself and consort, but also for the preservation of all states in his children which lay the foundation for love truly conjugial. Jealousy is ever watchful, ever guarding; it never, sleeps. They who are animated by this jealousy are truly in the sphere of the love of children, which is the sphere of protection and support of those who are unable to protect and support themselves (C. L. 391). In the work of education it is a duty to prepare the child for the states of evil and falsity which it must sooner or later meet and overcome. In New Church schools and homes children must learn to love the New Church, and what is of the New Church; and also to dread the Old Church, and what is of the Old Church; so that as what is of the Old comes before them more and more, they may shun it. This is necessary if we would lead them to remain in the Church and be regenerated. So in regard to the subject we are considering; we must not only implant in their minds the knowledges which form true ideas concerning conjugial love, but we must also instruct them as to the opposite, which reigns supreme in the Old Church-and must warn them against it. It may be that some parents hesitate to instruct their children concerning conception and birth, because of fear that they wound thereby injure the child's innocence. It is well for parents and teachers to have this fear, for in the work of education there must be constant watchfulness that no harm be done to innocence: the end of all instruction and education should be that the innocence of childhood may become the innocence of wisdom (C. L. 413). There is however, no real ground for such fear, in regard to instruction on this subject, if the instruction be properly accommodated to the age of the child. Self-examination will probably reveal the fact that the cause of this fear is, that within ourselves there is not a proper state of thought on this subject; that there still abides, from impressions received in earlier years, something of the idea that conception and birth, and what relates thereto, has something impure about it; the impure and filthy ideas, received in childhood, concerning the generative organs and their uses, are as a rule so strongly impressed that it is difficult, in spite of later better knowledge from the Doctrines, to get entirely rid of them; moreover, our evil affections will impart an evil character to the thoughts. Thus danger to childish innocence is to be feared, not from instruction upon this holy subject, but from perverted thoughts and affections in human minds. How pure the subject is, in itself, and how elevating the orderly thought concerning it, may be evident from the following passages: "In general it is to be known, that the loins and members adhering to them correspond to genuine conjugial love, consequently to those societies where such are" (A. C. 6050). "There are, celestial societies, to which correspond all and single the members and organs allotted to generation in both sexes; these societies are distinct from others, as that province also in man is perfectly distinct and separate from the remaining.
72
That these societies are celestial is because conjugial love is the fundamental of all loves; they also excel in use, and thence in delight, above others; for marriages are the seminaries of the universal human race, and also the seminaries of the heavenly kingdom of the LORD, for from the human race is heaven" (A. C. 5053). "Those who have most tenderly loved infants, as such mothers, are in the province of the womb and adjacent organs, namely, in the neck of the womb and of the ovaries, and those who are there are in the sweetest and most delicious life, and in celestial delights above others" (A. C. 5054). That consorts enjoy similar consociations with each other as in the World, but more delightful and blessed; yet without prolification, for which, or in place of which, they have spiritual prolification, which is of Love and Wisdom. What Consorts enjoy similar consociations as in the World, is because after death the male is male, and the female is female, and there has been implanted in each from creation the inclination to conjunction; and this inclination with man is of his spirit and thence of his body, wherefore after death, when man becomes a spirit, the same mutual inclination remains; and this is not givable without similar consociations; for man is man' as before, neither is anything absent from the male nor anything from the female; as to form they are like themselves, besides as to affections and thoughts; what else then follows thence, than that there are similar consociations; and because conjugial love is chaste, pure, and holy, that also the consociations are full; but see more concerning these things in the Memorabile, n. 44. That the consociations then are more delightful and blessed, is because that Love, when it becomes of the spirit, becomes more interior and purer, and thence more perceptible; and every delight some new grows according to perception, and grows even until its blessedness is discernible in its delightsomeness" (C. L. 51). "I know that few will acknowledge that into conjugial love are collated all joys and all delights from primes to ultimates, because love truly conjugial, into which they are collated, at this day is so rare that it is not known what its quality is, and scarcely that it is, according to the things which are explained and confirmed above (n. 58, 59), for they are not in any other conjugial love than the genuine; and because this is so rare on earth, it is impossible to describe its supereminent felicities otherwise than from the mouth of angels, because these are in it; these have said that its inmost delights, which are of the Soul, into which first inflows the conjugial of love and wisdom, or of good and truth from the LORD, are imperceptible and thence ineffable, because they are at the same time, of peace and innocence; but that the same in their descent become more and more perceptible, in the superiors of the mind as blessednesses, in the inferiors of the mind as blissfulnesses, in the breast as delightsomenesses from them, and that from the breast they diffuse themselves into all and singles of the body, and at last unite themselves in ultimates into the delight of delights" (C. L. 69). "That all the delights of Love truly conjugial, even the ultimate, are chaste. This follows from the things explained above, that Love truly conjugial is chastity itself, and delights make its life; that the' delights of that love ascend and enter heaven, and in the way pass through the delights of heavenly loves, in which are the angels of Heaven; then that they conjoin themselves with the delights of their conjugial love, was mentioned above. Besides it was heard from the angels that they perceive those delights with themselves to be exalted and filled, when they ascend from chaste, consorts on earth; and on account of bystanders, who were unchaste, to the question whether also the ultimate delights, they nodded, and said quietly, Why otherwise? Are not these those in their fullness?" (C. L. 144). From teachings like these must our ideas on this subject be formed, and when this is the case, then are we prepared to instruct children therein.
(To be continued.)
So far as he does evil 1894
So far as he does evil-that is, contrary to what is just and equitable, and contrary to what is good and true, so far, the priest [puts off] the representative of holy priesthood.- A. C. 3670.
ROBERT HINDMARSH 1894
IV.
THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CHURCH.
LED by the ever resolute and fearless Robert Hindmarsh, who was then but twenty-eight years of age, some of the members of the Society resolved to lay before their brethren the distinct proposal to open a place for the public worship of the LORD JESUS CHRIST in His Divine Human. This momentous proposition was submitted to the Society at a meeting held on April 19th, in the year 1787, but was negatived by a small majority of the members, some of whom were altogether opposed to any separation from the Old Church, while others did not think that the proper time for such a step had yet arrived. But though the Rev. John Clowes came to London for the single purpose of dissuading the minority from their expressed purpose, the latter were not convinced by his arguments, nor persuaded by his appeals for "charitable" sentiments toward the Old Church. The votes of a majority could not outweigh the dictate of their conscience, and hence, on the 7th of May of the same years they organized a new and separate Society, which they styled "The Society for Promoting the Heavenly Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Church." They still continued in friendly relations with the remaining members of the "Theosophical Society," which latter did not dissolve until some years afterward. Thenceforth, however, the readers of the Writings were divided into two distinct and sometimes opposing parties, "separationists" and "non-separationists" (R., pp. 54-56; I., 1873, P. 237). At the first meeting of this new Society it was resolved to engage, at the first opportunity, a chapel for the meetings and the public worship of the New Church; but as no such opportunity offered itself for some time, the members continued to meet at private houses. "Rules and Regulations" for the Society were adopted at a meeting held on July 2d, and a declaration of "Principles" at a select meeting held on July 29th, 1787. In this latter interesting document, which was drawn up by Mr. James Glen, it is declared, among other things, that
"The Truths of the New Church are alone contained in the Word and the Theological Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg." "Introduction into the New Church is solely through the Spiritual Correspondence, Baptism, performed in that Church." "Conjunction with the LORD and consociation with the angels of the New, Heavens are effected by the Holy Supper taken in the New Church, according to its Heavenly and Divine Correspondences."
73
The first establishment of the New Church in an external form was finally completed when, on July 31st, 1787, the Sacraments of Baptism and the Holy Supper for the first time were administered according to the Doctrines of the New Jerusalem. At this solemn meeting "it was determined by lot that Mr. James Hindmarsh should officiate in the room of a priest." First, the Holy Supper was administered to eleven persons, and afterward the Sacrament of Baptism to five others. Of these, Robert Hindmarsh was the first to take up the ensign of the New Church, and thus to enter through the universal gateway into the Holy City (R., pp. 57, 58; I., 1873, p. 237). Soon after this occasion the first Liturgy of the New Church, entitled The Order of Worship for the New Church Signified by the New Jerusalem in the Revelation, was drawn up by Robert Hindmarsh and adopted by the Society (R., p. 60; I., 1835, p. 414). On November 5th of the same year the Society met for the first time in the chapel in Great East Cheap, which had been hired by Mr. Hindmarsh and two other members for the uses of the Church. This chapel was opened' for the public worship of the New Church on the LORD'S Day, January 27th, 1788. Mr. James Hindmarsh, who had been chosen the first minister of the Church, on this occasion preached a sermon on the text, "Praise ye the LORD" (Ps. cl, 6; R., p. 61). In view of the purely ecclesiastical form which the Society had now assumed it was resolved, at a meeting on May 5th, 1788, to adopt the scriptural and doctrinal designation, "The New Church, signified by the New Jerusalem in the Revelation," instead of the former secular name. At this time the necessity for a regularly appointed and ordained Priesthood began to be recognized, and many meetings were held for the consideration of this important subject. The question arose, Whence should the Priesthood of the New Church derive its authority and ordination? From the authorities of the Old Church? Manifestly not, for the New Church was to be as distinct from it as was the first Christian Church from the preceding dispensation. Should, then, the ordaining power proceed from the members of the New Church themselves through a direct majority rote?. The Society did not think they possessed such an inherent, original power. Such a course would make of the priestly office a merely human institution. "To whom then, should they look for light on this question, to which the Heavenly Doctrine appeared to give no specific answer, and which human prudence could not solve. To whom but to the LORD alone, the High-Priest, and the only Priest of His Church? With unquestioning trust in the Divine Providence the members of the New Church determined to seek for indications of the Divine Will, by means of the drawing of lots. To this step they were led, not by the pressure of necessity alone, but also, and especially, by the example of the Apostles in choosing Matthias as one of their number to fill the vacant place of Judas; and by the teaching in the True Christian Religion, n. 696, concerning the immediate guidance of the Divine Providence in the drawing of lots. (See, also, the Spiritual Diary, n. 4008.) Two of the members, James Hindmarsh and Samuel Smith had been in the preaching office before their conversion to the New Church, and were unanimously considered by the others to be well qualified and called by the LORD to continue in this use. The drawing of lots was only to determine who should act as the LORD'S instruments in conferring upon these two the powers of ordination. These conclusions having been reached to the satisfaction of all, it was unanimously agreed, at a meeting held on June 1st, 1788, to ordain James Hindmarsh and Samuel Smith as Priests and ministers of the New Church. Twelve of the male members, representing the Church as a whole, with all its goods and truths, were then chosen by lot to lay their right hands upon the candidates for ordination, while Robert Hindmarsh, as one of these twelve, was unanimously requested to read the service of ordination, which he had prepared for the occasion. In his history of the Rise and Progress of the New Church Hindmarsh adds to his account of the above ceremony the following information:
"Being desirous, for my own private satisfaction, to ascertain which of the twelve to be selected by lot it might please the LORD to appoint to read or perform the ceremony, I wrote, unknown to the rest of the Society, upon one of the twelve tickets thus marked with a cross, the word ORDAIN. I then put the sixteen tickets into a receiver when a prayer went up from my heart that the LORD would show whom He had chosen for the office of ordination. The members being properly arranged, I went round to them all; and each one took a ticket out of the receiver, leaving me the last ticket, on which was written, as before stated, the word ORDAIN. Still the other members were not aware of what I had done; and when the twelve were separated from the, rest, after consulting to ether a few moments, they unanimously requested, that I should read and perform the ceremony of Ordination. Whereupon James Hindmarsh was first ordained by me, and immediately afterward, Samuel Smith." (R., pp. 70, 71. See, also, I., 1836, pp. 416, 416; New Church Repository, vol. VI, p. 232.)
Robert Hindmarsh, in consequence, considered himself doubly chosen, by the LORD Himself as well as by the Church, to act as the principal ordainer, and that he himself, in fact, and by virtue of this double choice, was ordained a priest of the New Jerusalem. Though he never claimed recognition as such from his brethren, yet the Church itself, at the Conference held at Derby, in the year 1818, by a unanimous resolution, placed his name at the head of its list of ordained ministers, together with the addendum, "ordained by the Divine Auspices of the LORD." During this period Hindmarsh was not less active in the literary work of the Church than in the work of her organization. He translated from the Latin, and published at his own expense, the works on The Last Judgment, on The White Horse, on The Intercourse between the Soul and the Body, and A Brief Exposition of the Doctrine of the New Church. In the same year (1788), in his capacity as Secretary of the Great East Cheap Society, he wrote a small work entitled Reasons for Separating from the Old Church. This was written in answer to a letter addressed to the Society by the Rev. John Clowes and his friends, in Manchester, who still hoped to persuade their London brethren to give up their separate establishment. So completely did Hindmarsh silence the objections raised to the separation, and so luminous `and convincing were his arguments, that a majority of Mr. Clowes' own followers soon afterward separated from the Old Church, and established the prosperous Society in Peter Street, Manchester. Nothing stronger has ever been written on this important subject than, this little pamphlet by Robert Hindmarsh. It might be reproduced with great benefit at the present time, when the distinctiveness of the New Church is becoming more and more obscured among the members of the Church at large. On the invitation of the Society at Great East Cheap, the friends of the separate establishment of the New Church assembled in London for a "General Conference," on April 13th to 17th, 1789.
74
This first general meeting of the Church was truly representative and universal in character, being attended not only by members from various parts of England, but also from Sweden, France, and America. Among the many resolutions which were passed at this memorable meeting, which was opened with an earnest address by Robert Hindmarsh, the following, the very first of the series, is of special interest, as showing that the recognition of the Divine Authority of the Writings was the very corner-stone upon which these early builders of the Church endeavored to erect the holy Temple of the LORD:
"I. Resolved; unanimously, That it is the opinion of this Conference that the Theological works of the Hon. EMANUEL SWEDENBORG are perfectly consistent with the Holy Word, being at the same time explanatory of its internal sense in so wonderful a manner that nothing short of a Divine Revelation seems adequate thereto. That they also contain the Heavenly Doctrines of the New Church, signified by The New Jerusalem in the Revelation; which Doctrines he was enabled by the LORD alone to draw from the Holy Word, while under the Inspiration and Illumination of His Holy Spirit" (B., p. 101).
The sphere at this first general meeting of the LORD'S New Church is described as having been most delightful. Perfect unanimity reigned throughout all the proceedings, and it seemed to all the members as if the loving brotherhood of Primitive Christianity had been restored upon earth. It was, indeed, a moment in the infancy of the Church when innocence and peace prevailed, and eternal remains of both good and truth were sown for its future life.
V.
THE FIRST CONFLICT.
BUT this innocence and peace were largely those of ignorance, and therefore did not last long. No sooner had the first establishment of the Church been effected in this world than hers internal temptations began. Soon after the delightful love-feast of the first General Conference a difference arose among the members of the Church in London, involving an issue of a most serious nature. The history of this, the first internal conflict in the New Church, has hitherto been wrapped in great mystery. Veiled references to it may be found here and there in the literature of the Church, and these have been unscrupulously used by some to throw discredit upon the ordinations of the New Church, and upon the fair name of Robert Hindmarsh. It will, therefore, be useful to examine somewhat in detail this mysterious affair. In the "Historic Notice" which is prefixed to the volume of Reprints of Early Minutes of New Church Conferences etc. (London, 1885), the writer, the Rev. J. R. J. Boyle, on page xxxii, has inserted this foot-note: "Mr. Hindmarsh, with five others, had been separated from the Great East Cheap Society, for reasons not needed to be stated here, three years before"-that is, before the year 1799. This note leaves great scope for damaging conjectures, which may gain strength from the sinister interpretations of Robert Hindmarsh's acts and character suggested by this writer in other parts of his "Notice." Robert Hindmarsh "separated" from the Church of which he was the first founder and the most active and intelligent member! What possible "reasons" could justify such an act? On this subject the Church would have been left in satisfactory obscurity, had Rev. J. Manoah Sibly-who was one of the earliest members of the Great Cheap Society-furnished a clue to the mystery. In "An Address" to his Society, in Friar Street, London, Mr. Sibly, in the year 1839, publishes the following information:
"I'm here under the necessity of stating however reluctantly, that in the year 1789 a very sorrowful occurrence befell the infant New Church, whereby the flood-gates of immorality were in danger of being thrown open, to her inevitable destruction. "The Church held many solemn, meetings on the occasion, which ended in her withdrawing herself from six of her members viz. Robert Hindmarsh, Henry Servante, Charles Reins Wadstrom, Augustus Nordenskjold, George Robinson, and Alexander Wilderspin. On the Church coming to this conclusion, Mr. Robert Hindmarsh remarked, That he would never put it into the power of any Society again to cut him off as he nevermore would he a member of one. And I believe, notwithstanding his eminent services in the cause of the New Church, that, to his dying day, he kept his word" (pp. 3, 4).
In what way, then, could Robert Hindmarsh be implicated in the opening of "the flood-gates of immorality" upon the New Church,-he whose conjugial life has been described as most pure and lovely, and who, at his death, was declared "integer vitae scelerisque purus" by necrologists such as Noble, Goyder, Howarth, and others? What was the "sorrowful occurrence"? The Minute Book of the Great East Cheap Society, which is still preserved, ought to give more specified information on the subject of these "many solemn meetings." But we are told by Mr. Thomas Robinson, in his Remembrancer and Recorder (Manchester, 1864) that,
"Up to May 4th, 1789, this whole Book, from the first day, seems to be in the handwriting of Robert Hindmarsh. And from that day to April 11th, 1790, the account of the proceedings seems to have been torn out. From page 40 to 63 is missing. And we have been informed that it was not deemed advisable to let posterity see the nature of the record, contained therein" (p. 94).
This fact we find confirmed in the New Church Repository (vol. VI, page 545, New York, 1853) by Mr. Elihu Rich, of London, who also had investigated the Minute Book, and who, in company with the Rev. William Mason, of Derby, had unearthed this old scandal, in order to besmirch the character of the first originator of the New Church ordinations in England. While the memory of Robert Hindmarsh was being defamed by writers in the New Church Repository, an honorable love of fairness led Mr. Samuel M. Warren (then resident in Philadelphia) to write for authentic information to Mr. John Isaac Hawkins, who at that time was the last surviving member of the former Society in Great East Cheap. Mr. Hawkins, in his reply, which is dated Rahway, New Jersey, 1853, wrote as follows:
"With respect to the sorrowful occurrence you allude to from Mr. Sibly's pamphlet, It was a perverted view of Swedenborg's doctrine of Concubinage In his work on Conjugial Love, then just published;* whereby some held that, if a husband and wife did not agree, they might separate and the man take a concubine; I forget whether or not the wife was to have the same privilege. * The italics are Mr. Hawkins's. As a matter of fact, the work "on Conjugial Love" not published in English until the year 1794, thus five years later than 1789. "The notion however, soon ceased to be broached, and the Church was relieved from further discussion of the distressing subject. I do not recollect any case where the notion was acted on. Mr. Hindmarsh certainly did not. Nor do I believe that either of the five persons you name did."
In the same volume of the New Church Repository in which the above letter was printed (vol. VI, p. 143) Mr. Hawkins's statement is corroborated by a letter from Dr Samuel Bateman of London, who had at one time conversed with Mr. Sibly on this subject.
75
He reports from this conversation that,
"The evil itself was no other than an erroneous view of Swedenborg's teaching In the treastise on Scortatory Love-a work which was viewed from an unchaste ground by some of the early receivers of the Doctrines. . . . And whilst Robert Hindmarsh believed that those views were true to some extent, and to a degree which was calculated in the estimation of good Mr. Sibly to open the flood-gates of immortality, he kept aloof, in the opinion of Mr. Sibly himself, from all unchaste practices" (p. 144).
We have now at last come to something tangible in the mystery. Robert Hindmarsh, we are told, held "erroneous, perverted," and "unchaste" views of the holy subject of Conjugial Love, but did not act according to his evil conviction. Thus far, surely, his memory is "damned by faint praise." But what were these views, and in how far were they false and evil? Hindmarsh himself, in all his published works, is entirely silent on this subject, and our effort to vindicate his character would be futile were it not for the contemporary evidence of his fellow-sufferer, Augustus Nordenskjold. This much-abused pioneer of the New Church spent the year 1789 in London, taking an active part in all the freedom of the Church, and the following year published a work in the Swedish tongue, on The Form of Ecclesiastical Organization in the New Jerusalem (Forsamlingsformen uti det Nya Jerusalem). In this curious book, which has never been translated into English, we find the following section dealing with the "distressing" subject of concubinage:
"Paragraph 54. As it will happen, of course, that for long times to come there will be found unmarried men in our Church who are not able to marry, and married men who have been received among us, but who have unchristian wives, rejecting the New Doctrine, and who thus must live in a disharmonious marriage, it follows that when such men are driven so strongly by the inborn amor sexus that they cannot contain themselves, it is inevitable, for the sake of order, that they be permitted, the former to take a mistress and the latter a concubine. But no one is permitted to live thus in our Church who does not report it to the Bishop or the Marriage-Priest. [The latter was a proposed special degree in the Priesthood.] These are to examine, according to Swedenborg's rules, De Fornicatione et de Concubinato, if his case is truly such as he presents it. After this he is to receive their written permission, in which the conditions are to be carefully stated, and he may then live with his mistress or concubine. If this be observed, he may still be received among us as a dear member or brother, and his life will be no reproach to him. But if he does not report it he must be punished, and this in the degree that his life is disorderly; for no kinds of adulteries or anti-conjugial life can be tolerated in the New Jerusalem if the Church is to continue and the LORD to find an habitation among us."
In this paragraph, the essential idea-not to discuss the regulative formalities it prescribes-is neither an "erroneous," "perverted," or "immoral"; view of the LORD'S teachings on this subject, but is plainly based upon, and limited by, the Doctrine revealed in Conjugial Love, Nos. 459, 462-476 (quos vide). If the affirmation of these Divine teachings be an "opening of the floodgates of immorality," then all loyal followers of the LORD in His Advent are equally guilty of the same offense. On the contrary, however, it is the means of Divine Mercy whereby the inclination to the conjugial life may be preserved from entire destruction. It is quite evident that the announcement of the Doctrine concerning Concubinage and Pellicacy, as set forth in Conjugial Love, was what brought on the first conflict in the New Church, and which resulted in the separation of Robert Hindmarsh, Augustus Nordenskjold, Henry Servante, Charles Bernhard Wadstrom, and, two others-all among the most intelligent members of the Church-from the Society in Great East Cheap. It may easily be understood how the first presentation of this Doctrine would be a shock to the sentiments of the other members of the Church, who as yet had not had access to an English translation of Conjugial Love. Their ignorance is their excuse. It may thus be seen that the dark shadow of suspicion which ignorance or prejudice have cast upon the memory of Robert Hindmarsh, must give way before this new evidence of his loyalty and courage in defending even the most unpopular of the Doctrines of the New Church.
Title Unspecified 1894
He who loves the ends, loves also the means.-T. C. R. 437
AROUSED 1894
A TALE.
ON the wall of my private sitting-room, in the hotel where I had lived for several years, hung a large picture that extended from floor to ceiling. It represented a landscape, in which a path, bordered by noble trees, winds over a wide and gradually sloping upland, dotted with farm-houses down to the foreground. Standing at one aide of this path is a lovely girl, who, hat in hand, seems to have come out for a stroll from a house more stately than the rest, half hidden by the crest of the gently rising ground. This girl's face it was that had led me to accept the picture for a debt owed to me by the painter of it, although when he suggested this way of settling my claim I hesitated, as, judging from his previous work, had little faith in his ability to paint anything well. However, a very brief inspection of the picture decided me to take it. Good judges have since pronounced it worth fully the amount of the debt, and one friend offered me even more, but I refused to sell it. The girl's face had grown upon me until I had come to look forward with interest to a sort of interview with her every evening upon retiring to my room. It is seldom that such varied expressions are depicted in a portrait, as distinguished this face,-which the painter assured me was not a likeness of any person of his acquaintance. There was an intentness in every feature,-a sort of veiled passionateness, especially in the eyes, that held me spell-bound. No matter in what mood I sat down before her, I found always the answering expression in her face for which I sought; and there seemed to be a kind of struggle between us, each seeking to fathom the deepest depths of the other's soul, and to measure and weigh its capacity for love or hate; for faith or faithlessness, for joy or sorrow. The beautiful picture never failed to get the better of me, concealing what she wished to conceal concerning herself, and also of her knowledge of me. I abused myself a great deal in this way, although it was not always an amusement. Once or twice I gazed into her wonderful eyes until their expression fairly made me quail. Once she walked out of the picture and stood before me, whereat my hair fairly rose, while in abject, and unreasoning terror I pushed back my easy chair in an effort to rise and take to my heels. In my agitation I overturned the chair, and found, to my great surprise, that I had been dozing. When I reseated myself and turned to the beautiful girl again her eyes wore a smile of fathomless meaning. It was not my ideal of feminine beauty, this intent yet changeful face; it was of quite a different type from the one that I have enshrined in my heart of hearts, the one whose owner I hoped, one day, to call by the dear name of wife.
76
I had come home one evening in very high spirits and, in my favorite lounging place before my picture, I sat down to think over the events of the day. I had won a difficult case that day, wringing a favorable verdict for my client from a reluctant jury by the force of-well, it was not by force of the truth; but what mattered that, so long as I had won? For a few, wild, delirious moments I had held the hand of the lady of my love; whose smile had never been so kind. Her brother, my client, had come to me, while in her presence, to congratulate me upon my success, and to invite me for the first time to a scat at his splendid table. Of course, I had accepted the invitation promptly. Now, late in the evening, I had just come home from his house, excited by the magnificence, the luxury it displayed, and intoxicated by the expressive beauty of his sister's face. I inwardly resolved that, by fair means or foul, I too would make a fortune, and ask her to share it with me. Altogether, I had a good deal to tell my pictured lady as I sat down before her. When I lifted my eyes to her well-known face I was startled by an expression of such intelligence shining from her features as made me fear that she was about to step out of her frame again. She fixed my gaze so intently that I had no power to look elsewhere; her eyes drew me like a magnet. I arose quite involuntarily, and walked straight toward her. As I approached, the figure that had so long stood before me began to recede with a swift, gliding motion that soon placed quite a distance between us, though it did not lessen her power to attract me. I was not conscious of having stepped into the picture until I began to stumble up the path in the twilight. My eyes were still riveted upon the face of the lady, now dimly seen in the gathering obscurity. I quickened my pace to a run that I might not lose sight of her, and pressed up the path, which, turning, gave me a view, not of the now invisible lady, but of the house toward which the path seemed to lead. Its windows were ablaze with light; music floated out upon the air-the music of instruments to whose rhythmical measure many feet kept time. I could see a large hall filled with graceful forms gliding through a waltz, and once (it made me quicken my pace to a still madder rush) I was sure I saw the lady I loved, whose hand I had pressed that day, floating around the room with a partner who bent his head as if to whisper loving words in her ear. In a frenzy of jealousy and mad passion I surmounted the crest of the hill, when suddenly, without the slightest warning, with no time to avoid the blow, I dashed against some obstacle in the path, that threw me breathless upon the ground beside it. The blow and the fall had stunned me, yet I was able to think as I lay there helpless, and to wonder what had become of the burning desire to reach yonder house that had so possessed me just before. I made no effort to recover my breath; I had an impression that when it did come, it would be with acute pain. The present faded from my view, and the pest unrolled before me like a scroll, till it revealed a scene in my childhood in which I stood by the bedside of a pale lady (my mother's sister), who, they told me, was soon going to die. A child of eight years has only a dim idea of death-to that age even inanimate things seem alive. This was the first time I had been brought sharply face to face with it, and the scene was vividly impressed upon my memory. I loved this gentle lady who had faded before us so gradually that at last her death came as a surprise to all her friends. When my mother, who sat weeping by her sister's bedside, explained her tears to me by saying that auntie was dying, I looked from her to the pallid face upon the pillow, mutely asking what it meant. The thin, wasted hand of my aunt reached out to clasp mine; and her sweet voice said: "I am not dying, my darling, I am just beginning to live: but I shall live in another world than this. You "will come there, too, when you put off this body, which series you only while you live here. Presently I shall leave mine, and it will lie here, still and cold. Then, when they put it away in the ground, you must not cry; remember, it is not auntie-only her worn-out shell. Do you remember the chrysalis you had last winter, and kept so carefully until the butterfly burst out? Then you did not care for it any more. I, too, am bursting out of my shell." The door opened to admit my father and my aunt's minister, both hastily summoned. She beckoned the former nearer and said: "May I see this child baptized into the LORD'S New Church before I go?" My father's voice was husky as he replied: "If your sister is willing, I don't mind-you know I don't believe in such things; however, it can't do the child any harm." My mother gave a tearful assent. "What is it, auntie?" said I. "It is a sign to the angels that you are to be of the LORD'S New Church," she answered. "What is the LORD'S New Church?" I asked. In the pause that followed she gathered her failing forces, to find the words of a reply that would impress themselves deeply upon my memory. It is the Church that teaches that the LORD JESUS CHRIST is the only God of Heaven and earth; that besides Him there is no Saviour." With the last words, her voice sank to a whisper, but I heard every one. She never spoke again, but during the ceremony she lay clasping one of my hands. When it was finished, her Pace lighted up with a smile that was not of this world, so much like an angel's did it seem. She slowly lifted her fingers to her lips, touched them, and wafted the kiss to me. Then' her hand fell by her side, her eyes closedly gently, there was a little gasp for breath, and all was over. This scene, and the burial, at which I did not weep, came back to me as vividly while lying prone upon the earth as if I were actually living it over again. Long afterward I became convinced, though of course unconscious of it at the time-that while gazing at my aunt during the baptismal ceremony, I beheld, not her dying body, but her living soul, as she appeared to the inhabitants of the other world. She lay as if quietly asleep, not pale and thin, as her face looked afterward in her coffin, but fair and rosy and smiling, with a wakeful smile, and with a quivering of the eyelids as if just ready to open them to a conscious view of things unseen to all around her. I always recalled her as she lay thus, and wondered at my mother's long continued sadness and ready tears at any reminder of her. It takes long to tell this, though the recollection was like a flash of lightning; so, too, was the passing before, me, like a panorama, of my subsequent life; my experiences in various schools, from primary to collegiate, my particular preparation for a profession, my entering into its duties, and my failures and successes in it up to the moment of my terrible collision with that unknown obstacle in my path-all of it was revealed to me with wonderful distinctness. But the chief wonder was that my judgment...of my past life was very different indeed from my usual self satisfied estimate of it.
77
Evidently the blow that felled me to the earth had put to sleep my habitual desires and ambitions, and had awakened a power of looking at my own actions from a higher and more internal plane of life. As coolly as if collecting evidence against another person, from that spiritual point of view I scanned those pictures of my past. In my exalted state of mind I had no difficulty in seeing that the things of space and time derive their value from the things of eternity. Of what value was all my scholastic learning, compared with a knowledge of this unknown world on whose threshold I seemed to be lying? Now, with my face turned toward it, with the consciousness of its reality thus suddenly awakened, I became painfully aware that I had spent my time in eagerly acquiring knowledge in every possible direction but this. I knew much concerning the laws of nature and of civil laws, but how much did I know of those which govern the world in which I was to live to eternity? My mind appeared to me like a charnel-house, full of empty and dead things. My mind,-what did I know of my mind? What part of it was thus filled? Only my memory. From this, as from a storehouse, I had begun to draw-for what purpose? The history of the past day would answer that question. I had perverted and distorted and misrepresented every fact in my possession bearing on that case, for the sake of winning it. I had succeeded in suppressing the truth, and in its garments had so skillfully dressed a lie that no one could unmask it. A few more successes of that sort would destroy the only part of my two-fold life that was really worth while preserving. And what was the reward of all this work, the tendency of which was to bring hell upon earth? Merely a goodly sum of the only wealth valued in the world. A fiting recompense, truly! Was it for this that I was selling my soul? "But," murmured a voice within me, "it was done to the end of winning the lady you love, and of preparing a life of luxury and ease for her." The answer to this was like a flash of lightning out of a clear sky. "What! Do you pretend to love a good woman, and yet can lie in your daily life?" I writhed with humiliation and shame A yearning desire for better things was born of this fearful revelation of myself, and with it a resolve to amend my life. "It is not too late," I said, aloud, "with the LORD'S help, I will make the attempt." With the words upon my lips I turned where I lay, toward the dark lowering object (that had seemed like a stone when I fell against it) to seek its aid in rising. Even before opening my eyes, I flung out my arm, and my hand rested, not on a rugged and cold surface, as I had expected, but on an open volume from whose pages now flowed a light so dazzling as nearly to blind me. But by shading my eyes with the other hand, I could now discern faint forms of written characters from which the glory seemed to proceed. Little by little they became visible upon the open page, and at last they formed, themselves into the following words: "Enter ye in at the strait gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat. Because strait the gate and narrow the way which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it." I had not withdrawn my hand from its grasp of the Book: at this I had often since wondered. Instead of trying to rise, I fell back to the earth again and lay there with closed eyes. , The luminous rays flowing from the Book still left a vivid impression upon the retina-or was it with the eyes of my inmost soul that I saw them stream forth and around. Slowly and softly, as if at tempering themselves to my feeble finite vision, they rose before me into the likeness of a Human Form, into whose flowing Garment of Light the Book disappeared from my sight. It was a dream within a dream. In that sphere of peace and purity, far above the evil promptings of my lower nature, I could look down at them from the same point of view as the angels. I could see them in open and mad insurrection against the sphere and state from which I was now regarding them, and waiting, like so 1 many ferocious beasts, for the opportunity to leap upon and throttle and destroy my better nature. The light from the Word, in which I lay, illuminated my mind, but did not arouse my affections in such a way as to exert a preponderating influence. My passions had received a check just sufficient to keep-them from blinding me, and these opposing forces, thus equally balanced, seemed to leave me in perfect freedom to decide the awful question of spiritual life or death. From the perfect equilibrium in a man's mind, between the forces of good and evil, he is able to turn, of his own free will, to one or the other. What guides the choice? The problem is one within the unfathomable mystery of life. I sprang to my feet repeating my previous resolve- "With the LORD'S help, I will make the attempt." The light from the Book showed me, to my great surprise, that I stood at the entrance to the strait and narrow way, and also revealed that paths led from it at every step down to the broad road. This was new to me. I had imagined it so hedged in on every side that, once in it, all danger of going astray was over. I saw that at every step a choice had to be made between the upward and downward way; also that by those downward paths, evil beings could ascend to entice me into their crooked mazes. A glance had sufficed for all this; before I could see further, the door of that blazing house I had so desired to enter, flew open, and all its occupants rushed out. With frantic screeches and wild gestures they called my name, bidding me come and join in their revels. I turned to gaze, and for the first time saw them through the light shed upon them by the Word. What a transformation it effected I Instead of the graceful forms of a few minutes since, deformed monsters and painted sirens leaped and danced along the paths that led toward me. Could it be that the lady I loved was among this crew? Had I then read her character so incorrectly? Was it possible that so beautiful a person could hold so hideous a soul? Oh I no, it was incredible. Some siren had taken on a semblance of her, to draw me thither. I could no longer believe in truth, if she were not true; and there arose such a yearning love for her in my heart that I turned to go in search of her. For a moment, however, I stood to listen to the cries and shout's of the revelers not far away. They had plunged into crooked and winding paths that crossed and recrossed each other, forming a labyrinth, in emerging, from which they became so occupied that apparently they forgot me. During the moment that I listened and looked the whole scene gently faded from my view, as if a filmy cloud had intervened. Turning eastward to where the dawn was breaking, I saw it presently dispel the mist. The light grew and mounted higher, till the whole sky began to sparkle from the rays of the yet invisible sun. That blue, dome bent over me with such tenderness of expression that I remained gazing up into it and drinking in its beauty, inhaling the while deep breaths of delight.
78
A sense of human presence brought my gaze down to the earth, and there, standing beside me, was the lady of my love-not looking at me, but with her beautiful eyes dreamily fixed upon the pathway, in which we began at once to walk. Surely this must be in heaven, thought I, for nothing like it can possibly exist elsewhere. The turf, over which we passed with slow, lingering steps, was of a vivid green, smoothly and closely shaven, and soft as velvet-a delight to the eye and to the touch. The path on either side was bordered by a hedge of white-flowering shrubs in full bloom. So closely did the flowers crowd together that not a twig, not even, a green leaf, was visible. Away in the far distance, the hedges seemed to approach each, other, narrowing the path to a green thread, while near, at hand they arose high enough to shut out everything except the sparkling sky. I took in the beauty of it all, though still keeping my eyes fixed on my darling. How unchangeably beautiful was that face in its serene repose, and how unchangeably dear. Not one word did either speak-there seemed to be no need-and not even a bird-song in the hedges broke the tender silence. At last her lingering pace grew slower still, and presently she stopped, looking down. My eyes follow her gaze into the grass at her feet, where something glittered. Before. I could move toward it she stooped and picked it up, holding it in her hand, not purposely for me to see, but as if studying the object herself, it was a large, golden heart. Across the widest part of the side that she held uppermost was a band of different material, wide enough for small letters set into the band like a mosaic. The letters formed a name, which I read from where stood the name of my darling. That must be my heart, I thought, but even as I gazed a curious change began to come over it. Beginning at one end, the mosaic gradually disappeared, as if eaten up by some invisible I corrosive, leaving a deep furrow where it had been, so I deep indeed that the golden heart was cut almost entirely I through. We watched it in utter silence till the last letter had disappeared; then, closing her band upon it, she bent it almost double. No change came over her beloved face as she reached out and placed the glittering bauble in my hand, while she dropped my arm. A sudden comprehension of what had taken place flashed over me. That was indeed-at least it represented-my heart. She had picked it up where it lay at her feet, only to give it back to me, crushed and broken. I would have spoken, but was unable from the shock. Grief and pain surged through my soul like an incoming tide, higher and stronger every moment. I turned from her to hide this sudden and awful anguish till the first paroxysm should be past. Even as I held the broken, thing it beat and throbbed wildly, and burnt into my hand like fire. My pain became unbearable, and I turned toward her, when to my dismay I found myself alone. At once the sky grew dark, the white hedgerows disappeared, and the grass became dry and withered under my feet. I threw myself upon the ground with a cry of despair and loosed my hold of the broken heart. "Where is the use of living," I moaned, "now that she has left me? Of what use is this crushed and broken thing, now that she has given it back to me as not worth the keeping? I will bury it here; then die, and be out of my pain." With an unreasoning hope of thus relieving my sufferings. I began digging a little grave for my heart, scraping and tossing out the soft, warm earth with my hands. Tenderly, as if it had been a part of myself, I laid the misshapen thing in its grave, replaced the earth, and threw myself prone upon it. A soft pulsation, a distinct throbbing, heaved the ground on which I lay. "It is the heart of mother earth," I thought, "beating in sympathy with mine. This is a good place to die." "In this world," said a voice above me, "we do not die."
Notes and Reviews 1894
A new edition (the third) of the late Rev. D. G. Goyder's little work Swedenborg and His Mission, has recently been published by James Speirs, of London.
AN ANNOUNCEMENT has been made of the early appearance of another work by the honored veteran in New Church literature, Dr. J. J. Garth Wilkinson, to be entitled The New Jerusalem and the Old Jerusalem, and treating of the Jewish nation and its relation to the New Church.
THE second number of The New Church Portrait Gallery contains the likenesses of the Rev. Dr. R. L. Tafel, and of the Rev. Chauncey Giles, together with short biographies of these well-known ministers. The third number presents the portraits and biographies of the Rev. L. A. Slight, of Paisley, and Mr. James Spilling, the author of numerous novels of a New Church tendency.
THE most important entries in the seventy-third number of the, Concordance treat of the "Memory," the Planet "Mercury," of "Mercy" and of "Merit." The seventy-fourth issue is unusually replete with a variety of important and interesting subjects, such as "Michael," "Midian," "Mind-animus," "Mind-mens," "Mineral Kingdom," "Minister," "Miracle," and "Mohammed."
A LAMENTABLE want of principles characterizes an editorial of the Messenger (March 7th) on the question of woman's entering the office of the Priesthood, a question which it maintains "must be determined more by experience than by apriori conclusions." The guiding hand of Divine Revelation is thus rejected for the blind opportunism of mere expediency. The editorial finishes with this observation: "If it shall prove wise to assign to women any of the pastoral functions this new plan of work may prove the best form for it to take.""
AFTER a suspension of an entire rear the New Church Tidings reappears in the issue for April, 1894. The resuscitation is a pleasant surprise to all who appreciate the excellent services of this journal in developing the intelligent understanding of what is meant in the New Church by the WORD. The present issue continues the elucidation of this most important subject. As a matter of journalistic etiquette, as well as for historical information, it might have been well if the Tidings had taken its readers somewhat into its confidence on the causes for its long suspension, and the prospects of its future regularity of publication.
The New Church Standard for March, in its editorial notes, demonstrates clearly the fallacy of the notion which has lately been expressed in the New Church Magazine, that the Divine Providence now, as at the time of the Reformation, is raising up men in all the Churches of Christendom to pave the road for the universal reception of the Heavenly Doctrines. The editor points out that in the dead Church the time for Reformation is past. The same issue of The Standard contains a valuable sermon on "The Right Education of the Young," by the Rev. E. C. Bostock, and two articles on the origin of Arianism and its influence upon modern religious thought.
79
LIFE OF THE NEW CHURCH Various 1894
THE ACADEMY OF THE NEW CHURCH.
Philadelphia.-THE Sacrament of the Holy Supper was administered on April 1st to ninety-four communicants, the largest number since the inauguration of public worship, by the Academy. The third of the congregational socials of this season was given on April 6th, Mr. and Mrs. R. M. Glenn assisting Bishop and Mrs. Pendleton in receiving the guests. An interesting feature of this social was the account given by Mr. Schreck of F. H. Barthelemon, the first composer of New Church music, who lived and wrote a century ago. Mr. Schreck's remarks were accompanied by the rendering of specimens of Mr. Barthelemon's music, including an adaptation to the Third Psalm, and a novel and pretty combination of two melodies-one representing Love and the ether Truth-in a harmony which represented the conjunction of the two. On April 8th the services were introduced at the reception of three new members into the Church the Sacrament of Baptism. The Rev. N. D. Pendleton, Pastor of the Immanuel Church of Chicago, then preached on the subject of "Temptations" (Exodus v, 22). The "Alumni" association of graduates and former, pupils of the Schools of the Academy, which was formed in June last year, held its first general meeting in the Hall of worship on April 9th, thirty members of both sexes being present. The meeting was opened with a short religions service conducted by the Rev. E. J. E. Schreck, after which, the Chancel was closed by curtains and the meeting look on a more informal and social character, Professor Schreck presiding. Introducing the first sentiment, "To the Academy of the New Church," he called to mind the debt of loving thanks which the former pupils of the schools owe to this body, the sense of which has expressed itself in the formation of this new association. The next sentiment was "To the Alumni Association," which was a brief historical sketch of the origin and development of the movement. The Rev. E. S. Price replying to the sentiment, "The celestial support of the Academy," presented this as the chief use of the Alumni Association, a support proceeding especially from the sphere of the love of the LORD and His Truth. "The Spiritual Support of the Academy" as responded to by the Rev. C. Th. Odhner, who dwelt upon the use of cultivating mutual love, as sons and daughters of the Academy. Social meetings, such as the present, are a means toward this end. Mr. George O. Starkey responded to the toast to "The Natural Support of the Academy." As such he suggested the use of financial support, through the medium of the Alumni Association. The Rev. N. D. Pendleton responded to the sentiment proposed "To the absent Alumni." A toast was also proposed to those former pupils of the Schools who have passed into the spiritual world, and of whose affectionate and most effective operation in the essence of this movement there can be no doubt. One of the features of the meeting was the introduction of a "loving cup procured for the occasion. A desire was expressed for the adoption of a more distinctively New Church name for the association. A number of the ladies present volunteered their services as correspondents to communicate with members resident in other places. ON the LORD'S Day, April 15th, Candidate Charles E. Doering preached on "The Acknowledgment of God" (Rev. i, 2), this being his first sermon. On the following Sunday Pastor Price preached on "The Exposure of Fallacies whence arise Falses" (Exodus vii 10-12). During the month Professor Odhner has delivered a series of lectures on the lives of the earliest Newchurchmen in England: Stephen Penny, who was the first reader of the Doctrines known to history; William Cookworthy, who was the first translator; the Rev. Thomas Hartley the intimate friend of Emanuel Swedenborg; and the Rev. John Clowes the well-known translator, teacher, and defender of the Doctrines. Berlin.-ON the morning of Easter Sunday the Festival of the Glorification of the Human of the LORD was celebrated by a chorus. The service was in two parts, the first bearing on the LORD'S state of Humiliation, the second on His state of Glorification. The service consisted of reading from the Doctrines and from the Letter of the Word, alternately and together, by the two priests; responsive readings by the priests and the congregation, and selections from the new music. In the singing of the Psalms the pastor read the universals and the minister the summaries of the Internal Sense. In the afternoon the Sacrament of the Holy Supper was celebrated. On the Sunday preceding Easter the sermon treated of the LORD'S state of humiliation and on the Sunday following Easter, of His state of Glorification. Two evenings of each week the men of the congregation meet to work on the school grounds. In this way, during the last two summers, a large amount of work has been done toward beautifying the surroundings of the home of the Church, and it is expected that this year's efforts will do much toward farther improvement. Parkdale.-The "Academy School in Parkdale opened on January 22d. Two boys were baptized preparatory to their entrance as pupils. The attendance now is ten, all boys; but when circumstances permit of the employment of a lady teacher a number of pupils of the other sex are ready to enter.
THE CHURCH AT LARGE.
Massachusetts-THE Rev. S. M. Warren, on Easter Sunday, preached to the Society at Boston Highlands, whose pastor, the Rev. J. K. Smyth, is at present absent on a journey to Palestine. The sermon is reported as having "had a peculiar interest to those who have been long in the Church. They get the same truth now that they received long ago, but under slightly different forms. It is very sweet to them, sometimes to have it given out of the dear old cup from which they first quenched their soul's thirst." In this note concerning what was probably a "doctrinal" sermon, may be discerned somewhat of a pathetic tone, a regretful looking back to the time when the Church was fed with more nourishing diet than is common now in the preaching of the Church at large.
Rhode Island.-THE Society of Providence now numbers one hundred and thirty-one members. Fifty new members have been added to the Church during the last five years.
Pennsylvania.-THE sixth annual meeting of the Pennsylvania Association of the New Church, was held at Frankford, on March 1894. The Rev. John W. Macpherson, pastor of the Frankford Society, was elected President of the Association, in place of the late Rev. Chauncey Giles. The Frankford Society reported eighty-two members, a slight decrease from the number of the preceding year. The Philadelphia First Society reported three hundred and sixty-five members, the Vineland Society, seventy-three, Lancaster, twenty-two, Allegheny, eighteen, and Allentown, seventeen. Maryland.-THE Maryland New Church Sunday- School Union held its annual meeting at Baltimore, on February 21st. This was reported to have been one of the most interesting meetings in the history of the Union. Reports received from seven Sunday-schools showed an average attendance, in aggregate, of three hundred pupils. Washington, D. C.- AT a meeting of the "National Committee on the House of Worship in Washington," held, in Philadelphia on March 29th, it was decided to proceed at once with the plans for the Temple, which is to be erected at a cost not exceeding fifty thousand dollars. AT the annual meeting of the Washington Society the addition of six new members during the year was reported. THE dilapidated chapel of the "Colored" N. C. Society in this city was beautifully decorated for Easter with flowers and pictures. The inscription "Old Glory," so dear to the African- American citizen, was on this occasion used only as decoration to conceal the most unsightly portion of the building. This, our colored brethren stated, was done, "because we are New Church people now."
Ohio-THE Mary Allen Schools, in Glendale, opened on March 6th under the directorship of the Rev. Frank Sewall. The Institution employs New Church teachers but receives pupils "without regard to denominational lines."
Louisiana.-THE Rev. A. J. Bartels, of Chicago recently made a missionary visit to New Orleans, where he delivered a series of lectures on the Doctrines of the New Church. Some of the former members of the now defunct New Church Society in New Orleans attended the lectures, but as they have united themselves with other Churches they did not seem disposed to take any more active interest in the work. The reporter for the Messenger surmises that "they may have gone into other churches under the laming teachings of some Newchurchmen, that it matters not in what church they are, just so that they believe in the Doctrines of the New Church enough perhaps to buy a book occasionally, and to subscribe for a paper." The cause which has especially operated to destroy the New Church in New Orleans is the deadly influence of Spiritism, which has been rampant there among the professed receivers of the Doctrines, for more than forty years.
Texas.-THE Rev. J. B. Parmelee, of St. Louis (Mo.), has made an engagement to minister to the Galveston Society. The former pastor, the Rev. Jabez Fox, will preach temporarily to the Society in St. Louis.
California.-THE Los Angeles Society, which was organized in 1888, with thirteen members, now has a roll of forty-five, five of whom were received on last Easter Sunday. One of these was baptized-a veteran, seventy-five years of age and using crutches-an inmate of the Soldiers' Home. The Rev. D. V. Bowen officiated on the occasion. THE Rev. F. L. Higgins, of Portland, Oregon, has received a unanimous call to
80
LIFE OF THE NEW CHURCH Various 1894
NEW CHURCH LIFE. PUBLISHED MONTHLY BY THE ACADEMY OF THE NEW CHURCH.
TERMS:-One Dollar per annum, payable in advance. FOUR SHILLINGS IN GREAT BRITAIN.
The EDITOR'S address is 1821 Wallace Street, Fairmount Station, Philadelphia. Address all business communications to MR. CARL HJ. ASPLUNDH, No. 1821 Wallace Street, Fairmount Station, Philadelphia, Pa. Subscriptions are also received through the following agents: UNITED STATES. Chicago, Ill., Mr. A. E. Nelson, Chicago Agent of Academy Book-Room, No. 565 West Superior Street. Pittsburgh, Pa., Mr. Wm. Rott, Pittsburgh Agent of Academy Book-Room,, Tenth and Carson Streets. CANADA. Toronto, Ont., Mr. R. Carswell, 20 Equity Chambers. Waterloo, Mr. Rudolph Roschman. GREAT BRITAIN. Mr. E. W. Misson, Agent for Great Britain, of Academy Book-Room, Burton Road, Brixton, London, S. W.
PHILADELPHIA, MAY, 1894=124.
CONTENTS. PAGES EDITORIAL: Notes 65 The Divine Mediation by the Holy Spirit (a Sermon) 66 The First Three Degrees of Vastation (Exodus vii) 69 Instructing Children concerning Generation (an Address) 70 Robert Hindmarsh, iv, v 72 Aroused (a Tale) 75 NOTES AND REVIEWS 78 LIFE OF the NEW CHURCH 79 BIRTH 80 DEATH 80 ACADEMY BOOK BOOM, so take the pastoral charge of the First New Jerusalem Society of, San Francisco, in the place of the late Rev. John Doughty.
CANADA.
MR. T. M. Martin recently lectured in Ottawa, awakening some evidence of interest.
THE following note has been received by the Editor of New Church Life: DEAR SIR:-With reference to your note in April issue, relative to the purchase of a portion of the stock of the New Church literature belonging to the Equity Chambers Book Room, the purchase was not effected by the Toronto Society, but is a private one made by the present writer, though with a view to promote the interests of said society. The statement is correct that the Equity Chambers Book Room has been given up." Its business has been transferred to 37 Elm Grove, Parkdale. Hoping you will kindly insert, believe me, Yours, etc., G. L. ALBUTT.
Mr. Albutt's explanation in regard to the exact nature of the purchase referred to, calls for no additional comment. But his reiteration of the editorial statement made in the Star in the East, that the Book Room,-the official title of which does not include the term Equity Chambers,"-has been discontinued, when it simply has been continued in another locality, gives to the original inaccuracy an appearance of disinenuonsness. The Book Room continues in business, as he admits.-EDITOR.
ENGLAND.
JUBILEE services were held in February by the Society in Preston, celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the dedication of the Church building, which was built by Hugh Becconsall. The Society itself was founded in the year 1817, by Robert Hindmarsh. Among the addresses of the various ministers present, that by the Pastor, Rev. W. T. Lardge, warned the hearers against the dire spirit of indifference which has infested the Church, the notion that one kind of religious teaching was just as good as another, an idea which is fatal to spiritual life. That such teaching is as much needed as it is rare, is the opprobrium of the New Church ministry in general. THE death of McCully in Liverpool, on February 20th, at the age of sixty-three, has been announced. A literatteur by profession, and a linguist of more than ordinary attainments-he knew twelve languages-Mr. McCully was long known to the Church as a contributor to the Intellectual Repository and the New Church Magazine, and as the author of a volume of essays entitled Swedenborg Studies (London, 1875). He was a very interesting and graceful writer, but of late his usefulness had terminated through his espousal of the heresies formerly combated by him-promulgated by T. L. Harris. In spite of this change of belief he continued to preach to New Church Societies, on occasion. THE Camberwell Society, under the charge of the Rev. W. A. Presland, reports a year of "peace, consolidation, and growth." The present membership is seventy-seven, an increase of ten within the year. THE Camden Road society-the Rev. E. C. Eby, Pastor-reports a membership of one hundred and thirty, a decrease of four within the year. Mr. James Speirs, the retiring secretary, received a testimonial in the form of a silver salver. THE Birmingham Society, in its last annual report, shows a membership of 348 members, being an increase of eight, while the average attendance at the Holy Supper is reported as having decreased from 65 to 54. This is a peculiar condition, and shows but little appreciation of the most holy things of worship. Is this owing to the radical tendencies of the pastor and many prominent members of this Society? THE Rev. George Meek, of Nottingham, has accepted a call to Kearsley. The membership of this Society has lately been increased by the addition of more than eighty names.
HUNGARY
THE New Church of Buda-Pesth is being assisted by the English "Swedenborg Society" in the publication of a Hungarian translation of The Doctrine of Life. It is proposed to publish also, in the Hungarian tongue, The Doctrine of the LORD, The Doctrine of the Sacred Scripture, and The Doctrine of Faith, together with an advertisement of New- Church publications in Slavonic languages, such as the Polish translation of The Divine Providence, and a few publications in Russian.
LESSONS IN ANATOMY FOR CHILDREN OF THE NEW CHURCH 1894
PART I. The Eye. 40 pages. PART II. The Ear and the Nose. 51 pages. PART III. The Tongue. 34 pages. PART IV. The Skin. In preparation. Price of the three parts published, 25 cents each; postage, 3 cents.
"There is a correspondence of all man's organs and, members, both interior and exterior, with the Gorand Man."- A. C. 3624.
ADVANCED PRICES 1894
THE WRITINGS OF THE NEW CHURCH, published by The American Swedenborg Printing and Publishing Society, have been raised in price since the 1st of April. We give below a list of the books and their new prices, which include postage: Price per volume: Arcana Coelestia. l0 Vols. $1.00 Apocalypse Revealed. 2 Vols. 1.00 1 volume edition. 1.50 Conjugial Love. 1.00 Miscellaneous Theological Works. 1.00 True Christian Religion. 1.50 Heaven and Hell. 1.00 Divine Love and Wisdom. .75 Divine Providence .75 Four Leading Doctrines. .75 Apocalypse Explained. Vol. I. 1.00 Index to Apocalypse Explained. 2 Vols. 2.50 Apocalypse Explained. Vols. I and II, Latin-English. 2.00 Divine Love and, Wisdom. Latin-English. 2.00 Apocalypsis Revelata. 2 Vols. 3.00 Opera Minora. 3.00 Quatuor Doctrinae. 3.00 De Amore Conjugialis. 3.00 De Caelo et Inferno. 3.00 Coronis. Latin. 1.50 De Nova Hierosolyma et Ejus Doctrina Coelesti. Paper. 1.00 Christiana Religio. Canones Nova Ecclesiae. Paper. .50 Indices Rerum in Opera Desiderato Sapentia Angelica de Conjugio. Paper. .50 Doctrina Novae Hierosolymae de Charitate. Paper. .50 De Athanasii Symbolo. Paper. .50 Van Het Nieuwe Jerusalem en zyne Hemelieche Leer. Paper. .25 De la Penitencia. Paper. .25 Four Leading Doctrines. Limp Cloth. .20 " " " Vellum " , gilt edges. .30 Divine Love and Wisdom. Paper. .20 " " " " Cloth. .50 Heaven and Hell. Paper. .15 Divine Trinity, Divine Providence, and Related Subjects. Half-Leather. 1.00 Divine Trinity, Divine Providence, and Related Subjects. Flexible Cloth. .50 Divine Trinity, Divine Providence, and Related Subjects. Paper. .30 Doctrine of Life. Paper. .10 Doctrine of Sacred Scripture. Paper. .10 Intercourse Between Soul and Body. Paper. .05 Brief Exposition of the Doctrines of the New Church. Paper. .10 Indexes to the Missing Treatise Concerning Marriage. Paper. .40 New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly Doctrine. Paper. .15 Creed of Athanasius. The Lord. Paper. .25 " " " Latin-English. .40 On sale at the ACADEMY BOOK ROOM, 1821 Wallace Street, Philadelphia, Pa.
81
Title Unspecified 1894
New Church Life Vol. XIV, No. 6. PHILADELPHIA, JUNE, 1894=125-125. Whole No. 164.
A. C. 3513 The things which are in the Rational are to those which are in the Natural, as particulars to generals.- A. C. 3513.
Title Unspecified 1894
ESSENTIAL to a rational grasp of New Church doctrines is the teaching that general truths are not genuine until infilled with particular truths, for which they serve as containing vessels; and, farther, that general truths can readily be infilled with false particulars. Hence general statements of truth may represent either truths or falses in the mind of him who utters them, according as the particulars which form his understanding of those generals are true or false. To illustrate: the general truth that there is a God, is true to him who understands thereby a God Who is good, Who can be approached with love and worship, and Whose commandments are to be obeyed; but it is falsity to him who understands thereby a divided God, of evil and merely human attributes, whose will man has no power to do; or, still worse, a god who cannot be seen or approached at all, and with whom there is thus no conjunction possible for mankind. The first conception of God is receptive of all the truths of Heaven; the latter, of all the falsities of hell; yet in both cases the most general statement is the same. General truths are appearances of truth, such as are of the natural sense of the Word. Particular truths are genuine truths, such as constitute the spiritual sense of the Word; and, since it is the unfolding of that sense which makes the New Church, in order to enter intellectually into the mysteries which constitute the faith of that Church, the Newchurchman must proceed from the general truths of the Letter to the particular truths of the Spirit, and from them form his understanding. Thus alone can he be protected from the persuasive and seductive appearances of the falsified Letter which prevail universally in the Christian world at this day.
Title Unspecified 1894
A STRIKING illustration of the pliability and adaptability of general truths to the reception of diverse and even opposite particulars, was furnished by the World's Parliament of Religions, in Chicago, where, under the seeming unity of a general acknowledgment of God, were met together worshipers of three gods, worshipers of many gods, worshipers of the One God, and worshipers of no god, in an assemblage probably Unparalleled in history for its real internal divergences and disunion. Such delusive shows are possible only when, in matters of faith, generals are made at once the test and the bond of union, without scrutinizing particulars. And yet, in spite of all the heterogeneities entering into that occasion, there was one prevailing spirit which, derived from the leading promoters, and accepted by most of the participants, dominated the whole. That spirit was, the ignoring or else the virtual or actual denial, of God as He has manifested Himself to mankind in His Divine Human; with a consequent setting up of human intelligence as the sufficient guide to truth, and of human goodness as being in essence genuine good; with an acknowledgment of God and of religion in form, but with a rejection and destruction of them as to spirit; for to divide or remove the idea of God as a Man, which all Old Church theology does, is to kill the LORD and deify man. This is the trail of the Serpent which, in the light of the Doctrines, maybe traced through all the ages, upon the countless forms of man-made religion by which man veils the worship of self under the guise of worship of God; and which now seduces the world with the spirit and influence of modern Unitarianism. Examined in the light of Divine Truth the various utterances at that Congress of Religions reveal nothing else than that spirit. Yet that spirit received the approval and practical indorsement of the general body of the New Church in America and England, as well by the presence at that Congress, of leading and representative men of the Church, as by the utterances since then, of her authorized teachers, her, ministers and journals. That the heathen and the simple should be deceived by appearances of natural charity and nominal profession of religion-typified in the motto, "the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man"-is not surprising. But that those who enjoy the sunlight of Divine Revelation in its most perfect form, should voluntarily enter the mists of phantasy that however a fatal quicksand,-this is the wonder, the shame and the sorrow.
Title Unspecified 1894
REFERRING to our editorial note in May concerning the New Judaism which the New Church Messenger has seen looming upon the horizon of the religious world, that paper disavows that it looks upon this new expression of Judaism as a form of the New Church, but maintains that it is a step in advance, "not because it is orthodox New Church doctrine, but because it is less Judaistic." It may be less Judaistic in form, but a step in the right direction it certainly and most emphatically is not. The Messenger fails to see this, because it has argued itself into the conviction that there may exist several standards by which to judge of religious tenets. It has much to say about the point of view from which things and opinions are to be regarded. We confess that we know of only one true point of view, and that is the point to which the LORD leads us in His Second Advent. Advance is to be adjudged by the direction that thought takes in regard to Him. For a Jew to talk about the life of the LORD in terms of modern Unitarianism may he considered a step in advance by the Jew and the Unitarian, but it certainly cannot be so considered by the Newchurchman, unless he himself steps down and out of the position of the acknowledgment of the sole Divinity of the LORD, and ranges himself on the side of the Unitarian, and from that point of view looks upon the advancing hosts of the modernized children of Judah.
Title Unspecified 1894
A. C. 3513 If the singulars and particulars which form the generals in the natural, are of evil and falsity, there is then represented . . . something of Hell.- A. C. 3513.
82
CONFLICTS OF THE CHURCH Rev. CARL TH. ODHNER 1894
EXODUS II, 10-14.
THE Book of Exodus is so called because it tells of "the way out" of Egypt which the sons of Israel took, in order to gain the Promised Land. In the Supreme Sense, it describes the Divine Victory of the LORD, in His human, over the sensual inherited from the mother. In the representative sense, it is the story of the Exodus of the regenerating man out of the hell of his proprium, and, in a general sense, it is the history of the LORD'S New Church in its Exodus out of the Old Church. The first chapter of this Divine Book treats of the general condition of the sons of Israel, their increase in numbers, and the beginning of their persecutions by the hostile king of Egypt. This represents the state of the internal man of the LORD at the time when His human was first conceived, and the beginning of the assaults of the Hells inflowing into the hereditary evils of His human. It represents, also, the first state of the Church in the beginning of its establishment with man, and the first infestations of the opposing falses and evils of the natural man. In the second chapter of Exodus, the birth and youth of Moses are described, the first actions of his mission as the liberator of his brethren, his flight from Egypt, and his life of exile in the land of Midian. This represents the first state of the glorification of the LORD'S human when He made it the Divine Law or Divine Truth itself, in order that thereby He might make it also the Divine Love or Good Itself. It represents, further, the commencement and successive states of truth divine with the man of the Church. Our particular text treats of the education of Moses by the daughter of Pharaoh, of his killing an Egyptian who smote an Hebrew, and of his vain efforts to arbitrate a dispute between two Hebrews. This represents, in the Supreme Sense, the first state of the human of the LORD as to Divine Truth, His instruction and growth under the receptive and protecting influence of the human and natural affection of science, His first victorious combats against the general falses of the sensual man, and His perception that further preparation was necessary in order to redeem the Church from the infestations of more interior and particular evils and falses. In the representative sense our text treats of the first formation of spiritual faith in man, from the Law of the LORD; how this faith is received and protected by the natural affection of acquiring knowledges, how the most general falses of the opposing religiosity are exterminated by it, and how this faith is not yet able to dispel obscurities and doubts caused by more interior and particular evils and falses. Moses, the son of the house of Levi, in a general sense, represents the Divine Law, or the Divine Truth proceeding from the eternal and infinite conjunction and unity of the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom of the LORD. This Divine Truth, which first proceeds from God, is the. Word which in the beginning was with God, and from which all things that are, have become. And this Divine Word in flowing through the angelic Heavens to men on earth, was the Divine Human before the LORD came into this world, before the Word was made flesh. Moses represents the revelation of the Divine Law, or the Human Divine, such as was given to the Ancient and Israelitish Churches. Again, when the LORD was born into this world, He descended through the Heavens as the Divine Truth, in which was the Divine Good, and as this Truth or Law, which is the all-creating Seed itself; He was conceived in. the virgin. After His birth the first work of His mission was to conjoin His human to the Divine Truth and make it the Divine Truth itself, by fulfilling the Law in all respects, and by driving out of Himself all human fallacies and falsities. This first state of the LORD in His human is also represented by Moses. Hence the wonderful analogy, in the sense of the Letter, between the history of the birth of the LORD and the birth of Moses. A son of Hebrew parents, Moses, after his birth, was laid in a little ark of rushes, on the bank of the river, where he was found by the daughter of Pharaoh, by whom he was protected from the destructive hatred of the king of Egypt. Similarly the human of the LORD, which likewise was born of a Hebrew woman, was laid in the manger of a stable, and the lowest and vilest surroundings, and afterward in Egypt found refuge and protection against the murderous fury of Herod the king. The little ark and the manger both represented the Word in its Letter, which, though written in sensual appearances of truth, yet contains within it the Divine Truth itself. The daughter of Pharaoh, and the land of Egypt, to which the LORD was brought in His childhood, both represent the affection of sciences, which is the first receptive plane and protecting container of the Divine Truth, when it first comes to man. The child, whom the Egyptian princess had drawn out of the waters, was named Moses, or Mosheh (Hebrew) from Hebrew (Mashah), "to draw forth." This name involves this Divine arcanum, that the LORD delivered His human, or drew it forth out of every, falsity, which from the mother adhered to it (A. C. 6753). It represents, also, the faith which has been formed with man from the Divine Truth of the Word, by means of which the LORD reforms the understanding of man and draws it forth from the flood of falsity with which a sensual religion has inundated the human mind. The Daughter of Pharaoh is the affection of science, in this case the affection of a false and perverted science, which oppresses and seeks to destroy the truth of faith. But, though representing this false affection, yet the Egyptian princess, like Hagar, the Egyptian handmaid of Sarah, can perform a most important use to the nascent Church. For, in the affection of science, even though false and opposed to spiritual truth, there is the common affection that is called curiosity, or what is the same, the affection of acquiring knowledges, be these good or evil. With man, before his regeneration, all affections are false, selfish and evil, but the affection of knowledges, being the most external, is the least evil. It is like a babe, who greedily takes to its mouth whatever comes in its way, without any discrimination between what is clean or filthy, useful or evil. But as the babe, through the constant activity of this love of knowing, continually grows in discrimination or natural judgment, and in the love of acquiring higher knowledges and applying these to uses, so the natural man, through the same affection of knowing, is able to receive into his memory the Divine Truth in the form of doctrinal scientifics. It is through this affection that the Heavenly Doctrines have been brought to every member of the New Church, whether he has been brought up in the Church or has been drawn forth out of the Old Church. His first affection has been one of curiosity, excited by the new and unusual form of the Doctrines, and thus these gain a lodgement in his memory. This affection, therefore, can serve as the matrix, within which the precious stone of spiritual faith and love can be formed and protected.
83
The jewel itself, however, is formed not by the matrix, but by noble liquids in the bosom of the earth, which, actuated by forces from the spiritual world, penetrate the matrix and form the crystal. Even so the affection of science only receives and protects Divine Truth with man, but does not form, and cannot itself be elevated into, a spiritual affection, for it is a daughter of Pharaoh, an affection of the old, evil and unchangeable proprium. Spiritual faith and affection can be called into life only by influx from the LORD, operating through Heaven into the remains of spiritual and celestial good that from infancy have been stored up and hidden with men. This is represented in the Word by Moses being nursed by his own mother, a Hebrew woman, and not by an Egyptian. As a scientific, confirmatory of this representation of Pharaoh's daughter, it is interesting to notice the peculiar headdress of a queen or princess of ancient Egypt. This consisted of a kind of crown, formed into the image of a vulture, with outstretched, brooding wings. The vulture itself is of a kind found only in Egypt, and peculiar for an intense love for its young, whence it was called "Rekem," a word connected with the Hebrew word Racham (Hebrew), which signifies, "a womb," and also "mercy." It would seem from this that the ancient Egyptians had chosen this emblem for their royal ladies, to represent the sensual affection of science, which receives and protects Divine Truth. "And Moses grew and went forth to his brethren, and he saw an Egyptian man smiting an Hebrew. And he smote the Egyptian and hid him in the sand." As spiritual faith gradually grows stronger with man from increase in the knowledge and affection of Divine Truth, the combats can begin against the oppressive falsities of the former sensual state of the man. He begins to realize the quality of these falsities, and becomes restive under them. Learning from the Doctrines of the New Church that God is one, he begins to realize that the Old Church actually worships three gods. Learning that salvation is gained by a life of charity according to faith, he perceives with indignation the infernal character of the dogma that man is saved by faith alone, irrespective of the life of charity. And thus successively in a thousand instances his eyes are opened to the grievous burdens which a perverted religion have put upon the human mind. And he smites the Egyptian and buries him in the sand. He rejects these gross falsities, exterminates them from his mind, and consigns them to oblivion as mere dogmatic scientifics of a false Theology, in which there is no coherence, no rationality, and no truth. Sand, in a good sense, is stone in its smallest formations, and as such signifies scientific truths, or facts of science and theology, which agree with true religion. This is the sand among which grains of gold may sometimes be found, and this is the sand that can be used in the mortar of charity which cements together the stones of the temple of the LORD. But in an evil sense, as in our present text, sand is stone disintegrated, and signifies faith perverted and run into mere scientific knowledges. In the temple-walls of the Old Church there is no cement of charity, but the mere sand of dogmas, wherefore its doctrines do not cohere. That temple itself was not built upon the rock of faith in the Divine Human Of: the LORD, but upon the sandy ground of self-intelligence, and therefore that house fell, and its fall was great. And as the theology, so also is the philosophy of the Old Church, nothing but sand, a rope of sand, a system of obscure, meaningless technicalities and intellectual speculations, void of practical good for the enlightenment and reformation of the race. Sand-a very Sahara of sand-is the science of the Old Church which looks not to use as the end, but to personal fame and wealth. Like sandstorms in the desert the scientific theories of the learned arise and fall and pass over each other, destroying the springs and plants of true intelligence and leaving nought in their tracks, but the bleaching bones of knowledges which once were living and human. This is the "grand progress" of the science of the nineteenth century, in which there is no recognition of spiritual faith. "Again Moses went out and beheld two Hebrew men disputing together, and he said to him that was in wrong,. Wherefore smitest thou thy companion! And he was answered, Who set thee for a man, prince and judge over us? Dost thou say to kill me, as thou didst kill the Egyptian! And Moses was afraid, and said, Certainly the word is known." A second state in the life of the regenerating man is here described, a state when doubts and difficulties arise in his mind as to particulars of faith, after most general falses have been rejected and extirpated. In his exodus out of the Egypt in which he was born the man of the Church cannot stand still, but must ever proceed from general states into states more interior and particular, from the warfare against the grossest falses and evils to combats against those of a more particular, interior, and hidden character. When this second state arises in the regenerating man he finds that his faith is not yet strong enough to engage in these more interior conflicts; that as yet he possesses only general and external knowledges of faith, and that further instruction is necessary. Like Moses, he must then flee to the land of Midian, to dwell there near a well. He must betake himself, in a state of humble acknowledgment of his ignorance, to the Word of the LORD, in its literal and in its internal sense, in order to learn from it more internal and particular truths of Doctrine and life. Only when thus enriched and strengthened can his faith become able to deliver him entirely from the Egyptian bondage of the falses and evils of the natural man, and lead him on in life to the state of regeneration and of Heaven. What is true of the Church in the individual man is true of the Church collectively, which, in the beginning of its establishment, must also pass through the two states here described, as is clearly illustrated by the history of both the First Christian Church and the New Christian Church, for history ever repeats itself. The first state of combats against the general falses of the former Church has ever been followed by a state of dissensions and combats within the Church itself. Thus, in the First Christian Church, in the beginning, there reigned a state of internal peace and of external combat; a state when mutual charity connected all Christians into one internal brotherhood, and when the first Faith was kept bright in the common opposition against the falses of the Jews and Gentiles, who, on all sides, pressed against and persecuted the infant Church. Those were the halcyon days of Christianity, when countless martyrs testified their faith on the arena or the pyre of torture, when the early Fathers of the Church, in works of unrivaled power, expounded the truths of Christianity, and exposed the errors of idolatry; and when the Church made triumphant conquests of thousands upon thousands of human souls. But soon, very soon, a second state began to arise. Hebrews began to smite Hebrews. Heresies began to lift up their heads.
84
Collected from all the various idolatries, religiosities, and philosophies of antiquity, many Christians brought with them into the Church various hidden falsities and evils, which vitiated or destroyed their understanding and love of the interior truths of Christianity. One point after another of the Doctrines of the Church was assailed by those within it, and involved in dispute and obscurity. Parties and sects were formed by Bishops and Priests. Charity began to fade away under the baneful influence of "odium theologium." Fired by supereminence and dominion, the leaders of the Church mutually hurled anathemas and excommunications against one another, until the Christian Church finally presented a most pitiable spectacle, an object of grief and shame to the simple in faith, and of ridicule and contempt to the pagans. And all this because Moses was not acknowledged as the Prince and Judge of the Church, because the Divine Word was stripped of its own authority and made subject to the interpretations of human authorities. Nor did these Christians flee to the Divine Word, "the well in the land of Midian," in seeking to settle their controversies, but they appealed to the king of Egypt, to external and temporal powers and authorities. And thus the unity and peace of the Church were forcibly restored by the final prevalence of the" Catholic" Church, but, alas I it was the peace of the grave, the unity of Hell. Similar, in appearance has been the History of the New Church of the LORD, though with a blessed and essential difference as to the result. Whenever and wherever the New Church has been established upon the earth, the first state has been one of mutual charity and unanimity among the new disciples of the LORD in His Second Coming. Glorying in the possession of countless new and most wonderful truths, the like of, which have never been known to mankind, the men of the New Church were at first inspired by an all-absorbing desire to make the Doctrines known, and to overthrow the idols of the fallen Church. "The LORD is one; and salvation is by life," was the war cry of these early champions of the Truth, who, though few in numbers, and contemned by the whole world, fearlessly engaged in combats with the Dragon wherever he appeared. Armed with the weapons of the Divine Truth itself, they victoriously overthrew every Egyptian foe of Trinitarianism, Unitarianism, or Infidelity who ventured to rise up against them. The early Church possessed many such undaunted champions of its faith, in almost every nation of Christianity. Through the evangelistic and controversial works of these, the Writings and Doctrines of the Church were introduced to many who now are within its folds. But the mission of these iconoclasts was to kill the Egyptians and bury them in the sand. Their work represents only the establishment of the most general truths of the Faith of the New Church. The state of the Church in which these writers were the standard-bearers, was initiatory, and hence external. Before long another state arose. Collected from all the various sects and persuasions of the Old Church, and bringing with them into the New Church the hidden roots of countless interior falses and evils; Newchurchmen after a while began to find themselves at variance with one another as to the particulars of their faith, and this especially when it came to the application of the Doctrines to the regulation of their individual and associated lives. Thus, in the very beginning of the Church, a great controversy arose as to the distinctive organization of the Church, whether this should be established separately from the Old Church, or whether Newchurchmen should remain in their former connections in the hope that these old associates would gradually adopt the Heavenly Doctrines. Nor was this the only contention in which the Hebrews of the New Jerusalem were found smiting one another. It would, indeed, be difficult to enumerate all the controversies that have distracted the New Church during the first century of its existence, but some may be mentioned. One of the first arose from the endeavor to introduce into the New Church the old gnostic heresy that the Coming of the LORD in the flesh was a mere ideal appearance. Another concerned the nature of the LORD'S resurrection body-whether this consisted of material substances, or of natural substances divested of what was merely material and dead. Yet another was on the subject of the relation between a pastor and his congregation, whether this was conjugial or simply pastoral. The external organization and government of the Church has been especially a subject of controversy among Newchurchmen, some upholding the necessity of a well-instructed, ordained, and graded Priesthood, as the governing office over the spiritual things of the Church, and others, influenced by the democratic spirit of the age, denying the necessity of any ordained Priesthood, or else depriving that office of any governing power. The sacraments of the Church have also been the subject of long controversies, Whether the Baptism into the faith in three gods is valid, or whether New Church Baptism is necessary; and whether wine or unfermented grape-juice should be used in the Holy Supper. Spiritualism, in its various forms, has been another fruitful source of dispute and division amongst those who once called one another, brethren in the New Church. Again and again have spirits from the ancient hells of magicians deceived men of the New Church into the persuasion that they were receiving new revelations from Heaven, or that they had attained a celestial degree of regeneration and possessed open communication with the angels. But the most interior, and the most momentous of the conflicts within the New Church, the one underlying and involving all the others, has been the controversy concerning the nature and authority of the Writings of the New Church which were given by the LORD through His servant Emanuel Swedenborg. This subject has continued now for more than a century as the "burning question" in the Church, so that one may say that the interior history of the New Church from its beginning to the present day has been the history of the development of the doctrine concerning the authority of these Writings. Though from the beginning the truth on this subject was perceived obscurely, by some, a rational and more general understanding has been gained only by a century of conflicts. At first it was admitted that the Writings of Swedenborg were far above those of any other human writer, though, of course, they could not be compared, in excellence, to the Word itself. While the majority in the Church have not as yet advanced further than to concede that Swedenborg possessed an especial Divine illumination, by successive stages some came to recognize that the Writings were a Divine Revelation from Heaven, that they were given by a direct and immediate Divine Inspiration, that they are infallible Truth, that they are the Spiritual Sense of the Word, that they are the Word of the LORD, and, finally, that they are the LORD Himself, revealed in His Divine Human to the New Church. With this Divine Truth once seen and acknowledged, though it be by but a few, the New Church is saved from the fate of the former Church. Though nominal Newchurchmen may raise up their rebellious voices against the authority of the Doctrines-their lawful Moses-yet in the New Church, in her integrity, controversies cannot bring death, but will serve to bring increased light and life.
85
For they have caused and will cause the true men of the New Church to flee out of Egypt to the land of Midian, and to sit down there by the well of living waters, which the LORD has opened in the Heavenly Doctrines of His Word. By humbly applying themselves to the close study of these life-giving Doctrines, the men of the Church will find their faith strengthened and prepared so that they may without fear return into Egypt, go out into the world, and become the instruments of the LORD in delivering His people from all their burdens and bonds of evil and falses, and lead them on in regeneration to the promised land of the true Church and of Heaven.- AMEN.
Title Unspecified 1894
A. C. 865 The generals of the Word are accommodated to the fallacies of the senses.- A. C. 865.
THIRD, FOURTH, AND FIFTH DEGREES OF VASTATION 1894
EXODUS VIJI.
IN this chapter, in the internal sense, the vastation of those who are in falses and infest the upright in the other life is continued: the first two degrees of the vastation were described in the preceding chapter, then also the third degree as tea part, which was that they reasoned from nothing but mere falses; the reasonings from mere falses are signified by the frogs; these continue to be treated of in this chapter, and the fourth and fifth degrees of the vastation of those who are in falses and infest the upright in the other life are treated of; the fourth degree is that they were in evils, which destroyed every good with them, also whatever they had from natural good; these are signified by the lice from the dust of the land: the fifth degree is, that they were in falses from those evils, by which every truth was destroyed; these are signified by the noxious flying thing
RATIOCINATIONS FROM MERE FALSES.
(1-10.) The instruction continues, "and JEHOVAH said unto Moses"-that the internal Law should inflow' into the external Law, "Say unto Aharon"-and manifest the power of internal truth through the external truth, "Stretch forth thy hand with thy staff"-against the falses, "upon the streams, upon the rivers, and upon the pools"-which calls forth reasonings from mere falses, "and make to ascend the frogs upon the land of Egypt"-for when truth is manifested to the infernals, when there is a stronger influx from the LORD through heaven, then the infernals show their real character, since Truth brings it to light. So in this case the effect of the power of internal truth through external truth against falses, "and Aharon stretched forth his hand upon the waters of Egypt"-was that they reasoned from mere falses, "and the frogs went up"-and the natural mind was filled with, the reasonings, "and covered the land of Egypt." By abusing the Divine order, they did the like in the external form, "and the magicians of Egypt did so with their incantations"-calling forth ratiocinations from the natural mind, "and they made to ascend frogs upon the land of Egypt." The Law Divine was present among those who infested, "and Pharaoh called Moses and Aharon"-who were in state of humility from weariness by reasoning from mere falses, for, whereas by reasoning from fallacies and appearances, they could effect their evil object of seducing the simple, they labor in vain to effect it by reasoning from mere falses, that is to say, falses which appear false to the sight, because they are opposed to or negative of the truth. Such falses and the reasonings from them are at once detected by the simple and rejected. Hence the in festers grow weary of their own reasonings, "and said, Supplicate unto JEHOVAH"-so that they did not wish to be compelled to reason from mere falses, "and he remove the frogs from me, and from my people"-and they would then leave those who were of the spiritual church, "and I will send away the people, and they may sacrifice unto JEHOVAH."-To their supplication the answer was returned, "and Moses said unto Pharaoh"-that the Truth Divine must be trusted, "Have honor upon me:"-until when was the intercession for those who are in falses and infest, to last until when shall I supplicate for thee and thy servants, and thy people"-so that the ratiocinations might cease, "to cut off the frogs from thee, and from thy houses"-while they remain with the falses, where these are, "only in the river they shall survive"! It was to last forever, "and he said, Until tomorrow,"-and from this it can be confirmed, "and he said, according to thy word"-that there is one God, and there is none beside Him, "that thou mayest know that there is none like JEHOVAH our God"-and they were not to be compelled to rationate from mere falses, "and removed shall be the frogs from thee and from thy houses, and from thy servants, and from thy people,"-but they will remain with the falses where these are, for falses carry with them the lust of ratiocinating, and wherever the falses remain, in the natural, there are ratiocinations, "only in the river they shall survive." And the Law Divine separated from those who ratiocinated from mere falses, "and went out Moses and Aharon from with Pharaoh," and made intercession, "and Moses cried unto JEHOVAH upon the word of the frogs which he imposed on Pharaoh.' So it was done, according to the Word of the Lord, "and JEHOVAH did according to the word of Moses"-the ratiocinatious from mere falses ceased with them' everywhere in the natural, "and the frogs died out of the houses, out of the courts, and out of the fields," and those ratiocinating falses were disposed in the natural in bundles, even as all things are disposed in the mind in series and bundles, "and they gathered them together heaps, heaps"-whence it was foul and abominable, "and the land stank."
EVILS ARISE, DESTROYING EVERY GOOD.
(11-15.) The weariness of the infesters ceased, "and Pharaoh saw that respiration was made"-and they returned to their obstinacy, "and he made heavy his heart"-and did not obey the Divine admonition, "and listened not to them"-according as it was foretold, "as spake JEHOVAH"-and the LORD instructed anew, "and JEHOVAH said unto Moses"-by the influx of the internal Law into the external Law, "Say unto Aharon"-that the latter should show the Divine power, "Stretch forth thy staff"-and should remove those things which are damned in the natural, "and smite the dust of the land"-whence evils would arise, "and it shah become lice"-throughout the whole natural man, "and all the land of Egypt." The instruction came into effect, "and they did so"-the internal truth exerted its power through the external truth, "and Aharon stretched forth his hand with his staff"-and the things damned were removed, "God smote the dust of the land"-and there were from them interior evils and exterior evils of cupidities, "and there was the louse in the man and in the beast"-from the things damned, "every dust of the land became louse in the whole land of Egypt"-and the infesters endeavored to pervert the Divine order and to effigy the like also in these things, "and the magicians did so with their incantations to bring forth the lice"-but in vain," and could not"-and there were evils interior and exterior" and there was louse in the man and in the beast."
86
Those who perverted the Divine order, and sought to effigy something similar in external form, perceived and communicated with those who were in evils, "and the magicians said unto Pharaoh"-that the power was from the Divine, "The finger of God is this"-and they were obstinate, "and confirmed was the heart of Pharaoh"-and they did not obey, and he listened not unto them"-according as was predicted, "as spake JEHOVAH."
FALSES FROM EVILS DESTROY EVERY TRUTH.
(16-20.) Again came the instruction as to what should be done, "And JEHOVAH said unto Moses"-namely, that these evil ones should elevate their minds to attend to a still greater sign of power, "Arise in the morning in the early morning"-for the Divine would appear to those who were in evils, "and stand before Pharaoh"-who, from these evils, would again think falses, "behold he goeth forth unto the waters"-and they were to be commanded, "and thou shalt say unto him, Thus said JEHOVAH"-that they should leave those who are of the spiritual Church, so that they may worship their God in freedom. "Send My people, that they may serve Me"-and if they should not leave them, "because if by no means thou sendest away My people"-then they would have the false of malevolence,-the malevolence which resides in the extremes of the natural mind, thus in the sensual, in all and single things, "behold I, I send unto thee, and into thy servants, and into thy people, and into thy houses, the noxious flying thing"-which falses of malevolence would occupy all things of the natural mind, from the interiors to the outermost sensual, "and filled shall be the houses of the Egyptians with the noxious flying thing, and also the ground upon which they are"-and they could not infest by the falses of malevolence those who were of the spiritual Church, although they were near them, for, since those falses are from evils in the extremes of the natural mind, or in the sensual, those who are in good and truth can be elevated above them by the faculties which they have from the LORD. of elevating the mind above merely sensual things, and thus they are separated from the infesting sphere "and I shall distinguish in that day the land of Goshen, upon which My people standeth, so that there be not there the noxious flying thing"-wherefrom the evil may apperceive that the LORD alone is the God of the Church, "therefore that thou mayest know that I JEHOVAH am in the midst of the land"-and will liberate those who are of the spiritual Church, from those who are in the hells near at hand, "and I will place a redemption between My people and between thy people"-from which sign the Divine Power will be manifested forever, "until tomorrow shall be this sign." As was said so it was done, "and JEHOVAH did so"-the malevolent falses broke forth from everywhere with them, because they were everywhere conjoined with evils in their minds, "and the grievous noxious flying thing came to the house of Pharaoh, and to the house of his servants, and into all the land of Egypt"-and corrupted the natural mind as to every truth, "destroyed was the land from before, the noxious flying thing,"-thus making the devastation as to this also, complete." (21-28.) In the presence of the Law Divine, "and Pharaoh called Moses and Aharon"-those who infested expressed their willingness not to stand in the way, so that those who were of the spiritual Church might worship their God, but they agreed to this only on the condition that they should perform the worship in their neighborhood, "and said, Go, sacrifice to your God in the land"-but they received the reply, "and Moses said"-that this could not be done, because in that case the foul and infernal filthy would inflow, "it is not advisable to do so, because the abomination of the Egyptians we would sacrifice to JEHOVAH our God"-if they were to be in their presence, the Divine worship would be infested by such things, "behold we would sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians unto their eyes"-and thus they would extinguish the truths of faith which are of worship, "and will they not stone us"-those who were of the spiritual Church therefore must withdraw entirely, so that they may be in freedom, "a way of three days we will go into the desert"-and thus have worship, "and we will sacrifice to JEHOVAH our God"-as the LORD had commanded, "as He said unto us." The infesters indicated that they would leave them and not infest, so that they might worship their God in freedom, "and Pharaoh said, I, I will send you away, and ye may sacrifice to JEHOVAH your God in the desert"-although they are in their own neighborhood, "only going far, ye shall not go far to go"-so that they might intercede, "supplicate for me." The appearance of Truth Divine among the evil which was effected by the near presence of angels was removed, "and Moses said, behold I go forth from with thee"-in order that intercession might be made, "and I shall supplicate unto JEHOVAH"-so that an end might be put to that state, as to the falses of malevolence, "and he may remove the noxious flying thing from Pharaoh, from his servants, and from his people"-forever, "tomorrow"-but the infesters were cautioned not to deceive by a lie, by not leaving those who are of the spiritual Church so, that they might in freedom worship their God, "only let not Pharaoh add to mock that he send not away the people to sacrifice to JEHOVAH." The appearance of Truth Divine with those who were in the falses of malevolence was removed, "and went forth Moses from with Pharaoh"-and interceded, "and supplicated unto JEHOVAH"-and it was so done, according to the Word of the LORD, "and JEHOVAH did according to the word of Moses"-and the state of that false came to an end, "and he removed the noxious flying thing from Pharaoh, from his servants, and from his people"-the false being fully removed, "there was not left one." But, again, did they become obstinate, "and Pharaoh made heavy his heart also this time"-and did not leave those who were of the spiritual Church, "and did not send away the people."
Title Unspecified 1894
T. C. R. 6 Before every one who has formed the state of his mind from God, the Sacred Scripture is as a mirror, in which he sees God; but each in his own way.-T. C. R. 6.
INSTRUCTING CHILDREN CONCERNING GENERATION 1894
II.
BEFORE proceeding to outline an order of instruction on the subject of Generation, it may be well to call attention to an important point of order, namely, that in the true method of instruction on this subject the chief part of the work must be done in the home, and that the New Church school simply builds upon and enlarges on what the home does The home is the seat of Conjugial Love and the seminary of heaven, and in its sphere principally should children be taught those things which most intimately relate to conjugial love and its great use.
87
If parents do not feel qualified to do this, it is their duty to prepare themselves. In all education and instruction there must be constant regard to the state of the child, so that proper work be done at the proper times. There are, in general, three states before adult age is reached: first, the sensual; second, the scientific; third, the rational. Each of these covers a period of about seven years. During the first or sensual age the child learns chiefly by means of impressions made upon its mind by means of its five senses; during the second or scientific age, knowledges of various kinds are imparted to it by teachers and parents; during the third or rational age, when the rational or reasoning faculty is forming, it must be taught to look more interiorly at things, to draw deductions, to reflect, and to reason. In each of these ages the entire field of education and instruction should be covered: in the first age, in universal forms; in the second, in general forms; in the third, in particular forms. There is no branch of instruction but should be taught in its proper form in each age; in the second age, building upon the first, and in the third upon the second. Thus will children properly receive the universals, the generals, and the particulars of the field of learning, and then in adult age the singulars necessary for the proper performance of use can be entered into more and more fully by each individual. The three periods of instruction in the subject which we are considering, are clearly indicated in the Writings: "The primary offices which confederate, consociate, and congregate into one the souls and lives of two consorts, is the common care of educating children; in relation to which the offices of the husband and the offices of the wife distinguish themselves, and at the same time conjoin; they distinguish themselves, because the care of suckling and educating infants of both sexes, and also the instruction of girls even to their age when they are awarded to and associated with men, is the proper office of the wife; but the care of the instruction of boys, after boyhood to puberty, and after that even until they come into their own rights, is of the proper office of the husband they conjoin themselves, however, by counsels, by sustainings, and by many other mutual aids" (C. L. 176) (We may add, that teachers of both sexes may aid parents in the performance of these duties, and that the use of a New Church school is to give parents such aid and advice as is necessary for their proper performance.) "The love of the sex commences when a youth begins to think and to act from his, own intelligence, and the voice of his speech begins to become masculine" (C. L. 446). (Let us note that with girls a corresponding change of state takes place.) In these passages the three states are clearly indicated. First, the infant and child-state, under the mother; second, (a) the boy-state, under the father, and (b) the girl-state under the mother; third, (a) the youth-state, under the father, and (b) the maiden-state, under the mother. According to this order must the education be given, which prepares for love truly conjugial, in each age the proper instruction being imparted for the attainment of this end. It is of the highest importance that the proper grading of this instruction be observed, or else great harm will be done. The teaching concerning the proper progression of conjugial love has its application also to the proper progression of the preparation by instruction for that love, namely: "Conjugial love precipitated without order and its modes, burns up the marrows and is consumed" (C. L. 312). How great the care which the angels of heaven exercise in the education of children is clearly shown in the Writings of the Church. (See C. L. 411, 412; H. H. 329-345.) We are taught that the Letter of the Word is written in accommodation to the states of children, and it is from it that they must chiefly be taught, and especially from that First and Summary of the whole Word, the Decalogue. Here again there must be accommodation to the state or period of life of the child. The Sixth Commandment of the Decalogue teaches: "Thou shalt not commit adultery." This Commandment must be taught to children, not, as is so often the case, as mere empty words, the parent or teacher anxiously avoiding all explanation, but in such a manner that they may have a comprehension, adapted to their state, of what fl means. How this is to be done we shall now endeavor to show, by considering what should be the character of the instruction given to the child in its successive states. I. The Sensual Age. This is the age of innocence, in which are implanted by the LORD the remains for future use in regeneration. How great is the care which must be exercised in imparting ideas to the child at this time is evident from the following teaching in Heaven and Hell, n. 336: "The LORD also flows most especially into the ideas of infants from inmosts, for nothing has closed them as with adults; no principles of the false to the understanding of truth, nor life of evil to the receiving of good, and thus for becoming wise." There must be care that ideas be not imparted to them by which this influx will be disturbed. Innocence means "not hurting" (in, not, nocens, hurting), and the ideas imparted to the child in teaching it the Decalogue should be those of not hurting, harming, or injuring. Each prohibition of the Decalogue should be a commandment forbidding to hurt. So the Commandment "Thou shalt not commit adultery," means for the child that nothing must be done to hurt conjugial love, hence nothing which will hurt the happiness of the home. Many useful lessons can be given to the child on this subject, pointing out how it can contribute to the happiness of home life. Sooner or later during this age the child will begin to inquire concerning where it comes from, or how it was born. This question will indicate the proper time for instruction on the subject. Let it be remembered that the question does not originate with the child, but is from the other world; that the angels have put this question into its mind and mouth in order that the parents may answer it for the child's eternal welfare. It is well to note that with scarcely an exception this question is addressed by the child to the mother, and not to the father. This also is of the Divine Providence, which so leads that the necessary instruction may come from the one whose office it is to impart it. Let the mother take the child affectionately to herself and tell it that infants come from our Heavenly Father; that because of the love which is between father and mother, and because they want to have children to love and care for so that they may grow up to be good men and women and at length angels, He places a seed inside of the mother, in the womb (the region of which organ may be indicated to the child); and that there the LORD makes this seed grow into an infant, and when it is grown He brings it out into the world; that when it comes into the world the mother suffers a great deal of pain, but she is very willing to endure this for the sake of having the infant. Should the mother be with child when such instruction is given, or after it is given, these knowledges can be impressed more strongly upon the internal sensory of the child by allowing it to place its hand upon the mother and feel the movements of life within.
88
Let all parents be assured that such an account, given with love, affection, and innocence to the young child, will be received with the highest innocence and delight. It will implant in its mind ideas into which the LORD and the highest celestial angels can inflow. In general, instruction given to little children, should be accompanied by something from the Letter of the Word, and when the above-mentioned instruction is given it will be well to teach the child to learn by heart these words of the 127th Psalm: "Behold, sons are an heritage of the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward. As arrows in the hand of the powerful, so the sons of youth. Happy the man who hath filled his quiver with them; they shall not be ashamed, since they shall speak with the enemies in the gate" (v. 3, 4,6). In giving this instruction it is well to tell the child not to speak of it to other children, as this is something which children should speak about only to their parents and teachers; that other children will learn the same from their parents. Also that if others speak to it about this matter, it shall immediately come and tell what was said. II. The Scientific Age. Here the time has arrives when boys and girls must be separated for instruction and education. The difference of their dispositions begins to show itself more strongly, and their bearing toward one another changes. A certain inclination toward one another, implanted from birth, now manifests itself more decidedly. This inclination is illustrated by the following memorable from the Writings: "How far, from the very birth, the genius of men differs from the genius of women, appeared clearly to me from seeing boys and girls in crowds. I saw them at times through a window in a great city, upon the street, in which more than twenty congregated every day; there the boys, according to their disposition connate with them, played tumultuously, shouting, fighting, striking, throwing stones at one another; but the girls sat peacefully at the doors of the houses, some playing with infants, some dressing dolls, some working on bits of linen, some kissing each other; and, what surprised me, still with pleased eyes they watched the boys who were such" (C. L. 2182). To which we may add that not only do the girls with pleased eyes watch the boys in their rough sports, but the boys take great pains to attract the attention of the girls, and to display to them their great abilities. This mutual inclination must be guided by parents and teachers with a firm but gentle hand, so that it may lead to what is good, and that what is evil may be avoided. A great essential, perhaps the greatest, is, proper instruction on the subject which we are considering. Scientifics are now to be given. The general instruction that the seed is formed in the father by the LORD, and from him is passed over into the womb of the mother where it is clothed with a body, should first be given. Then, with boys, the particular study of the male organs of generation should be taken up, and afterward that of the female organs. Then one should return again to the seed and follow it in its course to the womb, and study the development and growth of the foetus, and the birth of the child. With girls the course of study will be different. After the general instruction that the seed is formed in the father by the LORD, and from him passed over to the mother and there clothed with a body, the study of the female organs should be taken up. The use of these organs, in the clothing of the seed and the birth of the child, should be the centre of all this study. For reasons which we will dwell upon when we come to consider the rational age, it does not seem orderly that girls should be taught concerning the male organs. Much valuable, material for instruction during this age can be drawn from the Writings, and many passages from the Letter of the Word can be taught. The scientifics given can be usefully illustrated by teaching the process of generation in lower orders of creation. First, in beasts, where it is similar to that in man. Second, in birds and fishes; how the eggs do not remain within the mother, but are expelled and hatched by warmth. Third, in plants; that all plants are male, and form seed, which enters into the mother, the earth, and takes a body.
(To be continued.)
Title Unspecified 1894
H. H. 82 It is insown in every one, who receives any influx from heaven, to think of God under a Human form.-H. H. 82.
AROUSED 1894
II.
I SPRANG to my feet. Before me stood a man upon whose face shone a light that marked him for an angel. His features were aglow with a soft reflection as of the effulgence from the pages of the open Book. But even without looking at him I should have recognized him as an angel, from the indescribable music of his voice; it penetrated and thrilled every fibre of my being. The serenity of his aspect put the tumult within me to shame. "You are sad, my brother," he said; "why do you weep?" "Because I have lost all that made life worth living," I replied. The angel's smile was encouraging in its expression of sympathy in its desire to help. "Are you quite sure of that?" he said; "just look at what has arisen from your buried heart." I turned to the spot where it lay buried, and ho! bursting up from the ground was a bud that, even as I looked, opened and pushed out other buds, which in their turn spread upward and outward in multitudinous growth. Stout stems soon appeared, that, obeying an unseen guidance, turned and bent and twisted in such various ways as gradually to form a large and beautiful dwelling. Branches grew and spread to fill it and cover and enroof this framework, and this amazing miracle continued until it stood before me, with it porches and balconies adorned with graceful garlands of leaves and blossoms that filled the air with fragrance, and promised a rich and abundant fruitage. I gazed upon it with unspeakable wonder, and turned to the angel, by my eyes asking an. explanation of its meaning, which my tongue could not utter. "It is always thus," he replied; "with our buried earthly affections, provided they contain, as yours did, the germ of a resolve for better things. That resolve has budded forth and blossomed, as you see. Whether it will continue permanent depends upon yourself. Let us enter this house." I followed him, pondering his words. He paused at the first door leading from the large entrance hall, and said: "You will see here your present state, and the work you must do if you persevere in your resolve to dedicate this house to heavenly uses."
89
He opened the door and motioned me to enter. At the first glance I recognized the place as my own, the hall of my memory into which I had crowded and crammed so much, and which had seemed like a charnel-house in the panorama. It seemed no better now. Ah! yes; it was better, for the walls were hung with exquisite pictures of happy scenes in my childhood; there were many more of these remembrances than I had previously seen, and they shone brightly from some invisible source of light. In them I was playing with children whom I loved, or was learning verses from the Word under my aunt's care, or making myself useful in some way to those about me. In one of these scenes I took especial interest: My aunt had been teaching me that the LORD is a Rock, or rather, I had been learning a verse from the Word which taught this, and we talked about it. "Why, auntie," said I, "this verse teaches that the LORD is a Rock, and another teaches that He is the Word." While yet speaking I was busy with the mental picture of a great rock with an open book lying upon it. My aunt began an explanation, but I was so absorbed with my own imaginings that I heard only a few of her words. It seemed to me, in examining this hall, that it showed forth in detail what the panorama had given in general. There were images scattered about, of all that I had acquired from the world of inanimate things. Here were the sciences of my knowledge, of which I had been so proud. One resembled a dead tree, another a heap of human bones. In the very centre of the ball was a huge pile of stones of various sizes, and throned upon it was my own image. Vessels for a great variety of uses lay here and there, but many turned upside down. From a worldly point of view of arbitrary order, here was a goodly and an orderly array, but I felt that to the angel it was confusion worse confounded. I was now in a state to favor the angel's view of it, and turned to him where he stood, silent and impassive, yet closely observant of me and my surroundings. "These things are dead and useless except for evil uses in the world," I said, "and it would be better to have them destroyed." I stopped, trembling. The angel had previously hinted that my love for my darling had been of the earth, earthy; the anguish of putting it away had been terrible-must I go through the same suffering for each object here? No, that could not be. My love or her was enshrined in the very core of my being, while these things were comparatively external. "They need not be destroyed," he said, gently, "on the contrary, they can nearly all be made alive, though not without a good deal of suffering to you. For you claimed all these things as your own when you put them here, and you still love to think of them thus. Before any change can be effected, you must acknowledge that they are only lent to you, and that really they all belong to the LORD." "I do so acknowledge," I exclaimed, with sudden resolution, "I will no longer claim what is not mine." The angel's face lighted up with a smile. "You have turned your face heavenward," he said, "and are willing to give up the use of all these things as means to gratify evil eyes. That is well; that is the first step. But in order to succeed, the evil love itself must be overcome, and in doing this you will suffer. The things you see here are only vessels which are always filled with life, either from above or from below. Free them from the latter, cleanse them of defiled and obstructing things, and the former will flow in as light flows into a darkened room when its windows are thrown open. But the struggle cannot take place here." He moved toward the door. I followed his movement, at the same time craving a boon. "Give me to see, oh! angel-let me behold the aspect of this hall when all of its forms shall become recipient of life from the LORD." He turned and looked at me a moment with great intentness. "That is not in my power to give, but it will be vouchsafed to you if the LORD sees fit. Behold!" From the serenity, the inexpressible pence of his face, I turned to my own miserable belongings. A change had a ready begun: Under the guidance of an unseen power, the various confused and inverted forms gradually assumed upright positions, in an order that I could not yet understand. The dead tree began to revive, to put forth new branches which bore leaves and flowers and fruit, and presently stood before me a gracious and lovely thing. There were some forms, however, that, far from partaking of the general resurrection, shrank and shriveled, and at last were utterly destroyed by the power that was working such amazing changes in that hall. One of these was a monstrous three-headed imitation of a human being that lay in a dark corner. The brighter the light beamed, the more unsightly and horrible did that thing become, until, under those searching rays it fell apart and disappeared from view. But the most important change took place in the centre of the ball, where the heap of stones, from which my image had tumbled, was built up into a temple that reached the roof; nay, that extended too high for my finite vision to follow. Within it gleamed a light that soon became too intense for me to behold. It flowed outward through the stones, which gradually became transparent. It enveloped and penetrated all the objects which, I could now see, stood grouped around it as the centre and heart of them all. I seemed to be standing in the door of the temple, and looked again upon the glory of that flood of living light. I saw again the Rock that melted out of sight into the Book, and on its open page I read: "Behold, I make all things new." I threw myself down before it with a great cry: "Create in me a clean heart, O God I and renew a right spirit within me." Again I grasped the Book, which disappeared in the indescribable glory of a Garment of Light whose flowing hem I held in my feeble hand. The angel touched me with a finger as of fire, and I arose to my feet, while he motioned toward the door. On arising I caught a glimpse of a stairway winding up from the hall. In answer to my questioning look and motion toward it, the angel said: "That leads to a higher region of your mind of which you know nothing at present. Later, if you choose, you will know more about it. Only this you may now know. Everything in this hall, must in its regenerated state, serve and minister to its higher forms of life there. And there, as well as here, you will find the LORD in His Word to be the Centre and Source of their life." We crossed the entrance hall, and, through a door opening from it, descended a wide stairway that became darker and gloomier with every downward step. The air grew heavy and murky. I found it difficult to breathe. Here and there I was startled to behold in the obscurity the faces of persons whom I had seen in the blazing-house. They were retiring before the angel, yet turned now and then to regard him, as if in dread and hate.
90
When we reached the bottom they were disappearing on the opposite side of a dungeon, through a passage-way that I knew instantly led into the broad road. We went no farther, but stood there till the angel explained to me the meaning of all that this room contained. There were evil creatures of all sorts; there were ferocious beasts and birds of prey, which, the angel told me, respectively symbolized and imaged forth all the evils forbidden in the Ten Commandments, and the falses thence generated. Some were in a sort of lethargy, as if they had never been aroused to active life, but the angel said that they could awaken promptly enough if only circumstances and conditions were favorable. Others seemed to have been excited by the evil spirits, who had retired before the angel, and each of these seemed impatiently awaiting their return for the opportunity to indulge its peculiar passion. I could understand this, yet was conscious that if I were removed from the sphere of the angel most of these forms would appear far less hideous if not absolutely pleasing to me. The consciousness of it made me draw nearer to him and say: "May the LORD help me; I can do nothing here alone." "It is true," he replied," that you can do nothing here alone, but the LORD'S omnipotent help will be yours if you truly desire it. You are responsible for the evil sphere from hell that animates these forms only so far as you believe it to be good, and persist in permitting it to come out through your heart and mind into act. The LORD will fight the battle for you that must be fought to give you control of this part of your domain, but it, must be done on that external plane of life to which He descended for the purpose of saving us all. "I see that you are inclined to claim all this evil as your own possession," he continued, smiling into my saddened eyes," but it is no more yours than is the good that comes down to you from the LORD. All that any finite being can do is to choose which influence he will have for the dominating influence of his life." As he spoke we re-mounted the steps to the entrance hall, where awaiting us stood two-not angels, but good spirits, who greeted him with great reverence. To their care he consigned me, and, passing out by the entrance door, he disappeared. At once I began to feel more like myself, as in every-day life. The good spirits conducted me to another door, through which I entered, to find myself in my own private apartments, and, advancing to my favorite lounging place, sat down before my pictured lady. I had been unconscious of my earthly surroundings for just one hour.
(To be continued.)
Notes and Reviews 1894
THE Rt. Rev. John McGowan, Bishop of the New Church for India, has issued the prospectus of a work on "The Celestial Development of Conjugial Love," in which he proposes to demonstrate and confirm "the very worst points" of the latter part of the work on Conjugial Love.
THE New Church Board of Publication has lately issued the fifth volume of the new translation of Arcana Coelestia, and also a volume containing a new translation of The Divine Love and Wisdom and the Intercourse between the Soul and the Body. Both of these volumes are published in the same style as the other volumes of the "Rotch Edition."
THE late editorial utterances of the New Church Messenger indicate a change in the management of that department, but a change not at all for the better. Though not always doctrinally sound, the editorial articles have formerly been marked by dignity and some rational thought. Of late, however, some of them have been characterized by flippancy, irreverence, and an inane looseness of ideas couched in pretentious verbiage.
A RATHER discouraging report is presented this year by the American Swedenborg Printing and Publishing Society. The printing of the new Latin edition of Vera Christiana Religio and of Divine Providentia have been nearly finished, as have also the fourth and fifth volumes of the new English editions of the Apocalypse Explained, but the work on all these volumes was suspended, in October of last year, on account of the unusual lack of funds from which the Society has suffered.
AN American convert to the Doctrines of Mohammed asks in The New Christianity "why Islam is not the Religion for the followers of Swedenborg? The latter taught nothing that is not strict harmony with the teachings of Mohammed." This writer does not seem to have read The True Christian Religion n. 1-37 where Swedenborg states, of a Lutheran Bishop, who in a printed letter had accused Swedenborg of Mohammedanism, that "if he had known at the time what a blasphemy that is, he surely would have torn it to pieces or burned it."
Svenska Tribunen, a Swedish weekly published in Chicago, in its issue for February 21st, contains an account of Swedenborg's skull, which in the year 1817 was stolen from the coffin in the Swedish Church in London, and offered for sale to various members of the New Church who, however, indignantly rejected the offer. The skull was finally restored to its former resting-place, after three casts had been taken of it. One of these was presented to a museum in London (the British Museum?), the second was kept by the person who took the cast (Ch. Aug. Tulk, Esq.?), and the third is at present in the possession of Mr. Theodor Lindblom, a Swedish journalist.
THE seventy-fifth issue of the Concordance continues the subject of "Mohammed" (and "Mohammedanisim"), and contains, further, the collected teachings on "Money," "Monks," "Mouth," "Moon," Moral," "Moravian," "Morning," "Moses," and the "Most Ancient Church." How welcome is this Divine instruction to the New Church student of finance, of history, of ethics, and of the internal sense of the Word! Each number of this most important and blessed publication as it appears renders more available to the Church its inheritance of spiritual wealth, of treasures which to many have been hidden for a century, of truths which for ever and ever will become more delightful, astonishing, and new. The Concordance has truly become a sine qua non to the studious Newchurchman.
THE Rev. Lyman Abbott, successor to the late Henry Ward Beecher, in Brooklyn, gives the following curious testimony of the supposed influence of the New Church upon "the New Theology" of the world: "The Church of the New Jerusalem, popularly known, from its founder, as Swedenborgianism, reintroduced into Christian theology some of the best elements of Orientalism, re-emphasized the reality of the spiritual life, gave a more spiritual conception to heaven and hell; demanded that the Bible be read as a spiritual revelation, not as a book of external laws, and was emphatic in its declaration that character is salvation, and that there is and can be no other" (quoted from Morning Light of March 10th). It is significant that in this category he says nothing about faith in the sole divinity of the LORD JESUS CHRIST, or of the Divinity of His Human. This Doctrine of the LORD will ever be "bitter in the belly" of the Old Church (A. C. 481), however sweet may seem certain other doctrinals sundered from this central doctrine and thus misunderstood and misapplied.
THE Tale by Louis Pendleton, published serially in New Church Life or 1892-3, is to be issued in book-form by Roberts Brothers, of Boston, under the title The Wedding Garment, A Tale of the Life to Come.
91
The publishers' prospectus gives the following resume of the story, which has been revised since its appearance in the Life: "'The Wedding Garment' tells the story of the continued existence of a young man after his death, or departure from the natural world. Awakening in the other world-in an intermediate region between Heaven and Hell, where the good and the evil live together temporarily commingled-he is astonished and delighted to find himself the same man in all respects as to every characteristic of his mind and ultimate of the body. So closely does everything about him resemble the world he has left behind that he believes he is still in the latter until convinced of the error. The young man has good impulses, but is no saint, and he listens to the persuasions of certain persons who were his friends in the world, but who are now numbered among the evil, even to the extent of following them downward to the very confines of Hell. Resisting at last and saving himself, later on, and after many remarkable experiences, he gradually makes his way through the intermediate region to the gateways of Heaven (which can be found only by those prepared to enter), where he is left with the prospect before him of a blessed eternity in the company of the woman he loves. "The book is written in a reverential spirit; it is unique and quite unlike any story of the same type heretofore published, full of telling incidents and dramatic situations, and not merely a record of the doings of sexless shades, but of living human beings." The volume is to be ready about June 1st, and can be had in cloth for $1.00, and in white and gold for $1.25. It may be ordered through the Academy Book Room, 1821 Wallace Street, Philadelphia, Pa.
IN the second quarterly number of The New Church Review, recently issued, the most important articles are the Rev. James Reed's essay on "What the New Church Stands For;" a paper, "The Divine in the Son of Man and in Men," by the Rev. Alfred Bjorck, of Stockholm; and an article on "The Translation of the Word," by the Rev. L. H. Tafel. Mr. Reed's essay is sound, affectionate, clear, and of an unmistakable Newchurch tone. His object is to deepen, in this minds of Newchurchmen, "their sense of the importance and preciousness of the treasures they possess," and be cal Is upon them to make "away with this ides that this truth is Swedenborg's, or our's, or any other man's! It is of and from the LORD Alone. Otherwise it would not be worthy of a moment's contemplation. Such small knowledge as we have of it does indeed afford ample cause for gratitude but not for self-conceit and vain glory." Pastor Bjorck plainly shows how the "orthodox" idea of the LORD inevitably leads to Unitarianism, but rejoices in the thought that the latter is a "higher point of view" of the subject, and "less dangerous" than the old conception. He finds in it "a power for good" in awaking longings after what is noble, unselfish, and pure, as exemplified in the merely human view of the LORD'S life upon earth. This notion is as false as it is superficial, and the writer stultifies his own position when he finally exhibits the contrast between Arianism and the true doctrine of the New Church. The paper by the Rev. L. H. Tafel is a plea for a literal version of the Word, to be executed under the auspices of the New Church itself, but tends to destroy the only possible basis upon Which such a translation can be made, the basis of the authoritative, because Divinely inspired rendering of the Word, contained in the Writings of the New Church. Instead of this it advocates a system of synonyms to be devised by scholars and scientists of the New Church,
INADMISSIBLE.
ANONYMOUS contributions cannot be accepted by this journal. All interchange of functions and benefits is based upon confidence. Withholding the signature from a communication sent for publication must be interpreted as indicating lack of confidence on the part of the writer, in either our or his own good faith. Either construction puts us on the defensive. The Life must know with whom it speaks.-THE EDITOR.
Communicated 1894
Responsibility for the views expressed in this Department rests with the writers.
ALUMNI ASSOCIATION OF THE ACADEMY SCHOOLS HARVEY FARRINGTON 1894
THE first general meeting of the Alumni and Alumnae of the Schools of the Academy of the New Church was held in the Hall of the Academy, 1826 North Street, Philadelphia, on April 9th. There were in attendance twenty-seven graduates and former pupils, and four invited guests, teachers in the school here. The meeting opened at 8 P. M. with a simple service, conducted by the Rev. Eugene J. E. Schreck, who, after the usual opening, led in the LORD'S prayer, and then read a Psalm. After the singing of another Psalm (xv) the priest closed the repository and stepped down from the chancel, which Was then inclosed with a curtain as usual on social occasions. Wine and cake were brought in and placed upon two tables, which decorated with red and white roses, and festoons of smilax and red and white drapery were placed within the circle in which those present now arranged themselves. The President spoke of this meeting as the first full meeting of the Alumni. He referred to the use intended in opening the meeting with worship, that we might begin by raising our hearts to the LORD, and said that it is befitting in beginning to discuss matters of common interest, and to encourage each other in our work, that we turn our mind-next to the LORD and His Divine Truth-to that Body which, as we believe, most fully acknowledges and receives the LORD in His Second Advent, the Academy of the New Church, whose children we are, and from which, as children, we have received that most precious inheritance which the LORD has freely given to it. The Academy is the natural mainspring of the activity of this body of Alumni. Our reason for being is to be found in the Academy. There is no other congregation of men and women on the face of the globe which recognizes the Divine Human now revealed in and by the Theological Writings of Swedenborg, as the Academy does, and there is no body that attempts, as the Academy does, to apply the truth that proceeds from the Divine Human, to life, to the attainment of that good which is inseparably conjoined with the truth. We can see imperfections in the Academy and its work, but in spite of them and beyond them we see the effect of the living and obedient acknowledgment of the LORD. Even teachers from the Old Church, whom we feel called upon to engage to help out the corps of teachers, express their appreciation of the difference between this and other schools, as noted in an atmosphere of love, devotion and obedience, which they have found nowhere else. Truly our hearts go out to the LORD, and are lifted up in joy in the recognition that it is all His doing, in devout thankfulness, that we are permitted to be in the sphere of the Academy, and that this association has been formed in such a sphere. Mr. Schreck followed up his remarks by proposing the sentiment, The Academy of the New Church, which was introduced by the chorus, "Hail, Academy!" A loving cup had been procured by two of the ladies, and this was now formally produced and presented, to the surprise and delight of all who had not been in the secret.
92
In proposing the sentiment, The Alumni Association, introduced by singing, "What Name Resounds," the President gave a brief history of the formation of the Association. Some of the former students of the Academy had entertained the idea of an Alumni Association, for several years back. In 1892 a delightful dinner was given by two of them [reference to which occurs in New Church Life, for 1892, p. 146] and it was at this dinner that the Chancellor suggested the formation of such an Association. One of the uses he then proposed was the endowment of scholarships. A committee was appointed, who called upon the speaker. Convinced that it ought to be in some acknowledged relation to the Academy, he had waited on the Chancellor, who formally committed the matter to his hands. It was not until June, of 1893, when a dinner was given at the house of one of the graduates of that year, that that mode of forming the Association assumed a distinct shape, which was simply for him to invite other graduates and adult former pupils in good standing who were keenly alive to the uses of the Academy, to unite with him. At the dinner of 1893 no definite conclusions were reached as to the uses of the Association, further than that it was to be the means of cultivating affection for and study of those things into which the Alumni had been initiated while in attendance on the schools. The sphere of the affection for things of the Church is very strong in the schools. All turn with affection and interest to it, and the life here begun should be continued and developed. Those who leave the school sphere to enter the business world come into a sphere not at all of the same character, and they especially feel the need of continued association where the early affections shall continue to be cherished. The Academy and its uses are to be supported affectionately and intelligently. Scholarships could be raised for the benefit of such as do not intend to enter the priesthood, but some other profession. Some who wish to contribute to the uses of the Academy but feel diffident about giving their little mite, see in this Association a welcome channel through which to return gratitude to the Academy for all its benefits. Mr. Schreck went on to say that a very pleasant meeting of the Alumni in Canada was held in the Berlin building just after the dedication. And here another phase of the use of the meeting of the Alumni became evident Questions in the minds of former students were discussed, which, they felt, could be discussed nowhere else. In Chicago, likewise, the President had invited several, and had an informal meeting with two, who were most hearty and enthusiastic over the proposed Association. The President then spoke about the new loving-cup, saying that if the Association were desirous of keeping it, contributions could be made to Mr. Charles E. Doering, the treasurer. The Rev. C. Th. Odhner voiced a suggestion that an inscription be engraven upon the cup. In the discussion that followed, objections to the word "Alumni" were raised on account of the association of the word with Old Church institutions. Some suggestions were offered in regard to a suitable inscription, but nothing definite was determined. Mr. K thought that the passage in The True Christian Religion, n. 433, which speaks about drinking from "the same cup," would be appropriate. At this point a Treasurer of the Association was appointed, and on suggestion several of the ladies volunteered to correspond with members of the Association in other places. The President, in introducing the next toast, said: "We feel that we ought as nurshings (alumni) to do all we can for the Academy. Our support goes out as an ultimate support, by financial and other natural means, as spiritual support by thought and affection, and as celestial support by love for use. Spiritual support is by truth and the understanding, and natural support by doing, when both love and truth have been united. We then drink to the Celestial Support of the Academy." The Rev. Enoch S. Price responded as follows: The Academy, in its purpose and inception, is a celestial Church, organized and banded together for the sake of celestial uses, and, as was said, is to be supported naturally, spiritually, and celestially. It might have great natural and spiritual or intellectual support, and still lack the vital, the love which we must have in order to be in it and of it. It might have wealth, but if this were used only for selfish ends and the glory of the world there would be no celestial support. This must come from the charity and love which we have for the things of the Academy. This in the beginning, with all, is natural and proceeds to spiritual, but it must have a celestial character or there can be no vital and internal life to keep it in real existence and in conjunction with the LORD and Heaven. It is said that the whole doctrine of Faith alone in the Old Church, which we will have among us if we do not regard celestial support of the Academy, is based upon one statement of Paul, and that misunderstood. He did not teach that doctrine. We know his lamentable state in the other world, but it was the love of dominion which condemned him. His writings are good for the Church. He says in one place: "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass' or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing" (I Cor. xiii 1, 2). The rest is of like import. We should not bring only natural gifts nor should we have merely a passive yearning, but an active love for use, to be shown by doing from love. This is the only vital support the Academy can receive. "Our Glorious Church" was here sung in chorus. The sentiment, The Spiritual Support of the Academy, was responded to by the Rev. Carl Th. Odhner: The uses of the sons and daughters of the Academy in this association are threefold: celestial, spiritual, and natural. The celestial angels are in love to the LORD, and from that descend all celestial uses and the love of His celestial office on earth. He is our Heavenly Father, and the Church our spiritual mother. They are both our parents, and love to them is celestial. But love to the LORD cannot exist, even in celestial angels, without love toward the neighbor, and this is the internal love of the spiritual angels. Spiritual uses in the Academy must proceed from love toward one another. But there must be a means. A man's mind cannot act but through a body. So our united minds need an external body. We therefore may use this organized body to perform joint uses, and this association of former students will be a means through which we can return thanks and love to our neighbors. One of the principal means is social life. We can here cultivate mutual affection for one another. Here we meet as men and women in after life, when we have entered upon the performance of uses in the world.
93
They may be heavenly uses, but they are connected with the cares of the world. These ragged garments we can lay aside and put on heavenly garments in our association. Social life is of great use. This we can see in the Academy. It is not only the delight of the external mind in feeling the sphere of mutual love, but instruction from the LORD through others. We can impart to one another our thoughts about uses, about the Association, and about the Academy, and perhaps more freely than in the more solemn Academy meetings. Some go out into the world, but even those that remain have little opportunity to exchange thoughts. Uses press, and there is little time to meditate; but here those who posses greater wisdom from the LORD can enlighten us. Another spiritual or intellectual use-the preservation and publication of the History of the Alma Mater is peculiarly a use of the sons of the Academy, brought up under her care. This might be published under the auspices of the Association. This is all I wish to say, except that I bring greetings of affection from my wife, one of the very first girl pupils in the schools of the Academy, who is unavoidably detained at home. After this all joined in singing "Vivat Nov' Ecclesia." The sentiment, The Natural Support of the Academy, was responded to by Mr. George G. Starkey: Natural support-concludes the series of celestial, spiritual, and natural, for the two former appear and rest in the latter where they terminate. We have heard that the celestial is the essential, and that without love our lives are cold and dead-the Church dead with us. Without Truth by which Love manifests itself, here and in Heaven (and from the marriage of which is Love in man, proceeds all the fruitful faculty) love has no form or quality. But we know that Love and Faith are not conjoined except in the natural mind, and even in the body, where they are appropriated to the man and become as if his own. Of themselves they are wholly of the LORD and are stored by Him in the interiors of man who is governed thence; but they do not become man's except as he gives them a body, an abiding place in him, by deeds. The LORD is life, and man is in the faculty of receiving life, of receiving Love and Wisdom. The LORD'S life dwells in the interiors. Man's life is in the earth of the natural mind, and here on earth is given him the faculty of receiving and doing that which the LORD impresses upon his will and understanding to do. When the LORD does this, and man co-operates, man's life is full in ultimates and man is the LORD'S and receives from Him the blessing of spiritual life. The Academy is man's blessing on earth. To it we turn for the manifestation of the Truth and Love which may thus find an embodiment in our acts and lives. If they do not, our love is evanescent like dew before the morning sun, and our thoughts, though in form they appear like truths, are empty sounds, into which nothing of life can inflow. Love must descend by wisdom into acts. Man is man by the faculty of turning himself to the LORD. When he does, this the LORD flows in and through him into wisdom, and thence into uses, and thus he becomes a medium for the transflux of Divine bounty and blessings unbounded. Man needs this natural reaction of doing-of use, and it is part of the LORD's mercy that it is thus. This is our privilege here. Everything in natural life gives an opportunity of doing; and, since the LORD inflows and draws us to Him, and all we need to do is to turn or dispose ourselves according to the Truth, which teaches us to do, and do it, we see that it is choosing life or death, dominion by the LORD or by self. The LORD does not need our reaction, but we need it, for it is essential to our spiritual life. Neither does the Church need it, for she receives what she needs from the LORD. In this natural existence we cannot determine how or how far any one looks to the LORD; we hardly know it in ourselves. But if we turn to Him, the signs of His covenant will be given to us, by which He established the Church, the covenant of action by the LORD upon the proprium,-of reaction by man. Then the bow of promise appears in the clouds of the natural mind. Each of the different planes of thought and feeling which constitute natural life has its own form of reaction of natural support, although these vary, from the activity displayed in the performance of the most interior uses down to that which consists in putting the hand in the pocket-book Our love and thought in the things of the Church must find a body in this reaction or support of the natural, or they have no existence. Thus it is we who need to give natural support; not that the LORD or the Church need to receive it. But at first these uses are almost wholly natural, and so is the delight in doing them; the LORD is not supreme in them, but principally self. If we would have the spiritual and celestial, we must regard the uses of the Academy as supreme, and our own pleasure and preferences in them as secondary. We receive through her, and we must regard in that which is received, the LORD and, not self. We must regard the faculty of receiving as a sacred trust, and if we abuse it,-if we seek in the activities permitted us to enjoy, only self-gratification and not the furtherance and continuance of the use itself,-we are not truly giving genuine natural support. It is we who need to give this support, not that the Academy really needs to receive it. We need it in order that we may be in an attitude in which we can receive. The Divine gifts must flow into us only to pass to others, and not stop with us; so that instead of being like a leech, that sucks in and retains all for itself, we may be more like a lovely fruit tree, which receives freely the sunlight and air only in order to bestow the beneficence of its cooling shade and fragrant flowers upon man, and ultimately to drop its fruit into man's open lap, to bless and feed him. When we realize that peace, in the stream of the Divine Providence, in the flow of which man receives full measure of good according to capacity,-only then will we come into life. "Behold I set before you this day life and the good and death and the evil." Let us make a choice, and choose aright. If in this Association, we will in all things regard first the LORD and the Church, in our own lives and uses and in those of each other, we will be drawn into indissoluble ties of unity and the token of the covenant will appear in the clouds; conjunction of the LORD with us and in us, and of ourselves with the LORD. To this the company responded with "Vivat Academia. The President remarked that many who wish to contribute,-thought that what they could offer would be as a drop in the ocean. We must cherish and cultivate the idea of supporting uses in a natural way. A mite given in love is far more acceptable to the LORD than a large treasure given under a constraint induced by the fears of natural love. Money contributed to the Church may prove a blessing or a curse, as the history of the Church shows. Let us offer up our whole lives; give ourselves freely and fully with an open mind to the uses of the Academy which are the uses of life.
94
Let us reject falses and receive the Truth from the LORD. Let us ultimate the spiritual and the celestial in the natural. Then will the Academy grow. Mr. Starkey said he wished to emphasize the point that in our support we must put aside the conceit that it is important and necessary to the Church. The Church is the LORD'S Who has and will bestow all that she needs. We, however, need to give in order that he may give to us also. The sentiment The Absent Alumni was responded to by the Rev. N. D. Pendleton. Mr. Pendleton thought that it would be of great use to all the absent ones to be present at the meetings of the Association, or, in other words, it would be of great use to those who were separated in space, to come to the centre, as it were, to the heart, to be rejuvenated, and sent back again to their appointed station-as is the blood to the various organs. If the centre is the heart, and there is a certain centre in the Church, and some who go to it and return while the heart sends out pure blood,-it will receive with greater charity the impure. If the Church at the centre can thus operate on its body, this Association may be a means of bringing others back when they need renewal and rejuvenation in their use. The President: The blood is rejuvenated by the heart, but the heart also receives new impulse from the blood that comes to it. Mr. Odhner proposed the sentiment, The Alumni in the Other World. The new Heaven is present in every movement of the Church and so in this Association of the Alummii. The names of former students who had departed this life were mentioned in this connection, and all sang the New Church version of "Home, Sweet Home." The proposition of the President to have a banquet near the closing of School, seemed to meet with general favor. The meeting adjourned at twelve o'clock. HARVEY FARRINGTON, Secretary.
They who have extinguished that [insown idea concerning God as a Man] by self-intelligence wish an invisible God, but they who by a life of evil [have extinguished it, wish] no God.- H. H. 82.
RECONSIDERED RUFUS CHOATE 1894
EDITOR NEW CHURCH LIFE. DEAR SIR:-I had decided to give an order to stop The New Church Life to my address. Then I saw it is necessary that I shall continue taking it that I may know the depth of error into which the Swedenborgian Church can descend. The priesthood is in the heart of each worshiper of the LORD, and is not in the personality of any man. The writings of Swedenborg are not divine, but point the way to the comprehension of the Holy Word. Swedenborg is a member of the tribe of Joseph, and is no more the LORD than Joseph himself was the LORD. In the destruction of the Church that is now rapidly approaching, the Swedenborgian Church will likewise die, and after the destruction of Babylon, the New Jerusalem will descend and be seen in the letter of the Holy Word-not in the doctrines of Swedenborg. Now, having cleared my mind, I have no objection to the continuance of the New Church Life-and please mark me as an earnest foe to the Academy-to its priesthood, and to its assumption of the title of Father. Very respectfully, RUFUS CHOATE.
WASHINGTON, D. C., May 2d, 1894.
OUR earnest foe's frankness is quite refreshing. If expressing his thoughts on paper has proved the ultimation needed to relieve his mind from its distress, it may have induced a freer and calmer state in which to review his own statements, and the position which he antagonizes. That the priesthood is with every good man is true. But there is a public priesthood beside the private priesthood of every individual and of every household. If it be admitted that the Writings of Swedenborg point the way to the comprehension of the Holy Word, then let our correspondent read The Apocalypse Revealed, n. 854, and walk in the way which it points out, to comprehend what is signified in the Holy Word by the priesthood; and one thing that may thus be comprehended is this, that though the priesthood is not in the personality of any man, it may be adjoined, as the LORD'S office, to such a personality. That Swedenborg is a member of the tribe of Joseph" is a piece of special information which is important and interesting-if true. But even though it prove not true we are quite satisfied with the parallel: Swedenborg is no more the LORD than Joseph was the LORD. Nevertheless, though he be human, the Theological Books written by him are Divine, even as the Books written by Moses and the Prophets and the Evangelists are Divine, though the writers were human. Swedenborg therefore speaks of his Books as," written by the LORD through me" (E. H. N. C.) and as containing the "heavenly Doctrine" of the New Jerusalem, that is to say of the New Church as to doctrine and as to worship. (H. D. 6, 7). As a matter of fact, the Academy has not assumed the title of" Father." This is another piece of special information, the source of which is a mystery. THE EDITOR.
Title Unspecified 1894
A. E. 696 All of those are accepted by the Lord who concerning God have the idea of the Human, for God under the Human form is the Lord.- A. E. 696.
OUTSIDE VIEW 1894
THE Christlicher Bundesbote, an organ of the Mennonites, contains a letter from Bethel College, treating of the necessity of cultivating a love for schools, in which Swedenborgianism is disposed of in a manner that shows a very "mixed" state of mind. "It is a fact among us also, that Swedenborgianism gained adherents to those circles, in which there is an alleged great lack of appreciation for schools. Otherwise, this tendency does not attract the common people. The entire system is too philosophical for them. But he who suffers himself to be impressed with what he understands vaguely, is to be found here. That the New Church gains adherents among the cultivated, can be more readily understood. For the domain, which with its threefold sense of Scripture, it offers to minds that are inspired with speculation, is unbounded. But in ordinary circles, Swedenborgianism gains only such as suffer themselves to be talked over, or who join it for the purpose of acquiring a certain distinction. At least it is claimed that this has been observed to be the case."
95
LIFE OF THE NEW CHURCH Various 1894
THE ACADEMY OF THE NEW CHURCH.
Announcement.- THE closing exercises of the Academy Schools in Philadelphia take place on June 13th and 14th, in Hall, 1826 North Street; the closing school dinner will be held on June 15th; services in commemoration of the 19th of June, 1770, will be held on Sunday, June 17th. On June 10th the Holy Supper will be administered. Philadelphia.- THE public services of the Academy in this city, during the month, have included the Rite of Coming of Age, administered on April 29th, to Mr. George Cooper by Bishop Pendleton, Mr. Schreck acting for the parents, who live in Ohio. The sermon, by Pastor Odhner, treated of the "Plague of the Frogs" (Exod. viii, 1-10). On May 6th Minister Acton preached on the "Plague of the Lice" (Exod. viii, 11-15) and on May 13th Candidate Keep preached on the subject "What Constitutes the Church" (Apoc. i, 4). On May 20th the subject of Pastor Schreck's sermon of the Noxious Flying Thing" (Exod. vii, 21-23) and on the 27th Candidate Starkey preached on "Revelation in Ultimates" (Apoc. i, 7) On May 2d. the fourth Congregational Social was held in the Hall on North Street, the Rev. and Mrs. L. G. Jordan assisting the Rev. and Mrs. Schreck in receiving. A pleasing novelty was given by a number of the young people who went through a sort of drill with red and white scarfs and wands, the gentleman's being red and the ladies' white. Another pleasing surprise was a march and dance of the seasons, in which the twelve months were represented by twelve young ladies appropriately costumed, and decorated with flowers, leaves, etc. ON May 19th the congregation were invited to attend a school concert. The music teacher's success in advancing the musical knowledge and skill of the pupils of the school, and the industry of the latter were satisfactorily demonstrated to a sympathetic and enthusiastic audience. THE Wedding of Chancellor Benade, in London, on April 23rd, was celebrated by the Schools in Philadelphia by a social given in the evening. The Chancellor's portrait was draped with the Academy colors and with green leaves, and the toast to him and his wife was responded to feelingly and appreciatively by Bishop Pendleton. The account of the marriage of Count de la Gardie and the Empress Elizabeth, from the Spiritual Diary, and published under "Marriage," in the Concordance, was read. ON May 13th, a memorial meeting was held, at four o'clock P. M., commemorating the departure to the Spiritual World, of Mr. William B. Aitken, an Academician and member of the congregation. Pastor Odhner, assisting Bishop Pendleton, gave an account of events of Church history that have occurred in Philadelphia during Mr. Aitken's life. THE wedding of Dr. Charles Louis Olds and Miss Mary A. Johnson took place in the Hall of Worship, on the evening of May 28th. The presence of relations and friends of the bridal pair swelled the attendance to one hundred and eighty. The service, conducted by Bishop Pendleton, was very impressive. As in the wedding in London, described elsewhere, there was an exchange of rings by bridegroom and bride. On the following evening Dr. and Mrs. reception in the Hall of Worship for the members of the Congregation. The Rev. E. J. E. Schreck read the relation from Conjugial Love, which describes a similar occasion in the spiritual world (n. 816). The sentiments proposed were: 1. Marriage, responded to by Bishop Pendleton; 2. The husband and Wife by the Rev. L. G. Jordan; and, 3. Friendship, by Mr. John Pitcairn, whose remarks were supplemented by a few from Mr. Schreck, who showed that friendship centres about conjugial love. Appropriate selections of vocal and instrumental music and dancing contributed to the festivity of what was an even unusually happy exemplar of a New Church wedding festival.
London.- The New Church Standard for May publishes an account of a meeting of the Particular Church of the Academy of the New Church in Brixton, London, held in the Hall of Worship, February 7th, in the evening. Twelve members of the general congregation were received into the membership of the Particular Church, a special service, prepared by Pastor Tilson being used. Chancellor Benade, Pastors Tilson and Bostock and Minister Ottley, officiated. After a brief opening form, the following lessons were read: Arcana Coelestia, n. 6637 and Psalms cxxii and cxxvii. The Pastor read n. 326 of The Divine Providence, the people responding with verse 13 of Isaiah xxvi, and this alternate reading continued in the following order: Heaven and Hell, n. 7, 18, and The Heavenly Doctrine, n. 241; Psalm xc, 1; The Divine Providence, n. 89; Heaven and Hell, n. 73; Psalm viii, 4 and 5; The Divine Providence, n. 53, and Arcana Coelestia, ii. 8480; John xv, 4; Arcana Coelestia, n. 816, 832, 6113; Psalm cxxii, 2, 3, 6, 7. Of the paragraphs from the Writings only portions were read. The new members were then presented to the Pastor, and at his request all successively confirmed their acceptance of the fundamental principles of the Church, especially of those concerning the Authority of the Writings, the Priesthood, Conjugial Love, and the necessity of a life according to the truths of order. The Pastor then taking each by the right hand, said: "In the name of the LORD I welcome you into the communion of this Church. As your Pastor I offer you the right-hand of fellowship. In the warfare of regeneration, against al the assaults of the loves of self and the world, fulfill the Divine words: 'Be strong and of a good courage, be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed, for the LORD thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.'" He then pronounced the benediction from Numbers vi, 24-28. After the members had been received into the Particular Church, the Chancellor received them into the General body of the Academy with an appropriate expression of welcome to each. Psalm xix of the New Music was then sung, and the service was closed with, the benediction by the Chancellor. After an interval a social meeting ensued, affording the other members an opportunity to welcome the new additions to their number. The following sentiments were proposed by the Rev. G. C. Ottley, in eloquent words: "The Church" (responded to by the Chancellor in a stirring and instructive speech), "The Particular Church" (by the Pastor), and " The New Members" (by Mr. Waller). GOOD Friday, March 23d, was the occasion of the usual annual Congregational Tea. The presence of four visitors from Paris increased the interest of the occasion-M. and Mine. Hussenet, M. Vaissiere, and M. Lucas-who had crossed to London to partake of time Holy Supper and to spend the Easter Tide with the members of the Church. At this meeting they received a very hearty greeting. Mr. Ottley made an address of welcome, in French, and dwelt somewhat upon the fundamental distinctions between the Church of the Academy, the General Church of the Advent of the LORD, and the New Church in general, in England and America. The diversions included music, the singing of some of the new Anthems, and the impressive recitation of a "memorabile" from Conjugial Love.
EASTER Celebration consisted in a Service devoted to the administration of the Holy Supper. Bishop Benade, Pastor Tilson, and Minister Ottley officiated. The Lessons, consisting of The Doctrine of the LORD, n. 35, and John xx, 1-48, were read, first by the Pastor, in English, and then by Minister Ottley, in French, as was done also with the reading of the Institution of the Holy Supper (Liturgy, p. 153). Seventy-six persons partook of the Sacrament on this occasion. This was the first time of using the massive silver Communion service given by four ladies of the congregation. It the evening the Pastor preached on the subject of "The LORD'S Resurrection."
THE wedding of the Rev. W. H. Benade and Miss Kate Gibbs, of London, took place on April 23d, in the Hall of Worship of the Academy, in Brixton, London, S. W. The Rev. R. J. Tilson, Pastor of the Particular Church, officiated, assisted by the Rev. E. C. Bostock; the former receiving the promises of fidelity, pronouncing the pair husband and wife, and blessing their union. The marriage service of the Liturgy of the General Church was used with the addition of the reading of Conjugial Love, n. 81 (just before the questions on page 168 of the Liturgy) and of the singing of Psalm xxiii, according to the new music, and of Hymn 108, of the Liturgy. After the giving of the ring by the bridegroom, according to the form prescribed in the service, the bride also gave him a ring, using the same liturgical form. When time two had been pronounced "one," the priests individually, and the congregation collectively, uttered the words, "LORD bless you," which expression of feeling seemed to deepen the already profoundly impressive sphere. The wedding marches from "Lohengrin" and Mendelssohn were effectively rendered by Mr. Whittington. Time floral decorations were chiefly in red and white, a beautiful bower overhanging the bridegroom and bride, during the ceremony. At the close of the service the bridal party retired while the Hall was made ready for the reception, which was then given by the Church to the Chancellor and his bride. The following three sentiments were proposed: I. The Church, 2. The Bridegroom and Bride, and 3. The family of the bride. To the first the congregation responded by singing with great heartiness, "Vivat Nova Ecclesia;" to the second, Chancellor Benade responded briefly but impressively; to the third, a brother-in-law of the bride made a few happy remarks. Finally, after an evening enlivened with festivities, in which appropriate songs and other music formed a pleasing feature, the bridegroom and bride left the room, passing
96
LIFE OF THE NEW CHURCH Various 1894
NEW CHURCH LIFE. PUBLISHED MONTHLY BY THE ACADEMY OF THE NEW CHURCH.
TERMS:-One Dollar per annum, payable in advance. FOUR SHILLINGS IN GREAT BRITAIN.
The EDITOR'S address is 1821 Wallace Street, Fairmount Station, Philadelphia. Address all business communications to MR. CARL HJ. ASPLUNDH, No. 1821 Wallace Street, Fairmount Station, Philadelphia, Pa. Subscriptions are also received through the following agents: UNITED STATES. Chicago, Ill., Mr. A. E. Nelson, Chicago Agent of Academy Book-Room, No. 565 West Superior Street. Pittsburgh, Pa., Mr. Wm. Rott, Pittsburgh Agent of Academy Book-Room,, Tenth and Carson Streets. CANADA. Toronto, Ont., Mr. R. Carswell, 20 Equity Chambers. Waterloo, Mr. Rudolph Roschman. GREAT BRITAIN. Mr. E. W. Misson, Agent for Great Britain, of Academy Book-Room, Burton Road, Brixton, London, S. W.
PHILADELPHIA, JUNE, 1894=124-125.
CONTENTS.
PAGE EDITORIAL: Notes, 81 The Conflicts of the Church (a Sermon), 82 The Third, Fourth and fifth Degrees of Vastation (Exodus viii) 85 Instructing Children concerning Generation. II, 86 Aroused (a Tale) 88 NOTES AND REVIEWS, 90 COMMUNICATED: The Alumni Association of the Academy Schools 91 Reconsidered, 94 An Outside View 94 LIFE OF THE NEW CHURCH 95 BIRTHS 96 MARRIAGES 96 DEATHS 96 ACADEMY BOOK ROOM 96 under two large Academy flags, amid the cheers of the company. The above account is taken from The New Church Standard.
Chicago.- AFTER June 3d, worship in the building on Carroll Avenue will be discontinued until the first Sunday in September. During the summer, services will be held at Oak Glen, the hour being ten A. M. On June 10th The Holy Supper will be administered. On June 17th, the New Church New Year's Day (June 19th) will be celebrated commemorating the Institution of the Church. On June 20th a Feast of Charity will be given. Two new homes have been dedicated in the colony, where more than half the Immanuel Church are now located, For information as to trains, etc., intending visitors should communicate with Mr. Alvin E. Nelson, 565 W. Superior Street.
THE CHURCH AT LARGE.
Massachusetts.- THE Newtonville Society, on April 15th, entered into the use of its new house of worship. The Pastor, Rev. John Worcester, being still prostrated with illness, the inauguration services were conducted by his son, the Rev. William L. Worcester, of Philadelphia. ON May 10th the women of the Massachusetts Association held the fourth and last of the preliminary or tentative meetings, which were intended to determine the advisability of a Woman's Union as a permanent organization. A paper was read by a Mrs. Anna C. Lee on "Independence in Living," as applied especially to the domestic and social spheres. Following the paper, a general discussion of the proposed formation of a Woman's Union resulted in the appointment of a committee to draft a Constitution. The report, in the Messenger, does not outline any specific ends or methods proposed.
THE Council of Ministers of the General Convention is to be held in the Theological School, Cambridge, Mass., on Tuesday, June 5th to 7th. The annual address will be given by the Rev. J. C. Ager.
THE seventy-fourth annual session of the General Convention is to meet in Boston, Mass., beginning on June 9th at 2 P. M.
Virginia.- THE Rev. Messrs. Sewall and Rich recently made interesting missionary trips to Talpa and Newport News. At the former place the Rev. James A. Spiers, a brother of the Pastor of the Portland (Maine) Society, entertained them, and into his house and around the windows about seventy-five people managed to crowd, in the evening of April 16th, to hear Mr. Sewall lecture. At the close Mr. Spiers was baptized into the New Church. Tracts were distributed to all present. The next evening Mr. Sewall lectured at Ream's Station, ten miles distant, to an audience of about one hundred and fifty, and again tracts were taken by all. Mr. Spiers, who had secured the building used, seems to have a strong hold on the affections of the people of that region. At Newport News Mr. Sewall lectured three successive evenings to audiences of thirty-three, thirty-five, and twenty-two, respectively. At Hampton Mr. Rich lectured at the Soldiers' Home, of which Mr. Candy, a Newchurchman, is Quartermaster. The Sunday services in Newport News attracted but a handful, but resulted in the discovery of a New- Church family from Preston, Md. California.- THE Rev. F. L. Higgins, on April 16th, preached his farewell sermon to the Portland (Oregon) Society, and on the 221 his inaugural sermon to his new charge, the first New Jerusalem Society of San Francisco. The Rev. J. S. David, who ministered to that Society for a short time, now takes Mr. Higgins's place in Portland. Before leaving San Francisco he delivered an address, on April 17th, entitled "The Correspondence between the Natural and the Spiritual," before the Midwinter Fair Congress of Religions, and on Friday, the 20th, Mr. Higgins addressed the same body on "Why I am a Swedenborgian." THE Rev. Gustave Reiche recently removed from Topeka, Kan., to Ontario, Cal. THE Los Angeles Society has been presented with an altar or reading-desk, made of "symbolic woods." The base is of fir (natural truth), the body, of cedar (spiritual truth), and the panels, of olive (celestial truth). There is also a carving of lilies, signifying the first state of regeneration, and of palm leaves, signifying victory. The altar was dedicated on Sunday, April 8th, Dr. Worcester delivering a discourse on the symbolic woods of the Word, especially those used in Solomon's Temple.
Texas.- THE Rev. J. B. Parmelee has removed from St. Louis (Mo.) to Galveston (Texas) where he will take charge of the Society there, and also do missionary work in the State. His present address is 1801 Post Office Street, Galveston.
CANADA.
THE annual meeting of the Canada Association took place in Toronto on May 17th.
ENGLAND.
THE Rev. George Meek has resigned his charge in Nottingham, and has become Pastor of the Kearsley Society. THE Camberwell Society continues with the Rev. W. A. Presland as Pastor for another year, with some provisos, made necessary by the weakened finances of the Society.
FRANCE.
IN April the Rev. John Presland made his annual visit to Paris, where he preached in English, the services being in French. The Holy Supper was administered to seventeen persons.
INDIA.
BISHOP McGowan, of Allahabad, announces that he will shortly publish in The Indian New Church Messenger a defense of Swedenborg's work, Conjugial Love, confirming his statements "by the best enacted laws of all the nations in the world." Remittances may be made to him at 10 Love Lane, Allahabad, East India. The subscription to the Indian Messenger is two dollars.
SWITZERLAND.
THE Rev. F. Goerwitz toward the end of April made an extended tour, visiting the New Church centres in Vienna, Buda-Pesth, Berlin, and Stuttgart.
NEW PUBLICATION 1894
For a notice of "The Wedding Garment," by Mr. Louis Pendleton, now being published in book form, see "Notes and Reviews" page 90 of this number. Price (cloth), 1.00; white and gold, $1.25 Orders received by the ACADEMY BOOK ROOM, 1821 Wallace Street.
The life of liberty, or liberty, is, simply, to be led by the Lord.- A. C. 892.
Title Unspecified 1894
THE Angelic Wisdom concerning the Divine Providence, it is written, "That it is a law of the Divine Providence, that man should act from freedom according to reason" (D. P. 71). At the outset of the explanation of this proposition, occurs this explicit teaching, in order that a correct understanding of it may accompany the reading of the subsequent exegesis of the particular truths involved. "That man has the freedom of thinking and willing as he pleases, but not the freedom of speaking whatever he thinks, nor the freedom of doing whatever he wills, is known, wherefore the freedom which is here meant is spiritual, and not, natural, freedom, except when they make one; for to think and to will is spiritual, but to speak and to do is natural, for they are distinguished manifestly with man, for man can think what he does not utter, and will what he does not do; from which it appears that the spiritual and the natural with man are discriminated, wherefore man cannot pass over from the one to the other, except by determination, which determination may be compared to a door, which is first to be unlocked and opened; but this door stands, as it were, open with those who think and will from reason according to the civil laws of the kingdom and the moral laws of society, for these speak what they think, and do as they will; but that door stands, as it were, shut with those who think and will contrary to those laws. He who attends to his wills and thence deeds, becomes aware that such a determination intercedes, and sometimes often in one speech, and in one action. These things have been premised, in order that it may be known that by acting from freedom according to reason, is meant to think and will freely, and thence to speak and do freely-according to reason" (D. P. 71).
Title Unspecified 1894
THE Divine Providence is the government of the LORD in the heavens and on the earth, and it is of the Divine Providence to preserve man's freedom and reason unimpaired and sacred. He deigns to adjoin the office of government to men and to angels, for the purpose of making His finite creatures participants in such eminent uses also-participants in the love and wisdom and the delights which are of and from these uses, when they are performed in co-operation with Him from without, by guarding and administering the law. It follows, therefore, that the preservation of freedom and reason is the principal end that the human and angelic governors must strive to attain.
Title Unspecified 1894
FREEDOM and, reason, the two most precious gifts. of the LORD to man, are after all only means by which every man may be conjoined with the LORD and thus. attain to eternal happiness. This is the reason why men may think and will what they please. The laws of the Church and of the State forbid the speaking and doing of anything but that which is in agreement with reason, since otherwise the freedom and reason of the whole would be curtailed. The highest form of civil government is that in which every good citizen can freely go about performing good uses in society without fear, without let or hindrance-but in which evil-minded men are not permitted to commit crimes or misdemeanors, or to engage in occupations that are contrary to the laws of justice and morality. To encourage speech or action which is contray to these, would be to abridge the common freedom and reason. It is therefore necessary to preserve external order, even where there is essential disorder internally, and therefore, again, it is of the Divine Providence that the freedom on the natural plane is not equal to the freedom on the spiritual plane, excepting with those who think and will from mason according to the civil laws of the kingdom and the moral laws of society. True, no laws, no governments, can absolutely prevent evils; the Divine Government does not. They can and must punish evils, but, in spite of reward and punishment, evils break forth. This does not invalidate the function of the government, but confirms the necessity for its existence.
Title Unspecified 1894
FOLLOWING from the spiritual law respecting freedom of thought and of action is the law accepted by enlightened nations, that men should be free to express their thoughts by the press and in public assemblies, but with the proviso that what they print and say shall not be immoral, or destroy the reputation of others, or incite to violence. Freedom of speech is referred to in the Writings especially in connection with the English nation, of whom it is said that the better ones of them are in the centre of all Christians in the Spiritual World "because they have a more interior intellectual light this does not appear to any one in the natural world, but it appears conspicuously in the spiritual world this light they derive from the liberty of thinking and from this of speaking and of writing; with others who are not in such liberty, intellectual light is stopped up, because it has no outlet" (C. L. J. 40). Elsewhere, where this characteristic of the better English is spoken of, it is stated that they have this light" from the liberty of speaking and o in and thence of thinking" (T. C. R. 807), proving that as liberty of thought produces liberty of speech, so, on the other hand, liberty of speech reacts upon liberty of thought, and calls it forth. In the Spiritual Diary, n. 5629, the English and Italian nations are compared, especially as to their forms of government, and it is stated that at that time the governments were "altogether opposite, and hence they differ as to genius; in England is the liberty of speaking and writing, both about civil and about ecclesiastical affairs, but there is no liberty whatever of deceiving others, of using fraud and guile, or of lying in ambush for the sake of murder, or of robbing or of killing, and all this is common there; but the opposite is the case among the Italians, there is almost all liberty of deceiving, by guile and fraud, and also of killing, because so many asylums, but there is no liberty whatever of speaking and writing about ecclesiastical affairs against them, nor about civil affairs, for there are inquisitions there; hence it is that the Italian nation keeps all things within, and those of them who are evil, interiorly in themselves retain the fire, which is hatred, revenge, cruelty, which fire is like that which, after a conflagration, lies hidden under the ashes, and endures; but the English nation otherwise: because it is conceded them to speak and write freely, such a fire is not stored up, but immediately flares up and burns out, and they are kept in the sincere and just by this that they are not allowed to deceive, to rob, and to kill, for then there is no pardon."
98
Title Unspecified 1894
WHILE the account concerning the Italian nation shows that liberty of speech has the effect that evils come to the surface and burn themselves out, and thus provides for the common safety against them, the description of the Germans, like, the first account about the English, is in evidence that liberty of speech has a similar effect upon the intellectual side of man. For while the Germans are not given as bad a character as the Italians, it is said, that "since the Germans are under a despotic government, in each particular duchy, therefore they are not in the liberty of speaking and writing like the Dutch and the Britains, and when the liberty of speaking and writing is kept restrained, the liberty of thinking-that is, of viewing things in their amplitude-is at the same time kept rest rained, for it is like the well of a fountain walled up round about, from which the water that is within is raised up even to the orifice of the vein, whence the vein itself no longer leaps, thought is like the artery, and speech from it is like the well; in a word, influx adapts itself to efflux, likewise the understanding from above to the ratio of the liberty of speaking out and carrying forth the things thought, wherefore that noble nation devotes itself little to matters of judgment," etc. (T. C. R. 814).
Title Unspecified 1894
IN the Church as in the State, the welfare of each, its preservation from evils and falses, is largely provided for by freedom of speech. And what is taught elsewhere about men not being allowed to speak and act as freely as they think and will is not to be understood as a prohibition against men's saying even things that are false and evil. Unless a matter be turned about and viewed on all sides, a good judgment cannot be formed. By considering arguments in favor and opposed to the truth and to good, the falsity as well as the truth, the evil as well as the good, are seen in clearer light. Expressing a falsity or an evil presents it objectively so that it can be the more readily detected, especially when it is placed side by side with truth and good. In heaven, indeed, falsities and evils do not enter into the discussion, and yet the angels must have relatives for the sake of better distinguishing the more excellent truth and good. Everything depends upon how the falsity and the evil are set forth, whether in a manner that leads to evil or in a manner that brings its own corrective. There are limitations to utterances, these limitations must be watched, and those to whom the function of so watching has been assigned must have the authority to decide when the limitations are reached. Even against established forms of thought, of life and of government must men be allowed to speak and write, but only so far as it is evident that the objects of free speech are subserved, which are the "flaring up and burning out" off evils, and that there is no danger of the burning up of the whole community, by inciting against the constituted authorities, who are acting according to the law: "The king must be obeyed according to the laws of the kingdom, and he must not be injured by deed or word in any manner, for upon this depends the public security (A. C. 10,806). The freedom of the individual becomes license when it threatens the freedom of the community. Free speech is the ultimate of free thought, and, as thought truly free is that which is in agreement with the Divine Truth, which alone "maketh free," therefore freedom of speech involves the limitations above referred to.
Title Unspecified 1894
IN the New Church, as an ecclesiastical body, freedom of speech is governed by this simple law: "The priests must force no one, since no one can be forced to believe contrary to that which he has believed from his heart to be true. He that believes otherwise than the priest and does not make disturbance must be left in peace, but he who makes disturbance must be separated, for this is also of the order on account of which is the priesthood" (H. D. 316). This law has application to the priest and to the layman. From mistaken zeal, and a lack of sufficient appreciation of the freedom of others, a priest may feel too anxious to convert another to the truths which he possesses, and by his manner and sphere, together with the authority which frequently attaches to men of learning, he may carry with him an air of compulsion which bereaves the layman of some of his freedom. Or he may become restive and impatient if the truth be not at once received, and thus impair the other's freedom. If what he teaches is the Truth, then the LORD is in the Truth, and will bring it into its own place in the minds of men; no self-effort of the priest will make the truth more radiant and acceptable to others. A priest also dare not suppress the expression of opinions differing from his own, for such expression is implied in the reference to him "that believes otherwise than the priest," for by uttering his opinion is it known that he believes otherwise. But as soon as such expression creates disturbance, it comes under the law. And to the priest, not to the layman, is committed the function of administering the law, and judging whether a disturbance is being created. Again, a subordinate priest may be so firmly convinced that his superior is wrong and he himself is right that he indulges in a freedom of speech about it to others which amounts to license, since he undermines the common confidence in his superior. There are orderly ways of expressing a lack of confidence which one may have reason to entertain, and there are disorderly ways of expressing it, and one of the disorderly ways is to communicate one's doubts to others and to disturb their confidence also. The Doctrines prescribe this simple law concerning the attitude toward a priest who is under suspicion of not conforming his teaching with the Word: "If anything in the Church is called true which heads away from good, no mention is to be made of it [non memorandum est], for it is not true" (A. C. 6822.). The evil is not cured by bruiting it about, but by bringing it to the notice of the proper authorities.
Title Unspecified 1894
AND what has been said in the preceding paragraph applies to the laity in relation to the priesthood. No matter how much a layman may be convinced that he has the truth, and that the priest is wrong, he must bear in mind the injunction: "Good may be insinuated by any one in the country, but not truth, except by those who are teaching ministers; if others do, the Church is disturbed and rent asunder" (A. C. 6822).
99
And again, "One must examine the Word, and see whether they [the doctrinals of one's Church] be true; when this is one from the affection of truth, then man is illustrated by the LORD, so that he apperceives, he knows not whence, what is true, and he is confirmed in it according to the good, in which he is; if these truths disagree with the doctrinals, let him beware lest he disturb the Church: afterward, when he has been confirmed, and is thus in the affirmative from the Word, that those things are true, then it is allowable for him to confirm them by all scientifics which are with him, of whatever name and nature they are, for, because then the affirmative reigns universally, he accepts scientifics which are concordant, and rejects the scientifics which are discordant on account of the fallacies which, are in them" (A. C. 6047). Order and government are not of man, but they are of the LORD with man. Where disorder threatens, the safest, the only reliable way of returning to order is by adhering to order, and not by introducing further disorder. Observance of the law brings order out of disorder, because this is one of the principal objects of the law.
Conscience 1894
He who is ruled through conscience, or he who acts according to conscience, acts freely.- A. C.-918.
REVELATION EFFECTED IN ULTIMATES GEORGE G. STARKEY 1894
"Behold He cometh with the clouds, and shall see Him every eye, and they who pierced Him; and shall bewail over Him all the tribes of the earth. Yea, Amen."- Apocalypse i, 7.
Behold He cometh with the Clouds, signifies Revelation from the LORD in ultimates-that is, in the appearances of the literal sense of the Word, but illuminated by the internal sense which is now at this day revealed, and which in similar passages in the Letter is referred to as "glory," and "brightness" in the cloud. This Glory is the LORD manifesting Himself. And every eye shall see Him, signifies that all will acknowledge Him who are in faith from affection, or in truths from good. And they who pierced Him, signifies that they also will see Him who are in falses from evil. And shall bewail over Him all the tribes of the earth, signifies that fakes of the Church will resist. Yea, Amen, signifies Divine confirmation that it will be so.
IT is a universal truth of the Church that the LORD rules the universe from firsts, by and in ultimates, from which He creates and disposes intermediates. The operation of this law is seen in the creation of the natural world, in that He first created inert, lifeless substances of the mineral kingdom, which is the lowest, and afterward the higher vegetable and animal forms,-from and by means of the former. Likewise it is seen in the creation and peopling of the natural world which preceded that of the spiritual world; and further, in the formation and preparation of man for heaven, in his endowment with a natural body and natural life before he is made spiritually living. The quality of this natural life of man, in itself, its relation to the Divine Life, and the means by which it is made spiritually living, is the theme of this discourse. The universally creating and governing Love and Wisdom of the LORD, are Infinite, are Life Itself and the Essence of all being, quality, and activity in created things. The LORD'S Divine Love is such that it cannot otherwise than create beings recipient of life from Itself, by which it may conjoin them to Itself and bless them with its own Divine gifts of love, race, and happiness. "To this end the LORD created the universe, spiritual as well as natural, out of substances formed from Himself substances of themselves inactive and dead, because dependent upon their Creator for the end and cause of their being, but capable of being acted upon by the Divine Life, for the effecting of Divine ends; from which capacity they derive the appearance of being, quality, and activity, thus of life-in measure according to their nature, place, and use in the Divine plan of creation. Thus in all creation the LORD is the Only essentially Active, creation being merely reactive and reacting according as acted upon; the law being that reaction is according to action, and from it; and also, that action is based upon reaction, without which it effects nothing. Thus the very highest forms and activities of the spiritual world rest finally upon the lowest and most inactive forms and substances of the natural world, and thence are sustained and preserved. Out of the ultimate and inanimate substances of creation, then, the LORD created man, in order that, when his natural creation should be complemented or made complete by his spiritual re-creation, the heaven of his spiritual mind might find support and correspondence in the earth of his natural mind-that in him might be collated all substances and forms receptive of life, and that thus he might be the image of heaven and earth, and of their soul, the Divine Life Itself. Man, like all subordinate creations-yes, like the inanimate substances out of which he is formed-is absolutely inactive and dead until actuated and vivified by the Divine Life; but, unlike them, he is endowed with the faculty of voluntarily receiving and reciprocating the Divine Love, thus of being conjoined to the Divine by that which is from Itself. All conjunction is of love, from love, and by love. Love is free, for it is life, and life is essentially free. In order that man might love it was necessary that he should be free; free to love in return or not. Therefore, to satisfy the Divine ardor for conjunction, it was necessary that life should appear as man's own; and therefore he was created in the plane of nature where life from the Divine appears veiled and covered over by things gross, inert, and furthest removed from the Divine, thus most dead-and yet for that very reason appearing most as if life was inherent in them. Thus circumstanced, the life of man appears to him wholly as if it were his own. A]l his sensation, motion, and operation seem to originate with himself. This fallacious appearance would wholly deceive him, and he could not otherwise than worship himself,-could have no knowledge of Divine Source of his life, and thus would defeat the very end of his creation-conjunction with that Divine-unless from It he received instruction concerning Itself. Yet this instruction, while necessary to dispel fallacies, and to open the mind to the knowledge and acknowledgment of God, must needs be such as not to take away freedom, nor the appearance upon which that freedom is based. Hence the Divine instruction must be accommodated to that appearance, out of which man is to be elevated, indeed, and prepared for conjunction, but only by internal or spiritual freedom of choice and action, and not by anything of external compulsion, such as would result from the Divine manifesting Itself openly in its own form and essence.
100
Hence Divine revelation is always made in ultimates, in order that man may receive and re-act in freedom; and on the basis of that free re-action not only the life of man, but that of heaven rests; for it is essential to truly human life. In the giving of Revelation to man, then, the Divine Truth descends and is clothed in the appearances of nature in which man is, and thus he is able to think concerning it in natural-rational light. This light becomes spiritual-natural, from internal perception inflowing from heaven, if he favors the truth and rejects the mere appearance; but if he chooses to think from self- intelligence and fallacies of sense the light becomes sensual-natural; he then rejects the truth and confirms the appearance. Hence may appear the nature and quality of the literal sense of the Word which is written according to the appearances of nature-called in the text "clouds,"-but appearances which correspond to the spiritual realities of good and truth which they represent. And it also appears who the Divine Truth-which is the LORD-comes to man in ultimates: namely, because the LORD, as He creates, preserves, and governs the universe in and by things ultimate, fixed and enduring, so He re-creates, governs, and saves man by and in the lifeless, finite, and inert things of man's proper nature, acted upon by the Divine from its Own within. And, further, because man, who is born natural in order that he may be free to become spiritual, could not receive the Infinite Divine except as accommodated to natural reception by being veiled in natural forms. Because the LORD'S Government, while it is by ultimates is also from firsts, so He comes to man by an interior way also, operating upon his loves in their first and inmost forms-in the very beginnings of human life exciting the germs of spiritual affections into which influx descends from Him through heaven, enkindling in the natural mind (where are natural ideas derive from the teachings of the Letter of the Word) a certain light, telling him that they are true, thus disposing him, if he be willing, to know and think of them, to favor and at last to do them. Such receptive and applicable ideas are those which he forms from the literal truths that teach that there is a God Who has created all men; and that thus his fellow-men are brothers, to whom evil is not to be done and to whom uses are to be performed. Such ideas with him are at first natural, but they become spiritual, in proportion as he turns from I self and looks to God, and shuns the evils forbidden in, His precepts. This disposition to favor, receive, and obey the truths of revelation is called the affection of truth, and is the very palladium of man's eternal safety, the gift of pure Divine Love and Mercy. Those who have received it are meant by the words of the text, "Every eye shall see Him." The "eye" signifies the understanding of truth from affection. Revelation is thus seen to be made in a two-fold manner-by an external way, through the natural world-this is the "cloud;" and internally, through the spiritual world by influx from the LORD-this is the "glory." Neither is complete without the other, just as neither the soul nor the body are complete without the other. They are one and cannot be divided, any more than can substance and its form, or affection and its thought. Therefore, with those who have buried themselves in the world, its appearances and its lusts, and have closed their minds to the internal influx, the truths of the Word reveal nothing concerning God or heavenly life. Such are referred to in the text as those who have "pierced" the LORD, the only recognition of Whom, as He comes to the dense clouds of their falses from evil, is that they acknowledge Him as a powerful but hated enemy, Whom they spurn and flee. The finite things of which the human mind is formed constitute the clouds, the proprium, which is common to all, even to the highest angels; but with these the cloud is as a fleecy aura, permeated and irradiated with the Divine sunlight. With man the quality of the aloud depends upon whither he directs his gaze; upon whether or not the man lift his eye to see the glory which always comes to him who has an eye to see, attenuating, illuminating, and glorifying the clouds, the finite created human receptacles of human thought and affection with the uncreate sunlight of Heaven. Since man has the faculty and liberty of turning his thought upward to God and heaven, or downward to self and the world, it follows that clouds are of two sorts-one kind which is affirmative and receptive of spiritual truth, and the other negative and confirmatory only of sensual truths, which when regarded by themselves are falses. The one kind looks upward to God and heaven, the other kind looks downward to self and the world. By persistently turning the mind away from the LORD and from the heavenly influx which begets the perception of true faith, and by continually turning the mind downward to sensuals, man so destroys all ability to be affected by truth, and hence all perception of it that he not only fails to see anything of the Divine in the Word, but be cannot even perceive the Divine as It manifested Itself at last in the very world of sense, in the clouds of matter, a human body assumed in time and space. Such is the state at this day. Hence, the LORD, in order to save man from utter death, and in order to reach the lowest affection capable of being made spiritual, has revealed Himself in appearances of rational natural truth, by which the understanding of man, independent and separate from the will and its perverse desires, can receive some idea of the Divine, by which means man can receive the Truth, can think of it, favor it, and so dispose himself to appropriate it. Such rational truth is the "brightness of a cloud" which constitutes the revelation to the New Church given to the world in the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg. The clouds or scientifics pertaining to the proprium which look upward, where they exist at this day, are' such as are receptible of the good of charity. Among them may be included the laws of conduct in daily life, a pertaining to business, social, and civil and domestic duties, etc., in short, all which regard use. Those which look downward are those which regard, in the first place, self-glory and profit, ease and pleasure for its own sake-in short, all which have no use, because they are of no benefit to the neighbor. To discriminate between these two kinds of scientifics, or of natural thought, to examine one's attitude toward the things loved, and to discover their end, whether it looks to heaven and the LORD'S Kingdom of use, or to the senses and the dominion of self and the world, is the life-work of the Newchurchman. To this work and effort the hereditary inclinations of the proprium are opposed. The evils confirmed by generations of ancestors have established perverted forms in the mind, which are commoved and anguished when the Divine Truth discloses their true nature.
101
All the tribes of the earth bewail because of the Advent of the LORD. And such is the effect of the surrounding sphere of the Old Church founded on the doctrine that man is saved by Faith alone,-that he has no power to reject or assist in removing the things of the proprium, which according to that doctrine is done by God the Holy Spirit, man not being conscious-that even the Newchurchman, though doctrinally grounded in the truths of the New Church, but not yet firmly established in the love of doing the truth for its own sake, or in the consequent perception that accompanies that love-is sorely infested by the derivative falses which make up the thought of the modern age upon all the matters which concern the affairs and duties of life-such as are or should be matters of conscience. The fallacious appearances, by which the dragonists seek to justify doubtful methods and practices in political, business, social, and domestic life-yea, in the sacred domain of conjugial life-are so plausible, especially when they awaken in us the responsive promptings of self-interest, self-conceit, love of fame, of ease, and of mere pleasure, of human prudence and the self-willed desire to control one's own life, ignoring the supreme guidance of Providence-these generate vapors in the mind that contract and strive, as it were, to hide the dawning advent of the Son of Man. Although we acknowledge that the Old Church is vastated-that the falses from evil becloud their every thought and turn it downward to the natural lumen of the world, as the only guiding-light they know-still their own belief in their false doctrine is so firm and established,-so ignorant are they of their consummated state, and such is their very self-confidence and authoritative utterance on matters of morals, of equity, ethics and decorum, of science on all planes-that we are apt to be impressed and affected and to be led into accepting those utterances on the strength of their dictum, instead of faithfully applying the test of New Church principles, carefully studied, rationally understood, and conscientiously applied. And even when we are sure of being in the safe path of uses and methods clearly pointed out in the Writings, how often does our zeal and industry therein arise from the clouds of the proprium, which invest with a false glamor the merely natural delights, honors, and emoluments connected therewith. Even in our exercise of charity, of benevolence, of social life, in our friendships and closest family relations, many of us are only too conscious, when we reflect, that our eye is directed too much to the cloud of personality and not wholly to the glory of the LORD, to the good of His Kingdom and Church, which alone give real value to those good gifts of His. We easily discover, by self-examination, that our life is chiefly natural and very, very little spiritual. And even the very grief and soreness of the natural man, caused by this discovery, often makes us only to sensible of how big a cloud is around our neighbor also, arousing a zeal, perhaps, for dispelling that cloud, forgetful that the LORD alone can do that, and forgetting, too, to look for the indication of His operations with the neighbor. At times we even fall into the evil of piercing the LORD (and therefore the neighbor also) by the non-acknowledgment of the LORD'S Providence operating for that neighbor's spiritual welfare. So, too, in the ruling of our own lives; when we are grieved or angered at misfortunes; or when conscious that the failure of our hopes is due largely to our own states; and thus depressed by the lowering clouds of our own proprium, and dismayed by the whirling wind and, beating rain and hail, of lusts and their excusatory and hurtful falsities, we need to raise our eyes, to strive to pierce the gloom, knowing well that sooner or later we shall see the beneficent sun of Heaven break through the clouds, glorify their wind-tossed fragments, sad make the green things of the earth of the natural mind to smile beneath its life-giving glow. So in all things, great and small. Anxiety and distrust are mere dank vapors of the proprium; trust in Providence and charity to the neighbor are of the "eye" of faith that sees the LORD in the cloud. When things of the proprium infest and disturb, whether in self or in others, the implied teaching of the text should lead the thought to the LORD, and away from the filthy things of the proprium, upon which we should not dwell any more than we should dwell upon any natural filth, the removal of which may be beyond our province or power. The LORD alone can remove or lighten the cloud, and having done our best to co-operate in that removal, we should strive to forget or ignore what is offensive or noxious, content with having done what lies in the plain path of our duty, and leaving to Providence all beside. The LORD is the Regulator and Governor ever presence in His Church, in the letter and the spirit of His Divine Truth, which He implants in the thoughts and affections of those who believe in His power to save He gives the light that discovers the quality of the proprium and also the power to reject the proprium. Among the men of the Church He elects those who have an "eye to see," who have suffered Him to sow in their heart the seed of faith from which they acknowledge Him; and He manifests the quality of the affections which oppose, which do not acknowledge Him, "those who pierce Him"- He enables the elect to see and recognize and put them away. And He leads and rules the Church on earth, and conjoins it with its internal, which is the Church in Heaven; and in both He alone is Priest and King; as Priest He nourishes and guards every affection and germ of good which lead man and angel to avert themselves from their own proprium and to seek the new living proprium which is the LORD'S dwelling man: and as King He provides and defends every truth of faith by which man seeks to know his duty and his part of co-operation in the work which is to prepare him for his place in the Kingdom of Uses, and for his heavenly home. And in His providence and by His truth the LORD protects the Church from those who are within her borders, and in the truths of doctrine, but whose eye is really turned away from Him to earth, and who, at the nearer approach of His Truth, advancing the Spiritual life of the Church, "bewail,"-who oppose and trouble the Church. They will be permitted to do so but for a time and only so long as is necessary and useful to make steadfast the eye of the faithful. The LORD will ever appear in His Divine Truth of the Doctrine of His Church according as that Church turns to Him the eye of faith. That truth will effect a judgment-the Proprium will appear in its true light and the faithful will see and reject it to Hell, whither the LORD casts it, and the unfaithful will follow it and be buried there with it. "Behold He cometh with the clouds, and shall see Him every eye, and they who pierced Him; and shall bewail over Him all the tribes of the earth. Yea, Amen." Briefly to resume, then, the points covered:-the text in general teaches that the Divine Truth effects all things especially the things of man's salvation and that it does this by operating from firsts the things that are of God with man-by ultimates-where are the things of man s proprium; laying the foundation of spiritual structure in the inert, reactive plane of nature.
102
And the teaching is, further, that the Divine Truth appears and operates in that, plane by revelation, not manifestly in its own light, except as veiled in appearances, which are such, however, that man can penetrate them if he will, and thus can be in full freedom to see and acknowledge the LORD, or to turn away and reject Him. Thus the teaching is that Revelation is two-fold, internal and external; and that while external Revelation is necessary to secure the voluntary reception and co-operation of man, that external revelation is spiritually effective in the plane of man's proprium only as the Divine operates in man's firsts or interiors, where are the things which are of God alone-the seeds or on ins of spiritual and celestial loves. The text treats more particularly of the reception of truth by man, from the affection of truth; and it reveals the state of the proprium defiled by hereditary and acquired evils, that it opposes the Divine Truth and must be rejected and cast aside before that can enter and form the spiritual life of man. And hence the teaching discloses also the state of the vastate Church where the proprium reigns. And finally, from this teaching we may learn trust in the LORD'S Providence and in those whom He enables to see Him in His coming in the Word, in its Spirit, and in its Letter, the members of His Church. Behold He cometh with the clouds, and every eye shall see Him, and they who pierced Him; and shall bewail over' Him all the tribes of the earth. Yea, Amen.
When man is regenerated 1894
When man is regenerated, he then for the first time comes into a state of liberty; before this he was in a state of servitude.- A. C. 892.
SIXTH, SEVENTH, AND EIGHTH DEGREES OF VASTATION 1894
EXODUS IX.
IN this Chapter is continued the Vastation of those who infest those who are of the spiritual Church. The sixth degree of their vastation is described by the pestilence; the seventh, by the ulcer flowering with pustules; and the eighth, by the rain of hail. By all these is signified the vastation as to those things which are of the Church with them; for those who infested had all been of the Church while they lived in the natural world, but in the other life the truths of faith which they had were gradually taken away from them, since "their deeds were evil." As it is very difficult for the natural mind to grasp merely abstract thoughts, it may be of assistance to the reader to bear in mind that Truth from the Divine appears amongst the evil in the other world through an angel or an angelic society that comes near them. Just as Moses appeared before Pharaoh at the command of JEHOVAH so (we are allowed to picture to ourselves), an angel appeared among those who infested the upright in the other world, and admonished and instructed them in those things which are contained in the internal sense of the words spoken to Pharaoh by Moses.
THE TRUTH AND GOOD OF FAITH ARE CONSUMED.
(1-7.) The instruction was renewed, "and JEHOVAH said unto Moses"-that the Truth from the Divine would appear among those who infest, "Come unto Pharaoh, and thou shalt speak unto him"-with the mandate from the LORD, Who is the God of the Church, "Thus said JEHOVAH the God of the Hebrews"-that they should leave those who are of the spiritual Church, so that they might worship the LORD, "Send away My people, and they shall serve Me"-for if they should still be obstinate and infest and not leave the upright, whom they held in bonds by insinuating themselves into the delights of their cupidities and into the pleasantnesses of their principles, "because if thou refusest, thou, to send away, and still thou detainest them"-they would be vastated of the truth and good of faith, which they still have from the Church of which they had been members in the world, "behold the hand of JEHOVAH will be against thy cattle which is in the field." Only those who had been of the Church in this world can infest the upright in the other life, for they carry with them the knowledges of faith which they had learned in the Church from the Word, and it is by insinuating themselves and their false ideas into the minds of the upright by means of the truths thus learned that they infest the latter. But in order that by the light thus acquired they may not favor and support their own evils and falses, these truths are actually taken sway from them. This is the process called vastation, here treated of in the internal sense. By the gradual taking away of the goods and truths which they had acquired in the Church, they are left entirely in the evils which they had made their own by their wicked life in the world, and in the falses which favor these evils, and they thus open themselves to the tormenting influx of mere evils and falses from hell, from which they were previously preserved externally by the truths and goods which they professed. It was told the infesters that they would be so vastated, and that the vastation would affect the intellectuals of faith, or the understandings which they have had of them, and also the knowledges or scientifics of the truth of the faith which they had professed, "against the horses, against the asses, against the camels"-and likewise the voluntaries, or their affections which have simulated a love for the truth and good of faith, "against the herd and against the flock"-so that there would be a consumption in general of the truth and good of the Church and of those outside of her," a pestilence very grievous"-and that there would be a difference between the truths and goods of faith of those who are of the spiritual Church, and the truths and goods of faith which those have who infest (which difference is explained in Arcana Coelestia, n. 7506), "and distinguish will JEHOVAH between the cattle of Israel and the cattle of the Egyptians"-and that the goods and truths which they have who are of the spiritual Church, would not be consumed, "and not shall die, of all that the sons of Israel have, anything." It was prearranged, "and JEHOVAH set a stated time"-that this should be to them perpetually, as to those things which are of the truths and goods of the Church, "saying, To-morrow JEHOVAH will do this word in the land"-and it was effected as prearranged, "and JEHOVAH did this word from the morrow"-and the truth and good of faith with those who infested was consumed, "and died every cattle of the Egyptians"-but nothing of the faith with those who were of the spiritual Church was consumed, "and of the cattle of the sons of Israel there died not one"-and this was made known to those who infested, "and Pharaoh sent and behold there had not died of the cattle of Israel even one, but they remained obstinate, "and heavy was made the heart of Pharaoh"-and did not leave those who were of the spiritual Church, "and he did not send away the people."
103
EXCITATION OF FOUL AND FILTHY THINGS OF CUPIDITIES WITH BLASPHEMIES.
(8-12.) When that state was finished, a new state arose, beginning with this new instruction; "and JEHOVAH said unto Moses and unto Aharon"-that with given power, a power as great as could be received, "Take for you of the fullness of your fists"-to excite the falses of cupidities by the presence of the angelic heaven with those who infest, "ashes of the furnace"-and which falses were to be shown to those who are in heaven," and Moses shall scatter it toward heaven"-in the presence of the infesters, "to the eyes of Pharaoh"-damned would be their falses in the natural mind, "and it shall be for dust in all the land of Egypt"-which are from the evil interior-i. e., of the intention or end, "and it shall be upon the man"-and from the exterior evil-i. e., of the thought and (when nothing stands in the way) of the action, "and upon the beasts"-becoming foul things with blasphemies there, "for an ulcer flowering with pustule"-in the natural mind, "in all the land of Egypt." Accordingly the falses of cupidities, "and they took ashes of the furnace"-in the presence of those who infested, "and they stood in the presence of Pharaoh"-were shown to those who were in heaven, "and Moses scattered them toward heaven"-from the nearer presence of whom there then existed the foul things with blasphemies from the interior and exterior evil, "and it became an ulcer of pustule, flowering in the man and in the beast"-and those who abused the Divine order by effigying a like thing in external form could not be present, "and not were able the magicians to stand before Moses because of the ulcer"-because similar foul things came forth from them, "because the ulcer was in the magicians"-as in those who infested, "and in all the Egyptians." But the infesters made themselves obstinate, "and JEHOVAH made firm the heart of Pharaoh"-and they did not obey, "and he did saot listen unto them"-according to the prediction, "as JEHOVAH had spoken unto Moses."
ALL THINGS OF THE CHURCH ARE DESTROYED WITH THE INFESTERS.
(13-18.) Again came the instruction what was to be done, "and JEHOVAH said unto Moses"-namely, that those who infested should raise their attention by the presence of the Truth from the Divine, "arise in the morning, in the early morning, and stand before Pharaoh"-to the mandate from the LORD Who is the God of the Church, "and say unto him, Thus said JEHOVAH the God of the Hebrews"-that they should leave those who are of the spiritual Church, in order that they might worship the LORD their God, "Send away My people, and they shall serve Me"-or it might happen that all coming evils would at the same time rush into them, "because this time lam sending all my plagues"-into the inmost, "into thine heart"-into all and single things, "and into thy servants, and into thy people"-whence it would be known to them that the LORD alone is God, "that thou mayest know, that there is no one as I in the whole earth"-and thus, by the irruption of all evils, there might be taken away the communication with those who are in heaven, a communication which they have only so long as they retain the things which are of faith which they had acquired in the world by reading the Word, by studying the doctrinals of the Church, etc., "because now I might send My hand"-and thus there would be a total devastation, "and It might smite thee and thy people with the pestilence"-and there would no longer be a communication with heaven by means of those things which are of the Church; whence they would fall down into hell, never to emerge from it again, "and thou mightest be out off from the land"-but still the communication would continue, and they would run through the states from order, "but nevertheless because of this I have made thee to stand"-so that they might apperceive how great is the Divine Power, "in order that thou mayest see My virtue"-and that thus wherever the Church is the LORD might be acknowledged as the only God, and that from Him alone is every good and truth, "and for this that My Name may be told in the whole earth." The instruction continued that since the infesters did not yet desist from infesting those who were in good and truth (for they saw that they were in anguish, and not yet liberated, and that they themselves were admonished, as though they had dominion over them), therefore, "as yet liftest thou up thyself against My people"-and because they did not yet relinquish them, "that thou dost not send them away"-there would be falses destroying all things of the Church with them, "behold I, I make to rain according to the time to-morrow, hail very grievous,"-but such a destruction would not be with others in the natural mind, "such as was not like it in Egypt from the day that it was founded and even until now." (19-21.) Even with the evil there is good and truth which are never vastated but which are withdrawn toward the interiors where they are reserved by the LORD and used as the channels through which they have life from the LORD and are enabled to think and will, although as this life passes down into their exterior will and thought they pervert it there. These goods and truths are the "remains" so often spoken of in the Sacred Scripture and in the Doctrines, and are not suffered, by the LORD, to be adjoined to the evils and falses. The truth of good which is of these remains is to be collected," and now send, gather together thy cattle"-which is of the Church, "and all that thou hast in the field"; but good interior and good exterior, "every man and beast"-which is of the Church, "which is found in the field"-which is not reserved, "and shall not be collected to the house"-will be utterly destroyed by the false, "and there shall descend upon them the hail, and they shall die." Those things in the natural mind, which were of the LORD (those things which are in the natural mind, from which man thinks and concludes; constitute his mind), and he that feared the word of JEHOVAH of the servants of Pharaoh"-were stored up and reserved in the interiors, made to flee his servants and his cattle unto the houses"-but those things which were not from the LORD, "and he that did not set the heart to the word of JEHOVAH"-were not stored up and reserved, "and he left his servant and his cattle in the field." (As to the difference between those things which are of the LORD and those which are not of the LORD, see Arcana Coelestia, n. 7564.) (22-26.) As a new state is now described, namely, the state of falses from evils destroying all the goods and truths of the Church with those who infest, and as this state exists by the more present influx of truth from the Divine, and at the same time by the accession of heaven, therefore it was commanded, "and JEHOVAH said unto Moses"-that heaven should turn to and approach, "stretch forth thy hand toward heaven"-from the more present influx of which results the false destroying in the natural mind, "and there shall be hail in all the land of Egypt," destroying interior and exterior good, "upon the man and upon the beast"-and every truth of the Church in the natural mind, "and upon every herb of the field in the land of Egypt."
104
By communication with heaven, "and Moses stretched forth his staff unto heaven"-the communication (which they who were in evil had with those who were in good and truth, by means of the goods and truths which the evil had brought with them out of the world) preceded and separated; for the Divine truths which illustrate and perfect those who are in heaven, terrify and devastate those who are in hell, "and JEHOVAH gave voices"-and there were falses destroying the goods and truths, "and hail"-and evils of cupidities, "and fire walked unto the earth"-and thus the natural mind was occupied by the falses of evil," and He made to rain hail upon the land of Egypt"-and there reigned with them the persuasions of the false, together with cupidities of evil (which state is described in Arcana Coelestia, n. 7577), "and there was hail and fire together, walking in the midst of the hail, very grievous"-which state of the natural mind others did not have, "which there was not like it in all the land of Egypt"-from the day in which it came to pass that the natural mind could admit good and truth from good (probably the time when man comes into his own right), "from when it became a nation." And those falses destroyed those things which were in the natural mind, "and the hail smote in all the land of Egypt"-whatever there was of the Church, "all that was in the field"-its interior and exterior good, "from man and even to beast"-and every truth of the Church did those falses destroy, "and every herb of the field did the hail smite"-and also all the cognitions of good and truth of the Church, "and every tree of the field did it break"-but it was not so where they were who were of the spiritual Church, "only in the land of Goshen, where of Israel were, the hail was not. (27-30.) At the presence of the Law Divine, "and Pharaoh sent and called Moses and Aharon"-those who infested were in humiliation, "and said unto them"-and acknowledged that they were separated from truth and good, "I have sinned this time"-and that the Divine Good could not suffer the malice of the infesters, and that hence borne this evil, "JEHOVAH is just, and I and my people are the wicked"-therefore they prayed for intercession, "supplicate unto JEHOVAH"-for if those falses would cease, and it is enough that the voices of God and the hail are absent"-they would relinquish the upright and not detain them any longer, "and I will send you away, and ye shall not add to stand"-and the answer came, "and Moses said unto him"-that when they should be separated, " as I go out of the city"-the Law Divine would intercede," I will stretch forth my palms unto JEHOVAH"-and that that state would come to an end, "the voices shall cease, and the hail shall not be any longer"-whence it would be known, that the LORD is the only God of the Church, "that thou mayest know that JEHOVAH'S is the earth"-but that those who infested were not yet in fear of the LORD," and thou and thy servants, I know that ye do not yet fear from the face of JEHOVAH GOD." (31-35.) The truth of the exterior natural, "and the linen"-and the good thereof, "and the barley"-were destroyed, "was smitten"-because this truth and good were standing, and looked downwards, being together with evils and falses in the exterior natural, and adjoined to them, and were therefore vastated, as else the goods and truths which were stored up within in the interior flow and conjoin themselves with those in the exterior natural by the LORD, in the form of remains, would inflow and conjoin themselves with those in the exterior natural and make one with them and perish with them, "because the barley was a ripening ear, and the linen seas a stalk." But the good of the interior natural and the truth thereof (the remains treated of above) "and the wheat and the spelt"-were not destroyed, "were not smitten"-because they did not stand forth, and because they verge inwardly, toward heaven and the LORD, and have them for their end, "because hidden were they." Separated from the infesters, "and Moses went forth from with Pharaoh out of the city"-they interceded, "and he stretched forth his palms unto JEHOVAH"-and an end was put to that state, "and the voices and the hail ceased"-and those falses no longer appeared, "and the rain was not poured forth on the earth"-and the infesters apperceived, "and Pharaoh saw"-the end of that state "that the rain, the hail and the voices ceased"-and yet they receded, "and he added to sin"-and made themselves obstinate from the false, "and made heavy his heart, he and his servants"-and made themselves obstinate from the evil, "and firm was made the heart of Pharaoh"-so that they did not leave those who were of the spiritual Church, "and he did not send away the sons of Israel"-as it was predicted, "as JEHOVAH had spoken"-by means of the-Law from the Divine, "by the hand of Moses."
Title Unspecified 1894
A. C. 892 It is servitude when cupidities and falsities exercise command; liberty, when the affections of good and truth do so.- A. C. 892.
ROBERT HINDMARSH 1894
VI.
DEFENDER OF THE FAITH.
MR. SIBLY thus concludes his account of this first conflict in the New Church:
"I wish to mention here, to the honor of Mr. Robert Hindmarsh, that, notwithstanding he discontinued to be a member of the Society, there was no breach of personal friendship between him and the members of the Society; he still held the joint tenancy of the place, and attended, as usual, the meetings of the Church for public worship, as well as for business; and did all in his power to promote the establishment of the New Church distinct from the old Church; and the Society were much gratified herewith, conceiving him to be a very valuable man, possessing a bright understanding, and a devout well-wisher for her prosperity" (An Address, etc., p. 4).
At this period the work of Robert Hindmarsh seems to have been especially that of announcing and defending the Doctrines of the New Church through the press. To him belongs the honor of having produced the first work of doctrinal instruction for the young, in a little work which was published in the year 1790, under the title 4 Catechism for the Use of the New Church. It was officially adopted by the second General Conference, held the same year, in London. In January, 1790, the first journal of the New Church in England appeared in London, under the title The New Jerusalem Magazine. It was published by several members of the "London Universal Society for Promotion of the New Church" (an institution of which nothing further is known), and was edited by Henry Servante. Excellent and useful though this journal was, it did not meet with sufficient encouragement to be continued beyond half a year. It was succeeded, in the same year, by The Magazine of Knowledge Concerning Heaven and I Hell, an interesting monthly journal, of which Robert Hindmarsh was the sole editor and publisher, being also the principal contributor. In October of the following year, 1791, its publication ceased, owing to the lack of financial support.
105
In the following year, Hindmarsh entered upon a second journalistic venture, in the publication of The New Jerusalem Journal, which appeared monthly until October of the same year, when it expired from the same cause as its predecessors. In these Journals the theological depth and thoroughness of Hindmarsh became more than ever apparent. Such subjects as the separation from the Old Church, "Re-baptism" into the New Church, the eternity of hell, the dangers of Mesmerism and animal magnetism as then practiced by many "Swedenborgians," the necessity of a literal translation of the Word, and many others, were discussed and answered editorially by Hindmarsh with a maturity of judgment that is truly astonishing in so young a man. (He had then passed his thirtieth year.) Among the literary labors of Hindmarsh during this period should be included the translation and publication of The Continuation concerning the Last Judgment, in 1791, and of An Hieroglyphic Key to Natural and Spiritual Mysteries, in 1792. During the latter year appeared also his famous volume of Letters to Dr. Priestley, in Defence of the New Church, which is the first controversial work of the Church. Joseph Priestley, LL. D., was one of the most noted of English deists of the eighteenth century, and is no less celebrated in science, as the discoverer of oxygen, nitrous gas, and various other gases. Doctrinally he was an avowed Unitarian, and politically a Radical. A man of a strong mind and wielding a trenchant pen, he was ever engaged in controversies, in which it is said that he always had the last word. When the newly-built temple of the Society in Birmingham (which was the first temple ever erected by the New Church) was consecrated to the worship of the LORD JESUS CHRIST, on June 19th, 1791, Dr. Priestley, who resided in that city, attended the ceremonies. He was, on this occasion, introduced to Robert Hindmarsh, who had come from London to be present at this interesting occasion, and he expressed to him his pleasure, and at the same time his surprise, at the doctrines of the New Jerusalem, which seemed so similar, yet were so different from his own Unitarianism. July of the same year the "Tory riots" took place in Birmingham, as Dr. Priestley was an admirer of the French Revolution and an avowed opponent of the existing government, his house, library, and manuscripts were burned by an infuriated mob. The two Unitarian places of worship were also burned down, and the New Church temple was threatened, but was saved by the presence of mind of the minister, the Rev. Joseph Proud, who threw a sum of money among the crowd, declaring at the same time that the New Church was not Unitarian, nor hostile to the Government. (R., p. 129-131; New Jerusalem Magazine, New Series, vol. XII, p. 249.) Among the manuscripts of Dr. Priestley which had been destroyed, was a pamphlet entitled Letters to the Members of the New Jerusalem Church, which the author soon re-wrote and published. The appearance of this pamphlet, which was the most public attack yet made upon the New Church in England, caused a stir among her members. Two of her champions, Mr. Proud and Mr. Bellamy, rushed immediately into the fray with "Answers" to Dr. Priestley, but as the occasion seemed to demand the very best talent of the Church, Robert Hindmarsh was prevailed upon by his friends to meet this Goliath of Arianiarn.
"Never was there witnessed," says the Rev. Samuel Noble, "in any discussion whatever, a more complete demolition of every one of an adversary's arguments, than was effected by Mr. Hindmarsh for those of Dr. Priestley. Well might the discomfited champion of Unitarianism, in all other instances so impatient of rebuff, retire as he did, as silently as possible, from a field in which he had reaped nothing but disgrace; and that disgrace the greater, since he, a celebrated author, had been defeated by a man whose name had never been heard of in the domains of literature" (I., 1835, p. 405).
The Letters to Dr. Priestley are, indeed, a masterpiece in New Church polemics; incisive, unsentimental, clear, convincing, interesting, and at the same time devout, dignified, and courteous. Dr. Priestley had promised to return to the field of battle; but, though he was on one occasion personally reminded of this promise by Mr. Hindmarsh, he never again took up arms against the New Jerusalem. Fearing personal injury from his political opponents, he finally embarked for the United States, where he died in the year 1804 (R., p. 134). It has been said, adversely, of Robert Hindmarsh, that he sought to build up the New Jerusalem on earth "with the sword in one hand and the trowel in the other." This, indeed, is the very manner in which the Holy City must be built on earth, surrounded as the builders are on every side by fierce and hostile tribes. The Son of Man came not to bring peace upon earth, but a sword.
(To be continued.)
Without freedom 1894
Without freedom there is no life, and no worship, and without freedom there is no amendment.- S. D. 2365.
AROUSED 1894
III.
MUCH longer did I sit, pondering over that hour's experience recalling the various scenes through which I had passed, and endeavoring to account for their remarkable continuity and peculiar character. There is a mystery and a wonder in dreams. In them the soul seems to be free from the infestations of the body, and yet all their varieties of form and incident, even those not manifestly connected with any actual experiences, are based upon impressions received through the senses-impressions of things heard, seen, or felt in this outer world of nature. So, in this dream, as I reflected upon its symbolical and supernatural features, I began to recognize a groundwork of memories long forgotten; memories of a short period of my early schooling, when from an eccentric but conscientious schoolmaster I had received ideas concerning a spiritual world full of wonderful yet real things and experiences described in certain books which the master used to read aloud to us pupils. These descriptions were so graphic that the vivid impressions thus received had remained, although covered over by the dusty accumulations of many busy and changing years. But the wonder was that the doctrinal ideas received in those boyish days should have endured in form so connected and intact, as now, under those mysterious dream-influences, to be woven into the soul-awakening teaching given me by the angel in my dream. Having thus accounted to myself for the peculiar character of the dream, I took up the train of thought it had excited. I put aside at once all doubts of my darling, suggested by the fancy that I had seen her in that hall of revelry, classing it among the incongruities common to dreams. I wished that I could as readily put aside all doubts of myself; but these persisted, and forced me to accept this dream as a warning which I would do well to heed.
106
Many a time in the past I had felt a disturbance of mind from actions which my conscience could not approve, and each time I had male a resolve to avoid its disapproval in the future; yet how often had I failed. Temptation seldom comes twice in exactly the same form. I might be on guard against it in one guise, and yet find my good resolutions swept away by it in another, like straws before a whirlwind. Imperceptibly these resolves had weakened, until this dream, which seemed more like a real experience than a creation of the brain, had roused my dormant better nature had given me a realizing sense of my spiritual perils, and at the same time had suggested a surer guide and source of strength than my own fitful resolutions and obscure perceptions of the right. Indeed, I began to realize that I had within my reach the aid of a power able to overcome any temptation. In two different and dissimilar scenes the light streaming from the pages of the open Word had protected me from a sphere of evil; had shown it forth in its own horrid forms, and taken from me all desire to enter into it. Why should it not have as great an influence in my waking state if only I were willing to put myself within its protecting sphere? But just here was the difficulty! To put myself voluntarily within that sphere. To go to that Word for reverent reading, with a belief in its power to save,-why even at the thought of it a denial of that power arose within me! It would involve a renewed and never-ending fight with those unseen powers that had already proved too much for me hitherto. A fight! What misty memory of my childhood connected with those words rises up, struggling to take definite shape? I gaze into the eyes of my pictured lady as if seeking her aid to recall the shadowy past, and it is in their depths that I seem to read the simple little story: I saw myself, a little child, learning verses from the Word with great affection. I stood by my aunt's chair to recite them, and when the short lesson was finished, she told me a story of a knight of olden times, who had put on his armor to go forth and do battle against all manner of evil-doers, in the attempt to right all manner of wrong-doing. She turned to a book as she spoke, and opened it to a picture of a knight in armor. This interested me much, for I had come of a race of fighting men; I delighted in military displays, and when with my playmates, a make-believe war with mock-battles was my favorite pastime. "Auntie," said I, "that is what I mean to be. I would like to go and fight as he did; only I don't see soldiers wear armor like that." "True, my boy, yet men in these days can be knights, and wear armor that is given to them by the LORD, and go fight against their own wrong wishes; they can show more courage in this kind of fighting than did the bravest knights that ever lived in ancient times." Can it be that a few words,-spoken to a child by one who loved him,-joined to his own hereditary tendencies, could have such an influence with the child, grown to manhood, as to turn the scale in favor of the right? I cannot tell. In this softened and tender mood; born of these early recollections, I determined to confirm the good resolutions made in my dream, and to go to the Word for help to keep them. Although I know it to be pure imagination, I took pleasure in fancying that the face of my pictured lady took on a still more intent expression, and smiled upon me as never before, when I uttered this solemn promise aloud to her, as if to a living person.
(To be continued.)
Communicated 1894
Responsibility for the views expressed in this Department rests with the writers.
MEETINGS OF THE GENERAL CONVENTION CARL TH. ODHNER 1894
To THE EDITOR OF NEW CHURCH LIFE. DEAR BROTHER:-While visiting Boston, recently, for the purpose of investigating subjects relative to the history of the New Church, I took the opportunity of attending some of the meetings which were being held in that city by the General Convention and its associated bodies. Thinking that an account of these meetings may be of interest to your readers, I here offer such an outline of the proceedings as I was able to gather.
COUNCIL OF MINSTERS.
The series of meetings began on Tuesday, June 5th, at 3 P. M., when the Council of Ministers of the General Convention assembled in the chapel of the Convention's Theological School in Cambridge. The school-building, a roomy, respectable-looking mansion, is situated in spacious and well-kept grounds, in the immediate vicinity of Harvard University. The home of the "resident professor," the Rev. T. F. Wright, is in a separate building on the school-grounds. The rooms of the school are large and airy, but somewhat bare-looking. The New Church library at Cambridge is as yet small, but contains a number of rare volumes. The meeting was called to order by the chairman, the Rev. S. S. Seward, who invited the Rev. G. H. Dole to conduct the initiatory exercises of worship. After this, the Council passed a resolution devoting the morning sessions to the consideration of such business as had been referred to it by the Convention, and inviting visiting friends to attend the afternoon sessions when such papers as had been prepared would be read and discussed. On motion of the Rev. S. N. Warren, the Council unanimously invited the Rev. C. Th. Odhner to attend all the meetings, and to take part in the discussions. I acknowledged the courtesy, and may here state that I was treated with much kindness throughout the sessions.
SUPERSCRIPTIONS OF PSALMS.
The Rev. T. F. Wright then read a paper on "The Psalms of Ascent and Degrees," showing that a number of the Psalms were thus superscribed, because they treated of the gradual glorification of the Human of the LORD. The paper was interesting and suggestive as confirming the truth that the LORD alone is treated of in the Psalms, where David is mentioned, but to my mind it was largely conjectural, and dealt too much with literal appearances, such as the possible parallelisms in the literal sense of the Psalms with certain incidents in the LORD'S life on earth, as described in the literal sense of the New Testament. The Rev. P. B. Cabell, of Wilmington, Del., inquired into the reason for the sequence of the Psalms such as it exists in the. Word. The Rev. J. E. Werren, of Abingdon, Mass., spoke of the subject from an historical and scientific point of view, and invited a statement from your correspondent, who expressed his conviction that the present sequence is unquestionably of the Divine Providence, and coherent throughout in the spiritual sense. The connection would perhaps, become apparent from a careful study of the Summaries of the Internal Sense of the Prophets and Psalms.
107
The Rev. James Reed expressed a similar conviction, but the Rev. W. H. Hinkley doubted if the Divine Providence entered into the mere external arrangement of the Psalms, and he warned against the establishment of theories which might, perhaps, he disproved by advancing science. The Rev. John Whitehead, and the Rev. G. F. Stearns expressed their conviction that the Divine Providence had watched over all things in the revelation of the Word, so as to render it a most perfect and unbroken whole. Mr. Whitehead asked if the ministers were in the habit of reading, at worship, the titles and introductory lines of the Psalms. The chairman requested those who did so, to hold up their hands, and it was found that only four of those present read these parts of the Word to their hearers. Mr. Werren doubted whether these introductory lines were part of the Word. They seemed to be, mostly, musical directions, and they were not found in the Peshito or Syriac version of the Old Testament. The Rev. J. C. Ager entertained similar doubts. Your correspondent stated that they did certainly belong to the Divine Word. They were included in the consecutive explanation of the spiritual sense, and the Writings refer also to the musical instruments mentioned in these verses. They were, indeed, a face, or a key-note to their respective psalms. The original text made no distinction between them and the other parts of the Psalms. Were we to pick them out from the text, and deny their authenticity, we should soon enter upon a "higher criticism," which eventually would destroy the entire Word. Mr. Whitehead warmly defended the Divine character of these verses, and the integrity of the Word.
WHAT CONSTITUTES THE WORD?
The Rev. W. H. Alden now read a paper on "What Constitutes the Word?" He first stated quite clearly the teachings of the Writings on the subject of the preservation of the Word in all its integrity, but broke suddenly into the most complete denial of the authority of the Writings, and of the Word itself, that I have yet heard from a professed Newchurchman; the investigations of modern science had detected many flaws and interpolations in the text of the Word; Swedenborg had no business, to reveal scientific facts. His statements and "inferences" as to the work of the Masorites and the complete preservation of the Word were "startlingly inaccurate;" the New Church must leave Swedenborg's antiquated opinion on this subject, so as not to repel from its fold scientific minds, etc. The Rev. S. M. Warren expressed his great regret that the paper had been read, and repudiated with indignation the assumptions and fallacies put forth therein. The teachings of the Writings concerning the Word were not "Swedenborg's inferences" and opinions, but Divine Truth. New facts of science had certainly been revealed in the Writings. The existence of the Most Ancient Church was an instance of these. He hoped the paper would be carefully considered, and its fallacies' exposed. The Council then adjourned.
PAID CHURCH CHOIRS.
On the following day, Wednesday, June 6th, the Council again met at the Theological School. After the opening services, conducted by the Rev. A. F. Frost, a paper on "Paid Choirs" was read by the Rev. H. C. Hay, of Providence, R. I. The writer held that New Church Societies might properly employ paid singers in worship, and suggested that the leader of the choir be formally introduced into his office by a ceremony of consecration or ordination. Mr. Whitehead strongly objected to the employment of singers who were not believers in the Doctrines. It would be like paying an Old Church minister for preaching New Church Doctrines. It would not be worship, but horrible mockery. The Rev. C. H. Mann did not think we had any business to inquire into the faith of our hired servants. If the choir was Old Church it did not matter any more than if the organ was Old Church. Both were mere servants and instruments. The employment of hired choirs was perfectly proper. The only objection to it was that it made the worship too much like a mere concert. The Rev. J. W. MacPherson, of Frankford, Pa., objected to the idea of consecrating the leader of the choir. He thought the employment of choirs might be in perfect harmony with the spiritual worship, but would not like to employ Old Church singers. The Rev. Frank Sewall differed alike from Mr. Whitehead's extreme position and from Mr. Mann's comparison of the choir to the organ. The voluntary choir was his ideal, but we might yet have singers who are not of the New Church, persons who were not strongly in the falses of the Old Church. A conscientious Oldchurchman would never enter a New Church choir. He depreciated "choir-craft" in our churches. Instances were known where the leader ruled over the pastor, and introduced music which expressed false doctrines. He thought the consecration of the leader would be entirely suitable and beautiful, though a little above our present plane. The Rev. W. H. Mayhew indorsed Mr. Sewall's position. He told of some experiences he had had in choir-ridden churches. While it would be improper to hire Old Church choirs of grown-up people, he thought choirs of children, who were not of the New Church, might be employed without danger. Some of such I children might eventually join the New Church. The Rev. J. A. Hayes, of Salem, Mass., thought the ministers were responsible for the conduct of the choirs. He related how some choir-girls had danced a waltz to Wagner's music, during a service which he was conducting He forthwith forbade the leader of the choir to select any music without consulting with the pastor. The Rev. J. Reed disapproved of hired choirs of Old Church people. The singing must come from the faith and the affection. He objected to the idea of the Church being "sung to." Not "music," but hearty congregational singing was needed at the worship. The Rev. J. C. Ager expressed his unfeigned astonishment at the idea of hired choirs in the New Church. It showed an utter disregard of New Church principles. He regretted the sad state of the societies in Massachusetts, where such things could take place as had been related by some of the previous speakers. It would be well to send out missionaries for their conversion to the New Church. The pressing sphere of worldliness was invading our societies, as is evident from their desire to imitate the ways of the Old Church in everything. A New Church Society cannot possible have as the leader of its choir one who is not in full spiritual harmony with its Pastor. The responsibility, in all such cases, is with the ministers.
NEW TRANSLATION OF THE WORD.
The Rev. L. H. Tafel now read a paper on the subject of a new translation of the Word, which had been referred to a committee of the Council.
108
Little or no progress had been made in this work during the year, owing to the great diversity of views among the members of the committee as to the principles and methods of the translation. The paper recommended that the work be given into the hands of some one minister, and that the various books be published separately as they were finished. After some discussion the subject was referred back to the committee.
NEW CHURCH BOOKS OF REFERENCE.
The Rev. James Reed read a letter from Mr. Gilbert Hawkes on the subject of a "Topical Concordance" to the Writings, upon the preparation of which he had long been engaged. As the work was not yet finished, the Council confined itself to an expression of appreciation of its interest and value. A similar vote of appreciation was passed upon a paper by the Rev. W. H. Alden, giving an account of a Lexicon to Swedenborg's use of the Latin tongue, which he had begun to prepare. In discussing this subject Mr. Ager stated that he had found, upon investigation, that Swedenborg had to a great extent made a new Latin language; not less than ten per cent. of the words which he uses could not be found in the lexicons of classical or medieval Latin. No writer of that language had ever used a larger vocabulary than Swedenborg.
THE OUTWARD AND THE INWARD CHURCH.
The Rev. E. D. Daniels next read a paper on the subject of "The Outward and the Inward Church." In each Society there were found some who were in a more internal state, while others were in a more external state. Can these two classes be fed by the same spiritual food and by the same pastor? The writer answered this question in the affirmative. Mr. Reed, who had originally suggested the topic, while agreeing with the position of the paper, saw two distinct fields of work in the Church. Some pastors who were able to minister successfully to the wants of the older members found great difficulty in holding the interest of the younger people. Other ministers, who were able to engage the attention of the general public, were less successful in the building up of the interior life of their own congregations. At present he saw the only solution to this question in the power of accommodation with the minister. Mr. Warren spoke of the importance of the preacher's using a simple language, composed as much as possible of Saxon words, for the sake of the children and the simple of his congregation. Mr. Wright thought that the wants of the external church must be attended to first, and consequently invited the Council to adjourn for the sake of the collation which had been prepared by the ladies of the Cambridge Society. After dinner the subject of Mr. Daniels's paper was again taken up for discussion. Mr. Whitehead recognized the existence of the two different states among the members of a society. He did not approve the discrimination of these classes into separate societies, unless by natural growth in large cities. The minister must try to provide a variety of teachings for the variety of states. Mr. Frost called attention to the custom in the Ancient Church, of distinguishing the neighbors, to whom charity is to be exercised, into various classes. Some were called widows, others orphans, others deaf, blind, etc. Each class was treated in a different manner. It may be the same in the New Church. The Rev. M. J. Callan thought the present order and methods of the ministry not altogether according to the teachings of the Writings. The minister models his people according to his own form of mind. Hence it was important to learn the true order. Mr. Seward did not think we would need to preach differently to the different classes of the congregation any more than we would need to take different food for the development of the different parts of the body, such as fish for the brain, for instance. He had found that his different hearers took out of his sermons what they needed for themselves, sometimes more things than he himself knew of in his discourse. Preach repentance and the salvation of sins to all alike. The more a preacher convicts his people of their evils of life, the more plainly the truths of life are set forth, the more will his sermons be appreciated.
THE INTEGRITY OF THE WORD.
The Council then resumed the consideration of Mr. Alden's paper on the integrity, or rather non-integrity, of the Letter of the Word. The writer gave a brief outline of his paper for the benefit of those who had not been present at the first reading. Mr. Warren criticized the paper vigorously. The writer had taken too many things for granted. The modern Biblical criticism was based upon comparison with manuscripts of comparatively late date and of obscure origin. We know not how careless or prejudiced the copyists had been. There was not a judge in the land who would not reject such evidence in a case at law, and yet it is on such evidence that it is proposed we should reject the integrity of the Word in its original form. Greater deference was shown in the paper for the scholarship of to-day with its accumulation of supposed facts than for the revealed Truth of God. We could no more revise and change the text of the Word than we could revise and change the laws of nature. Mr. Tafel stated that be had investigated the science of Biblical criticism for many years, and, as a result, was utterly disgusted with the work of these critics. He had found them incredibly stupid and nothing but heathens. The value of the collateral manuscripts had been greatly overestimated. On their evidence many things in the original text had been declared spurious. But who would gave dared to interpolate such things at a time when the original manuscripts were well known? He compared modern Biblical critics to barn-fowls on a dunghill, who made a great ado when they had found a worm. Mr. Odhner stated that the controversy- about the integrity of the Word was not a new one in the New Church. The Rev. Samuel Noble, of London, had put forth similar theories to those presented in Mr. Alden's paper, but his specious reasonings had been completely overthrown by the Rev. Robert Hindmarsh, and more recently by the Rev. Dr. R. L. Tafel in his Review of the Rev. Samuel Noble's "Inquiry whether the Word in all its Integrity, though preserved, at present exists in any Individual Copy." (London: James Speirs, 1881, p. 32.) He recommended the reading of this pamphlet to the Council.
THE MINISTRY OF THE GENERAL CONVENTION.
The annual address to the Council of Ministers was read by the appointed writer, the Rev. J. C. Ager. It treated of the work of the New Church Ministry as differing from the work of the Old Church Ministry. The writer showed that it was, and was to be, a work wholly new and different from the work of the Ministry in the Old Church.
109
Not only the spirit, but also the methods of this work must become new in the New Church. Thus far that work had been confined largely to pioneer work, to the combat against false doctrines. But a change was coming upon the religious world which we must recognize. The new state must he met by new methods. There was a wonderful dying out of all interest in dogmatic religion. Even our own people were ceasing to be attracted by doctrinal teachings. The Ministry was being driven out of the merely intellectual work; the New Church must now do its work of evangelization by showing especially what its teachings can do in the making of true men and women. Never before in the history of its existence had the Ministry of the New Church met with as discouraging a situation as at this day. There was hardly a Society in which there was not dissatisfaction with the work of its minister. The time had come for a radical change of method in our work. The minister must endeavor to be more than a mere teacher. He must especially strive for the development of a higher, more regenerate life among the members of our Societies, and we must do this by going before our flocks and leading them to the good of life, The day of success by mere intellectual work was past. A new state of things was before us, an unfamiliar region calling for. a radical revision of methods. How this new work was to be accomplished was not yet apparent. Mr. Seward expressed his appreciation of the paper. It was quite evident that the New Church was entering upon an entirely new state. We cannot any longer go on in the old way. But we should not be discouraged. The LORD would point out the way. The Rev. Adolph Roeder was also grateful for the paper, and the new opening that had come upon us. The New Church had hitherto been in the state of a virgin-bride, but was now facing the new state and the new responsibilities of matrimony and maternity. We should enter upon this new state without fear or hurry. A number of the ministers spoke in a similar enthusiastic strain. Something new seemed to be in the air, a state radically different from the old, but none of the speakers seemed clear as to the methods to be pursued. Mr. Sewall, however, did not share the general enthusiasm. Mr. Ager's paper left his mind a blank. He did not believe the ministers should set themselves up for examples or try to lead by their own good of life. He did not recognize any especially new state or the necessity for radically different methods. He saw no need for any sudden outpouring of grace or any new "mighty awakening." He had not prayed for it, had not yearned for it. No other methods were possible than the old, of teaching the LORD'S revealed Truth. If our work had been deficient, the fault lay with the ministers. They needed more earnestness in their own study of the Doctrines and in their dissemination. The present situation was not discouraging; but as cheering as could be expected. Mr. Ager regretted that Mr. Sewall had entirely misunderstood the tendencies of the paper. The Rev. John Goddard now presented a paper on the subject of "Waiting for Pentecost." The writer showed, in general, that the Holy Spirit could be received by the disciples of the LORD in His Second Advent only by "tarrying in Jerusalem," by studying and teaching the Doctrines of the Church for the sake of life. Men must know the Gospel, before they can preach it. Your correspondent here fell into a meditation on the truthfulness of this much-needed teaching, and so must have lost some connecting link in the arguments of the paper. The following statement, however, aroused, him out of his reveries: "Our brethren of the General Church of the Advent, conscious of the real need of a solid basis of faith, are cutting the Gordian knot, and forcing a conclusion. They do not seem willing to tarry in Jerusalem. It is, indeed, possible, that the position they take is necessary to the faith of some. But that this authoritative basis is liable to rest on a brick, instead of a stone, foundation, and that, while they thus build, they are liable to a confusion of tongues, as at Babel, rather than an ability to understand one another's foreign tongues, as at Pentecost, seems indicated by the results." This, disconnected from what preceded it, seemed mysterious to your correspondent, who, therefore, expressed his hope that the paper would be published, for the benefit of his brethren of the General Church of the Advent. Mr. Reed, referring to Mr. Ager's paper, stated his conviction that the Church was approaching a new and unknown state. Many of our foremost ministers had passed away within a year. The President of the Convention was no longer in this world, the Vice-President (the Rev. John Worcester) was helpless, disabled through overwork. The Societies of the Church were in danger of being overwhelmed by the prevailing worldliness. The work of the Church was being done by a very few persons, upon whom the whole burden fell. There was not enough co-operation in the Church, not enough of that self-sacrifice which had characterized those who had gone before us. The day of Pentecost would be delayed until we had entered upon a state of self-examination, and had revived the spirit of earnestness and self-sacrifice. Mr. Ray, while sympathizing with all that had been said, plea or more interest in the externals of the Church. There was danger of turning our attention too much to the internal. We needed to revive the faith of the Apostles. The first Christian Church ought to be our model. The late Rev. Phillips Brooks was an example of the true Christian. After some general remarks by the Rev. G. H. Dole, and Mr. L. G. Hoeck (the latter in a very impassioned speech, which I failed to follow on account of its vehemence), the Council adjourned for the day. In the evening a social reception was given to the ministers by the Cambridge congregation, at the residence of the Pastor, the Rev. T. F. Wright, Ph. D. On Thursday, June 7th, the Council devoted the morning session to the consideration of subjects referred to it by the Convention. The meeting is, consequently, not a subject for the present letter.
INDIVIDUAL CUPS FOR THE HOLY SUPPER.
In the afternoon the Rev. H. C. Hay read a paper recommending the use of "individual cups" in the distribution of wine at the administration of the Holy Supper. This subject, as is known, is at present greatly agitating ecclesiastical circles. It is the "deadly microbe of modern science" that has started this panic. Mr. Reed "expressed his abhorrence of the proposed innovation, which would destroy the representative character of the Sacrament, and which would fill the mind with thoughts about contagion, destructive to every holy state during its administration.
110
Mr. Hinkley thought there was less danger to the Church from possible microbes than from our young ministers taking up with every new fad and notion that was started up in the world. There was no evidence whatever that any one had ever caught a disease from the use of the common cup at the Sacrament.
PAPERS ON VARIOUS TOPICS.
Mr. Sewall read a lengthy and philosophical paper on "The Intellectual Mission of the New Church." Mr. Cabell read a paper on a proposed change in the translation of the LORD'S Prayer generally adopted by New Church people, which follows the order of the Greek original in the phrase "as in heaven, so upon the Church." Mr. Cabell desired that this should be changed so as to agree with the formula used in the Old Church, "on earth as in heaven." He thought children could' more readily comprehend this sequence. The paper called forth considerable discussion, some recommending the proposed change on the ground that a shock would not be given to Old Church friends who might be visiting the services; others defending the New Church Version on account of its fidelity to the sequence of the original, which is in the order of the flow of Heaven. Mr. Stearns expressed his desire that this order be followed throughout the English Version of the Prayer, so that it would begin with "Father of us, instead of "Our Father." The Secretary read a paper from the Rev. L. P. Mercer, on "The Relation of the New Jerusalem to Apostolic Church." The Rev. Wm. L. Worcester presented a brief account of a very short and simple Liturgy for Missionary purposes, the publication of which was being contemplated. The Rev. L. F. Hite read "A Brief Outline of What an Evidence Society Might Do." Your correspondent was not able to remain, continuously, during the reading of these papers. The Council of Ministers then adjourned.
THE THEOLOGICAL SCHOOL OF THE GENERAL CONVENTION.
IN the evening of the same day, Thursday, were held the Closing Exercises of the Theological School. Certificates were given to three graduates, the Rev. George W. Savory, Mr. Louis G. Hoeck, and Mr. John Antrobus. Immediately after the Closing Exercises the' Alumni of the Theological School held their annual meeting.
MEETING OF THE GENERAL CONVENTION.
THE General Convention began its seventy-fourth annual meeting on Saturday, June 9th. It was attended by one hundred and fifteen members, of whom forty-seven were ministers and sixty-eight laymen. The President, the Rev. Chauncey Giles, being no more in this life, and the Vice-President, the Rev. John Worcester, being incapacitated by a long and serious illness, the meeting was called to order by Mr. C. A. E. Spamer, the Secretary. On motion of Mr. McGeorge the Hon. Albert Mason, Supreme Judge of the State of Massachusetts, was unanimously called to preside over the meeting. Judge Mason fulfilled this office with the greatest dignity and fairness, as might have been expected; yet this election of a layman to preside over a purely ecclesiastical meeting was certainly anomalous. It was, however, in keeping with the character of the Convention, which, this year at least, was almost entirely a business meeting, most of the time being occupied with the reading of reports and the consideration of financial questions. To any one interested in the spiritual things of the Church, the meeting must have been dry indeed. The reports contained little or nothing which would be news to the readers of the Life, and they will therefore be passed over in silence. On the following day, Sunday, services were conducted in the temple on Bowdoin Street by the Rev. Wm. L Worcester. The Communion was administered in the afternoon, and Mr. Louis G. Heck was ordained into the ministry by the Rev. S. F. Dike. The meeting on Monday, June 11th, was occupied mostly by the reading of reports, and by speeches expressive of the Convention's appreciation of the work of the late Rev. Messrs. Giles, Hayden, and Doughty. The day was excessively warm, and the proceedings somnolent. A slight breeze of diversion was created by Mr. McGeorge, who, in the characteristic, manner for which he is famous, made an appeal for further contributions to the "National House of Worship" in Washington. The performance was quite diverting, even if not edifying. The meeting in the evening was devoted to a "Missionary Jubilee" (quotations copied from the Messenger), which your correspondent did not feel equal to attend, considering the excitement of the previous session. Perhaps others were similarly exhausted, for on Tuesday, June 12th, the Convention, immediately after assembling, unanimously adopted a resolution that "all reports of Associations and Societies shall be sent to the Secretaries at least three weeks previous to the meeting of the Convention, and shall be prepared by the Secretaries and presented to the Convention in print." The Rev. J. A. Hayes, who is one of the most "advanced" of the younger ministers, moved "that this meeting express its sympathy with the efforts of the Union for Practical Progress, to improve the moral and social conditions of the community, and also with other organizations of similar character throughout the world." This resolution created some debate, but was not adopted, a conservative majority being unwilling that the Convention should give official expression about any or all of the reform movements of to-day. The Convention then proceeded to the election of officers, which resulted in the election of the Rev. John Worcester, as President, and the Rev. John Goddard, as Vice-President, the Secretaries and the Treasurer remaining the same as the present year. After resolutions of thanks to the temporary chairman, the Hon. Albert Mason, had been adopted, the Convention adjourned at one o'clock. In presenting to your readers this report, I wish it to be understood that I am not a "shorthand" writer, and that I have been able to give only an outline or a few points of the various speeches during the meeting of the Council of Ministers. I hope, however, that none of the speakers has been misrepresented. Very respectfully yours, CARL TH. ODHNER.
MR. Frank Carr 1894
MR. Frank Carr, a Newchurchman of some literary attainments, who, although a business man, wrote and edited several works, and contributed to the periodical literature, died at Walker-on- Tyne, England, on April 20th. For nearly thirty years he contributed articles to the English New Church Magazine under the nom-de-plume "Launcelot Cross."
111
LIFE OF THE NEW CHURCH Various 1894
THE ACADEMY OF THE NEW CHURCH.
Philadelphia.-EVENING services of the Academy terminated for the season on May 27th the lessons in The Divine Providence concluding with n. 255. On the preceding Friday occurred the final common supper before vacation. ON June 3d, Bishop Pendleton ordained Candidate George Goddard Starkey into the first degree of the Priesthood. The service included very full instruction from the Doctrines on the subjects of Order and Priestly Government and the priestly use of saving human souls. ON June 10th, the Holy Supper was administered to eighty-seven persons. The practice of devoting an entire service to these important rites not only invest them with their true dignity, but also the accompanying instruction, being received in a state of aroused affection for the holy things of the Church, produces a more profound impression than does the more common form of doctrinal discourse. June 17th, the services of the Academy in Philadelphia were brought to a close for the summer vacation, by the celebration of the Institution of the New Church, which took place on the nineteenth day of June, 1770. The Special Service, recently printed, was used on this occasion, Psalm xviii being substituted for the greater part of Part Ill. This printed service is sold at 10 cents a copy. THE Closing Exercises of the Philadelphia Schools took place on June 13th and 14th. On the former the completion of studies by three young ladies was formally recognized in the presence of the Girls' School and teachers, by religious exercises, and the presentation of the customary token, a golden medallion bearing a brooding eagle. On the 14th, the regular school closing occurred. After the usual opening forms of worship Candidate Keep read a thesis on "Union, Conjunction, and Consociation," and Candidate Doering one on "Use." The Head-Master made honorable mention of several of the pupils of the Boys' School for excellence in conduct, and growth in knowledge and understanding of their studies. Reference was made to honoring the Red and the White, the Academy colors, which represent affection for the good and for the true, the one relating more to the will, and the latter to the understanding. Bishop Pendleton made a brief address. Referring to the honorable mention, he laid tress on the importance of forming good habits, especially the habits of thought; for the thought of man, from his affection, forms his very life, and not the mere external doing. Habit is the expression, in act, of the life of thought and affection within; thus it is what man has, and which holds him in a certain course of life, the character of which is within his choice and determination. Thought from affection concerning the things of heaven is signified in the Apocalypse by the "birds that fly in the midst of heaven;" "and by their being called and coming and being gathered together to the supper of the treat God, is signified conjunction with the LORD and consociation with the angels of heaven in uses,-as outlined in the essays. The habit of thinking concerning heaven and the kingdom of the LORD is of the greatest importance, for cultivating it the affection for those things is cultivated; for what one chooses to think of he loves, for thought expresses and manifests the love. A memorable relation in The True Christian Religion tells of a novitiate Spirit who had delighted to think about Heaven and hell, who was instructed that delight is what constitutes heaven, for delight is of love which makes the life of man, and by it man is led; that in proportion as man is led by the LORD he receives love and wisdom, and by the activity of these in the good of use he comes into the life of heaven, and thus into delight. At the close of the Relation it is told that this spirit was crowned with a garland of flowers from heaven, because from childhood he had been in the habit of thinking from affection concerning heaven. Here Bishop Pendleton read parts of n. 489 of The True Christian Religion, which reveals the wicked and ferocious nature of the natural mind of man and the enormities into which it leads him when not restrained by bonds either of the civil and moral law, or of conscience formed from the habit of thinking affirmatively of the truths which forbid such evils and of the life of heaven, which is so opposite to them. Such good habits of thought can be formed only by instruction and obedience. These begin in the home, and it is the chief duty of parents to see to it that their children form such habits from their earliest years. To this end a most important means is the conversation upon such subjects as make the life of heaven and also a heavenly life on earth, as, the goods of obedience, usefulness, kindness, mercy, and above all love of the LORD, from Whom such things flow. These habits are to be further developed and confirmed in New Church schools, which are the only schools where heaven and its life are made the most important thing of all. In Old Church schools heaven is not thought of, but only worldly things, and though these have their place and are useful when kept subordinate to heavenly things, yet when they are made the sole or principal object they become means of leading the soul away from the LORD, to self and the world, and drag it down to hell. Think of a child's growing up in an atmosphere where only such worldly things are thought of and cultivated! Hence appears the importance of New Church schools.
Chicago.-ON April 25th, owing to the removal to the settlement at Oak Glen, the school of the Academy, in Chicago, temporarily suspended. Partial accommodation was afterward provided in the country for the boys' classes, and in the city, for the older girls, at the homes of the teachers. Owing to this divided condition and to the lack of a convenient school-room, there were no closing exercises this year, the term coming to an end on the 14th of June. By the 119th, nine families, including fifty-two persons of various ages, had moved to Oak Glen, and two families more were then expected to arrive within a week increasing the membership to sixty-two. Services in commemoration of the sending out of the Twelve Apostles on the nineteenth of June, 1770, were held at Oak Glen, on June the 17th, the new Choral Service being much enjoyed.
Berlin.- THE school year of the Berlin School of the Academy was formally closed on the evening of the 15th of June with appropriate services. The chapel had been beautifully decorated for the occasion. The lessons treated more particularly of verse 17 of Apocalypse vii:-" For the Lamb who is in the midst of the throne shall feed them." These words signify that the LORD as to His Divine Human in the inmost, and so in all things of heaven, alone teaches all. The school repeated in unison the passages from the Letter of the Word, given at the end of the number in The Apocalypse Ex lamed, where this is taught, which speak of the LORD as a shepherd. The Assistant preached a sermon accommodated to the children, on the above-mentioned words in the Apocalypse. In this connection it is of interest to know that we are taught in the Spiritual Diary, n. 5668, that there are preachers for the little children who are educated in heaven. The Head-Master then presented rewards to those pupils of the Boys' School who, during the year, had honored either the red or the white, or both of the school-colors, by their good conduct or by proficiency in their studies; and mentioned that a similar ceremony had taken place in the Girls' School in the morning. Among those who were thus honored were the two boys of the oldest class, who will next year enter the Philadelphia School, one of them to be prepared for the office of the priesthood. The Head-Master addressed these two in particular, and spoke of the great blessing of the LORD bestowed upon them in being permitted to go to the central school of the Academy, to be there prepared to truly become forms of use. In the beginning of June, at a gathering of members of the congregation of the Church of the Academy of the New Church In Berlin, it was decided, after instruction by the Pastor and remarks by numbers, that this congregation will hereafter regularly observe the Nineteenth of June as a New Church holiday. From that time young and old looked forward with great expectations to the arrival of the day. On the day preceding the Nineteenth, one of the members, who is a manufacturer, employing about eighty persons, fifteen of whom, by the way, are members of this congregation, posted the following notice in his works: "The factory will be closed tomorrow, on account of religious holiday." In the morning of the Nineteenth the great event of this day was celebrated with worship according to the service prepared for the occasion by the Church of the Academy. The chapel was beautifully decorated with plants and flowers, and above the chancel was the inscription: "Adventus Domini, 1770=125." The beauty of the service and the deep impression made by it on a devout mind cannot be expressed in words. Only those whose privilege it has been to partake in it can form an idea of the delight which it imparts. The afternoon of he day was celebrated with festivity on the school-grounds. A programme of games and races had been arranged, with prizes for those who excelled. After several hours pleasantly spent in this way, the adults and young people, seventy in number, were called into the school hall to take their places at the tables and partake of the supper provided by the ladies of the congregation. Afterward the tables were set a second time, and the children, fifty-five in all, were called in. It was a pleasing picture to see so many little ones of the Church gathered together and enjoying the feast. After supper the children were allowed a short time for play, and were then sent to their homes. The evening was devoted to social life in the school-hall. After several dances, wine was served, and three toasts were drunk. The first was to "The New Church, insti-
112
LIFE OF THE NEW CHURCH Various 1894
NEW CHURCH LIFE. PUBLISHED MONTHLY BY THE ACADEMY OF THE NEW CHURCH.
TERMS:-One Dollar per annum, payable in advance. FOUR SHILLINGS IN GREAT BRITAIN.
The EDITOR'S address is 1821 Wallace Street, Fairmount Station, Philadelphia. Address all business communications to MR. CARL HJ. ASPLUNDH, No. 1821 Wallace Street, Fairmount Station, Philadelphia, Pa. Subscriptions are also received through the following agents: UNITED STATES. Chicago, Ill., Mr. A. E. Nelson, Chicago Agent of Academy Book Room, No. 565 West Superior Street. Pittsburgh, Pa., Mr. Wm. Rott, Pittsburgh Agent of Academy Book Room, Tenth and Carson Streets. CANADA. Toronto, Ont., Mr. R. Carswell, 20 Equity Chambers. Waterloo, Mr. Rudolph Roschman. GREAT BRITAIN. Mr. E. W. Misson, Agent for Great Britain, of Academy Book Room, Burton Road, Brixton, London, S. W.
PHILADELPHIA, JULY, 1894=125.
CONTENTS.
PAGE EDITORIAL Notes 97 Revelation Effected In Ultimates (a Sermon) 99 The Sixth, Seventh and Eighth Degrees of Vastatian (Exodus ix) 102 Robert Hindmarsh, VI 104 Aroused, III 105 COMMUNICATION: The Meetings of the General Convention 106 LIFE OF THE NEW CHURCH: The Academy of the New Church 111 The General Church 112 The Church at Large 112 Births 112 NEW CHURCH SERVANTS WANTED 112 tuted in the Spiritual World on this day, one hundred and twenty-four years ago." In response, "Our Glorious Church" was sung. The second was to "The Church of the Academy of the New Church, instituted on earth this day, eighteen years ago". After the singing of the "Color Song," the Rev. J. E. Rosenqvist responded, pointing out the similarity of the events commemorated by the two toasts. The third toast was to Mr. and Mrs. Henry Stroh, who will soon remove to Chicago. After the singing of "Happy may you be," the Arcana Colchester, on behalf of the Congregation, presented to them a set of the Arcana Coelestia, in English, as a token of the love and affection of the Church for them, and also in recognition of the uses which Mr. Stroh has performed for the Church here as member of the local lay council, as teacher of singing, and as architect and builder of the school-house. Mr. Stroh, in responding, spoke of the great happiness which he and 7h is wife felt in receiving this gift, and said that they would now be able to carry out their wish of having family worship in English instead of an German. In regard to the uses which he had performed for the Church, he said he could only say that he thanked the LORD for granting him the great privilege of doing them. The pastor then also presented to the eldest son of Mr. and Mrs. Stroh a binder containing a complete set of the new u music up to date, in recognition of his services as organist. The remainder of the evening was spent in dancing. The day was a happy one or all the members and friends of the Academy in Berlin, and also for the isolated members of the Church who had come from a distance. Such a beginning of the establishment of the custom of observing this day as a New Church holiday cannot but have impressed upon the minds of all the fact that the Nineteenth of June is the great day of the New Church. On the Sunday preceding the Nineteenth the Sacrament of Baptism was administered to an adult. The entire service had reference to this sacrament, and served as a fitting introduction to the celebration of the Institution of the Church. On the Sunday following the Nineteenth the Holy Supper was celebrated.
THE GENERAL CHURCH OF THE ADVENT OF THE LORD.
THE Rev. J. B. Bowers, of Toronto, Canada, has been doing missionary work in Ohio and Michigan.
THE CHURCH AT LARGE.
THE UNITED STATES.
Ohio.-MR. Willis L. Gladish was ordained in Cincinnati on June 3d, by the Rev. John Goddard, at the request of the Indianapolis, Ind., Society. Virginia.- A WEEK was spent in missionary efforts at Danville, by the Rev. Messrs. Sewall and Rich. Massachusetts.- THE closing exercises of the Theological School of the General Convention were held at Cambridge on June 7th. There were three graduates: The Rev. George W. Savory, who left the school for California some time ago, Mr. Louis G. Hoeck, and Mr. John Antrobus, the latter not a Candidate for the Ministry. THE annual meeting of the Alumni Association of the Convention Theological School was held immediately after the closing exercises of the School. THE Sabbath- School Association met in Boston on June 8th. New York.- ACCORDING to a communication to the New Church Messenger, the Rev. J. M. Callan has performed a true pastoral duty at Riverhead, by rooting out several heresies and leading to a study of the internal truths of the Writings. Mr. Callan extends his labors to Bay Shore, where there is a society of seventeen persons. THE first "conference meeting" of the New York Association was held on May 80th and was declared a most gratifying success. The subject being "The Doctrine respecting the Church," papers were read by Messrs. Ager, Mann, Seward, and Auchterlonie. Indiana.- THE Rev. Willis L. Gladish is minister of the Indianapolis Society, and does missionary work for the Ohio Association by correspondence and by visits between Sundays. The average attendance at service in Indianapolis is less than twenty-five. California.- THE Rev. Gustav Reiche, of Topeka, Kansas, has removed to Ontario, California.
GREAT BRITAIN.
THE annual General Conference is called for June 25th. Kearsley.- THE Rev. George Meek has left Nottingham after a period of three years and a half, and began his pastorate at Kearsley on May 6th. Nottingham.- THE Rev. Charles H. Wilkinson, of Bristol, will return to the pastorate of Nottingham, where he ministered before accepting the charge at Peter Street, Manchester. Paisley.- THE fifth annual meeting of the Scottish New Church Evidence Society was held here on May 24th. Accrington.- THE the largest British Society of the New Church, has the names of 486 members on the roll. The average attendance, including children, is 390; the attendance on the Holy Supper only 46. THE fourth annual meeting of the West of England Missionary Association was held on May 31st, at Bristol. Much of the time was occupied in congratulating Mr. Issak Pitman on having been knighted by the Queen in recognition of his service to phonography.
THE fifty-fifth annual Conference of the New Church Sunday- School Union was held on May 30th, at Ashton-on- Tyne.
THE foundation-stone of a new house of worship at Newcastle, was laid on June 9th; L8,000 having been bequeathed for the erection of the church by the late Mr. Wilkinson.
NEW CHURCH SERVANTS WANTED 1894
A NEW CHURCH family, expecting soon to move into a new home, and wishing to have the household composed entirely of members or the New Church, invites applications from young women desiring employment. The services of four New Church young women have been secured, and two more are needed-one to cook and one to wait on table and do other light work. The cooking desired is simple, and one with a liking for cooking could soon meet the requirements. The head of the family hopes that there are New Church young women in want of employment, to whose notice this may come, who will not be influenced by the common prejudice against household service, but who will, from a New Church point of view, consider this a more fitting use than any that might open to them in the business world. Address: MRS. JOHN PITCAIRN, Huntingdon Valley, Montgomery Co, Pa.
WEDDING GARMENT 1894
A TALE OF THE LIFE TO COME.
BY LOUIS PENDLETON.
Price, in cloth, $1.00; white and gilt, $1.25.
ACADEMY BOOK ROOM,
1821 Wallace Street, Philadelphia, Pa.
SWEDENBORG.
A BRIEF ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE AND WORK OF EMANUEL SWEDENBORG; WITH A SKETCH of HIS PERSONALITY. By the Rev. C. Th. Odhner, A. B., Th. B. With a portrait of Swedenborg, taken from an original painting. Paper, 15 cents; cloth, 25 cents.
ACADEMY BOOK ROOM, 1821 Wallace Street, Philadelphia, Pa.
113
Title Unspecified 1894
New Church Life Vol. XIV. No. 8. PHILADELPHIA, AUGUST, 1894-125. Whole No. 166.
A. C. 283 Those who consult sensuals and scientifics concerning things that are to be believed, precipitate themselves not only into doubt, but also into denial, that is, into thick darkness.- A. C. 283.
Title Unspecified 1894
THE letter In our July issue, giving an account of the meeting of the General Convention, shows decided retrogression in that body, since the meeting last reported in this Journal. The Divine Revelation which constitutes the Doctrines of the New Church was made especially for the purpose of rescuing the simple from the unbelief which pervades the Christian world, and which has led to the utter devastation and Consummation of the Christian Church. Yet here is a meeting of the ministers of the largest body on the face of the globe that professes allegiance to the Revelation so made, in which meeting, doubt, denial, and unbelief-the very things to which the New Church is diametrically opposed-are entertained by a not inconsiderable number of the ministers. This number includes mainly the younger men, but even a minister who has grown gray in the office of teaching the Word expressed doubts whether the Divine Providence enters into the supervision of the externals of the Sacred Scripture!
Title Unspecified 1894
A FEELING as of an impending change took possession of the meeting. A change has undoubtedly taken place since the time when the Writings were believed implicitly, and were regarded as the Divine means of salvation from the flood of infidelity that has covered the whole earth of Christendom. In the present low state of Theology in Convention, that body may see the logical results of its own persistent attacks upon the authority of the Writings, upon the doctrine concerning the devastated state of the Christian Church, and upon the doctrine concerning the priesthood. The reckless disregard for the order of the priesthood, manifested conspicuously in the words and acts of the late president of the Convention in his capacity as president and as an ordaining minister-the carelessness for thoroughly instructing Candidates in the Doctrines of the New Church, and initiating them into its life throughout a course of years-the contempt for the episcopacy-these are among the most influential causes of the present state of affairs, where ministers welcome and harbor every specious sentiment that is bred in the sphere of the utterly falsified and adulterated Old Church, and which tends to undermine the foundations of the New Jerusalem, and destroy its walls.
Title Unspecified 1894
WHERE such a state of affairs exists, enthusiastic spirits find congenial habitation, and hence the enthusiastic sentimentalism that fired the ministers for a time; and the afterglow of which burned in the heart of the New Church Messenger when it declared that the first requisite of the new state was "first to avoid dogmatic enunciation of what is necessary." Truly the enthusiastic spirits are cunning enough to know that the cool waters of doctrine would soon quench their unholy fires.
Title Unspecified 1894
THE retrogression of the General Convention emphasizes the wisdom of the separation and distinct establishment of the General Church of the Advent of the LORD which took place a few years ago. That separation came to pass because constant preaching of the obligations due to the Divine Law revealed in the Theological Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg provoked an uncharitable disposition which finally became intolerable. The preaching of the Truth thus led to the separation, and since then the gulf has been widened which severed those who implicitly believed the Doctrines, and strove to order the life of the Church accordingly, from those who preferred affiliation with the institutions, thoughts, and works of the Old Church.
Title Unspecified 1894
The doctrine of good and truth acts one with the Church . . . the Divine is above it and in it.-P. P., Ez. i, 15-23.
Title Unspecified 1894
IT appears that a sentence in the May issue of this Journal has led to a misapprehension of the doctrine of government by the LORD. It was stated that "a wise human governor overlooks many a fault committed by his subordinate officials, and if a chief governor should commit faults without immediate cognizance being taken of it by the Supreme Ruler of the Church, the men of the Church may rest content, with firm reliance upon the inscrutable Wisdom of the LORD." From this it has been concluded by a reader that a chief ruler may with impunity commit extreme offenses against society. This conclusion has not been fairly drawn; for, in the first place, the statement evidently referred to minor offenses, and in the second place the phrase "immediate cognizance" involves that cognizance will betaken, but in the LORD'S own time. That the designs of the Divine government are carried out, even in such cases, by human means, was declared in an earlier editorial note. If all of the editorial notes in the May issue will be read carefully and in connection, misunderstandings of isolated statements will not be so liable to occur. The leading thought there presented was this, that in any form of government the ultimate responsibility is directly to the LORD. In the New Church it ought to be recognized at once that in any of its general organizations this relationship to the LORD should be occupied by the man who is at the head, and, presumably, the wisest.
Title Unspecified 1894
A. R. 742 The government and dominion over the Church is solely through the Word.- A. R. 742.
114
DIVINE ORDINATION OF THE GOODS AND TRUTHS OF THE CHURCH Rev. F. E. WAELCHLI 1894
"How good are thy tents, O Jacob, thy tabernacles, O Israel. As the valleys are they planted, as gardens by the river, as the sandal trees which the LORD hath planted, as cedar trees beside the waters."-Numbers xxiv, 5, 6.
SUCH are the opening words of the blessing which Balaam, the sorcerer and magician, pronounced upon the sons of Israel, from the Spirit of God which came upon him, instead of the curse which it was the desire of his heart to speak against them. At the time of this blessing the sons of Israel, after their long and painful journey from Egypt through the wilderness to the land of Canaan, had arrived at the borders of the promised land, and were conquering the nations who dwelt there, preparatory to their entering the land itself. They were encamped in the country of Moab, and Balak, the king of that country, terrified by the success of the armies of Israel against other nations, and fearing the destruction of his own, had sent for Balaam to curse these people for him. Twice did Balaam perform his enchantments and seek to deliver a curse, but in each case did the LORD place into his mouth a blessing instead. Thereupon he makes a third attempt, described in the chapter from which our text is taken, but with like result. In the beginning of this chapter we read: "And when Balaam saw that it pleased the LORD to bless Israel, he went not, as at other times, to seek for enchantments, but he set his face toward the wilderness. And Balaam lifted up his eyes, and he saw Israel abiding according their tribes and the Spirit of God came upon him, and he took up his parable." The scene presented to the eyes of Balaam, which caused the Spirit of God to come upon him and bless the sons of Israel, was that of the sons of Israel encamped in the plains of Moab according to the order which had been commanded them by the LORD. In the centre of that camp was the tabernacle of the congregation, containing the holy ark in which rested the Divine Law written the hand of the LORD. Immediately surrounding this sanctuary were the tents of the tribe of Levi, the priestly order of the Sons of Israel. Beyond these on the east were three tribes, on the south three tribes, on the west three tribes, and on the north three tribes. What was there, however, in this order or arrangement to cause the Spirit of the LORD to come upon Balaam, bringing from his lips the words of blessing? The sense of the letter does not show what it was, but the internal sense makes it clearly manifest. The Doctrines of the New Church, which are the Internal Sense of the Word, teach that the Jewish Church was instituted by the LORD as an external representative of the LORD'S Kingdom-of His Kingdom as it is in the heavens, and as it is to be in His New Church upon earth. There are two things which constitute the LORD'S Kingdom, the good of love and the truth of doctrine. The marriage of these makes the Church. The tribes of Israel represented and thence signified the Church as to that marriage, and each tribe some universal good of love and truth of faith therein. This signification varies according to the order in which the tribes are named; they have one signification in the series in which they are named according to their nativities; another in the series in which they are named when they came to Egypt; another in the series in which they were blessed by their father Israel; another in the series in which they were blessed by Moses; and another, in the present case, in the series in which they encamped. Their ordinations or arrangements were representative of the arrangements of the angelic societies in the heavens; whence it is that they represented all things of the Church, for Heaven and the Church act as one. On this subject we have the following instruction in The Apocalypse Explained: "The ordinations of the twelve tribes of Israel, according to the ordinations of the angelic societies of heaven, consequently according to the form of heaven, appear extant in their encampments as described by Moses-namely, that to the east encamped the tribes of Judah, Issachar, and Zebulon; to the south, the tribes of Reuben, Simeon, and Gad; to the west, the tribes of Ephraim, Manasseh, and Benjamin; to the north, the tribes of Dan, Asher, and Naphtali; and the tribe of Levi in the midst of the camp; and that they also went forward in like order. He who knows who and of what quality they are who dwell in the eastern quarter in heaven, and who and of what quality they are who dwell in the southern, western, and northern quarters, and who knows at the same time who and of what quality they are who are signified by each tribe, may know the arcanum why the tribes of Judah, Issachar, and Zebulon encamped to the east; why the tribes of Reuben, Simeon, an Gad encamped to the south, and so forth. For illustration it shall only be told concerning the tribes of Judah, Issachar, and Zebulon, who were encamped toward the east. By the tribe of Judah is signified the good of love to the LORD; by the tribe of Issachar, the truth of that good, and by the tribe of Zebulon, the marriage of good and truth, which is also called the celestial marriage; they also, who dwell in the eastern quarter in heaven are all in the good of love to the LORD and in truths from that good, and thence in the celestial marriage; the rest of the tribes are to be understood in like manner. Inasmuch as the encampments of the sons of Israel represented the ordinations of the angelic societies in heaven, therefore Balaam, when he saw their encampments, in spirit, saw, as it were, heaven, and prophesied and blessed them" (A. E. 431). To this may be added another teaching contained in the Arcana Coelestia, where the internal sense of the words, "This is the camp of God," in Genesis xxxii, verse 2, is given. We read: "This signifies heaven; that the camp of God signifies heaven is because an army signifies truths and goods, and truths and goods are disposed by the LORD according to heavenly order; thence disposition according [to the order] of an army is an encampment, and the heavenly order itself, which is heaven, is the camp. This camp, or this order, is such that it cannot possibly be broken into by hell, although hell is continually endeavoring to break into it; hence also that order or heaven is called a camp, and the truths and goods-that is, the angels who are disposed according to that order-are called armies; from these things now, it is evident whence the camp of God signifies heaven. That order itself is what was represented by the encampments of the sons of Israel in the desert, thus heaven itself, and the cohabitations themselves there, according to tribes, was called a camp; the tabernacle, which was in the midst, and about which they encamped, represented the LORD Himself. By the tribes are signified all goods and truths in the complex; hence it is that when Balaam saw Israel dwelling according to the tribes, and the Spirit of God then came upon him, he uttered an enunciation, saying: 'How good are thy tents, O Jacob, thy tabernacles, 0 Israel. As the valleys are they planted, as gardens by the river, as the sandal trees which the LORD hath planted, as cedar trees beside the waters.'
115
That by this prophetic enunciation was not understood the people which was named Jacob and Israel appears manifestly, but the heaven of the LORD, which was represented" (A. C. 4236). From these teachings we see, then, that it is of the LORD S heavenly kingdom that the words of our text are spoken, and that they describe the happy state which there exists because of the Divine order into which all things good and true are disposed by the LORD Wherever good and truth from the LORD inflow and abide, there also does order from Him inflow, so disposing and arranging goods and truths that they may be a source of blessedness. Because good and truth are received in the heavens in fullness, therefore does order exist there in fullness, and therefore also is fullness of happiness there. In the LORD'S kingdom on earth, which is His Church, there will be a heavenly state in the degree in which goods and truths arranged into heavenly order are received from the LORD; in this degree can the words of our text be spoken of the Church: "How good are thy tents, O Jacob thy tabernacles, O Israel, As the valleys are they planted, as gardens by the river, as the sandal trees which the LORD hath planted, as cedar trees beside the waters." The words, "How good are thy tents, O Jacob, thy tabernacles, O Israel," should more properly be translated, "How good are thy tabernacles, O Jacob, thy habitations, O Israel," and are so given where translated in the Writings of the Church. In order, however, to avoid confusion, we have preserved the translation as given in the music of the Church; this may also be allowable, as tabernacle, tent, and habitation are really different names of the same thing. The essential is that the meaning expressed in the original by these words be kept in mind. Retaining, then, the translation as given in our music, "How good are thy tents O Jacob, thy tabernacles, O Israel," your thought concerning tents must be that of places of worship, and concerning tabernacles that of places of habitation. It is with this understanding of the words that the instruction which follows will be given.* * It ought to be observed in this place that the Composer had written the music for this selection from the Word, be fore he knew that a retranslation for the purpose of singing was contemplated. He accordingly followed the translation published in the Liturgy (p. 249) used by the Academy and the General Church. A musical difficulty appeared in the way of changing "tents" to "tabernacles," but as the music was so beautiful, and as the word "tent" is practically synonymous with "tabernacles," the Musical Editor decided to publish the introit as written, taking the liberty, however, of making the feasible change of "planted" for "spread out," as required by the Doctrines. It is hoped that a more correct translation, with music at least as suitable as the one referred to, will be furnished to the Church in the course of time.- THE EDITOR. Tents, as the word is used in our text, signify the Church as to doctrine and worship; this is because they who belonged to the Church in most ancient times dwelt in tents, with which also they journeyed. For in those times they were mostly feeders of sheep, and the father of the family taught those who were born from his house the precepts of charity, and thence the life of love in tents, as was the case afterward in temples Hence the tent signified the same as the house of God namely the worship of God according to doctrine. Consequently, it also signified the Church, inasmuch as the Church is the Church from a life according to doctrine and a life according to doctrine is a life, of the genuine good of love which is worship. It is the good of love which is signified by tent in our text. By tabernacle or habitation in our text are signified the truths of doctrine, derived from the good of love, and in which the good of love dwells as in its home. By Jacob is here signified the Church, which is in the good of doctrine and of life, and by Israel the Church which is in truths from good. "How good are thy tents, O Jacob, thy tabernacles, O Israel," is therefore an expression of delight over the happy state of the Church in which is the good of love, which is internal worship, and the truth of doctrine, which is that in which that good? dwells, and by which it comes forth into a life of charity. "As the valleys are they planted, as gardens by the river, as the sandal trees which the Lord hath planted, as cedar trees beside the waters." These words in the internal sense treat of the fructification of good, and the multiplication of truth and intelligence, and wisdom thence derived, which exist in the Church from the marriage of the good of love and the truth of doctrine. The Church is compared to valleys which are planted, and to gardens by the river, because by valleys is signified the intelligence of the natural man, and by a garden the Intelligence of the spiritual man, and it is compared to sandal trees which the LORD hath planted, and to cedar trees, because by the former are signified the things belonging to the natural man, and by the latter those that belong to the spiritual man; inasmuch as all these live from the Influx of the Divine Truth from the LORD, therefore they are said to be planted by the rivers and by the waters, by which is signified the Divine Truth flowing in, whence is intelligence. Let us now collect Into a summary the particulars, which have been given, of the internal sense of our text, so that when these words are sung in our worship the true internal affection may enter into them. The first thought which should be in mind when these words are to be sung, is that they are an expression of joy and gladness over the divine order of good and truth which exists from the LORD-Who is Order Itself-in His Kingdom, first in the heavens and then upon earth, and from which order is all heavenly blessedness. The words of the song describe the LORD'S Kingdom, in which is His Order: That the good of love and the truth of doctrine are what constitute it, and that from their marriage there is therein the eternal fructification of good and multiplication of truth, and intelligence and wisdom thence, both in things spiritual and in things natural. "How good are thy tents, O Jacob, thy tabernacles, O Israel. As the valleys are they planted, as gardens by the river, as the sandal trees which the LORD hath planted, as cedar trees beside the waters." Such is the signification of our text in its application to the Church in general; and the same signification enters into its application to all particular forms of the Church, even to the individual regenerate man. Among these particular applications there is one which the very letter itself so strongly suggests that it is well that we should give it special consideration, namely, its application to the home. When the Church is in a home, then that home is a Church in particular form, and there exists in it the heavenly order represented by the encampment of the Sons of Israel. The tribes of Israel are all, in that home, the various goods and truths which make up the heavenly form; and as these goods and truths are conjoined in marriage, there results thence the heavenly conjugial love of husband and wife, which love enters into all things of the home as the reigning quality. Whence, however, are the goods and truths of the home, and whence is Conjugial Love? They are from the LORD; and therefore the very centre of this camp must be the LORD Himself, the Holy Tabernacle.
116
Only when the LORD'S Will, and the Truth which teaches His Will, is the centre of life and thought with husband and wife, and from them, with their children, is the home truly a home. As an ultimation of this truth, there should be in every home a holy sanctuary, a holy place where the family assembles to worship the LORD and to learn His Word, in which observance the husband and father performs the holy office of the Levite as the priest of this particular Church. "How good are thy tents, O Jacob, thy tabernacles, O Israel." As with the Most Ancients, so with those of the Church at this day, should each home be a place where the father of the family teaches those who are born from his house the precepts of charity, and thence the life of love. When this is done, then will the good of love and the truth of doctrine reign. "As the valleys are they planted, as gardens by the rivers, as the sandal trees which the LORD hath planted, as cedar trees beside the waters." What a beautiful picture of the homes of the Church! Beautiful in its external, and yet more beautiful in its internal, signifying that in them there is the ever progressing fructification of good and multiplication of truth, and thence intelligence and wisdom in the spiritual man and in the natural. The external correspondent of this fructification and multiplication ii the increase of children, spoken of so beautifully in the Psalms as "Olive plants around thy table." May all conjugial pairs seek to make their home ever more fully a tent and tabernacle of the camp of Israel, and may such homes increase in number. In this lie the strength and the growth of the Church. In vain do the hells then assault, in vain does Balaam seek to destroy the Church with enchantments and a curse; for instead of the curse will come the words of blessing from the Spirit of God, which is the LORD: "How good are thy tents, O Jacob, thy tabernacles, O Israel. As the valleys are they planted, as gardens by the river, as the sandal trees which the LORD hath planted, as cedar trees beside the waters."- AMEN.
Title Unspecified 1894
T. C. R. 390 To do good to the neighbor for the sake of God, thus with God and from God, is what is called religion.- T. C. R. 390.
NINTH AND TENTH DEGREES OF VASTATION 1894
EXODUS x.
IN the internal sense of these chapters of Exodus they are specifically treated of who, before the Advent of the LORD, were in the lower earth, and could not be elevated into heaven before the LORD came into the world and assumed the Human and made it Divine; in the meanwhile they were infested by the evil, who had also been of the Church, and confessed the truths of faith, but who had lived a life of evil. In the present chapter the ninth and tenth degrees or states of their vastation are treated of as described by the Locust and by Thick Darkness. Those who, before the Advent of the LORD, had been of the Church, and had been evil as to the life, were in such a false as had not been before nor will be afterward, which false was represented by the locust in this chapter; the cause of this was that those who were called Nephilim, also Enakim and Rephaim, and had been of the extreme posterity of the Most Ancient Church, had not yet been shut up in hell, but wandered about, and infused dire and deadly persuasions wheresoever they could; thus they infused these persuasions also into the evil in the Church, whence they had such a false. When the LORD was in the world He cast these into the hell which is to the left in front at some distance; had this not been done very few could have been saved, for the false which they infused was with a dire and deadly persuasion, such as had never been, and can never be; with this false they were imbued who, before the Advent of the LORD, infested those who were of the Spiritual Church. These are treated of specifically, but in general all are treated of who are of the Church and infest the upright in the other life, of whom there, are very many at the present day. Before entering into the details of these two degrees of vastation, as given in the internal sense of this chapter, it may advance the reader's interest to consider how the successive states are brought about. The LORD continually sets in order the heavens, and constantly admits new inhabitants of heaven, to whom He gives habitations and inheritances, and then He gifts those who are there, as also the new-comers, with celestial and spiritual good. When He does this, heaven approaches-that is, it inflows more strongly with good and truth, and it Inflows more presently into the evil who are in the opposite, for the Divine influx goes on even to the opposites, and thus contains the hells in connection and in bonds. At this more present influx the infernal spirits rush more strongly into the contrary- that is, into the evil and the false; and in the degree in which the evil and the false increase they turn the inflowing good into greater evil, and resist the truth and good more strongly-that is, they infest more grievously and expel the truth from themselves and devastate themselves; hence arise the degrees of devastation. In the same degree in which they devastate themselves they rush into the evils of punishment, for evils and punishments in the other life are conjoined; and this does not cease with them until they have utterly devastated themselves, and have cast themselves deeply into their hells. Thus, then, when the LORD orders the heavens, the hells which are in the opposite are ordered of themselves, and are removed from heaven according to the degree of their evil, and are allotted their places according to the quality of their evil. Hence it is manifest, that nothing but good proceeds from the LORD, and that the evil proceeds from those who are in evil. When therefore it is said of JEHOVAH-that is, the LORD-that He hardened the heart of Pharaoh, as is the case in the preceding and the present chapters, and when it is said, as in the present chapter, that He brought the locust, by which is signified the false of evil in the extreme, it is to be understood that the evil referred to did not come from the LORD, but from the evil. This is always the case, for man turns that good which inflows from the LORD to himself, and in place of regarding the LORD and those things which are of the LORD, in all and single things, he so regards himself; hence the concupiscence of having dominion over all, and of possessing all things that belong to others, and hence the contempt of others, the hatreds, revenges, and cruelties against those who do not favor and study them; hence also the contempt for all things which are of faith and charity, because when these inflow from the LORD, they are turned to themselves and are turned away from the LORD. So long as the evil retain the cognitions which they had brought with them from the Church in which they had lived in the world, they have, by means of them, communication with heaven, and thus perceive the true state of the case in regard to themselves; the states into which they have come, and also the states into which they are about to come; and this perception is signified in the internal sense of the Word by the presence of the Law Divine, or by the presence of Moses and Aaron with Pharaoh, in the literal sense.
117
But when they have been deprived of these cognitions, which takes place when they have been devasted, then they no longer have perception. With these explanatory remarks, the reader will enter more intelligently into the perusal of the following study, in which the attempt is made to bring the detached expositions in the Arcana into connected sequence.
(1-6.) By Divine mandate which was to be transmitted to the infesters, "and JEHOVAH said unto Moses"-the Truth from the Divine was again to be present with those who infested, "Come unto Pharaoh"-because all generally made themselves obstinate, "because I, I have made heavy his heart, and the heart of his servants"-in order that the evil might know that they were in evil, "in order that I may set these My signs in his midst"-and that those who were in truth and good, might know what would happen to those who were of the Church, and infested the upright, "and in order that thou mayest tell in the ears of thy son, and of the son of thy son, what I have wrought in Egypt"-so that they (being those who receive of the Law Divine or the Divine Truth) might be illustrated concerning the state of those of the Church, who lived ill, "and My signs which I have set in them"-that thus it might be known to them that the LORD is the only God, "that ye may know that I am JEHOVAH." The Truth Divine became present, "and Moses and Aharon came unto Pharaoh"-and the infesters apperceived, "and they said unto him"-the mandate from the LORD Who is-the God of the Church, "Thus said JEHOVAH the God of the Hebrew "-concerning their non-obedience, "until when refusest thou to be humbled before Me"-that the should leave those who were of the spiritual Church, that they might worship the LORD, "send away My people and they shall serve Me"-for if they did not leave them, "because if thou refusest, thou, to send away My people"-the false would occupy their extremes-that is to say, their sensual, "behold I, I bring to-morrow the locust into thy border"-even the ultimates of the natural mind, "and it shall cover the surface of the land"-whence the whole natural mind would be obscured, "and one shall not be able to see the land"-and all things which had anything from truth would be consumed, "and it shall eat up the residue of what is escaped, of what remaineth to you of the hail"-and thus all the cognitions which they had who were of the Church would be consumed, "and shall eat up every tree germinating to you out of the field"-and the false would reign in all and single things in the natural from its interior to the extreme, "and filled shall be thy houses, and the houses of all thy servants, and the houses of all the Egyptians"-such a false as was not from ancient time in the Church, "which thy fathers did not see, and the fathers of thy fathers, from the day that they were upon the soil even unto this day." The infesters were then deprived of this apperception, by their turning themselves away from the Divine Truth, and they were separated from it, "and he looked back and went out from with Pharaoh." (7-11.) Then were the infesters admonished by their own associates of lower sort who -were in fear, "and said the servants of Pharaoh unto him"-that thus they would be taken captive by their own evil, "until when shall this be to us for a snare!"-and that it was advisable to leave those simple ones that they might worship the LORD their God, "send away the men, and they shall serve JEHOVAH their God"-for from the facts it might be known that all who exasperate those simple ones would be cast down into hell, "knowest thou not yet that Egypt perisheth"- Hence the Truth Divine again became present, "and brought back was Moses and Aharon unto Pharaoh "-and the infesters were inclined, "and he said unto them"-to leave them so that they might worship the LORD, "Go ye, serve JEHOVAH your God"-but would any remain? "who and who go? Answer was made, "and Moses said"-that the simple and the wise, "with our boy's and with our old men we shall go"-those who were in the affection of truth and in the affection of good, "with our sons and with our daughters"-those who were in good interior and exterior, "with our flock and with our herd we shall go"-all and single-ones of them would worship the LORD, "because a feast to JEHOVAH have we"-whereat the infesters mocked, "and he said unto them"-as if the LORD would be with them if they were left, "so shall JEHOVAH be with you, when I send away you and your infant"-saying that they were in a desire that was not good, "See ye that evil is with your faces"-and they denied them this desire, "not so"-but that those who were in truths confirmed might be left, so that they might worship the LORD, "go, I pray, the young men and serve JEHOVAH"-for thus they would have what they wished, "because this ye seek"-for the will of the infesters was altogether contrary to the Truth Divine, "and he expelled them from the faces of Pharaoh." (12-15.) The Truth Divine was instructed, "and JEHOVAH said unto Moses"-that its power should have dominion, "Stretch forth thy hand"-so that the false might occupy all the natural of the infesters, "upon the land of Egypt because of the locust"-and be infused into all things there, "and it shell ascend up on the land of Egypt"-and that every truth should be totally consumed, "and shall eat up every herb of the land"-which the former false had not consumed, "all that the hail hath left." Accordingly, the power of the Truth Divine had dominion over the whole natural of the infesters,-"and Moses stretched forth his staff upon the land of Egypt"-and by the means of destruction, "and JEHOVAH brought an east wind upon the land"-everything of perception, obscure or not obscure, with the infesters, was destroyed, "that whole day, and that whole night." Heaven was set in order, "the morning was and in consequence dense falsity came upon the infesters by the means of destruction, "and the east wind brought the locust"-and the false was effused into all things of the natural, "and the locust ascended upon all the land of Egypt"-from the extremes there, "and rested in every border of Egypt"-and pervaded all and single the things there, "very grievous"-such a false as was not from the first time of the Church, and such as will not be, "before it was not a locust like it, and after it shall not be such"-which falses were infused even into the ultimates of the natural mind, "and it covered the surface of the whole land"-so that where truth was, there the false was induced in its place, "and darkened was the land "-and consumed every scientific of truth, "and it ate up every herb of the field"-and every cognitive of good, "and every fruit of tree which the hail had made for a residue"-and every sensitive (or ultimate of the perception) of truth, "and made no residue of anything green"-from the cognitive and scientific of the Church, "in the tree and in the herb of the field"-everywhere in the natural, "in the whole land of Egypt."
118
(16-20.) Then those who infested were in fear of the Truth from the Divine "and Pharaoh hastened to call Moses and Aharon"-and confessed that they had not obeyed the Divine and the Truth, "and said, I have sinned against JEHOVAH your God and against you"-and besought them not to regard their disobedience, "and now pardon, I pray, my sin only this time"-but to intercede, "and supplicate ye to JEHOVAH your God"-that this false might not torment them, "and He may remove from upon me only this death." Separated from the infesters, "and he went forth from with Pharaoh"-the Truth Divine interceded, "and he supplicated to JEHOVAH"-and the influx of the Divine through heaven ceased, "and JEHOVAH turned around the strong wind of the sea"-and put an end to that state, "and took away the locust"-the false remaining indeed with the infesters, but conjoining them with the hells where such falses are, "and east it into the sea Suph"-so that those falses in the extremes, no longer appeared, "there was not left one locust in every border of Egypt." But the infesters made themselves obstinate, "and JEHOVAH strengthened the heart of Pharaoh"-so that they did not leave those who were of the spiritual Church, "and he did not send away the sons of Israel." (21-23.) The Truth from the Divine was instructed, "and JEHOVAH said unto Moses"-that the power of the Divine Truth should have dominion in heaven, "stretch forth thy hand toward heaven"-whence the evil infesters would be deprived in every way of truth and good, "and there shall be densest darkness upon the land of Egypt"-whence there would arise density of the false from evil, "and shall feel in densest darkness." Truth Divine, accordingly, had dominion in heaven, "and Moses stretched forth his hand toward heaven"-and the infesters were in every way deprived of truth and good, "and there was densest darkness dense, in the whole land of Egypt"-for a full state, that is to say, an entire state, from beginning to end, "three days"-so that they did not perceive the truth of any good, "they saw not a man his brother"-and the mind was not elevated, "and they arose not any one from under themselves"-during a full state, "three days"-while those who were of the spiritual Church had illustration in their mind everywhere "and all the sons of Israel had light in their habitations." (24-29.) Again the Law Divine became present with those who infested, "and Pharaoh called unto Moses"-and they perceived that the upright were to be left, so that they might worship the LORD their God, "and said, Go ye, serve JEHOVAH"-but the infesters would not let them worship from good, "only your flock and your herd shall stay"-but from truth without good, "also your infant shall go with you." But they received the response, "and Moses said"-that the infesters must relinquish all things by which worship is performed, "also thou shalt give into our hand sacrifices and burnt-offerings "-which would then be acceptable to the LORD, "and we shall make to JEHOVAH our God"-for the worship was to be from the good of truth, "and also our cattle shall go with us" and nothing of truth from good was to be wanting, "there shall not be left a hoof"-for from it the LORD is to be worshiped, "because thereof we shall take to serve JEHOVAH our God." It was unknown with what the worship was to be performed, "and we, we do not know with what we shall serve JEHOVAH"-before they were removed from those who were in mere falses from evil, "until we come thither." But they made themselves obstinate against the Divine, "and JEHOVAH strengthened the heart of Pharaoh "- and they had; no - mind to relinquish them, "and he would not send them away"-but their anger then burned against the truth, "and Pharaoh said to him"-and they did not wish to know anything about it, "get thee hence from with me"-and it should not enter into their mind, "beware for thyself lest thou add to see my faces"-for if it did enter into their mind it would be extirpated, "because in the day that thou seest my faces, thou shalt die." And they received the reply, "and Moses said"- that of a truth it was so, "Rightly hast thou spoken"-that it should no more enter into the mind, "I shall not I add any more to see thy faces."
Gentiles 1894
The Gentiles, to whom the laws of religion have been laws of life, receive doctrine concerning the Lord more than Christians.- A. E. 696.
INSTRUCTING CHILDREN CONCERNING GENERATION 1894
III.
THERE may be many parents who do not feel ready to accept the idea that this teaching should be given to children of from eight to fourteen years of age. But why should it not? It cannot be said that the children are unable to understand what is taught, for they are of the age when they can; indeed it is only too often that children do acquire these knowledges at this age, not, however, from heaven, but from hell. It cannot be said that these knowledges, when properly taught, will destroy their innocence, for first it would be necessary to show what evil quality there is in these knowledges which could destroy innocence. On the other hand, there is every reason why they should be taught. In our schools we recognize the importance of teaching anatomy, and we find the children delight to learn the uses of the various organs of their bodies. What will the child conclude if it sees that all reference to certain organs concerning which it would like to know, is carefully avoided? Quite naturally that it is a subject to be avoided, and this idea thus implanted by parents and teachers will inflow into impure ideas which they at this day cannot but imbibe from the sphere of the world, and confirm them. Again, when the child reads the Letter of the Word, how can it understand many things which are therein related without these knowledges, and how will parents and teachers meet their questions on such points? Who but those who have the care of children are to blame if the little ones attach filthy ideas to their knowledges of the Word instead of deriving therefrom what is pure and holy? But if the truth be taught to them in purity, and they be instructed that this is of the New Church, and that in the Old there is all manner of filthiness connected with the subject, which they must avoid, then have parents and teachers performed the duty of protecting those who are unable to protect themselves. They have implanted in the minds of the children scientifics into which the Truth from the LORD can inflow and operate for their salvation. When these scientifics have been taught, then the child is prepared to receive more advanced instruction as to the meaning of the Sixth Commandment. It must now learn that this Commandment means that only husband and wife must know each other, and that such is the case in heaven; that to break this Commandment is the greatest of all sins, and that they who do so are in the deepest hell. At about the age of eleven or twelve, children must be prepared for the change of state which will soon take place.
119
The boys must be taught that before long seed will begin to form in them, and that this is a precious gift from the LORD, which must in no wise be abused. The consequences of the use and of the abuse may be illustrated by quotations from the Word, which speak of the blessings attending the one and the curses attending the other. Too strong a warning cannot be given against the evil practices prevailing among boys at this age. The girls also must be prepared for the change which will take place with them, and fully instructed concerning the physical conditions accompanying this change. This is an important duty resting with mothers. Many a girl has endured sufferings of alarm, pain, and shame in secret, in some cases with deplorable results, because of the neglect-of this duty on the part of her mother. Mothers need to hear in mind that evil practices sometimes obtain with girls also. III. The Rational Age- The child enters into the age when rationality begins to develop at the time when the signs of puberty appear. If there has been true education in the preceding ages, then will there exist the great requisite for proper instruction in this period, namely, openness and confidence between father and son, and between mother and daughter. That such confidence exists between the married and the young in the heavens is evident from the following in Conjugial Love: "Once there was heard out of heaven a very sweet tune; there were there wives with virgins, who were singing a song; the sweetness of their singing was as the affection of some song flowing forth harmoniously. There appeared an angel from heaven, and he said that they were singing the chaste love of the sex" (n. 56). So in the Church should the affections of virgins in regard to the love of the sex be in heavenly harmony and accord with those of chaste wives. But this cannot be unless mothers properly educate their daughters. In this age, as in the preceding, girls and boys should be instructed separately, and the character of the instruction will differ in the one case from the other. This is based upon the difference in the constitution of the two sexes as indicated in Conjugial Love, n. 219: "Wives are in no excitement as men are, but they have a state of preparation for reception." Again, in the Memorable Relation concerning the rose-garden (C. L. 293), the wives say that they never speak of the ultimate delights of conjugial love to others, which is no doubt to be understood to mean that they never speak of them to others than their husbands; therefore also girls should not be taught concerning these delights and what directly relates to the same. The true order, it seems, is that they should be introduced into these knowledges by marriage. In the present state of the world, however, girls are very apt to come into premature knowledge on this subject; but should this occur, if there be the proper openness between mother and daughter, such states will become known to the mother, and such a case will then require exceptional treatment, as the prudence of the mother may dictate. The proper subject to be taken up with girls is that of birth, passing over the more external features of the subject, and touching them only incidentally. The subject of birth appeals to the storge implanted in them. During the rational age girls should he taught more particularly the scientifics given more generally in the preceding age. It is further important that they be taught concerning the care of infants after birth. Where there are younger children born in the family this can easily be done; where this is not the case, parents may seek situations for their daughters as nurses in other New Church families. Boys, as is evident from their very constitution and from their habits of thought, will require different instruction. During the rational age they should be fully taught concerning the ultimate delights of conjugial love, the wisdom of the father and teacher guiding them into proper states of affection and thought. For the infilling of the instruction given in the preceding age there can be no better course than the systematic study, under older guidance, of Swedenborg's scientific work, entitled Concerning Generation, concerning the Genital Parts in Both Sexes, and concerning the Formation of the Foetus in the Womb. It is much to be regretted that this work can at present with difficulty be obtained in English. During this age the youth and the virgin must again receive instruction in the Sixth Commandment, but on a higher plane; for as chastity and non-chastity can now be predicated of them (C. L. 150), they are capable of a more advanced comprehension of its meaning. They must be taught that "by adultery in the Sixth Precept of the Decalogue, in the natural sense, is not only meant to commit scortation, but also to act obscenely, to speak lasciviously, and to think filthily. By adultery, however, in the spiritual sense is understood to adulterate the goods of the Word and to falsify its truths. In the supreme sense, by committing adultery is understood to deny the Divine of the LORD and to profane the Word" (Doctrine of Life, 74). Careful instruction should he given in this doctrine as taught in The True Christian Religion, n. 313-316, and in The Doctrine of Life, n. 74 to 79. When this has been done, then the book on Conjugial Love should be studied. The social life of our schools should be a great factor in true education for the cultivation of chastity; but it cannot properly perform this use without instruction such as we have outlined. If this be given, then can we hope that with our youths and virgins there may be an approach to the social sphere which exists in heaven, of which we read: "The angelic love of the sex, or such as it is in heaven, is full of inmost delights; it is the most pleasing expansion of all things of the mind, and thence of all things of the breast, and within the breast it is as if the heart sports with the lungs, from which sports there go forth respiration, sound, and speech, which causes that the social gatherings (consortia) between the sexes, or between youths and virgins, are heavenly sweetnesses themselves, which are pure" (C. L. 44). True education for conjugial love, and all that relates to the same, will qualify all states of marriage, from its first beginning to all eternity. When youths and virgins have been so educated, then can betrothal before marriage perform for them the use which is intended in the Divine Providence. During the state of betrothal, the youthful pair, under the wise guidance of married pairs, should be prepared for the full state of marriage. A beautiful illustration of this is given in the Memorabile, n. 183, of Conjugial Love, where "husbands and wives, and youths and virgins, in pairs and pairs," received instruction concerning Conjugial Love and its ultimate delights; that the youths and virgins were in pairs is an indication that they were such as had found their consorts, thus who were betrothed. We read: "There appeared to me in the eastern quarter a grove of palms trees and laurels placed in spiral gyres; I approached and entered, and walked the paths winding about in certain gyres, and in the end of the paths I saw a garden, which made the middle of the grove; there was a little bridge which divided, and there there was a gate on the side next the grove, and a gate on the side next the garden;
120
I approached, and the gates were opened by the guard; I asked him the name of the garden, and he said, Adramandoni, which is the delight of conjugial love; I entered, and behold! olive-trees, and between olive tree and olive-tree there were running and pensile vines, and underneath and among them were little trees in flower; in the midst of it there was a grassy circus, upon which sat husbands and wives, and youths and virgins, in pairs and pairs, and in the midst of the circus elevated ground, where a little fountain from the strength of its spring leapt high. When I was near the circus I saw two angels in purple and scarlet who were speaking with those sitting upon the grass, and they were speaking concerning the origin of conjugial love, and concerning its delights; and, because the speech was concerning that love, there was eager attention and full reception, and thence exaltation as from the fire of love in the discourse of the angels. I collected in a summary these things from their speech; they spoke first concerning the difficult investigation, and concerning the difficult perception of the origin of conjugial love, because its origin is Divine celestial, for it is Divine Love, Divine Wisdom, and Divine Use, which three proceed as one from the LORD, and thence inflow as one into the souls of men, and through the souls into their minds, and there into the interior affections and thoughts, and through these into the desires next to the body, and from these through the breast into the genital region, where all the derivatives from the first origin are together, and together with successives make conjugial love."
It is to be hoped that New Church parents will give this important branch of education and instruction their serious consideration, removing from such consideration all preconceived ideas which are not in accord with the principles of education revealed in the Doctrines of the Church. Let it be remembered that our end must be to educate for Conjugial Love; to so educate that the work may be crowned with the happy result that when our children are ready to pass from under our care they may be among those who "from young manhood (juventute) have loved, wished for, and prayed from the LORD a legitimate and lovable companionship with one, and spurn and contract the nostrils against wandering lusts," for to such the LORD promises that they will find their eternal consorts here upon earth (C. L. 49).
Title Unspecified 1894
A. E. 948 That the Gentiles are saved comes solely from their looking to religion.- A. E. 948.
ROBERT HINDMARSH 1894
VII.
TEMPTATIONS.
AT the first three General Conferences, held in London in the years 1789, 1790, and 1791, entire harmony and unanimity characterized all the proceedings. But soon a different spirit began to manifest itself. At that time the membership of the New Church consisted largely of persons who had come out of "liberal" and "dissenting" ecclesiastical bodies; and many brought with them into the New Church their old and favorite notions of democratic government. At the fourth General Conference, held in London, April 9th to 13th, 1792, the appointment and powers of the Priesthood came up for consideration, and it became apparent that the majority were strongly in favor of government in the spiritual things of the Church by the will of the people or laity, while the minority, led by Robert Hindmarsh, bases their position on the revealed teachings of the Heavenly Doctrines in favor of the Theocratic government of the Church, through the instrumentality of a distinct and graded Priesthood. So determined were the convictions of each party, that a virtual separation took place, and two different Reports of the Conference were printed, one by the majority, and another by Hindmarsh, the regularly appointed Secretary, in which the arguments of the minority also were presented. To the minority, the introduction of the democratic spirit, and the subordination of the Priesthood to the will of the people, seemed destructive of the true genius of the New Church, and rendered impossible any unanimous co-operation. A fifth General Conference had been appointed by the majority, and was held at Birmingham on April 1st and 2d, in the following year, but this meeting was not attended by Hindmarsh and his friends, who, instead, assembled in a General Conference in the temple at Great East Cheap, holding their deliberations from April 1st to 6th, 1793. At this Conference, which was composed of seven of the most intelligent members of the Church in London, it was unanimously declared
"That the Ordination of Ministers in the New Church ought to be according to the Episcopalian plan, and not by any Power or authority derived from the People. And as the Ordination of Ministers hitherto has been accompanied with a Condition, that they should not ordain others without the consent of the Church, by which has been understood an acknowledgment of the Authority of the People to appoint, by a majority of votes, whomsoever they pleased to the Office of the Ministry; it is thought expedient and necessary that all Ministers hitherto ordained be henceforth liberated from such Restriction, and also from the Principle which gave Rise to it; and they are accordingly hereby declared to be liberated therefrom."
The Conference then adopted a Plan of Ecclesiastical Government which to them appeared consistent with and deducible from the principles of the New Jerusalem as contained in the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg. The single idea which permeates the proposed "Plan" is that of the LORD Alone as the Sole Authority in the New Church, acting through His own office of the Priesthood. The Report of this Conference is, indeed, a most remarkable document in the history of the Church, and, though not free from obscurities and trivialities, it exhibits loyalty and a truly profound insight into the Doctrines of the Church. But the Church was yet in its earliest infancy, and had to be taught, by experience as well as by precept, the ineffectiveness of self-will in the establishment of the LORD'S Kingdom. The principles adopted at this Conference were not accepted by the Church at large, which, for many subsequent years, continued without any general government or organization whatever. A spiritual lethargy now seems to have set in. For a number of years no further General Conferences were held, and no general enterprises were undertaken. It seemed that the New Church, which had begun with so much success, was about to perish from upon the earth while yet in her very infancy. Robert Hindmarsh himself appears to have been filled with disappointment and disgust at the disorderly tendencies of his fellow members in the Church, and his impatience seems to have betrayed him into an action, which, if it has been correctly and impartially reported, was certainly hasty and inconsiderate. Soon after the Conference described above, another conflict arose in the Great East Cheap Society; which resulted in a separation of the members.
121
The Rev. Manoah Sibly, in his before-mentioned Address, gives the following account of the difficulty:
"The immediate cause of the Society's leaving Great East Cheap was in consequence of Mr. Robert Hindmarsh, who hitherto held the joint tenancy of the place [together with two others], having gone to the landlord, without the privity of Messrs. John and Thomas Willdon, and induced the landlord to take him as the only tenant. Having so done, at the next monthly meeting for business, he came into the vestry and informed the meeting that he was now the alone holder of the place, and asked them what they could now do to prevent him from having the government of the Church carried on according to his own views; at the same time declaring himself, not to be a member of the Society. The Society hereupon took umbrage and left the place."
After the removal of the greater part of the Society, with Mr. Sibly as their chosen pastor, to Store Street, Tottenham Court Road (whence they finally removed, in 1802, to Friars Street, Blackfriars), the chapel in Great East Cheap was kept open for worship by Robert Hindmarsh, and his few supporters until the end of the year 1793. It was then given up and the remnant kept themselves together by meeting for worship at one another's houses until the year 1796. Though cut off from any organized work for the Church, Hindmarsh's literary labors in her behalf did not cease. He still acted as the general printer of the Church, and published in the year 1794, at his own expense, a translation he had made of A General Explication of the Ten Precepts of the Decalogue, extracted from the Apocalypsis Explicata. He also made an unsuccessful attempt to unite the scattered members of the Church in London in a common use, concerning which he published a Plan and Design of a Society proposed to be instituted for promoting the Heavenly Doctrines of the New Jerusalem by giving away Bibles, Testaments, and the Theological Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg. "During the year 1795 nothing remarkable appears to have occurred relative to the New Church," at least in England, beyond the publication of an edition of The True Christian Religion, and of the sixth volume of the Arcana Coelestia, both issued from Hindmarsh's printing office in London (R., p. 168). In the year 1796 the remaining members of the Great East Cheap Society purchased ground and built a Temple in Cross Street, Hatton Garden, which was opened for worship on July 30th of the following year by the Rev. Joseph Proud, of Birmingham, who had been engaged as the regular minister of the congregation. Mr. Proud was a preacher of unusual eloquence, and soon attracted great multitudes to his services. For about two years the new society progressed very successfully, until, in the year 1799, there arose between the pastor and the proprietors of the place difficulties, partly of a financial character and partly on account of Mr. Proud's strong objections to the outspoken doctrinal statements in the new Liturgy, which had been composed by Robert Hindmarsh and adopted by the society and the proprietors. No agreement being reached, Mr. Proud and the majority of his congregation left the Temple in Cross Street and rented a chapel in York Street. A few of the members remained at Cross Street, among whom was Robert Hindmarsh; but after some unsuccessful efforts to maintain public worship, the temple was rented, and finally sold to outside parties. In the year 1827 the building again came into the possession of the New Church, having been purchased by the York Street Society, which originally occupied it. Here this society remained until the year 1872, when it removed to its present church in Camden Road (R., p. 171-173; I., 1826, p. 349; Recorder and Remembrancer, p. 114). We have now come to a period in the life of Robert Hindmarsh concerning which but little is known. About the year 1799 he gave up his printing office, as may appear from the title-page to the eighth volume, of the first English edition of the Arcana Coelestia, from which we learn that this volume was printed at London, 1799, "under the inspection of Robert Hindmarsh, late Printer." We are further informed by Mr. Sibly, in a memorial sermon on the death of Robert Hindmarsh, that the latter,
"Prior to his going to Manchester [in 1810], and being out of business, engaged in a speculative occupation, not at all suited to his still and quiet genius; and being inexperienced in the artifices practiced by those who are usually engaged in the line he was then pursuing, he found himself, after a time, to be a loser. I do not know to what amount, but, to the honor of the Church, it may be mentioned that, although the losses were not legally binding on him, yet he paid the whole. He thus came out from them with clean hands, and surely, I may say, with a pure heart; and he made the sacrifice, notwithstanding the voluntary payments, as they might be called, left him a poor man in comparison with what his circumstances in life had been before" (I., 1835, p. 413).
IN a letter, published in the Monthly Observer and New Church Record (London, 1857, p. 811), and dated London, August 12th, 1805, Henry Servante makes the following reply to the question put to him by James Glen, of Demerara, whether "Robert Hindmarsh had totally renounced [the New Church]":
"I cannot positively answer this question, though I apprehend he is in a very cold state, toward the northern quarter. His profession at present is that of a stockbroker, and have been told he had acquired considerable sums by speculating in the public funds. The amor sui mundique seems to absorb his whole attention."
Whatever may have been the cause of the apparent decline in his zeal for the progress of the Church, it is certain that Hindmarsh never "renounced" his faith in the Heavenly Doctrines. The whole first decade of the nineteenth century was a period of inactivity and apparent decline in the New Church. It was a time of "war and the rumor of war," and its history testifies to the fact that but little spiritual progress can be made while the affections of the natural man are strongly excited. The New Church has prospered most under conditions of natural liberty and peace. The men of the Church live in the natural world, and are, perforce, influenced by the generally prevailing sphere. Robert Hindmarsh was no exception to this general rule. Still his love for the spiritual things of the Church did not entirely cease. It is known that he began, in the year 1799, an exposition of the spiritual sense of the whole Word, and kept up this work or many years, though it was never brought to a final completion. In the year 1800 he made the first English translation of the Summary Exposition of the. Internal Sense of the Prophets and Psalms, which was published in the same year by J. A. Tulk, Esq., and in the year 1802 he paid a visit to the little circle of the New Church in Paris, concerning which he gives much interesting information. During the same period he kept up a correspondence with Newchurchmen in America and in Russia. He did not however attend the sixth General Conference, which met in London in the year 1807, nor the seventh General Conference, held in the same city in the following year
(To be continued.)
122
Ancient Church 1894
[The Ancient Church] did not think [concerning Jehovah] as a Universal Ens, of which they could have no idea, but as concerning a Divine Human, into which they could deter- mine their thought.- A. C. 6876.
AROUSED 1894
IV.
AFTER a brief sleep, the next morning found me still determined in my resolve to begin a nobler, better life, though much more disposed to count the cost, and conscious that deep down was a twinge of regret at having made it. But I stifled this by getting out my copy of the Word, long unused, and reading a chapter. This brought back something of the child-like, trusting state in which I had read it of yore, and gave me unexpected comfort and strength. "After all," I said, mentally, "it is the first step that costs. The very first time that the occasion presents itself, I will take that step and hold to it, come what may." The occasion came sooner than I had anticipated, for, while the day was still young, my former client came into my office to engage me for another case of the same character as that of the day before. He placed a package of documents before me, and with easy assurance began to give directions and explanations concerning their contents. Never a suspicion crossed his mind of the tumult suddenly aroused in mine. Worldly desires and ambitions asserted themselves with new and well- nigh overwhelming force. Within me my poor little resolve looked so weak and contemptible-so new and unsubstantial, the desire to strangle it at its birth became almost irresistible. All unwitting, I was enacting the wonderful story, repeated in the life of each human being, of the helpless infant hidden in its cradle on the banks of the Nile. As a child, I had listened to this story with tender sympathy for the forsaken baby, alone and weeping; but now, as a man, I seemed ready to permit the Pharaoh within me to choke and destroy its innocent life-as symbolized by my good resolutions-in the waiting, hungry waters of falsehood that were brimming up in my soul. In one flash of thought I weighed the possibilities on either side. On one hand was a successful career, a fortune, the honor of the world; on the other, what was there? A future that did not look inviting; a future of harassing struggles with questions of right and wrong, with ambitions suppressed, with tastes ungratified, and perhaps with grinding poverty-and all this for the sake of a clear conscience. Had I not been over-hasty in indorsing the decision arrived at in a dream? My resolution began to waver, when I suddenly awoke to a realization of the issues involved. "What!" my better self seemed to say, "shall I give in to the very first temptation? Shall I let a good resolution fall to the ground, and be trampled upon by the first swine's foot that crosses my path? No, I will not give in!" My client had continued talking, and his remarks at last required a reply, which did not come. He turned a glance of surprise and displeasure upon me. "Now," whispered the monitor within, "now is your time! One moment more, and it will be too late!" I pushed the package toward him and said, "I prefer not to take this case" He was a man of powerful physique, and a domineering, even violent temper. He could have felled me with a blow. I saw the desire to do it tingling in his very fingers as he reached for the rejected package, while the glance that he flashed upon me was not pleasant to meet. He controlled himself with visible effort, and said: "Am I to understand that you are in your right mind, and that you reject this case deliberately?" It was hard to utter a single word in reply. His tone so plainly implied that I was daft, and needed his strong common-sense to set me right again; it contained, besides, a threat, in every word he uttered, of what I would lose if I threw him over. I knew what that threat implied, but it only helped to fix my resolution, now that I had taken a stand; for I knew better than he how little his sister would approve of his methods if she knew them, and so his influence in that quarter seemed less important to me than he supposed. It was worth while for me to persevere in right-doing that I might hold out a clean palm in which one day she could safely place her hand. It was especially difficult to so guard the tone and manner of my reply as to leave no crevice in my armor for him to pierce. My armor! I had already donned it then I The thought carried me back to my childish wish to put it on and to go forth to fight. My wish had been granted in truth, and in just the way of which my aunt had spoken. I found myself in the thick of the combat, and would, fain acquit myself as became a knight in armor. I was so long in shaping a fit reply that it wearied this imperious man, who was little used to waiting or to opposition. He spoke again, in a tone of impatient expostulation: "Come, come, my dear fellow; you cannot mean what you say. What reason have you for refusing this?" What reason! The thought of telling this hard and worldly man-this worshiper of Mammon-my reason for refusing to do his bidding was preposterous. I felt a nervous desire to laugh. But stay; I might say: "Because it is not honest work." Alas! I had already done just such work for him.-which he would no doubt vehemently urge. Assuming a haughtiness I was far from feeling, I said: "I do not recognize your right to ask in reason; I merely repeat that I refuse to take the case. I arose to close the conversation, while my would-be client stood up and gazed at me, non-plussed, but lowering. "Is this your final word?" said he. "It is my final word," I replied. He stood a moment longer, thrust his fingers into a small pocket, drew out a dainty little note (an' invitation to lunch, written, I afterward found, in his sister's hand), and began to tear it before me. Then he thought better of it, returned the note to his pocket, picked up his papers, and, with a how that told a whole chapter as to our future relations, he withdrew. Truly the first step had cost; but it had been taken, and, come what might, I would hold to it. I was not aware of the tension on my nerves till it was relieved by his going, leaving me for a short time alone, during which I paced the narrow limits of my office to get into working order again, and to sum up the results of my victory. I had won the approval of my own conscience (of late quite troublesome). I knew that the lady of my love would approve my action; I had defeated my enemy, and had relieved myself from bondage to him as his tool. Viewed from the right standpoint, it was a good morning's work. My satisfaction in it prevented my harboring any apprehension as to his influence against me, in the future, affecting my reputation and prosperity.
123
A press of work of various kinds soon changed the current of my thoughts, and my day wore on as usual-no not quite as usual, for I found that, owing perhaps to my recent struggle, I was taking a somewhat different view of men and their actions from yesterday. I gave snore attention to the motives of those with whom I came in contact, as manifested by their words and deeds I had long been aware that the greater number were bent on the furtherance of their own selfish interests, but never before had seen in so clear a light the difference in the quality of right and wrong. Formerly I was ready to praise the man who did well to himself, even at the expense of his neighbors; it was the way of the world in which I lived. But now I began to feel inclined to call wrong-doing by its right name. Certainly a change had begun in my valuation of the things of the outer and inner worlds. Just as I was leaving my office that evening I received another notable visitor-an old man, with silvery hair and a face that showed traces of fierce struggles, of deep suffering, and of conquests. The serenity, the peace that beamed from every feature, brought vividly back to me the angel of my dream. He explained that he had come recently to live in a suburb of the city, had heard my name by an apparent chance, and believing me to be the boy whom he had baptized by the bedside of a dying lady twenty years ago in a distant village, he had called, and he named the little town in which my earlier years had been scent. Coming, as he did, while the memory of that scene was still fresh in my mind, I was deeply moved. I eagerly acknowledged my identity, and easily induced him to go home with me, where I could enjoy his visit without interruption. Arriving there I ordered dinner up to my sitting-room, and we afterward spent the entire evening in talking. My guest's genial manner, his affectionate interest in me, and his long friendship for my aunt, all combined to make me open my heart to him. Almost before I was aware I had told him all my life since I saw him last; of my love for a lovely lady, of my singular dream the night before, which had con firmed a desire for better things occasionally felt in the past, and of the decisive step I had taken that morning. I poured it all into his ear as if confiding in my own father, revered and be loved; and with a father's interest and affection he intently listened. When I ceased he arose, crossed the room where he had left his wrap, and brought back a parcel which he placed in my hand. It proved to be a book, and as he gave it to me he said: "I have regretted being unable to carry out your aunt's wishes in regard to this book. It was to have been given to you the day you were twenty-one. It seems to me, however, that in the Divine Providence of the LORD, it has reached you at just the right time." The leaves opened in the middle of the book, disclosing a note addressed to me. It was dated more than twenty years previously, and bore my aunt's signature. It said: "My Darling; I have given this book into hands that will transmit it faithfully to you. I have found in it the 'Path of Life.' That your eyes may be opened to see it, that strength may be given you to walk in it, is the prayer of your loving aunt? The title of the book was THE TRUE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. It lay before me, while I sat with eyes fixed on my aunt's note, while gaining time for the recovery of self-control. Then came a desire to investigate this new promise of light on the pathway of life. Opening at the first page of the index of the book I put it before the old minister and asked him to explain briefly each statement, from the first, that I might obtain an outline of the teachings contained, and a conception of their quality. I would fain see if this work deserved its title. Each religion claims to be the true one, but to my mind none of the claims seemed flawless and irrefragable. There was so much in the religious world pretending to be what it was not. He began with the "Faith of the New Heaven and the New Church," and got no further that evening; for my questions upon it, and his replies, took all the time. But although he read no further than "the Faith," as found in the first three numbers, my questions led him farther on. The very first statement needed explanation; "that the LORD from eternity who is JEHOVAH, came into the world, that He might subjugate the hells and glorify His Human." In his answer he read again the first Universal of Faith, "That God is one in Essence and in Person, in Whom is a Divine Trinity, and that He is the LORD GOD the SAVIOUR, JESUS CHRIST." Ever as he talked the conviction grew upon me that here was the Truth. Not very long before this time I had been accustomed to attend the services of a certain religious body, chiefly, I think, for the reputation it gave me; and I had been a teacher in the Sunday-school. I had a class of half-grown boys, to whom I essayed to teach the doctrine taught by that sect, namely that there were three persons of the Godhead. The more I tried to make it clear to them the more perplexed and confused my own ideas about it became. I had gone to the pastor with my difficulty, and, instead of giving me a lucid explanation, he had exhorted me to have faith that it was true. I then resigned my task in weariness and disgust. Here, however, was a new presentation of the subject which set me thinking. Here was something that appealed to my reason. It was very different from the paradoxical dogmas taught in that sect, and from the exhortations of previous teachers, to "have faith" in things I could not understand. I was conscious of understanding but dimly, as yet. Still here was food for my intellect, not stultification of it, and this teacher encouraged me in its exercise. He led me on to take clearer and still clearer views of the subject. I soon found that if I did not understand, it was not owing to any defect in the doctrine but to my limited mental powers. At last a silence fell, which, after deep thought, I broke. "I find this to be the only reasonable solution of this mystery. I think I can truly say that I believe this dogma as taught by your Church." My friend and teacher reached out his hand with a warm, firm pressure that lingered always after with me as a comforting memory. "The Doctrine of the Trinity is the foundation-stone of that temple called the LORD'S New Church," he said, and a smile of joy lighted up his features. "I rejoice that you have accepted it," returned his friendly grasp. While he continued, putting his last remark into another form better suited to my comprehension, "The entire theology of the New Church rests upon that Doctrine." I saw his meaning and swiftly interrupted him, "Which means that having accepted this Doctrine, I must accept all the rest in this book"-taking up The True Christian Religion as I spoke. He smiled assent. I was startled at finding myself committed to so much. The dogmas previously taught me lay around in my mind, so I thought, in a loose and disjointed manner, not depending for their existence or quality upon any one in particular-at least, not that I knew of.
124
I had even mentally rejected several as not agreeing with common sense, without doing any harm to the system, indeed to its betterment. So I had came to trust my own reason as the authoritative judge of Truth according to my way of thinking. But here was something new with which there could be no such assumption, as I had already begun to see. My intellect had served as an instrumental in comprehending the Truth, but hereafter could never be the judge thereof. I found, long after, when able to make comparisons, that I accepted the teaching given me that evening not as a hungry soul, seeking its own salvation I had then only the faintest notion that salvation for me lay in this direction-but because it gave me food for thought in a field hitherto barren. The logical sequence of truths delighted my intellect. I could see the grand outlines, the perfectly harmonious proportions in this temple of the LORD upon earth, long before my heart cried out with desire to enter in and dwell there. Before going away on that memorable evening the old minister invited me to be present at the service held regularly every Sunday at his home, for a small circle of receivers of the Doctrines. I promised to attend. As he arose to leave me, he glanced at my pictured lady, and said, smiling: "So this is your mysterious guide into the land of dreams. Have you never seen any one resembling her ?" "Not that I can remember," I replied, "and yet her face always sets me trying to recall some face that I have seen somewhere in the world." His smile was so significant that I repeated his own question to me: "Have you ever seen any one like her?" In the pause that followed, he scanned the picture with tender interest. "Yes," he replied, slowly, "it bears so close a resemblance to your aunt at twenty years of age that I thought it was her portrait until you told me its history." At twenty! Then her youthful bloom and beauty had faded long be fore I came into the world. I could not recall her features; the view I had had of her in my dream gave me no hint of this resemblance, but I was glad to believe that my interest in the face of my pictured lady was due to indistinct and childish memories of my aunt. This evening's visit, and the exalted character of the teaching I had received, gave new strength to my resolution to keep a clear conscience and to hold myself above the sordid and selfish sphere in which I had lived. In the days that followed I began to feel like a man who, having drifted down the current of a mighty river, suddenly turns his prow and attempts to ascend the stream. It was all fair sailing when I sailed with the downward tide; it was in the effort to breast it that I learned the force of its flow. To watch my motives in whatever transaction I might engage, to judge their quality, and to condemn them when they deserved it, to sacrifice my worldly interests again and again to the right, was most decidedly rowing up-stream. Of course, the effort at first was feeble and failure frequent. Instead of my usual evening recreations I spent the time in a careful study of the book that had come, it seemed to me, in a wonderful way, as it were a message from the other world. During the week nearly, that ensued before seeing my friend again, I had become familiar with a few general truths concerning each subject treated of, and in every case was struck with their opposition to the dogmas I had previously learned. These had never obtained any serious hold upon my mind, and therefore were promptly destroyed by the, inflow of this new light. Especially was I delighted with the Doctrine of Charity. I saw clearly, upon reading it, what I had known before only in a confused way, that the idea of charity prevailing in the world was spurious, was utterly false. I had always rejected it as not agreeing with common sense. Most heartily did I accept the statement that "Charity itself is to act justly and truthfully in the office, business, and work in which and one is, and with whomsoever he is in any intercourse; and I experienced great satisfaction in finding that in my profession the exercise of genuine charity toward the wicked would be to expose and lead to the punishment of their wickedness. I made myself familiar with all the teaching under this head, and the careful study of it enabled me to see other points of doctrine more clearly. Late into each night I pored over this book, and read and studied and compared, sometimes, I am now ashamed to say, in an endeavor to find some flaw in the flawless reasoning. Not yet were my eyes opened to see its faultless character; not yet was I prepared to say of it: "Thus saith the LORD." It is step by step only that the heights are reached from which the first glimpse of daybreak, upon a wide horizon may be seen. Without such states of gradual preparation it is doubtful if the human mind, emerging from the utter spiritual darkness of the present time, could bear the effulgent light of even the morning dawn that is shed upon all heavenly and earthly things by this Divine Revelation of Truth." While my mind was becoming enlightened, and was slowly arising out of the fog of mysticism surrounding the doctrine of three sods, my thoughts during my leisure moments were intensely occupied in devising plans to reopen communication with the lady of my love. Twice since her brother's last visit to me I had called at his house to see her, but was met with the assurance that she was out. Evidently my name had been erased from his visiting list, and the servants instructed accordingly. The situation was a trying one. I loved her deeply, but had not felt ready as yet to speak. I was waiting, partly, until more brilliant successes in my profession should insure my future before asking her to share it. I had seen, or fancied I saw, a sign, now and then, that she preferred me above others. The belief in this was not strong enough to dispel all doubts and fears, and yet was strong enough to prevent serious anxiety on the score of a rival. But now this change in my life made me yearn for the sympathy which I knew she would extend. Of her goodness I was assured, but I longed to have her share this new light, which I saw must exalt goodness wherever it shone, and I felt somehow that her goodness would draw more out of the truth than could all my cherished rationality; and therein I. saw a source of help and strength in the warfare upon which I had entered. I was suddenly cut off from seeing her, and had no other means of communication. To pour out my heart in a letter, for her brother to read and destroy, in his self-imposed role of guardian, was not to be thought of, and we had no intimate friend in common who would undertake to deliver my missive safe into her hand. I spent some time in haunting picture galleries and concert halls, and other public places where I had seen her aforetime, but I looked vainly for the one face I was hungering to see. The uncertainty in regard to her, added to some perplexing questions of right and wrong in my daily business kept me awake one night near the close of the week, and by daybreak I was out for a vigorous walk to shake off disquieting thoughts and to get into good order for my day's work.
125
Returning homewards while the morning was still young, I passed by her brother's house to gaze at the windows of her room. I was so absorbed in this romantic occupation, in the quiet of the deserted street, that I noticed nothing till a light step behind caused me to turn suddenly and start forward to grasp the hand of my darling and gaze into her upraised face. It was pale and a little worn, but was radiant with a lovely smile. I did not give myself time to lose courage in that beloved presence, but eagerly formulated the vital question as to our future relations, that was burning upon my lips. I could not read the "Yes" I longed for, in her instantly downcast eyes and averted face, but she did not withdraw her hand. I placed it upon my arm, and we set off for a walk together down the street, which became transformed, for me into a lane of velvety turf bordered by lofty hedgerows blooming in bridal array! That lovely path of my dream was fairly typical of the first states of our after life, but of the first states only. My dream gave no hint of the subsequent ones, through which, during many years of married life, we have steadily grown into concordant oneness of mind and heart through the effort each has made to put away evils as sins against the LORD.
(The End.)
Notes and Reviews 1894
THE Academy Library has acquired two rare and interesting German works. One of these is a translation of the Brief Exposition; published at Breslau in 1786, under the title Emanuel von Swedenborg's Revision of Modern Theology. The unknown translator has prefixed to it a caustic review of the famous philosopher ants' ill-natured attack upon Swedenborg, in his Dreams of a Visionary. The other, is entitled Hades, A contribution to the Theory of the Science of Spirits by J. F. von Meyer (Frankfurt, 1810), in which are published some hitherto unknown Documents relating to Swedenborg's episode with the Queen of Sweden, and the story of the "lost receipt." The work has never, hitherto, been mentioned in the literature of the Church, but is of real importance.
AS the Editor glances over the pages of Part 76 of the Concordance to the Theological Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg, several items arrest his attention, one or two of which he points out to his readers. Under the word "Mother," much is adduced concerning the mother of our LORD. Among others is this quotation "The natural good which He derived from the mother . . . was in itself evil . . . yet subserved for the reformation of the Natural; but, after it had subserved, it was rejected" (A. C. 3618). There is something similar with every regenerating man, be he an individual or a Church. The Church as a body must become regenerated, and this takes place by degrees. Applications of doctrine made in one stage of the Church's life subserve the reformation of natural ideas held by the common body, but after they have subserved and a new state is entered, they are rejected, and thus successively. Jerusalem is called the "mountain of holiness" from the love of truth (A. E. 355). This therefore is the love that characterizes the New Church. Babylon, on the other hand, is called "destroying mountain," from the love of self-derived falses and evils (A. E. 405:41). It is not so much the form that makes the difference between the two, as the quality of the love that enters into them. The essence saves or destroys, the form only derivatively. With such topics as "Most Ancient Church," "Mother," "Mount of Olives," "Mountain," " Music," "Must," "Mutual Love," this Part of the Concordance furnishes food for much study about love to the LORD and the neighbor; and contrast with the evil, to accentuate the good, is not lacking, being represented by the entries under "Murder" and other words. The intellectual part of man is treated of under "Mouth," "Multiply," and other words, and the deprivation of truth under "Mourning" et at. Part 77 of this invaluable Work will appear in September.
Communicated 1894
Responsibility for the views expressed in this Department rests with the writers.
Title Unspecified 1894
T. C. R. 4 "A kind of frenzy has infected the entire system of Theology, as well as the Christian Church, so called from its Divine Founder."- T. C. R. 4. "When the Son of Man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth?"-Luke xviii, 8.
NATURALISM IN THE NEW CHURCH 1894
MANY who at this day profess to be of the New Church, and are members of societies of the New Church, entertain the notion that the Heavenly Doctrines are spreading rapidly, and are being received by people in the various sects of the Old Church. And not only do many of the laity entertain this notion, but many of the ministers also. It is nevertheless contrary to the plain teaching in the Writings of the Church, to the effect that the New Church is at first with a few; and which is necessarily the case, because truths cannot be received before falses are removed (A. R. 547). The notion that New Church ideas are spreading rapidly, by being infused into the minds of Old Church people, is formed? from mere appearances, which are deceptive. It is therefore a fallacy, which easily becomes a falsity, and so obscures the mind that there can be no rational understanding of what the Writings clearly teach respecting the state of the Christian world in "the consummation of the age," namely, that there is among men generally no knowledge of things spiritual, heavenly, and Divine. Those who profess to believe in the Doctrines of the New Jerusalem ought to be well aware that there can be no New Church ideas in the minds of men, unless the LORD is acknowledged as to His Divine Human, and that He alone is the Source of all intelligence and wisdom. But there is at this day no acknowledgment of the Lord as to His Divine Human, except on the part of a few. The worship in the Old Church is either a worship of three Gods, or of no God at all, in any true sense of the word. The members of what are called "evangelical" churches do not believe in the LORD JESUS CHRIST in His Divine Human, as the One God of heaven and earth, Who is infinite as to all of His Attributes. And the members of what are called "liberal" churches, for the roost part deny the Divinity of the LORD altogether, and make Him a mere man, regarding Him in no other sense Divine than as any man may be or become Divine, if he is highly endowed. Christians reject the LORD in His second Coming, in like manner as the Jews rejected Him when He, the Word, was made flesh by assuming the Human, It is as true to day as it was when the words were first written, that "men's minds are reduced into such a state of delirium that they do not know whether there is one God, or whether there are three" (T. C. R. 4). The sphere of naturalism which pervades the Christian world has, during the past few years, also invaded New Church societies with its baleful infestations.
126
The deadening and destructive effects of this sphere in some societies of the Church are now beginning to be felt and seen, by the few at least who still read the Writings, and whose minds are protected by the truths revealed concerning "the abomination of desolation" which prevails in the Christian world to-day. But it is unspeakably sad to think that even same of the ministers fail to recognize the teachings of the LORD in the Writings on this momentous subject. Even some who stand in the holy place of teachers of "the everlasting gospel" of the LORD'S New Advent, have their minds obscured by the insidious and almost all-pervading sphere of naturalism of this age, to such a degree that they are led to imagine a vain thing, namely, that the people of the Old Church are hungry for the truth, and that they are fast giving up their old dogmas, to receive the doctrines of the New Church! And what are the consequences? They are indeed lamentable. The "shepherds of Israel" feed not the flocks in their charge with genuine truths of the Word as revealed in the LORD'S own Divine Revelation to the New Church. On some of the most important subjects these truths are invalidated, falsified, ignored, rejected. The minds of members of societies are darkened by erroneous ideas instead of being enlightened, opened, and formed by, means of truths. Hence the spiritual life and vitality of some of the societies of the Church is gradually growing more feeble. There is a process of disintegration going on; the membership of societies; grows less, and those who remain members, in many cases become lukewarm. And what other result could be expected? From the notion that the Old Church is rapidly being permeated with New Church doctrine the idea naturally gets into the mind and takes possession that there is therefore less and less need for a distinctive New Church organization, and for separate Divine worship. A person whose understanding is obscured by this notion is led to ask: Why should the New Church continue the struggle to maintain an external body when it so plainly appears that with all the efforts that have been put forth by our ablest men it can make but little or no progress? And the question is occasionally put to the New Church evangelist: Do you suppose that Swedenborg contemplated, that there should be a separate organization for the New Church? The answer is: Most certainly he did. The New Church is now, and is to be forever, an organized Body of Christians in the world-a Church in which the LORD in His Divine Human is to be acknowledged and worshiped. The New Church is, and is to be, the Crown of all the Churches, because in her will be worshiped the Visible God, in Whom dwells the Invisible God; Who I in His One Glorious Person is the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Every body most have its own soul, and every soul its own body. And surely no one can be so irrational as to imagine that a New Church Soul can ever occupy an Old Church Body I For this is contrary to the eternal truth, enunciated by the Divine Teacher Himself, that men cannot "put new wine into old bottles [or wine-skins]" (Matt. ix, 17). It is indeed true that many in the van s sects are giving up their old dogmas; but with the exception of a very few they are giving them up to h nine sceptics, agnostics, and, -what is still worse, atheists outright. The angels "have slender hope of the en of the Christian Church" (L. J. 74). A New Church evangelist finds by observation and experience in all his work that men generally are submerged in the sphere of naturalism, and that very few are renouncing the old falsities to receive the doctrines of the New Church. In order that a New Church society may exist as such, and perform its legitimate spiritual and heavenly uses, the intrusion of the sphere of naturalism must be valiantly resisted. It ought to be resisted first of all by the minister or pastor of a society; and if he is true to his sacred trust, he will lead the members of his flock to resist it. And the effectual way for a pastor to lead his people to understand the dangerous nature of the sphere of naturalism, that they may see the necessity of resisting it, is to teach the truth of the Divine doctrine in the Writings of the Church, concerning the evil and corrupt spiritual state of the Christian world. And when they learn what is taught on this important subject, and receive the truth as from the LORD in His New Advent, they will be watchful and will shun the pernicious influences of the sphere of naturalism, as they would the stygian shades of Tartarus. Then let it be once more stated here that the LORD'S New Church can only be established in the world when the evil state of Christendom which is revealed in the Doctrines is understood and acknowledged. For only then can the absolute necessity of the establishment of the New Jerusalem on earth be rationally seen and appreciated. There are ministers and members who profess to believe in the Heavenly Doctrines of the Church, and yet ignore or repudiate what the LORD teaches through His Servant, Emanuel Swedenborg, respecting the state of complete desolation and consummation in the First Christian Church. And this fact is itself an evidence of the utterly perverse and hard-hearted nature of men in Christendom. For is it not lamentable to consider that men who have occupied positions of preachers in the New Church for many years are nevertheless chargeable with such serious shortcomings as inconsistency and hypocrisy? And it surely is inconsistent and hypocritical for any one to profess to believe the LORD'S Revelation to the New Church as true, and at the same time to deny the truth of certain teachings contained in that Revelation. The Writings are Divine Truth as a whole and as to every part. The Doctrines are "from the LORD alone" (T. C. R. 779). In The True Christian Religion, n. 380, is described the detestable nature of the "faith which acknowledges the LORD, and yet adopts false and heretical opinions." And in the all-searching light of the Doctrines it appears unmistakably plain that the notion that the doctrines of the New Church are being received by the preachers and people of the Old Church is one of the "false and heretical opinions" which have been adopted by some who profess to be in the "faith which acknowledges the LORD." It is to be devoutly hoped that New Church societies will not continue to be torn to pieces and dispersed, by adopting" false, and heretical opinions," instead of receiving and living according to the Divine teachings which the LORD has mercifully given at His new and glorious Appearing, for the sake of the salvation of the human race. And in order that the New Church may not he entirely destroyed in many places where now it exists at least in some form, let men repent, and believe in the new and eternal Gospel. And again let ministers and members of the Church repent, humiliate themselves before the LORD, renounce their false and heretical opinions, and with the Divine aid resist the sphere of naturalism and all the seductive influences of draconic spirits; for the everlasting kingdom of the New Christian Heaven is surely at hand. "And behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give unto every one according as his work shall be" (Apoc. xxii, 12).
127
LIFE OF THE NEW CHURCH Various 1894
THE ACADEMY OF THE NEW CHURCH.
Pennsylvania.- SINCE the beginning of the summer vacation members of the Philadelphia congregation sojourning at Huntingdon Valley have been ministered to in Sunday worship by Bishop Pendleton, and, in his absence, by Pastor Schreck. These services are simple in character, the chief feature being doctrinal exposition based on the current Calendar Lessons. The gathering of the friends is made, the occasion for practice in singing the New Music; also for pleasant conversation. A CAMPING party of Academy students land young men has located on Ganoga Lake, Sullivan County, in a region noted for its beauty and healthfulness, being really a mountain summit 2,300 feet above sea level. It is expected that the Rev. Homer Synnestvedt, of Pittsburgh, will join the camp with a party of young men and boys of his Society, the intention being to continue educational influences and discipline for the boys, a special feature being a class on morals. The idea is to retain distinctive New Church features in the camp while sacrificing nothing of real value in way of wholesome, spontaneous out-of-door life. A few boys from Philadelphia and elsewhere will also be at the camp under Mr. Synnestvedt's supervision. ON July 21st Bishop Pendleton and Pastor Schreck N D. Pendleton, and F. E. Waelchli sailed from Philadelphia for London on the steamship "Ohio."
GREAT BRITAIN.
Colchester.-ON April 8th Pastor Tilson administered the Holy Supper to the circle of the General Church in Colchester. In this place the question of how frequently this sacrament should be partaken of, has been decided by selecting the significant interval of seven weeks to intervene between the administrations. Pastors Tilson and Bostock have officiated in alternation. On the occasion of this visit Pastor Tilson, in the evening, presided over a meeting in Mr. Gill's studio, Minister Robinson being absent hi London, where he preached. Mr. Tilson gave an interesting account of the Church work in Camberwell. Part of the evening was, as usual, devoted to practice in singing. Seven weeks later, on May 27th, Pastor Bostock officiated. Glasgow.-ON May 13th Bishop Benade met with former members of the Society here, formerly ministered to by the Rev. J. F. Potts, and still in sympathy with the teachings of the General Church of the Advent of the LORD. The Holy Supper was administered, Bishop Benade giving a very instructive address upon the subject. The Bishop was accompanied on this visit by his wife. Liverpool.-ON May 10th the Circle in this place received a visit from Bishop and Mrs. Benade and Pastor Tilson. In an afternoon service the sacraments of Baptism and the Holy Supper were administered. Mrs. Dean and Mr. William Stephenson were baptized. Fifteen persons partook of the Supper. In the evening twenty-two persons sat down to tea, which was followed by a meeting of the Council of the Society, and later by a Social Meeting, at which were proposed and duly honored the sentiments, the Church, the Bishop and his wife, and the Pastor, the Rev. Mr. Tilson, whose appointment over this Circle was now first announced by the Bishop and received with enthusiasm. During the evening notice was made of the practice here in vogue of making offerings specially to the Bishop's office, these being deposited in a suitable and conspicuous receptacle in the room in which worship is held. In receiving the offering thus far accumulated, Bishop Benade spoke of the duty of properly supporting the offices of the Priesthood, with regard, not to the man officiating, but to the LORD'S office among men. ON June 3d Bishop Benade paid a second visit to the Liverpool Circle and conducted a very impressive service. Subsequently a social meeting was held, during which the ladies presented a testimonial of choice flowers to Mrs. Benade.
GENERAL CHURCH OF THE ADVENT OF THE LORD.
Pennsylvania.-IN Renovo the Rev. Ellis I. Kirk conducts Sunday services which are attended by twelve adults and several younger ones, members of his own family and of that of Mr. J. R. Kendig. Occasionally outsiders drop into the Hall of the Gorand Army of the Republic, where services are held, but they seldom repeat the visit. On June 24th Dr. Kirk delivered two lectures at Sinnemahoning, to fairly large audiences, the topics being "The New Jerusalem" and "The Spiritual World." The Doctrines had never been introduced there before, and rapt attention was given to the lectures. Dr. Kirk noticed among the people an absence of the roughness common in mining and lumber regions. Time alone will reveal what effect may have been made.
THE CHURCH AT LARGE.
Ohio.- THE idea of "mothers' meetings," long in force in the Congregation of the Academy in Philadelphia, seems to have found footing in the Cincinnati Society, according to the news department of the Messenger for June 27th. The possibilities that lie in this unpretentious but important use are beyond the power of calculation. Illinois.- A MEMORIAL service for the late Dr. John Randolph Hibbard was held on July 1st, in the temple of the Chicago Society, at the usual hour for morning worship, the Rev. Messrs. L. P. Mercer, Thomas A. King, and Jabez Fox officiating. In place of a sermon memorial addresses were given, a brief one by Mr. Mercer and one by Mr. FOE, which is of such historical interest that we draw largely from the Messenger's report of it. After referring to Dr. Hibbard's age (he was born July 23d, 1815) Mr. Fox traced his career from the date of his ordination in 1839, before which he had spent five years in the ministry of the United Brethren. He now entered into active service in Eastern Ohio, "with all the impetuosity of youth and fired by that over-mastering zeal which characterized his whole life." In spite of erode and rough conditions Mr. Hibbard loved the work that lay before him and which "called forth his best efforts in effective labors for the LORD and His Church. . . . His magnetic influence upon his audiences was remarkable. "In the early forties he begin a mission in that wide spiritual wilderness which then lay west of Ohio; acting under the auspices of the Western Convention of the New Church, which centered at Cincinnati, but working for the newly-formed and inchoate Illinois Association, of which he became Superintendent. . . To him more than to any other man are we indebted for the planting of the Church in that extensive region. "It was a work of some hardships and privations, no doubt, even to him Pioneer life on the prairies, at that early day, was often very rough. But he had not been brought up in the lap of luxury, and there was no shade of effeminacy in his nature. And he never counted anything a hardship if it helped introduce the truths of the new dispensation to souls thirsting for the waters of life. . . . "He must proclaim these doctrines to a world which sorely needed them, and he trusted confidently that the LORD would provide for the temporal needs of His faithful servants; and so, equipped with a rather democratic looking buggy and horse, and with tracts for free distribution, and books for sale; and accompanied by his invalid wife (who sympathized with his faith and his work, and with the zeal that fired him in his work), he traveled widely over the Western prairie country, then but thinly populated, going from village to village, and from one farm-house to another, often far apart, and involving long and weary rides over very imperfect roads; facing the bitter prairie winds in winter, or suffering the pitiless sunshine of long hot summer days, with scant shelter from the rain; lecturing, preaching, and administering the sacraments of the Church. "It was, I think, in 1843, that he began this work. There were then a few receivers of the heavenly doctrines in Illinois. Mr. Isaac Britton was, I believe, at Springfield and Mr. Jonas Rawalt, the Randolphs, and Mother Trites at Canton. And Uncle John Hamlin was at Peoria, and also Mr. Cooper, think, and there were a few others. Mr. Scammon had come to Chicago; and probably about that time secured from the canal company the lot on which this house stands. He was one of the founders of the Illinois Association, and an able supporter of Brother Hibbard. "In the year that Brother Hibbard came to Illinois, 1843, the Michigan and North Indiana Association held its first annual meeting at Battle Creek, attended by the Reverends George Field and Dr. At Lee, and by Messrs. Silver, Murray, Hans and Henry Thielsen, and Fox. There was no delegation from Detroit. The social meeting wait at Mrs. Levanway's (Mrs. Rawson). "A Society of three members had been formed here; and in 1847 it invited a visit from Brother Hibbard; and in 1849 called him to its pastorate. But his migratory life had been somewhat mitigated, if not ended, several years before, by a more or leis permanent relation to societies which he had instituted in Canton and Peoria. Great success attended this mission of our devoted departed brother, from '43 to '49. Nothing like it has anywhere happened since. Why? Have we had no such worker-and no such work-since? Or is the spread of the Doctrines in new regions periodical? There is yet abundant new territory-new wildernesses-in which such work might be done. Why is it not done? "It was during this period that in Michigan, Silver and Fox, in 1845, and Weller, in 1847, began missionary lecturing, and it was in this year that Brother Hibbard became an Ordaining Minister, and the following year came into Michigan and ordained the Rev. Henry Weller as the Pastor of the Gorand Rapids Society. This was done at Niles, and was, as well as I remember, his
128
LIFE OF THE NEW CHURCH Various 1894
NEW CHURCH LIFE. PUBLISHED MONTHLY BY THE ACADEMY OF THE NEW CHURCH.
TERMS:-One Dollar per annum, payable in advance. FOUR SHILLINGS IN GREAT BRITAIN.
The EDITOR'S address is 1821 Wallace Street, Fairmount Station, Philadelphia. Address all business communications to MR. CARL HJ. ASPLUNDH, No. 1821 Wallace Street, Fairmount Station, Philadelphia, Pa. Subscriptions are also received through the following agents: UNITED STATES. Chicago, Ill., Mr. A. E. Nelson, Chicago Agent of Academy Book Room, No. 565 West Superior Street. Pittsburgh, Pa., Mr. Wm. Rott, Pittsburgh Agent of Academy Book Room, Tenth and Carson Streets. CANADA. Toronto, Ont., Mr. R. Carswell, 20 Equity Chambers. Waterloo, Mr. Rudolph Roschman. GREAT BRITAIN. Mr. E. W. Misson, Agent for Great Britain, of Academy Book Room, Burton Road, Brixton, London, S. W.
PHILADELPHIA, AUGUST, 1894=125.
CONTENTS. PAGE EDITORIAL: Notes 113 The Divine Ordination of the Goods and Truths of the Church (a Sermon) 114 The Ninth and Tenth Degree of Vastation (Exodus x) 116 Instructing Children Concerning Generation, III 118 Robert Hindmarsh, VII 120 Aroused IV (concluded) 122 NOES AND REVIEWS 125 COMMUNICATED: Naturalism in the New Church 125 LIFE OF THE NEW CHURCH 127 DEATH-BOOK ROOM 128 just visit and work in Michigan. My knowledge of and acquaintance with him began after-hit coming to Chicago. It continued with unbroken friendship and an ever-increasing affection (though not without earnest disagreements), for nearly half a century. He early won my esteem and admiration by his devotion to the cause we both had at heart, and by the energy with which he worked for it. I regard him as, in some respects, and in some kinds of work, the ablest administer the Church has ever had. "As a Western minister I knew him long and, when the number of Western ministers was small. We were often the only ministers from west of the Ohio at meetings of Convention. As the head of the Illinois Association for over one-third of a century and more; he did a great work. He was an ever active and alert manager of its affairs, which he did with power. He knew everything in the Association, and arranged everything. Those who have known him only through the last twenty years have little idea what a power he was for the first forty years of his ministry in Illinois! At the close of Mr. Fox's address Mr. Mercer said: "One trait in the ministry of Dr. Hibbard, conspicuous from the beginning, which more than any service performed by him affected the Church permanently through its younger ministers as they came forward to their work, as his courageous and unswerving loyalty to the revelation of the internal sense and Divine meaning of the Word, made by the LORD in the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg. . . I feel in me the thrill of the first contact, when in the first year of the Theological School, Dr. Hibbard stirred us with his appeal for an evangelistic ministry, and taught me the meaning of the angel flying in the midst of heaven proclaiming the everlasting Gospel. The Rev. Thomas King followed with an address touching chiefly upon the character and influence of Dr. Hubbard's teaching, as especially its influence on the younger ministers, himself included. To the concluding period of the address he extolled the devotion "to the doctrines which he knew were and are the LORD in His Second Advent," and looked forward in imagination to that higher world in which will be taken up and confirmed in new actuality, the work of preaching the simple Gospel of the LORD'S new Advent, that He is present in His Humanity to save all who believe and live well. In conclusion Mr. Mercer made remarks picturing the awakening, in that further life, of new powers and greater perfection of the qualities and faculties which had made the departed so useful a member of the Church on earth; and offered a prayer of thankfulness for the faithful who have gone to higher usefulness, and of supplication for support to those who remain here. London, GREAT BRITAIN.- THE Annual Meeting of the New Church College was held on June 13th. The Report of the Council referred to the ordination, by conference, of three students of the College, Messrs. W. H. Claxton, W. T. Lardge, and J. Howarth; also to the recognition as Authorized Leaders three other students, Messrs. S. J.C. Goldsack, W. J. Adcock, and T. W. Padgett. There are now no students in residence at the College. THE Eighty-fourth Annual Meeting of the Swedenborg Society was held on the evening of June 19th, in the Society's House, 36 Bloomsburg Street, London. The President, Mr. E. H. Bayley, M. P., in his address on the subject, "The Works of Swedenborg and the Work of the Swedenborg Society," after graphically outlining the personality and position of Swedenborg in the world of learning and politics, forecast the revolutionizing effect of his teachings upon the domain of human science, yet cited as an index of the slowness with which this must take place, the significant fact that in the various lists of the best 100 books to read recommended by various eminent men, those of Swedenborg find no place; and he pointed out the true explanation of this slowness: "It must be admitted that public opinion is not yet ripe for a system of theology which makes the keeping of the Ten Commandments so prominent and indispensable a feature." A system which holds up as an ideal, "a sacred living Christianity which shall purify trade from covetousness, cleanse social life and bring the kingdom of heaven upon earth," is an ideal "too heroic and utopian for the 19th century." The report of the Secretary. Mr. Charles Higham, opens as follows: "The year 1894 will probably be noteworthy in the Society's annals, from introducing the Writings of Swedenborg, for the first time to three important sections of the human family, namely, those speaking the Arabic, Hindi, and Magyar languages. The formal approval of the Arabic translations at the last annual meeting, enabled the committee after careful inquiries to engage Prof. H. A. Salmone to translate Heaven and Hell. This Work has been completed, and it is now being printed in Cairo. The translation of the same work of Swedenborg's has also been completed in Hindi, and the printing, which is being done at Benares, also is drawing to a close. The translator. Mr. Pincott, in a recent letter, drew attention to the circumstance that in the last Indian census, over eighty-five millions of persons were returned as speaking Hindi, a number equal to the combined populations of France and Germany." The results of the opening of this vast field of missionary effort amongst the Gentiles will be watched with great interest by the New Church in Christendom. After alluding to the status of the various other translations into Swedish, Dutch, etc., the Report states that the photo-lithographing of the Swedenborg MSS. is at a standstill, owing to discrepancies in estimates of cost. The Tafel Latin editions have been re-issued in modern bindings and at lower prices. The Concordance was stated to be now twelve-nineteenth completed. "Materials towards complete Swedenborg Bibliography have been gathered on our behalf, by the Rev. F. Goerwitz, of Zurich; Fraulein Mittnacht, of Biebrich; Rev. C. Th. Odhner of Philadelphia; Miss H. W. Hobart, of Cincinnati; and Dr. T. F. Moses, of Urbana University. Advertising has been done in Borderland, The British Weekly, The Memorial Hall Lectures, The Christian World, The May Meeting Lists, The New Church Magazine, The New Church Almanac, Morning Light, and The Juvenile Magazine. . . In most of the advertisements lately the statement has been included that Swedenborg's Writings can be read at nearly every Public Library in the kingdom. . . . An arrangement has been made with the Rev. J. J. Thornton, acting for the Melbourne New Church society, to supply Cole's Book Arcade in that city, with the Writings, a favorable placer in which to bring them before the reading public of Victoria. . . . "The Advising and Revision Board have carried on their work effectively. New editions of The Apocalypse Explained, vol. 3; the Brief Exposition of the Doctrine, and Earths in the Universe are now going through the press. The revision of Heaven and Hell and the Arcana, vol. 6, has been completed, and they are now ready for the printers. The True Christian Religion and the Arcana, vol. 9 are making progress in the revisers' hands. A fresh edition of 1 000 copies has been printed of The True Christian Religion from the existing stereotype plates. . . Mr. Fazal Ilahi, of Batala, Punjab has written desiring to translate some of the Writings into Urdu and Persian" In view of the fact that this year, as well as last, has brought no applications from candidates for the ministry, for adoption as students, and the situation being recognized as being serious, Conference passed a resolution urging its members to lay the claims of the ministry before eligible young men. What is really needed, however, is a proper conception, on the part of the Conference, of the true nature and order of the LORD'S office of the Priesthood and teaching in accordance. Sow the right seed and productive ground will not be lacking Conference is reaping the legitimate results of its own course. The Life is indebted to Morning Light for the above account, which lack of space compels us to abbreviate.
WEDDING GARMENT 1894
TALES OF THE LIFE TO COME
by LOUIS PENDLETON.
Price, in cloth, 1.00; white and gilt, $1.25.
ACADEMY BOOK ROOM, 1821 Wallace Street, Philadelphia, Pa.
129
RELATION OF EDUCATION TO SALVATION Rev. E. J. E. SCHRECK 1894
"I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaak, and unto Jacob, in God Shaddai, and by My Name JEHOVAH I was not known to them. And also I raised up My covenant with them, to give them the land of Canaan, the land of their sojournings in which they have sojourned. And also I, I have heard the groaning of the some of Israel, that the Egyptians make them to serve; and I have remembered My covenant."-Exodus vi, 3-5.
IN the words of the text, the LORD teaches us of the close connection between an early and orderly instruction and education, on the one hand, and the work of redemption and salvation on the other. Announcing Himself by His most holy Name, which includes everything of His Divine Love as manifested in His Divine Human, and assuring us of the irrevocable truth of the words which He is uttering, He teaches us how He manifests Himself in the states of childhood and youth, and in the further states of temptations, and how these manifestations, though different from His later ones, yet lead 11P to the Revelation of Himself as the Divine Esse and Existere, with whom conjunction is effected by His Divine Human. In the Internal Sense of the Word, the states of the life of man are continually referred to. The Word is nothing else but an exposition of the LORD'S dealing with man from conception to death, from death to eternity, and therefore there is not a verse in the Word which does not deal with one or other of the states through which man every man, woman, and child passes in the course of life. The story of the patriarchs and of their descendants, the people of Israel, gives a general picture of the general states of man. Abraham represents the state of infancy, Isaak, the state of childhood and adolescence, and Jacob, the state of youth. The enthronement of Joseph represents in general that period in the life of man when he has come into his own right and reason and the heavenly faculties implanted in him by the LORD are empowered to govern the natural man, his Egypt. As Joseph disappears from the history of the literal sense, and the children of Israel sink into the vile service to the Egyptians, the picture presented is that of the state of man when he gradually allows himself to be taken captive by his hereditary and acquired evils, until he is aroused by the appearance of the LORD to him, and the temptations begin, which, carried on throughout the remaining time of his life in this world, gradually, prepare him for the entrance into the heavenly state represented by the land of Canaan. Of the state of infancy, childhood, and youth, the LORD says: "I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaak, and unto Jacob, in God Shaddai, and by My Name JEHOVAH I was not known to them." The Hebrew name "Shaddai," is generally translated "Almighty," and so in the Authorized and Revised Versions of the Bible the name of the LORD occurs here as "God Almighty." Others translate the word, "Fulminator," or "Lightning- Hurler," and in at least place in the Doctrines of the New Church it is so rendered. But the name "Shaddai" is derived from the word "Shadad," which means to lay waste, to destroy, to vastate. "Shaddai" therefore means the "Waster" or Vastator," and therefore it also means "Tempter, " for temptation is a kind of vastation. The history of the insertion of this name in the literal sense as referred to in the text, "I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaak, and unto Jacob, in God Shaddai and by My Name JEHOVAH I was not known to them, is briefly this: In the Ancient Church it was the custom to reflect much about the LORD, and to love to dwell upon His attributes of Mercy, Grace, Providence, Redemption, Salvation, Truth, etc., etc. These attributes, in accordance with the prevailing love of representation, were figured under corresponding tykes. In the course of time, as the Church declined, an the people ceased to look upon the representative figures in their temples and homes as means for thinking of the Divine things which they represented, they began to think of the figures as being Divine in themselves, and thus arose the idolatry in which so many nations of olden times, and not a few of modern times, became immersed. In accordance with the general doctrine that everything is from the LORD, temptation was also attributed to Him, because it is a necessary means in the process of man's regeneration. This, however, rather in the decline of the Ancient Church. In this view they confirmed themselves by a fact which appears strange at this day, because it belonged to those olden times, when there was a more open communication between the spiritual and natural worlds than there is now. There were spirits, who would come to him who had done something wrong, and would scold and rebuke him for the evil committed, until an amendment was perceived, when angels would take the place of the rebuking spirits, and console and comfort the man. The men of the Ancient Church who experienced this were not aware of the different character of the different spiritual beings whom the LORD used to amend them and to encourage them in right doing, and recognizing, besides, that the entire experience was provided by the LORD, they called both the vastating spirit and also, the consoling angel by the same name, "God Shaddai." As idolatry gradually arose, and the different figured attributes of the LORD were worshiped as so many gods, and their number swelled by still others that were added by the idolators themselves, different families or tribes would adopt each its own peculiar idol or god. In this way it came about that Therach, the Chaldean, who was the father Abram, chose Shaddai as the god of his family or tribe, and although the Name JEHOVAH had become known in the Ancient Church, of which he was a descendant, he had not heard of it, and certainly did not worship Him. The fact that the Name JEHOVAH occurs in the history of Abram is due to the circumstance that Moses introduced it when he wrote the book of Genesis, and his doing so was of the LORD'S Providence because of the internal Sense of the Word.
130
Every particular in the writing of the Sacred Scripture was governed by the LORD for the sake of the Internal Sense. Abram's and Isaak's, and Jacob's worship of the god Shaddai was of the LORD'S Providence, and so likewise the record in Sacred Scripture of this their peculiar worship. It was adopted by the LORD, because it fully represented that which (as He teaches men and angels in the Internal Sense of the Word) occurs in the regenerate life. In the states of infancy, childhood, and youth the LORD governs man in God Shaddai"-that is to say, by continual vastations adapted to those early states, and by consequent consolations. The principles of education are contained in these few words. From the time that the suckling is punished for his first willful cry, to the time when, by an admonition addressed to the natural rational of the youth who is blossoming into manhood, he is shamed into desisting from evil habits and false persuasions, there is a constant and inevitable chain of rebuke and chastisement, in and by which the LORD operates to withhold from evil and falsity, and to instruct concerning them and concerning the opposite goods and truths, and then He follows up these vastations with benefactions, consolations, and blessings. The LORD says in the letter of the Word, "I, whomsoever I love, I rebuke and chasten" (Rev: iii, 17), and so those whom the LORD loves as tenderly as He does those who have not yet come into their own freedom and reason, He permits to undergo states of vastation in order that they may be able, when grown adult, to receive becomingly the Love which He continues to manifest to them. It must be clearly understood that by the vastations which are meant by the operations of the Divine Providence as God Shaddai with the young, is not to be understood such vastations of evil an d falsity and such temptations as adults undergo. Up to adult age, youth does not come into the exercise of full freedom and reason, yet throughout youth, varying with the different states of youth, there is something analogous to freedom and reason. Every child, when born, has the two faculties of will and understanding. He has not these two faculties so long as he still tarries in the womb, but two receptacles are preparing, one for the will of the future man, and the other for his understanding, the will being the receptacle for the reception of love and the understanding the receptacle for wisdom. These the LORD has been preparing through His Love and His Wisdom, but they have not passed over into the man before he has been fully formed for the birth. The LORD has also provided means that in them love and wisdom may be received from Him more and more fully as man grows up and then grows old. From the first, then, the will receives love and the understanding wisdom, but neither in the same form and in the same degree as when man has become adult. The love and wisdom, much as they are, prepare for the future adult love and wisdom, the germs of which they have in themselves, and the affections of the one and the thoughts of the other are put forth and exercised in such a manner that it appears to the child and youth-aye, and often, indeed, to the adult-that they enjoy the same kind of freedom and rationality as the adult, excepting that they are under obedience to their parents. This appearance is necessary for the preparation of their adult life, just as in the mature life it is necessary that it appear as if the adult acted from his own freedom and his own rationality-in other words, as if he lived from himself. The appearance is very strong and necessary. It is necessary, as otherwise man would not act as a man but as an automaton, and yet the appearance is so strong that man would give himself entirely up to it were it not that the LORD'S Word teaches him the truth. As men and women are images and likenesses of the LORD, and from this have the appearance of living from themselves, because the LORD, of whom they are images, is self-subsistent, so with the young, in whose life there is a similar reflex of the life of their elders, there is the appearance that they live as these full-developed humans do. As there is no state in the other life which has not its forerunner in the man's earth-life, so there is no state in the mature life on earth which has not had its forerunner in some way in the life of the child and adolescent. As the earth life is a preparation for the heavenly life, so the child life is the preparation for adult life. As the adult looks forward to the heavenly goal, and orders his life accordingly, so the child looks forward to man's estate, and its life must be ordered accordingly. Children must be trained to the calling they are to pursue. The Spartan nation would never have achieved its fame if the virtues which have become synonymous with that nation's name had not been enjoined and trained into the Spartan boys. The bowmen who made England famous were prepared from childhood in the use of the long-bow. The children who are to become valiant warriors on the side of Michael against the cunning devil, the dragon, need to be enured to combat from an early age. They cannot fight unaided any more than the adult can fight without the omnipotent help of the LORD, and the parents must therefore stand behind them in their repulsion of the assaults of evil spirits. The forming will develops after the pattern of the progenitor, and is open to the suggestions and enticements of evil spirits. As their presence and their influence is detected, the parents must strengthen the will of the child to send away the evil spirits, by making the un-delight of the punishment stronger than the delight of the evil which has called it forth. Where the undelight of the punishment is not stronger than the delight of the evil the punishment is worse than vain. But when it is seen that the punishment has the desired effect, and the state of the child changes from that of wilfulness, dishonesty, and deceit, to one of abject humility and obedience, then the parent must again stand in the stead of the LORD, by consoling, comforting, and doing well to the child,-but not till then. The child or youth, being in a natural state, cannot truly understand love in any other way: "I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaak, and unto Jacob, in God Shaddai, and by My Name JEHOVAH I was not known to them." Where was it that this manifestation of Shaddai and the worship of him took place? In the land of Canaan, the land of their sojournings. Whatever rebuke or chastisement is administered, it must be done in the sphere of the Church. Self-will must be kept out at all hazard, and whatever is done must be done for the end of bringing the child and youth into a state of appreciation of some of the goods and truths of the Church, and of the many delights which the church has to offer. "And also I raised up My covenant with them, to give to them the land of Canaan, the land of their sojournings, in which they have sojourned."
131
As Abraham, Isaak, and Jacob moved about from place to place in the land of Canaan, so during the period of instruction does the man of the New Church change his location in the spiritual world. From the northern part in the eastern quarter, where he is kept in infancy, he gradually goes to the south, as he learns the rudiments of religion; and then, as he becomes adolescent and begins to think from his own mind, he is taken to the south. This is the spiritual land of Canaan, the land of heaven, in which he is during his minority, when his parents, assisted by the angels, and all under the immediate government of the LORD, fill his mind as far as possible with the instruction which he will so sorely need in later life. Here the covenant is made:-in the sphere of the instructions which he receives, the LORD is present, and stores up for His own use in the coming regenerate life those remains without which man has no human life. Every new cognition is a movement in his spiritual Canaan where the roads are truths that lead to the LORD. And this heavenly state, of which he acquires a knowledge, and for which he receives a love, is promised to him as an eternal inheritance for his seed after him, after that he shall have freely fought the good fight and returned to this land of promise. For, when he comes into his own judgment and his own right, then, according to the increments in such things as interiorly regard the LORD and love toward the neighbor, he comes into the south toward the east in the spiritual world. But if he favors evil, and absorbs it, he progresses toward the west (T. C. R. 476). In the first alternative, if he has gone in the south to the east, he no longer serves God Shaddai, he is no longer tried by evil spirits, and vastated, but he worships JEHOVAH, the LORD, in His Divine Human, with whom he is conjoined by the eternal covenant, the stipulations of which are on his part that he keep the LORD'S laws of order, and on the part of the LORD that he will grant Him mercy, and ever lead him to clearer views of truth, and to higher and more blessed delights. But before he bends his footsteps toward the east, man undergoes time hard service which the Egypt of his as yet unregenerated natural man imposes. He then realizes that the chastisement of his youth did not remove his interior evils, but that by inducing the habit of not committing them externally and of not allowing them to rest in his thought in the form of intentions, it has prepared him for the real conflict, when the presence of the LORD, induced by the protecting sphere of his parents and educators and instructors, seems withdrawn, and he has to conquer for himself the state where this Presence shall return sevenfold stronger and nearer than before. Though he have struggled in his childish way before, the evils of his inherited nature have not been subdued. The evil and false forms are there, and they form a basis for the inflow and vexation and temptation by evil spirits. If a Moses arises within him, and arrives at the mount of God, where the LORD appears to him, it is because of the early promise to Abraham, Isaak, and Jacob. He reflects upon the I patriarchal past of his life, and he is strengthened by insights into the Divine Law and Doctrine which he never before had dreamed of. He is full of ardor and enthusiasm for attaining the heavenly state, for he is confident of the sublime, the Divine power of the Word to overcome the evils and falses that are troubling him. By experience he finds that he has overlooked the laws of this Doctrine and Order, that he cannot attain heaven at once, but that his life in the world will gradually bring him face to face with new evils, and to new applications of the truth of Doctrine to the states of life that arise in the prosecution of his uses to his fellow-men. The despair to which he had given way, when first realizing that his evils are not dismissed with a word, gives place to hope, and he is strengthened and raised up by the Divine words, which follow him all through his life: "I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaak, and unto Jacob in God Shaddai, and by My Name JEHOVAH I was not known to them. And also I raised up My covenant with them, to give them the land of their sojournings, in which they have sojourned. And also I, I have heard the groaning of the sons of Israel, that the Egyptians make them to serve; and I have remembered My covenant."- AMEN.
DAMNATION OF FAITH ALONE. TRANSFER OF SCIENTIFICS 1894
EXODUS XI.
THE Internal Sense of this Chapter treats of the damnation of faith separated from charity, which is signified by the first-born of Egypt, who were given up to death at midnight; then of the scientifics of truth and good which were to be transferred to those who were of the spiritual Church; these scientifics being signified by the vessels of gold and silver which the sons of Israel borrowed from the Egyptians. In the series of successive states of vastation of those who infested the upright in the other life, the last one is reached in the present chapter, this last state being the state of damnation of faith. It may be asked: Why do the evil undergo so many states of vastation? and what is meant by the damnation of faith? The successive degrees of vastation take place because no one is damned before he himself knows, and it is evinced to him interiorly, that he is in evil, and that he can by no means be in heaven. His evils also are opened to him, and, what is more, he is admonished to desist from evil, but when he cannot do this on account of the dominion of evil, then he is deprived of the power of doing evil by falsifications of the truth and simulations of good, which takes place successively from one degree to another, and finally damnation follows, and he is let down into hell. This happens when he comes into the evil of his life, concerning which see further in n. 7796 of the Arcana Coelestia. As to the damnation of faith: faith is said, to be damned when those things which are of faith are applied to favor and encourage falses and evils, for there is no truth of the Church which cannot be so twisted and perverted as to favor evils and falses. When they are used to favor them, then in the mind of him who so uses them they pass over to the side of the evils and falses, and become confirmations of them. This is done by those who separate faith from charity both in doctrine and in life. But such people have no faith truly so- called. They are possessed merely of the knowledge of such things as are of faith, which knowledge they then call faith. The people themselves in whose minds those things which are of faith were adjoined to evils and falses, are in damnation after the vastations. After they have been vastated-that is to say, after all things which had been of faith have been rejected-they are in such condition that they suffer pain at the least breath of good and truth, and hence they are averse to it, for they are a mass of wounds and corruption, and are disposed toward good and truth just as painful wounds are disposed toward the contact of even tepid water, and a breath of air, or as an inflamed eye toward ray's of sun light.
132
The Divine instruction was again imparted, "and JEHOVAH said unto Moses"-that the end of the vastation which is damnation was at hand, "Yet one plague will I bring upon Pharaoh and upon Egypt"-and that then the upright would be left, "after this he will send you away hence"-and indeed that the infesters would entirely leave the upright and would be averse to them and shun their presence," as he will send away everything, expelling he will expel you hence." The upright were informed and obeyed the injunction, "Say, now, in the ears of the people"-that the scientifics of truth and good were to be taken away from the evil who had been of the Church, and were to be ascribed the good who had been of the Church, "and they shall ask, a man of his companion, and a woman of her companion, vessels of silver and vessels of gold." Those who were in evil were afraid of those who were of the spiritual Church, on account of the plagues, "and JEHOVAH gave the grace of the people in the eyes of the Egyptians"-and from this fear great respect for the Truth Divine now, "also the man Moses was very great in the land of Egypt"-as entertained by those among them who were in subordination, "in the eyes of the servants of Pharaoh and in the eyes of the people." (4-8.) The Truth Divine gave further instruction, "and Moses said, Thus said JEHOVAH"-that when the total devastation was at hand, and there was mere falsity, "about the middle of the night"-the Divine would then be present everywhere, "I, I shall go forth into the midst of Egypt"-and faith separate from charity would be damned, "and die shall every first-born in the land of Egypt"-from the falsified truths of faith which were in the first place, "from the first-born of Pharaoh that is to sit, upon his throne"-down to the falsified truths of faith that were in the last place, "even unto the first-born of the maid that is behind the mill"-and likewise the adulterated goods of faith, "and every first-born of beast"-which damnation would cause an interior lamentation, "and there shall be a great cry, in the whole land of Egypt"-and cause such a state, that a state like unto it could never occur again, "such as there had not been like it, and like it shall not be added"-while among those who were of the spiritual Church there would not be the least damnation and lamentation, "and against all the sons of Israel a dog shall not move its tongue"-not that those who are of the Church are without any evil, but they are withheld from evil and kept in good by the LORD. Their proprium is nothing but evil, and damned, but the proprium of the LORD, which they receive, is good, and thus without damnation. And so it was to be understood that those who were in the LORD were not damned, either as to truth or as to good, "to from a man and even unto beast"-in order that the difference might be known that existed between those who were in evil and those who were in good, "therefore that ye may know that JEHOVAH discerneth between the Egyptians and Israel." Those who were subordinate, "and descend shall all these thy servants unto me"-would have respect for the Truth Divine from fear, "and shall bow down themselves to me"-and would supplicate that those might depart from them who were in truth from the Divine, from the highest to the lowest of them, "saying, Go forth, thou, and alt the people that is in thy feet"-and the Truth Divine would then depart, "and after this I shall go forth"-since from those who have infested the upright, when they are damned, every Truth Divine departs, for then they are in a state of their own evil, and evil rejects and extinguishes every Truth Divine. And the presence of Truth Divine was torn away by those who were to be damned, "and he went forth from with Pharaoh in the heat of anger." (9, 10.) The information was conveyed," and JEHOVAH said unto Moses"-that those who were in evil would not obey, "not will hear unto you Pharaoh"-in order that it might be confirmed that they were in no faith, but in evil, "therefore that My prodigies may be multiplied in the land of Egypt." The vastations, and the consequent confirmation that they were in evil, were effected by the Truth from the Divine, "and Moses and Aharon did all those prodigies before Pharaoh." Accordingly the evil made themselves obstinate, "and JEHOVAH made firm the heart of Pharaoh"-and did not leave those who were of the spiritual Church, and he did not send away the sons of Israel out of his land."
LIBERATION OF THE FAITHFUL, AND DAMNATION OF THE UNFAITHFUL 1894
EXODUS XII, 1-11.
THE Internal Sense of this Chapter treats of the liberation of those who are of the spiritual Church, and the damnation of those who are in faith separate from charity: the damnation of the latter and the liberation of the former is represented by the Passover; and the states as to charity and faith, of those who were liberated, by the things that were to be observed on the days of the Passover. In the supreme sense, by the Passover is represented the damnation of the unfaithful, and the liberation of the faithful by the LORD when He was glorified: their state, such as it then was, and such as it will be thereafter, in the universal as well as in every particular, is described by the statutes of the Passover in that supreme sense.
(1, 2.) THE information conveyed through the Truth Divine, concerning things to be established in the Church, "and JEHOVAH said unto Moses and unto Aharon"-while those who were of the spiritual Church were still in the neighborhood of the infesters, "in the land of Egypt"-was that this state, namely, the state of the damnation of the unfaithful and the liberation of the faithful, was to be the principal of all states, "saying, this month is to you the head of the months"- being the beginning from which are all the following states, to eternity, "the first is this to you for the months of the year"-for this state is the beginning of the liberation of those who are of the spiritual Church, and who have been in a state of captivity, because they have been detained in the lower earth, and there have been infested by the evil. Their first state when liberated was the principal of all, and the beginning, from which were all the following ones to eternity, because those who were there were liberated by the Advent of the LORD into the world, and because without the Advent of the LORD into the world no one could have been saved; and they were then liberated when the LORD arose. Likewise also was this afterward the principal of all states to all those who are of the spiritual Church, who could never have been saved unless the LORD had come into the world, and had glorified His Human-that is, made it Divine. (3-6.) All who were of the spiritual Church were to receive the influx and information concerning things to be observed when they were liberated, "Speak unto all the assembly of Israel saying"-namely, that then is the state of the initiation of the interiors, that is to say, the state of preparation to receive the good and truth of the influxes from the Divine, when the inmost good of innocence, with the interiors, is secluded and withheld from those things which defile, "In the tenth of this month"-in this state there is good, "and they shall take to themselves every one a sheep"-according to the special good of every one (concerning which see A. C. 7833), "unto the house of the fathers, a sheep unto a house."
133
If the particular good is not enough for the innocence, "and if the house be too little for a sheep"-then it is to be conjoined with the neighboring good of truth, "and he shall take, he and his neighbor next unto his house"-and thus the good for the innocence will be infilled from so many truths of good according to its appropriation, "in the number of the souls, every one unto the mouth of his eating ye shall number upon the sheep"-whence the innocence would be inaculate, without any false or evil, "an entire sheep"-an innocence of the faith of charity (what this is, see explained in Arcana Coelestia, n. 7838), "male"-which will be in a full state, that is to say, in a state in which the good is such that none of the truths of faith, conjoined with the good of charity are lacking for the reception of the influx of innocence, "the son of a year shall be to you"-and the good of the innocence-will be both exterior and interior, "of the lambs and of the goats ye shall take"-at the time and state of the initiation, "and it shall be to you for a custody"-until a holy state is reached, "even unto the fourteenth of this month"-there being a preparation by all in general who are of the spiritual Church to enjoy the innocence, "and all the congregation of the assembly of Israel shall slay it"-when there is the state which is the last state of the infestation and the first state of the liberation, "between the evenings." (7-11.) When, before the Advent of the LORD, those who were detained in the lower earth in guard were liberated, they were prepared to receive the influx of good and truth from the LORD, for they passed through the midst of hell; and lest, in that transit, there should inflow evils and falses from the infernals round about, therefore they were to be prepared, that they might then be in a full state of truth and good. The holy Truth which is of good of innocence, "and they shall take of the blood"-was to inflow into the truths and goods of the natural, "and shall give upon the two posts and upon the lintel"-and into the things which were of the will of good, "upon the houses"-and enjoyed, "wherein they shall eat it"-and good was to be enjoyed, "and they shall eat the flesh"-when the evil were being damned "in that night." The good which is of love, "roast with fire"-purified from every false, "and unleavened bread"-and acquired through the undelights of temptations, "up on bitternesses"-was to be enjoyed, "ye shall eat it." It was not to be enjoyed without love, "eat not thereof raw"-nor was it to go forth from the truth which is of faith as contrasted with the truth which is of love, "and cooking cooked with waters"- for the state of obedience was past and the state of doing from the affection of truth had taken its place, therefore it was to be from love, "but roast with fire"-from the inmost to the outmost, so that the natural would do as the spiritual willed," its head upon its legs and upon its middle." This state was to endure only until the state of illustration in heaven; for it the state of liberation serves as a means to that as an end, "and ye shall not leave of it even until morning"-though the state might be enjoyed as a means up to the end through temptations, "and the residue of it even unto the morning, with fire ye shall burn" The state is to be enjoyed in a state of separation from the evil who have infested, and it is to be preserved then, "and thus ye shall eat it the interiors being adapted to receive the influx of good and truth from the LORD, and also to do according to the influx, "your loins girded"-so also the exteriors, "your shoes in your feet"-and so also the means, and your state in your hand "-and they should be full of the affection of being separated from the infesters," and ye shall eat it in haste." Thus the LORD would be present, and He would effect the liberation, "a Passover w this to JEHOVAH."
ROBERT HINDMARSH 1894
VIII.
NEW ACTIVITIES
EMERGING from the state of apparent indifference and spiritual vastation which followed upon the struggles described in the last chapter, Robert Hindmarsh re-appears in the history of the New Church in the year 1810, when it is known that he prepared a new preface to his translation of the work on The Last Judgment, which was the first work published by "The Society for Printing and Publishing the Writings of the Hon. Emanuel Swedenborg, instituted in London in the year 1810 " (I., 1838, p. 359). In January, 1811, Robert Hindmarsh, who was then without a settled occupation, removed to Manchester to take charge of a printing office which the Rev. William Cowherd professed to have established in that city for the special purpose of publishing translations of Swedenborg's Scientific and Theological Works. Mr. Cowherd had formerly been a Curate under the Rev. John A Clowes, and was later, for some years, the Pastor of the New Church Society in Manchester, which had separated itself from the Old Church, and had opened a chapel in Peter Street; but he was never ordained into the Priesthood of the New Church. An eloquent and popular preacher, he was at the same time a person of unbalanced if not unsettled judgment, combining with this an incredible arrogance and imperiousness. While proclaiming himself as the most extraordinary man living-which he may have been, in one sense-and as the only person in the world who really understood the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg, he perverted the Doctrines of the Church to suit his fantastic notions, and finally founded an independent sect, styled "The Bible Christians," the most distinguishing feature of which was total abstinence from fermented liquors and from animal food. Though he and several others who had formerly belonged to the New Church finally fell victims to a diet for which they were not prepared, the sect still survives in England, and also in America, where a congregation yet exists in Philadelphia. It seems that Hindmarsh, when connecting himself with Cowherd, was not aware of the latter's personal and theological peculiarities. Arriving at Manchester, he found that the "Printing Office" was a fiction, and that Cowherd only wished to use the name of Robert Hindmarsh to seduce the New Church. After enduring, for three months, incredible indignities from this fanatic, Hindmarsh broke his engagement with him, and determined to return to London. By this time, however, the members of the New Church in the neighborhood of Manchester had, as if by accident, discovered the wonderful power of Hindmarsh as a public speaker and expounder of the Word. A number of them urged upon him to accept the office of minister to a new Society then being formed in Manchester, and, after much hesitation on account of his age, as he was then in his fifty-second year, Hindmarsh finally consented to enter actively into the work of the Priesthood.
134
A room in Clarence Street, Manchester, was furnished for a chapel, and here Robert Hindmarsh entered into the full performance of the sacred office, to which he earnestly considered himself as called and ordained by the LORD. The Rev. D. G. Goyder, in his Concise History of the New Jerusalem Church (London, 1827), thus describes Hindmarsh as a preacher:
"Mr. Hindmarsh is so far from having studied preaching as an art that he has been heard to say it was what he abominated. His utterance is at mice rapid and natural, flowing inconceivably easy, and productive of great effect upon such elevated minds as are capable of understanding him. He is so exceedingly well read in all the Writings of our author that his discourses appear as combining all the luminous views of Emanuel Swedenborg, whilst they are couched in language of the most elegant and dignified description. He is not very apt in Scriptural quotation, but his comparisons and illustrations are striking and beautiful in the extreme. For a congregation of old recipients of the New Church, I look upon him as being the Minister most likely to be useful, for it is no disparagement to other ministers to state that his knowledge of the Doctrines is superior to most, equal to all, and inferior to none. But where there is a society of new recipients, or where they are young men, I do not consider him as likely to be so eminently useful; still, in making this assertion I wish it to be understood that the fault would be more in the hearer than in the speaker his discourses being mostly of that interior and spiritual kind, only fitted to those who have been long receivers and readers of the Writings" (p. 112).
No faithful preacher of the Internal Sense of the Word can wish for higher praise than this, but Mr. Goyder is evidently mistaken in his estimate of Hindmarsh's power of accommodating his presentation of the Doctrines to the apprehension of the simple or the uninstructed. Few, if any, of the ministers of the Church have enjoyed more signal success than did Hindmarsh in the work of external evangelization, whenever he applied himself to it. His favored field, however, was the literary work in the Church, to which he now could devote himself more freely. The first fruit of this work, after he had resigned his secular occupations, was a translation of The Coronis, or Appendix to the True Christian Religion, which was published at Manchester in the year 1811. This was the first English translation of the Coronis, and was furnished with a very valuable "Glossary," explaining certain foreign or unusual terms and names used by the author. In the same year Hindmarsh published an excellent sermon on The Birth of Immanual, treating of the Incarnation of the LORD. In the following year he published a work, entitled Reflections on the Unitarian and Trinitarian Doctrines (Manchester, 47 pp.), which was occasioned by the public attacks on the Divinity of the LORD by the Rev. John Grundy, a Unitarian minister. His next work was published under the title, The New School of Theology (Manchester, 24 pp.), and contained a description of the aims and methods of an Institution which he had opened in Manchester, in the year 1813. This School was to be "similar to the ancient Schools of Philosophy and Divinity." It was to be open on Thursday evenings, and was intended to afford all inquirers an opportunity to investigate and discuss the Doctrines of the New Church. The undertaking was, at first, attended with great success, and a number of persons were by these means led to accept the Heavenly Doctrines. But after a time the meetings began to be disturbed by disorderly persons, the public interest died out, and the school was finally discontinued. The room in Clarence Street was obscurely situated, and notwithstanding the splendid talent of the preacher, the Society did not increase in numbers.
"Twice Mr. Hindmarsh, had his goods packed up, and was on the point of departure for London, and twice was this room closed, and again opened to the public; his friends were exceedingly reluctant to part with him, and on the evening preceding his intended departure, when he had not so much as a candlestick unpacked, it was contended that the erection of a New Temple would be the only means of raising a Society, and of permanently establishing Mr. Hindmarsh among them. The idea was no sooner presented than grasped, and Mr. Hindmarsh had once more to unpack" (Goyder's History, p. 111).
Accordingly a commodious and handsome Church was built in Salford, near Manchester, which was dedicated by Hindmarsh in September, 1813. From this time forth the Society increased and prospered greatly under the faithful ministrations of the talented Pastor, who continued in that office during the period of eleven years. Robert Hindmarsh's most extensive work was published in the year 1814, under the striking title A Seal upon the Lips of Unitarians, Trinitarians, and all others who refuse to acknowledge the Sole, Supreme, and Exclusive Divinity of our LORD AND SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST. In this work of 600 pages Hindmarsh has brought together and explained one hundred and forty-four passages from the New Testament, in proof that JESUS CHRIST is the Supreme and only God of Heaven and Earth. The illustrations and remarks of the author are singularly clear and striking, and the whole work is an invaluable addition to the evangelistic literature in the Church. It has gained a well-merited popularity in the New Church, and has been republished twice in England and once in America. As a sequel to the Seal upon the Lips, and to be distributed gratis with it, Hindmarsh published at the same time a little work of 35 pages with the curious title, The Interview Extraordinary, being the report of an imaginary conversation between Athanasius, Arms, Socinus, Dr. Priestley, and Mr. Hindmarsh. The errors of Tri-theism and Atheism are here, again, exposed in a clever and entertaining manner. In July, 1815, Hindmarsh finished an interesting little work on Precious Stones, which was published at London, in the year 1851, sixteen years after his death. He treats here of the spiritual signification of the stones in the breastplate of Aaron, and other precious stones mentioned in the Word, and gives proof of thorough scholarship as well as of a systematic study of the Writings. In the same year he was chosen President of the Eighth General Conference, which met in Manchester, August 14th to 18th, 1815. This Conference was of especial interest, in consequence of the unanimous resolution which it passed, establishing a Trine in the Priesthood. Though elected President, Hindmarsh was not recognized as an ordained Minister by this meeting. The next work produced by Robert Hindmarsh was A Compendium of the Chief Doctrines of the True Christian Religion (London, 1816, pp. 166), which in a very brief compass presents a bird's-eye view, as it were, of the pearly gates and golden streets of the Holy City, the New Jerusalem. This compendium was the first of its kind ever published, and became very popular in the Church. It was published in new editions both in England and in America, and has been published twice in the French language. In the year 1816, Hindmarsh published, further, his Remarks on the Holy League (Manchester, pp. 48).
135
This League, it will be remembered, was an Alliance entered into after the fall of Napoleon between the rulers of Austria, Prussia, and Russia, whereby these monarchs bound themselves to remain united in "true and indissoluble fraternity" under the Supreme Sovereignty of "God the Divine Saviour." History shows the hollowness of this pretended "Holy Alliance," but Hindmarsh, and many with him, hailed it at the tune as the harbinger of a new dispensation of love, justice, and peace among the nations on earth. He sent Copies of his Remarks to the three rulers concerned, and received, in reply, a brief but gracious acknowledgment signed by Frederick William, the King of Prussia. On July 26th, of the same year, Robert Hindmarsh paid a visit to the ancient town of Colchester, and delivered there a lecture on the Doctrines of the New Church From four to five hundred persons were present on this occasion, crowding the room almost to suffocation Though the meeting was ended abruptly, owing to the disorderly and even threatening attitude of a mob of Methodists, yet a profound impression had been made upon the minds of some. A Society of the New Church was soon afterward formed in this town, where an earnest and progressive Church is still in existence (I., 1816, p. 252). The following year Hindmarsh made another missionary journey, which was attended with great success and permanent result. He visited and lectured in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Paisley, New Castle, Hull, York, and Leeds, and wherever he appeared great multitudes were attracted by his well-known name, and were instructed by his luminous exposition of the Doctrines. In Edinburgh, Paisley, and Glasgow his visits led to the establishment of permanent new Church Societies (I., 1817, p. 503). At the Eleventh General Conference, held in Derby, August 11th to 14th, 1818, Robert Hindmarsh was again elected President. In the Report of this Conference we find the following minute:
"37. Mr. Robert Hindmarsh having been requested to leave the room, and the Rev. 3. Proud called to the chair, the subject respecting the ordination of Mr. Robert Hindmarsh was then introduced, and underwent a very deliberate and able discussion: when it was "Rewired, unanimously, That in consequence of Mr. Robert Hindmarsh having been called by lot to ordain the first minister in the New Church, this Conference consider it as the most orderly method which could then be adopted, and that Mr. Robert Hindmarsh was virtually ordained by the divine auspices of heaven; in consequence of which this Conference consider Mr. Robert Hindmarsh as one of the regular ordaining ministers."
This resolution is of the utmost importance in the history of the Church, being a distinct acknowledgment of the Divine origin of the Priesthood. Unfortunately, the Conference did not long remain in this acknowledgment, although the ordinations through Robert Hindmarsh have never been formally repudiated. The Intellectual Repository for the same year contains a "Proposal for founding a Seminary for the education of youth in general, and particularly for the qualification of young men as Ministers of the New Jerusalem," which was communicated by Robert Hindmarsh in The Intellectual Repository. This proposition, which may be said to have initiated the long-continued propaganda for a distinctively New Church education, is characteristic of Hindmarsh's penetrating view of the most effective means to the establishment of the New Church. We quote the following from the introductory paragraph of the" Proposal"
"It laving been found, by more than thirty years' experience, that the course of Religious Education adopted in the Universities and other public Seminaries is in itself a serious obstacle to the reception of the Heavenly Doctrine of the New Jerusalem, inasmuch as it disqualifies rather than prepares a student for the important office of minister in the New Church; and it being now generally admitted that a respectable, able, and useful ministry (however desirable) cannot be established, unless measures be taken to unite with liberal education a system of Religions instruction in all respects congenial with the true sense of Divine Revelation, as laid down in the Theological Writings of the late Hononrable Emanuel Swedenborg;-the following Proposals are therefore, submitted to the consideration of the members of the New Church in general" (I., 1818, p. 42).
Though this proposition does not appear to have been immediately adopted by the Church at large, the idea had found an expression, the seed had been sown. The first attempt to establish a New Church College, such as the one proposed by Hindmarsh, was made ten years later in London, when the "Woodford School" was instituted by Mr. W. Malins, and though this School, after a few years, lost its distinctive character, yet the desire for New Church education amid many disappointments and much bitter opposition, revived and increased in force, until, in the year 1876, it found an organic ultimation in the establishment of the Academy of the New Church, which body has adopted, as its chief raison d'etre the performance of this all-important Heavenly use. In the year 1820 Robert Hindmarsh published another excellent work, which was entitled A Key to the Spiritual Signification of Numbers, and of Weights and Measures in the Holy Word (Manchester, 238 pp.) The author has here compiled and carefully digested the teachings of the Writings on these subjects. The little volume is one of the most useful works in the collateral literature of the Church, and might be republished to the great benefit of every student of the Science of Correspondences.
(To be continued.)
CHURCH IN AFRICA 1894
THE New- Church student of extant literature relating to the African is beset by perplexities which multiply as he advances through the labyrinth of conflicting evidence. Keeping always before his mind the teachings of the Writings on the subject of this peculiar race, he looks everywhere for confirmations as he follows the white traveler through strange scenes and far, vast spaces; but, at the best he is able only now and then to see glimmerings of light as through a dusky cloud, and he is often tempted to shut the books with a sigh and have done with a fruitless investigation. When he can no longer rest in the conjecture that the people of the vast interior, who are of a celestial genius, and among whom the Church has been established, have not as yet been encountered by the white man, he needs often to remind himself that the white traveler is prone to look upon all he sees with a prejudiced eye, or from a negative attitude, and cannot altogether be trusted. And it is true enough that a Stanley, a warlike adventurer, who hews his way through the dark continent with the battle-axe and the sword, is not likely to see the favorable side of the terrorized natives; nor is a Livingstone, who goes in peace indeed, but carries the evangel of three false Gods, any more likely to see the really better side, and, least of all, to recognize the presence of a celestial Church. But there are other men of other temper whose reports may be taken with less reservation, and now that the African continent has been crossed and recrossed a number of times, it seems an incredible supposition that the men of the celestial Church have not as yet been seen by travelers.
136
For in number 5946 of the Spiritual Diary, we are told that the best of the Africans are "at the side toward the sea," that the worst are "further toward where Egypt is placed," and that throughout a vast-presumably intervening-tract of country they all worship the Lord, and are instructed by many who communicate with angels. Elsewhere it is said: "Since the Africans are of this character in this world also [capable of receiving the goods and truths of heaven more easily than other races], there is now a revelation among them which goes from the middle around but not as far as the sea" (Con. L. J. 76). "It was afterward shown in dim vision how that heavenly doctrine would proceed in Africa, namely toward the interior, but not to the middle of it, and then it would band itself to those inhabitants who are in the interior, but nearer to the Mediterranean Sea, and so it would advance lengthwise, but not to the coasts, and then after a time it would turn itself back through an interior tract even toward Egypt, and also would afterwards advance thence to some in Asia under the empire of the Turks, and also into Asia round about" (S. D. 4777). "The best and wisest are in the interior of Africa, those not so good are near the Mediterranean Sea, near Egypt and the Cape of Good Hope. The mountains where are the good ones of Ethiopia are toward the middle" (L. J. 124). These four important statements, which apparently do not concord at every point, and furnish but the most indefinite information as regards the exact position of the Church in Africa, at least show conclusively that even a hundred years ago it covered a vast extent of territory; and now that comparatively little of the country yet remains unknown to the white traveler, it seems, as was said above, inconceivable that the men of this Church have not in a single instance been encountered. What, then, do we hear of the various tribes of the great interior which should presumably be included within the limits of, or at least be influenced by, the celestial Church? The unvarying testimony is of peoples and nations whose virtues-often extraordinary ones-go hand in hand with the most shocking vices. For instance, the Monbuttus of the Congo basin fight valiantly for their country, are loyal to their pledged word and steadfast in friendship, but are cannibals of the worst type, converting their slain enemies into jerked meat and reserving captives for future feasts. One of the distinctive national traits of the Niam-Niams is the "vehemence of their conjugal affection." Contrary to prevailing custom, no woman is ever purchased among them. The chief always selects a suitable wife for the marriageable young man, and although freedom of choice would thus seem to be interfered with, these unions are seldom unhappy, the wife proving most faithful. But the Niam-Niams, like so many other tribes, sell their own people into slavery. The Mandingoes, who live in the region of the greater Soudan, a thousand miles inland from the west coast, are described as a mild and gentle race, cheerful in disposition, inquisitive, credulous, kind, and hospitable. The maternal and filial affection is everywhere conspicuous among them, in evidence of which is their common expression, "strike me but do not curse my mother." But these otherwise amiable people are said to exhibit an apparently insurmountable propensity for stealing, although they acknowledge theft to be a crime. The Ba- Songe, a numerous and comparatively civilized nation dwelling in the basin of the Kassai, are reported as one of the finest and most athletic of negro races. They are intelligent and industrious, skillfully manipulating iron, copper, clay, woven fabrics, etc., and unlike the men of most African tribes, the Ba- Songe are considerate of their women to the extent of performing all field operations themselves. But here, again, the picture is spoiled by the mention of cannibalistic practices in the form of religious rites. According to recent travelers, the Ba-Luha, neighbors of the Ba- Songe, are a people of many pleasing characteristics, and are distinguished by an intelligent curiosity and a thoughtful turn of mind. They despise routine, and at their feasts are always inventing something new and unforeseen, displaying originality which the whites may well envy. They are said to have abandoned their ancient religion, and no longer punish witchcraft or allow parents to sell their daughters into slavery. The reader pricks up his ears at this announcement, but when presently it is added that the Ba-Luba eagerly inquire of the whites if Europeans have a medicine which will "prevent people from dying," the hope that here may be found evidences of the celestial Church receives a decisive check, and it is no surprise to read farther on that the new cult has earned for these people the title Bena-Riamba, or "Sons of Hemp." All smokers of riamba call themselves friends, and are members of a common brotherhood, which might more fittingly be called a society of drunkards. All their religious ceremonies are now reduced to the simple custom of assembling to smoke the hemp in common, which soon plunges nil hands into a state of stupor, or brings on paroxysms of frenzy, with further evil consequences to follow in the shape of insanity, diseases of the chest, etc. The above-mentioned are among the more promising tribes. Some of the evils found among certain others are too shocking to be named. The Bushmen regard fratricide as perfectly harmless, and have only one word to signify girl, maiden, and wife. They consort together like cattle, have no real marriage, the men exchanging their women freely. Lust and gluttony appear to be regarded as the acme of earthly felicity. According to Bastian, in all negro languages the word belly is one of great import. Politeness requires that one ask at every meeting if all is well with his neighbor's belly, and the Kroo negroes assert that the stomach ascends into heaven after death. According to Campbell, the Bechuanans have less regard for the aged than for cattle, and abandon them to their fate without compunction. Their neighbors, the Coraunas, expose the old people to wild beasts, they being, as they say, no longer of any account, only serving to use up the provisions. Among the Bushmen also the daughter often turns her old mother out of the hut, leaving her to be devoured by wild beasts, and sons put their fathers to death with impunity. And yet these same wretched Bushmen seem to worship an invisible God. Traveling in a wilderness with Livingstone, and coming into a region where water was no longer found, a Bushman took out his dice, and throwing, said God told him to turn back. In order to show Livingston the command, he threw again, and as the opposite result followed, he remained. When a Bushman is questioned as to intellectual things, he quickly complains of weariness and headache, and if the intellectual things in question had reference to the doctrine of a tri-personal God, which was likely enough in the case of Livingstone's servant, we may not wonder.
137
Examples might be multiplied, but the foregoing are sufficient to show how unsatisfactory are the accounts given us of even the best African tribes and those most likely to be included within the territory of the Celestial. Church, or, at the least, to have felt its influence. In the course of this inquiry, however, it should never be forgotten that even where the Church really exists the population is probably divided between those of the Church and those not of it, and the white traveler, on beholding the evil doings, may easily be induced to attribute the sins of the part to the whole. Such a mistake is only too compatible with the superficial observation and negative attitude of the average traveler, especially when he is describing the men of another race and genius whom he cannot thoroughly understand even though he would.
(To be continued.)
APPRECIATION OF THE NEW MUSIC 1894
PROBABLY all in the Church who have sung or heard the Psalms published as "Academy Church Music" have for some time past been looking forward to the time when their appreciation of this beautiful, heaven-born music would take ultimate form in the presentation of a silver Loving- Cup to the composer, Mr. C. J. Whittington, of London. And yet the common anticipation was not shared by at least two persons: the composer himself and his wife, for the secret which was known by hundreds was nevertheless strictly kept from them. A suitable occasion for the presentation occurred soon after the Cup was received from the silversmith's. A meeting of the priests of the Academy had been called I by the Chancel or for the 8th day of August at London. Besides the ministers present in England, there attended the meeting five from the United States, who crossed the ocean for the purpose. During their stay two church socials were held in the London Church of the Academy, and at the first one, held August 9th, the presentation to Mr. Whittington took place. The room was tastily decorated with banners and flags representing the ecclesiastical work usually carried on in the building, and the nationalities of the hosts and guests of the evening. The social was opened by the pastor, the Rev. R. J. Tilson, who welcomed the American visitors, in which welcome the congregation entered heartily. When the time for the presentation arrived Bishop Pendleton, who has general charge of all the worship of the Church of the Academy, and pastoral charge in Philadelphia, arose, and after thanking Pastor Tilson and the assembled friends for the hearty welcome they had accorded him and his brother Priests from America, said: "But I rose to speak chiefly on another subject. I will first say a word or two in regard to worship in the Church. The worship must be an expression-a proper expression-of the state of the Church; and when there is a new state of the Church there must be a new worship to express that state. With the Academy, as we all know and believe, there has been inaugurated a new state of the Church in the world; a new and true and spiritual idea of the LORD has come to men of the LORD in His Second Coming. That idea has been carried out in various ways and manners in the life of the Church. So long as we were connected with the existing New Church in this country and in America we could not progress at all, we were not able to establish a new worship. But after the separation, the thought of a new worship at once forced itself upon our minds; we began to follow in that direction, and have had good reason to rejoice in many new things. Among those things we rejoice in a New Music. Indeed, there cannot be, it is clear to us now, a proper expression of this new state of the Church without such music as we have given us at this time. When we first began to think of the new worship, we thought we should have to depend upon the old music, and we lamented that fact, but still accepted it as a fact in the Divine Providence. But when, in the LORD'S Providence, Mr. Bostock came over to America bringing some pieces of new music with him, I well remember the effect upon my mind when I heard them. It took form in words to this effect: 'there is worship in that music.' That was when I first heard it. But from that time the work has been -going on, and the results you have seen. "One of the things that we wish to do in coming over here is to give expression to our appreciation and gratitude for what the LORD has done for us. For, this new music, like all good gifts, is from the LORD, and we are grateful to the LORD for it. And we are grateful to His instrument. The LORD operates through instrumentalities to do His work. It is right that we should be grateful; gratitude is an essential of charity. You remember what is said of a newly arrived spirit in the other world: that when the angels had performed for him certain offices of kindness, he began to think what he should do for them in return; he felt gratitude toward them; and then it is said it was a sign that he was in charity. So we may say, Woe to the man who does not feel gratitude for the gifts which the LORD bestows upon him. "We felt a gratitude for this music, and we wish tonight to give expression to that gratitude. Mr. Whittington has been doing this work with delight, and gladly, for the Church; he has not desired any return except the consciousness that the work is a good and useful work. But it is right for us to go further than that; it is right for us to express to him in some form the affection that is aroused in us for the work he is doing; and so we have taken a step to do that. "To-night I wish to reveal to you that about which you know already but which you have not yet seen with your eyes, and which I will now show you." Bishop Pendleton here unveiled a loving-cup of beautiful design, and engraved with suitable inscriptions, and continued: "If our brother Whittington will please rise I should like to say a word to him. "This Cup, my brother, is the effect of a spontaneous movement in the Church in America and in this country, and it is an expression of the gratitude of the Church to the LORD, and to you as His instrument, for the work you have been doing for the Church in giving to the Church this beautiful music-music that rejoices our hearts, stirs our affections for the truths of the Church, and affects us as no other music. "I know you are thankful to the LORD that you are able to do this, and you desire no reward but the consciousness that you are able to do your work well and thoroughly. You are doing this work well, and we wish, in the name of the Church in America and in this country, to give you this cup as an ultimate expression of our gratitude. May the LORD'S blessing be upon you. May Heaven bless you and yours in this world and in the life to come."
138
Mr. Whittington, who had been greeted with cheers on rising, and had been embraced by Bishop Pendleton, replied: "You must not expect me to say very much just at this time. Certainly I did not know what I had done, exactly, that Mr. Pendleton should say so much about this music. It now appears what it was to lead to, and although it is perfectly true that I am sufficiently rewarded by the appreciation of my brethren in the Church of the music, which it has been a great delight to me to write, still I cannot do otherwise than gratefully accept your expression of charity toward me in this gift, which I shall certainly value very highly, and all the more that it has been presented on such a pleasant occasion as this. We are, as you know, a small body, and have gone through a good many trials and struggles, and this is a red-letter day with us, when we are able to welcome so many of those whom we love and respect and see among us for the first time. I can only say that I hope I may do more work yet for the Church." Bishop Pendleton said that the cup bore certain designs and inscriptions which would be interesting to those assembled, and he would therefore ask Mr. Schreck, who had so efficiently co-operated with Mr. Whittington in teaching the new music, to explain those designs. The Rev. E. J. E. Schreck said that the idea of the loving cup had come down to us from the primitive Christians. We were told in the Writings that when they had feasts of charity they all drank from one cup, which they handed from one to the other, sharing, as brethren, the common gifts of the LORD (T. C. R. 433). This was a loving-cup because it was full of the love they had, first, to the LORD, and in the second place to His servant for the beautiful Psalmody he had supplied, and they hoped that-as first states enter into all that succeed-so as love now filled the cup as its first contents, all the wine it might ever contain might have within it, inmostly, the love that comes from the LORD and is received from Him by those who are the LORD'S disciples, so that it may strengthen soul and body and conjoin in love all who partake of it. On one side, near the brim, the cup bears the inscription, "E Calo auditum eat suavissimum Melos" ("Out of Heaven was heard sweetest melody"). These words are part of the opening sentence of a Memorable Relation in Conjugial Love (n. 55), where a heavenly song is described, and it is said that heavenly songs are sonorous affections, or expressed and modified affections of sound. The sweetness of the song was like the affection of some love flowing forth harmoniously. The music to which the Psalms have been set is, we feel confident, out of heaven; it is the expression of affections that are contained in the Word, and it stirs and excites holy and good affections, affections that tend toward Heaven. Under the inscription is the central representative motif on which the silversmith lavished his greatest care. It is a seven-stringed lyre, partly-encircled by branches of the noble laurel, which was awarded in ancient times, and is awarded even to the present time in heaven, to those who are victorious in conflict, and who excel in the performance of uses. The base of the cup, on both sides, is filled with a representative of charity, the grapevine, with its ornamental leaves and clusters of grapes. Some of the leaves and clusters also border the top of the reverse side of the cup. The reverse side bears the inscription, "To Charles James Whittington, our leader in the New Psalmody, with the love and gratitude of his fellow-worshipers of the LORD JESUS CHRIST IN HIS SECOND ADVENT." On their behalf, therefore, Mr. Schreck returned the cup into the hands of its owner. (The cup, it may he added, is of silver, lined with gold. It has two handles, and holds about three pints.) Mr. Schreck remarked that the desire of expressing the appreciation for the new music by an ultimate token was entertained for some time, until at a social meeting in Philadelphia it took form in the determination of presenting a loving-cup to Mr. Whittington. The idea spread rapidly, and was favorably entertained everywhere. The plan was that every one, young and old, who was benefited by the Music, should contribute and have a share in the presentation, and he doubted not that it would be interesting to Mr. Whittington and to others to know that the very first contribution was received from a little child. While the cup circled among the friends for their inspection of it, Bishop Pendleton invited the other ministers present to speak in regard to the new music. The Rev. Dandridge Pendleton, of Chicago, said: "I shall not attempt to add anything to what has been said in praise of the new music, except to state that it has gained a complete conquest over us of the Immanuel Church. When it was first suggested in Philadelphia to make this loving-cup a gift to Mr. Whittington, it was my privilege to be present. I met the Chicago people at a Friday evening meeting. I told them of the idea that was on foot, and they received it with enthusiasm. I tell you of this as being, I think, the best way to convey to Mr. Whittington, and to you all, but especially to him, the mind of the Immanuel Church in regard to the music which has been given them through him. They love it very, very much, and look forward with the keenest pleasure and delight to each new instalment, and they are always asking the question and wondering how long Mr. Whittington will be able to keep it up. No one has been able to answer them, but the hope has been expressed by some of us that the LORD will, spare him to at least give expressions to the whole of the Psalms in music. It will be a grand and glorious gift to the Church. For myself I can only say that I feel the new music possesses a quality I cannot describe. I can only say that I love it very much, and all my friends and acquaintances do the same. I want to assure Mr. Whittington that the love and affection of the Immanuel Church go out to him, and that it was a great delight to them to know that I should be here to-night as their representative, and they hoped that I should have an opportunity of expressing their feelings on the matter." The Rev. F. E. Waelchli said: "In Berlin as well as in Philadelphia and Chicago the proposal to express the appreciation on the part of the Church for the new music was very heartily received; all were delighted with the opportunity so afforded them to express their gratitude. It has raised our worship to a higher plane. We have felt that particularly on several festive occasions of the Church: as at the time of the dedication of our place of worship, when the new music added very much to the sphere of worship, and again at the celebration of the 19th of June. Let us hope that this work may go on, and that Mr. Whittington may long be spared to carry it out." The Rev. E. S. Hyatt said that if it were only on account of its being unassociated with any of the preceding states of the Church the new music would be a very valuable gift to us; for our feelings were always necessarily connected with associations.
139
However good the music used before might have been, it had the draw-back of being associated with states that we were trying to get away from; those states that had brought us so much difficulty in the past. The speaker also referred to the new translation of the Psalms, the effect of which on the music should not be lost sight of. The Rev. T. F. Robinson spoke of the appreciation and gratitude of the Church in Colchester for the new music. The more they used it the more they loved it. Especially had they been delighted with it at the celebration of New Church Day, and felt that, without it, it would have been impossible to have had such a delightful and distinctive service. The Rev. R. J. Tilson said it gave him great pleasure to bear testimony on behalf of the Church in London to the great use and delight which the new music served. In London they not only had the music but they had the unique and great privilege of having the author of the music to train and educate them in singing it. He congratulated Mr. Whittington upon the great use the LORD had enabled him to perform. That use extended beyond the worship of the Church great as it was in that important domain of Church work and life. The new music, or, as he preferred to call it, the Church music, was a great blessing in the home, and would immensely increase the benefit of family worship. The idea of giving the loving-cup was eagerly taken up in Brixton and a liberal and ready response was made to the request for subscriptions. As a Church they rejoiced in the presentation which had been made, and he sincerely hoped that a still wider appreciation of the gift from Heaven which they had in the Church music would be manifested by all taking it, studying it and in the home as well as in the Church. THE Rev. E. C. Bostock spoke of the great use, that the singing of the LORD'S Word to such beautiful music was in the schools; a use which he thought we might find to be the most far-reaching of all, for it had played an important part in the implantation of mains. The remainder of the evening was pleasantly spent in social intercourse and in singing Psalms and secular music.
Notes and Reviews 1894
The New Church Standard, in its issue for July, announces the suspension of this valuable journal for a few months, the health of the Editor necessitating rest.
THE American Swedenborg Printing and Publishing Society have in the past year distributed ninety-five thousand copies of The Doctrine of Faith to English-speaking Protestant clergymen. The expenses of this work, amounting to $3,273, have been covered by private subscription.
Den Skandinaviske Spiritualisten, a spiritistic journal published in Swedish, at Minneapolis, Minn., presents a revolting mixture of the falses and trivialities of modern magic with certain truths of the Heavenly Doctrines. Past experiences confirm the teaching that the faith of the New Church and the faith of the Old-which latter includes also the infidelity of Spiritism-will not long endure each other's company.
THE Liturgical literature of the New Church, already voluminous, has recently been increased by the publication of A Selection of Psalms pointed for Chanting for the use of the New Church. (Speirs, London.) Mr. C. Heaton, of the New Church in Leeds, England, is the editor of this little work, which includes seventy-six of the Psalms of David. The text is that of "the dear and familiar" Authorized Version. The Internal Sense has not been added, or even consulted in the grouping of the verses.
THE first number of a New Church journal in the Welsh tongue has recently been published in Wales under the title Y Cendwr (the Missionary). It comprises sixteen pages, and presents, beside an exposition of the aims and objects of the journal, articles on "The Infinite Man," "Swedenborg and the New Dispensation," and "The Body of Moses." This is the second journalistic venture of our brethren in Wales; the first, entitled Yr Oes Newydd, was begun in 1885, but discontinued after a few years.
A CATHOLIC theologian, Dr. J. A. Mehler, in his work on Symbolism, or Doctrinal Differences between Catholics and Protestants (recently translated from the German and published in London), gives fair testimony to the great personal worth of Emanuel Swedenborg, and reviews, with mild criticism, some of the Doctrines of the New Church, quoting among other things the teaching as to the ease with which Catholics in the other world may pass from popery to Christianity, if in this life they have thought more of God than of the pope (T. C. R. 821).
The New Church Magazine for August presents a portrait and a biographical account of the Rev. Peter Ramage, of Radcliffe, who this year presided over the General Conference of the New Church in Great Britain. Mr. Ramage is known as the former editor of The Dawn during the entire period of its publication. Doctrinally he represents the "extreme left" in the Conference, if such a distinction can any more be made, as to this body, which now, with some isolated exceptions, is quite united in the opposition to the Divine Authority of the Writings, with all the issues dependent hereupon.
AZ UJ Jerusalem elettana kivonea a tizparaoczalatbol Swedenborg manotol: This is the title of the Doctrine of Life for the New Jerusalem in the Hungarian translation which as been lately published in London by the Swedenborg Society. It is the first translation of any of the Writings into the language of the Mayars. The rendering is from the German version, and it is the work of Mr. Joseph Smidt, a member of the New Church in Buda Pesth. Advertisements of the Writings in the German, Polish, and Russian tongues, and of seine collateral works in the Hungarian, form an appendix to the work.
IN its distribution over the various States and Territories, the New Church is, numerically, strongest in Massachusetts, where there are 1,684 members. Then comes Pennsylvania, with 774; Ohio, with 657; Illinois, with 641, and New York, with 5110 members. The smallest membership is in Arkansas, with 3 members, and Virginia, with 2. No members are reported from Alaska, Alabama, Arizona, Idaho, Indian Territory, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North and South Carolina, North and South Dakota, Oklahoma, Utah, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia, and Wyoming, although it is known that there are Newchurchmen in at least some of these States and Territories.
READERS of the Life may, perhaps, remember the review (vol. XI, p. 115) of a small work, entitled Songs of Life Eternal, by Edward Randall Knowles (Boston, 1891). The author was then welcomed as a Roman Catholic-advancing toward the New Jerusalem. It now appears, from the Boston Herald, that the Rev. Edward Randall Knowles, of Worcester, Mass., the first priest in America ordained in the "Old Catholic Church" is at present on his way to Alexandria, to be consecrated archbishop over the American branch of that Church, by the Patriarch Nicholas in Egypt. The "Old Catholic Church" is a recent secession from the Roman Catholic, and is at present receiving large accessions from the disaffected Polish congregations in this country. Further developments of this schism will he observed with interest by Newchurchmen.
140
THE statistics of the "Church of the New Jerusalem" in the United States, according to the Compendium of the Eleventh Census: 1890 (Part II; published at Washington, 1894,) are as follows:
Ministers 119 Church organizations 154 Church edifices 88 Seating capacity 20,810 Value of church property $1,386,455 Number of communicants 7,095
These statistics may not prove any special principles, but they nevertheless afford food for reflection. The difference between the number of members and the seating capacity of the churches, for instance, suggests that there is considerable room for expansion.
IN THE new volume of the "Rotch Edition," which contains the Angelic Wisdom concerning the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom, the text is a revision of the joint translation this work executed by the Rev. R. L. Tafel and Dr. J. J. G. Wilkinson in 1883. The revisers of the "Rotch Edition" were Mr. E. H. Sears and the Rev. John Worcester. Their work is in some respects an improvement upon the version in the current edition of the American Printing and Publishing Society, but still leaves much to be desired in the way of simplicity and in absence of self-intelligence. An instance of this is found in the opening sentence of the book, the key-note to all that follows, and the crucial test of every translation: "Homo novit quod amor sit, sed non novit quid amor est." The "Rotch Edition," in common with most, if not all other versions of this work, translates this, "Man knows that there is such a thing as love, but does not know what love is." How much more simple, direct, intelligible, and faithful is a literal rendering: "Man knows that love is, but knows not what love is." This has often been pointed out, but, apparently, to little purpose.
Scripture Botany. A Descriptive Account of the Plants, Trees, Flowers, and Vegetable Products mentioned in the Holy Writ. By Leo H. Grindon (Speirs, London, 1894: 359 pp.). This work is a welcome addition to the literature of the Science of the Letter of the Word, and can be used with benefit as a compendium of the botanical branch of this Science. This from a purely scientific point of view. Doctrinally, or regarded as the production of a professed Newchurchman, and as the publication of a professedly New Church publishing house, the work is utterly disappointing. In its arrangement no attempt, whatever, has been made to follow the classification of the vegetable kingdom indicated in the Writings of the New Church, without which no rational view can be obtained of the Science of Botany. Nor is the Science of Correspondences referred to or applied, except in a few instances, when a symbolic significance is vaguely hinted at. It is a book for the world, but written in a spirit affirmative of a Divine Revelation, and presents in an interesting and useful manner quite a complete scientific view of the subject with which it deals.
COMPARED with most of the organizations of the Old Church, the New Church is, indeed, insignificant in numerical strength, but exceeds them all in wealth proportionally, as may be seen from the following table, in which the first column indicates the membership, the second the value of church property, and the third the amount which would come to each member, should a division of property be called for:
Compare with this the "Church of the New Jerusalem": 7,000 $1,386,000 $193.00
To the Newchurchman who estimates justly the power of love of the world with himself; these figures will cause no feeling of exaltation but rather sadness at such evidence of the slight hold that the idea of religion has upon the affections of the people at large. * Corrected by NCL 1894, November, page 172.
"SCRIPTURA SACRA"-PART IV.
EZECHIEL, DANIEL, MINORES PROPHETAE. Paris, 1892.
FROM almost the beginning of the New Church the necessity for an entirely new translation of the Word has been seen and acknowledged by the men of the Church. So early as the year 1790 we find in the minutes of the English Conference a resolution to have the LORD'S Prayer and the Decalogue translated for use in worship; and later, in the year 1812, the desire for a new translation of the entire Word was very fully expressed in the Halcyon Luminary. Since then much work having this end in view has been done by the men of the New Church. Clowes, Smithson, Hiller, and others have at various times given new translations of different parts of the Word. But none of the work thus done has been wholly satisfactory, for the fundamental principle, that the basis of a new translation of the Word for the New Church must be the translation given by the LORD in His Second Coming, has not been fully, acknowledged. Although recognition of this principle has been expressed by translators, still their work sufficiently shows that they neither comprehended nor followed it. Their translations partake more of the character of amendments to the Authorized Version- to which, for many reasons, the natural man clings so strongly-than of new and faithful translations of the Divine Word, inspired by the revelation of its internal sense. And, indeed, under the circumstances, it would have been strange had this been otherwise; for the acknowledgment that a new translation must be based on the Writings carries with it the conviction that no such work of translation can be done before great, bug, and thorough preparation for it has been made. It was reserved for a man whose great usefulness in the Church has been unquestioned, to first give full expression to this truth. In the year 1845, in response to a circular published by the Western Convention of America, M. Le Boys des Guays addressed a letter to that body, in which he called attention to the only true method for the faithful translator of the Word to pursue. Among other things he says
"If Swedenborg had given a complete translation in Latin of all the books of the Word, it is very evident that the difficulties which exist in regard to a new translation of the Word into a modern language would be greatly diminished; for in accurately following the version of Swedenborg, and being assisted by all the precious documents which he gives in his explication of the spiritual sense, we would always have in our hands a sure guide. This reflection led me to ask myself whether by means of the numerous passages of the Word contained in the Writings of Swedenborg, it would not be possible to compose a Swedenborgian version of the Word almost complete, if not entirely so Although such an undertaking would necessarily require much time and patience, still the end appeared to be so important that I set immediately to work. Moreover, there is another consideration which it may be well to mention. We know that Swedenborg, who quotes many passages a treat number of times,-presents them often with various renderings, which renderings are valuable for a translation of the Scriptures into a modern language.
141
Indeed, without these various renderings he [the translator) would be sometimes liable to make a bad choice in the different words of his own language which express the word to be translated; but by means of these renderings, he soon decides on the most suitable word. Now the indexes do not point out these various renderings, and in order to find them it would he necessary, with each passage, to consult successively all the treatises quoted, and it would often happen that after having begun the work, we should discover that there are no variations for this passage. From this it may be seen that it would be very important to have under our eyes the complete selection of all the passages of the Word which are scattered throughout the different works of Swedenborg, with the indication at the end of each verse of the numbers of alt the treatises where they are quoted, in order that the translator may be able to refer to them in case of need, and with all the various renderings, that he may be able to make his choice. "This is the labor which I undertook some years ago, and which I hope, if it please the LORD, to finish."
Fourteen years after this letter was written, Le Boys des Guays published the first work of preparation for a new translation of the Word, the Index General, in which, systematically arranged by chapter and verse, he gives every reference to the Writings, including the Adversaria and Dicta Probantia, where a translation or mention of any part of the Word occurs. In the preface to this work, the author gives as his principal end in preparing it, "the obtaining, at a later period, of a translation of the Word into the common tongue, as exact as may be possible." With this end in view, several years later, the first number of Scriptura Sacra, containing the book of Isaiah, was published. In this number every translation given by Swedenborg is transcribed word for word, and at the end of each verse are added references to all the passages in the Writings where that verse is mentioned, together with the various renderings given by Swedenborg. In the case of a verse, or part of a verse, the translation of which is not found in the Writings, the Latin rendering of Schmidius is adopted, being indicated by brackets. Opposite each verse, and in another column, the spiritual sense is given in the words of the Writings, together with the references; though it might be mentioned as a matter of regret that the universals of the spiritual sense contained in the Prophets and Psalms and Dicta Probentia are not inserted at the heads of the chapters. This number was followed, after the death of Le Boys des Guays, by three others, containing the Psalms, Jeremiah and Lamentations, and the New Testament. In Isaiah and the Psalms, as published, and to a less extent in Jeremiah and the New Testament, the main end-the laying before the translator of the Word all the material necessary for a translation based entirely on the Writings-was faithfully kept in view. The work before us is the fifth and last published number of the Scriptura Sacra. It contains Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets, and is issued under new editorship, though judging from the title-page and preface it is presumably from the manuscript of Le Boys des Guays. However this may be, a cursory perusal of the book will convince the reader that beyond its mere title and form almost all similarity to the first two numbers of the Work ceases. In this number the very end and use of the Scriptura Sacra, which makes its life, has been entirely neglected or lost sight of, and it is, in consequence of little, if any, value to the New Church student for the value of a work must be judged from its end and its attainment of that end. Indeed, so inferior is this number that it is-hardly credible or probable that the compiler of Isaiah and Psalmi could have produced it and in the absence of any explanation by the editor as to the original manuscript being incomplete or unfinished, it seems only just and proper, and, indeed, due to the faithful and thorough work of M. Le Boys des Guays, that the blame for the glaring errors and accuracies of this last issue should rest with the editor himself. It will be seen in the letter to the Western Convention, quoted above, that in preparing the Scriptura Sacra, M. Le Boys des Guays's objects were: (1) to bring together all the translations of the Word given in the Writings; (2) to give the various renderings; and (3) to add the references where the translations and various renderings are to be found. To these he afterward added a fourth, the giving of the Spiritual Sense of each verse whenever it could be found in the Writings. In this Fourth Part not one of these objects has been satisfactorily accomplished; nay, there seems to have been no endeavor to accomplish some of them. The translations given by Swedenborg are not always faithfully transcribed; often no distinction is made between the words of Swedenborg and those of Schmidius; and where brackets are used, they are used so inaccurately and loosely as to be worse than useless. Ezekiel iii, 14, reads thus:
["Quum ergo accepit et sustulit me spiritus, et ivi tristis in excandescentia spiritus mei."
This gives no indication of which are and which are not Swedenborg's words. The closing bracket should be placed after "me spiritus." But the use of a single bracket, apparently to indicate that some of the words are not Swedenborg's, though frequent enough, is not consistently maintained, for a few passages (as Micah iv, 6) are correctly bracketed, while others, which causes even more serious confusion, have the double brackets, but incorrectly placed. Thus Obadiah i, ii, is printed as follows:
"[In die quo stetisti e regione, in die quo captivum duxerunt alieni robur ejus, et alienigenae intrarunt portas ejus et super Hierosolymam jecerunt sortem, etiam tu sicut unus de illis]. A. C. 10,287. A. E. 611. A. R. 691."
Looking up these references (the second of which should be printed A. E. 811), it is seen that the words between "regione" and "sortem" are Swedenborg's and ought not to have been included in the brackets. Take as another example Hosea v, 5. This verse is enclosed by brackets, indicating that Swedenborg does not translate it, nor does he in the single reference given, but by consulting the Index General, we find translations given in Arcana Coelestia, n. 5354, and Sacred Scripture, n. 79, that in the Arcana Coelestia being almost complete- Daniel ii, 22, is an instance of a similar inaccuracy. See Arcana Coelestia, n. 3384. This necessitates for the student the arduous work of looking up all the passages, in which the verse is translated, which is the very thing the Scriptura Sacra was designed to obviate. And in this laborious work of verification he must consult the Index General, for it cannot be done by the aid of this Fourth Part, since often no references are given, often only a few, out of very many. Take for example Daniel ix, 27. Subjoined to this verse there are seven references to the Writings, while in the index General eighteen references are given where translations actually occur. To Nahum iii, 17, there are no references, although this verse is translated four times in the Writings (A. C. 7643; A. E. 543; A. R. 424, and Diet. P. 30). This at once stultifies so unreliable a work, making it of far less value than the Index General, although this latter was intended but as a stepping-stone, and preparation, for the greater work, Scriptura Sacra.
142
In the whole book, not a single one of the many and important renderings given by Swedenborg is recorded, beyond the one rendering adopted in the text, and often not one is given, it being apparently deemed perfectly legitimate to change the tense or person of verbs, to alter conjunctions, etc., and even, in some instances to substitute some other word or omit a word altogether. See Amos v, 4, where "ut vivatis" is substituted for "et vivetis"; Ezekiel xxvii, 3; "ut dices" for "die" or "dicas"; Ezekiel xxvii, 19, "tuis" omitted, although both in the Writings and the Hebrew. See also the same verse quoted below. In view of the language of Le Boys des Guays quoted above, this omission is, to say the least, most astonishing, and in itself greatly diminishes the use of the work. The book is so full of these errors of omission and commission that any passage might safely be taken at random in illustration. For instance, Ezekiel xxi, 15, is translated thus:
"Ad mactandum mactationem exacutus est, ut sit fulgureus expolitus est; aut non laetabimur? Virga filii mei tenuit omne lignum."
To this verse no references to the Writings are appended, but by means of the Index General we find there are four places in the Writings in which it is translated. From the absence of any thing to the contrary one would naturally suppose that the translation given is in the words of the Writings, but on looking up the references we find that "fulgureus" does not occur in a single one, nor is the verse translated beyond "expolitus est." According to the plan laid down by Le Boys des Guays, the verse should have been printed as follows:
"Ad mactandum 1 mactationem executus 2; ut sit ei fulgur 3 tersus est 4 [aut non laetabimur? Virga filii mei tenuit omne lignum)" A. C. 2799.
(1)A. C. 309. A. R. 52. A. E. 131. 1 Ut mactet A. E. 131. A. R. 52. 2 acutus A. C. 309. 3 splendor A. E. 131. 4 expolitus est A. E. 131.
By this general carelessness and inaccuracy some very important points are entirely neglected. In Ezekiel xxvii, 19, a Hebrew word, of which the Lexicons give no certain meaning is altogether omitted without any apparent reason, although translated several times in the Writings. The word in question is [Hebrew] translated netum in Arcana Coelestia, n. 4453, 10,256, 10,258, and 2967, adveniens in Arcana Coelestia, n. 3923 and translated meusal in Arcana Coelstia, n. 426. The spiritual sense of this verse, as given, is very inadequate, only a part of the verse being explained, when nevertheless, the whole verse is fully explained in Arcana Coelestia, n. 3923 and 10,258, neither of which is quoted. The explanation in the latter number contains an important statement about the word [Hebrew] (casia). Curiously enough a similar error of omission occurs in the sixteenth verse of the same chapter, the word omitted being [Hebrew]. It is evident that in giving the spiritual sense in a work like Scriptura Sacra, judgment and discrimination must be exercised in the selection from the numerous passages, but, when, as in the present work, no spiritual sense is given, although to be found in the Writings, or when, as is also the case, only half the spiritual sense is given, or when the words of the spiritual sense as given in the Writings are so changed, and the sentences so abbreviated as to make the sense obscure, we are forced to the conclusion that the cause is a predominating consideration of brevity even at the expense of clearness and accuracy, together with the general disregard of exactness which runs through the whole Part. To Daniel x, 19 and 20, no spiritual sense whatever is given, although found in A. E. 80 and 50; so in Amos ii, 8, and in very many other places. To Hosea iii, 5, and Zachariah i, 8, etc., the spiritual sense is given, but no reference to the Writings, which is the more capable, since the general inaccuracy of transcription imperatively demands the verification of every quotation. The spiritual sense of Hosea iii, 1, 2, is thus given:
"Per hoc repraesentabatur qualis erat Ecclesia Judaica quoad doctrinam et cultum, quod per traditiones vanas falsificaverit omnia Verbi. Per mulierem adulterantem significata est Ecclesia falsificans verum et adulterans bonum. Amantes lagenas sunt illi qui applicant suis falsis et malis sensum litterae Verbi; lagena est quod continet. A. E. 374."
Turning to this passage we read:
"Per hoc repraesentabatur Ecclesia Judaica et Israehitica qualis erat quoad doctrinam et cultum, quod nempe per traditiones vanas falsificaverit omnia Verbi, tametsi id ut sanctum coluerunt; mutier amata aocio et adulterans quam propheta amaret, significat Ecclesiam talem; malier, ecclesiam, amata socia et adulternas, falsificationem veri et adulterationem boni; juxta amorem Jehovae erga filios Israelis, et hi respicientes ad deos alios, significat falsa doctrinae et mala cultus; haec significantur per respicere ad deos alios; amantes lagenas urarum, signiticat Verbum in solo sensu literae, nam vinum significat vera doctriae ex Verbo, uvae, bona ejus ex quibus vera, et lagena, id quod continet, ita ultimum Verbi sensum, qui est sensus literae, quem applicant suis falsis et malis; quod comparaverit sibi illam per quindecim argenti, significat exiguo pretio, quindecim significat exiguum, corus hordeorum et semicorus hordeorum significat tam parum boni et veri ut vix aliquid."
In the same manner instances well-nigh innumerable might be brought forward to show the general inaccuracy and unreliability of this work, but it would uselessly occupy space. The student can turn to any page, and by a little search will find mistake after mistake. External things such as the consistent spelling of Israel and some other proper names, with small initials, the many typographical errors "sur" for "super" (Ez. iv, 1); "six" for "sic" (Ez. xi, 16); "de dom" for "De Dom" (Ez. iv, 5); "sibi" for "Sibi" (Dan. ix, 26), etc., with which the work abounds, might be overlooked, as slight errors, which could be easily rectified, did it not so plainly appear that these errors only make one with the general character of the work. It needs no great insight or learning to understand that a work so inaccurate and so unreliable, falling so far short of the very end of its existence, is utterly useless to the student or translator. A diligent, patient, and prolonged examination has convinced the writer of this review that this Fourth Part of Scriptura Sacra must be entirely re-written before it can be of the slightest usefulness as a work preparatory to the translation of the Divine Word.
A ST. Louis gentleman, Mr. Henry Greenway, has written a book, nearly ready for publication, which professes to be a Compendium of Swedenborg's Principia, treating of the Creation of the World from the sun, of the origin and laws of motion, of magnetism, of the cause of electrical phenomena, and other allied subjects. It is to be profusely illustrated. The author desires to secure enough subscribers to warrant the publication of the work, the subscription price being $3.00. The money need not accompany the subscription. His address is Henry Greenway, 1522 Olive Street, St, Louis, Mo.
143
LIFE OF THE NEW CHURCH Various 1894
THE ACADEMY OF THE NEW CHURCH.
Philadelphia.- THE Philadelphia Schools will open on Monday, October 1st. Applications for admission must be addressed to the Dean of the Faculty, the Rev. Eugene J. E. Schreck, 1821 Wallace Street, Philadelphia, Pa. A MEETING of the teachers of the Philadelphia schools will be held on Friday, September 28th, at 10 o'clock A. M. London.-"New Church Day" was celebrated this year in London, on Sunday, June 17th, by special services in the Hall of Worship, Burton Road, Brixton. The service was, to a great extent, the same as the one used on the same occasion by the Church the Academy in Philadelphia. The Rev. Messrs, Tilson, Bostock, and Ottley officiated. An address on the spiritual significance of he day was given by the Pastor. ON Tuesday evening, June 19th, a special service was held in the Hall of Worship, as a continuation of the preceding service. Chancellor Benade led in the Worship, and delivered an Address on the general doctrine concerning the Second Advent of the LORD, and on the internal character and uses of the Academy of the New Church. THE closing exercises of the Academy School were held in the same place on June 10th, Chancellor Benade and Head-Master Bostock officiating. A MEETING of priests from the United states, Canada, and England, was held on August 8th, 10th, 14th, and 17th, when topics of special interest to the priesthood were discussed, among them questions of government in the Church, the relation of general churches to each other, and education. The meetings, which, with one exception, were presided over by the Chancellor, Bishop Benade, were most useful, and mark an important step forward in the growth of the Church. The Chancellor manifested much of his old-time vigor. DURING the stay of the priests in London, two social evenings were spent at the Brixton Church. One of them was made the occasion for the presentation of the Loving- Cup to Mr. Whittington, as described on page 137 of this number. The other meeting was held for the purpose of presenting an illuminated address to Chancellor Benade. The report of this interesting occasion is too long for insertion in this Issue of the Life.
GENERAL CHURCH OF THE ADVENT OF THE LORD.
Pittsburgh, Pa.- A USEFUL and enjoyable-meeting was held in this city on Friday evening, July 13th, when a number of the male members of the Church assembled in the House of Mr. Rott, to discuss, in a social sphere, the subject of strikes and of the general relations of capital and labor, in the light of the New Church. The Minister of the Church, the Rev. Homer Synnestvedt, and the Rev. C. The. Odhner, of Philadelphia, presented doctrinal teachings in reference to the subject, which was afterwards considered by the laymen present in its financial and social aspects. Time ideal relation, the one Newchurchmen should strive to establish between capital and labor, was seen to be one of mutual charity and confidence. The duty of employers as the natural teachers of their servants and laborers was also pointed out. The Rev. O. Th. Odhner, on his recent visit to Pittsburgh, preached and administered the Communion on July 15th, and delivered a lecture on the Early History of the New Church, on Wednesday evening, July 18th. He preached again on July 22d, after which the Church closed for a few Sundays, during the vacation of Minister Synnestvedt. Allentown, Pa.- THE Church in this city does not maintain regular services at present, but meets for worship only when a visiting minister is present. During the month of July, services have been conducted twice by the Rev. C. Th. Odhner, and once by the Rev. F. E. Waelchli, of Berlin, Ont., Canada. Parkdale, Ont.-DURING the absence, in England, of the Pastor of the Parkdale Society, the Rev. E. S. Hyatt, services are being conducted by the Rev. Alfred Acton, of Philadelphia. Middleport, Ohio.- THE Society, which recently withdrew from its connection with the Ohio Association of the General Convention, is at present enjoying the ministrations of Candidate Joseph E. Boyesen, lately of Pittsburgh, Pa. Chicago, Ill.-ON June 20th the Immanuel Society celebrated the sending out of the twelve Apostles in the Spiritual World by a feast of charity held at Oak Glen. The special toast of the occasion was "The day we celebrate," in responding to which the pastor, the Rev. N. D. Pendleton, dwelt upon the significance and the essential oneness of the First and the Second Coming of the LORD. This was followed by the Rev. W. H. Acton, who dwelt upon the fact that the twelve Apostles, who represent all the goods and truths of the Church, were called together and instructed by the LORD after the True Christian Religion had been finished, which contains the universal theology of the New Church. The completion of this work and the sending forth of the Apostles throughout the universal spiritual world, make a one-the promulgation of the everlasting gospel that the LORD JESUS CHRIST reigns.
AN INACCURACY.
Editor New Church Life: I BEG to call your attention to an inaccuracy in the Life for July. From the note in which my name is mentioned, it appears as if I were employed by, and working under the auspices of, "The General Church of the Advent of the LORD." But this is not the case. I am endeavoring to perform uses of evangelization, under the guidance and direction of the LORD. There is work to be done in His Vineyard, and it is a blessed privilege to go forward and do it with His help, and in obedience to His commands. Very sincerely yours. J. E. Bowers.
The ministrations of Mr. Bowers, being more on the lines of those of the General Church than of any other body, were rather naturally so classified in this department. During his labors in Ohio and Michigan, he baptized a number of children and adults; one of the latter was raised a Roman Catholic in Germany. His three children were baptized with him.
THE CHURCH AT LARGE. THE UNITED STATES.
New Hampshire.- THE twenty-second annual meeting of the German Missionary Union was held in the city of Manchester on June 9th and 10th, the Rev. L. H. Tafel presiding. The German New Church Society of Baltimore has recently catered into association with this union. Massachusetts.-MR. Timothy H. Carter died at Newtonville, on July 11th, in the ninety-fifth year of his life. He had been an active member of the New Church for the long period of seventy-three years. As a publisher of the Writings and general New Church literature, few, if indeed any individuals, in this or any other country, have done more to advance the progress of the Heavenly Doctrines. He became a member of the Church in 1821, and was for many years the most liberal supporter of the Boston Society. Mainly through his disinterested zeal and energy, the Church came into possession of the well-known "Boston editions" of Arcana Coelestia, True Christian Religion, Conjugial Love, and other works, for the translation and publication of which he paid out of his private resources. It is estimated that he expended in this manner over fifty thousand dollars. His work, and that of his partner, Mr. Otis Clapp, continued until superseded by the inferior but cheaper publications of the American Swedenborg Printing and Publishing Society. Until within a short time before his death he was a constant attendant at the worship, and an active supporter of the uses, of the Church in Newtonville. New York.- THE Presiding Minister of the New York Association, the Rev. S. S. Seward, on July 2d, ordained Mr. Herman F. von Crownfield into the Priesthood of the New Church. The candidate had for some years been the lender of the Society in Mount Vernon, N. Y., and has now accepted the pastoral charge of the Society in Preston, Md. Ohio.- THE Rev. John Goddard, Pastor of the Cincinnati Society, on July 11th, took as the subject for his sermon Mr. Louis Pendleton's story, The Wedding Garment, which first appeared in time columns of time Life. The sermon was published in extenso in The Commercial Gazette, of Cincinnati, whence it has been re-published in the New Church Messenger for August 1st. Illinois.- THE Chicago Society held its last services in the temple on Van Buren Street, on July 8th. In the rapid growth of the city, the locality of the temple has been found too remote for a majority of the members, and the building has now been leased "for 98 years and 11 months" to a Music Building Company, which intends to erect on the grounds a grand "temple of music," at a cost of from two hundred to two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. MR. John S. Weller, who for the past twenty-six years has been the editor of The New Church Independent, died in Chicago, on June 8th. The magazine was established forty-two years ago by the Rev. Henry Weller, father of the deceased, and will now be edited by a third generation of the family, "without change in the conduct." This, we hope, will not exclude an improvement in the doctrinal attitude of the Independent. Missouri.- SUFFERING under the general financial distress of the country, the New Church Society in St. Louis is at present unable to give regular support to a settled minister. The former pastor, the Rev. J. B. Parmelee, is now doing general evangelistic work in time State of Texas. The St. Louis Society has enjoyed the occasional ministrations of the Rev. Messrs. Jabex Fox and A. B. Francisco, the latter a former Methodist preacher, now a New
144
LIFE OF THE NEW CHURCH Various 1894
NEW CHURCH LIFE. PUBLISHED MONTHLY BY THE ACADEMY OF THE NEW CHURCH.
TERMS:-One Dollar per annum, payable in advance. FOUR SHILLINGS IN GREAT BRITAIN.
The EDITOR'S address is 1821 Wallace Street, Fairmount Station, Philadelphia. Address all business communications to MR. CARL HJ. ASPLUNDH, No. 1821 Wallace Street, Fairmount Station, Philadelphia, Pa. Subscriptions are also received through the following agents: UNITED STATES. Chicago, Ill., Mr. A. E. Nelson, Chicago Agent of Academy Book Room, No. 565 West Superior Street. Pittsburgh, Pa., Mr. Wm. Rott, Pittsburgh Agent of Academy Book Room, Tenth and Carson Streets. CANADA. Toronto, Ont., Mr. R. Carswell, 20 Equity Chambers. Waterloo, Mr. Rudolph Roschman. GREAT BRITAIN. Mr. E. W. Misson, Agent for Great Britain, of Academy Book Room, Burton Road, Brixton, London, S. W.
PHILADELPHIA, SEPTEMBER, 1894=125.
CONTENTS. PAGE EDITORIAL- The Relation of Education to Salvation (a Sermon) 129 Damnation of faith Alone. Transfer of Scientifics, (Exodus xi) 131 Liberation of the Faithful, and Damnation of the Unfaithful (Exodus xii, 1-11) 132 Robert Hindnmarsh, VIII 133 The Church in Africa 135 Appreciation of the New Music 137 NOTES AND REVIEWS 139 "Scriptura Sacra."-Part IV 140 LIFE OF THE NEW CHURCH 143 BIRTHS 144 ACADEMY BOOK ROOM 144 Church minister, resident at Harrisonville, Mo. California.- THE Rev. D. A. Dryden passed into the spiritual world on July 4th. He had been a Methodist clergyman, but was ordained into the ministry of the New Church on August 17th, 1890, under the authority of the Pacific Coast Association. THE Rev. Gustav Reiche, lately Pastor of the Society in Topeka, Kansas, has removed to the Pacific coast, and taken up his residence at Ontario, Cal., where he ministers to a small circle of New Church people. IN June the Rev. A. J. Bartels did missionary work, and visited German Newchurchmen in South Dakota, Oregon, and Manitoba. He preached in German and English, and baptized fourteen persons.
CANADA.
THE thirty-first annual meeting of the Canada Association was held in Toronto, on May 17th-19th. The attendance at the meeting is reported as having been disappointing. Beyond the reading of the usual reports but little of interest seems to have occurred. All of the societies reported a decrease in membership, owing to the omission of the names of all inactive members. The president, in his annual address, congratulated the Association upon its deliverance from "the infestation" which, for some years "had separated, torn, and weakened it" by the effort that had been made "to carry it away from common with the general New Church into a schismatic movement."
GREAT BRITAIN.
London.-"The Missionary and Tract Society" held its seventy-third anniversary on May 30th. It reports the formation of a new centre at Plaistow. THE Society worshiping at Argyle Square, under the pastoral are of the Rev. John Presland, observed June 17th as the "New Church Thanksgiving Sunday." SPECIAL services, commemorating "the New Church Day" were held on June 19th by the Society worshiping at Willesden Green, London. Bradford.- THE manual of the Bradford Society contains a strong plea for the observance of "the New Church Day." It would thus seem that in the Church at large there is a growing recognition of the spiritual importance of observing this day of days. May we not look forward to the time when all true-hearted disciples of the LORD in His Second Advent, throughout the world, will unite on that day, in thanksgiving and glorification of time LORD for time establishment of the crown of all Churches? May not this become one powerful means of developing the distinctiveness of the New Church, and of uniting all Newchurchmen into one common, spiritual choir?
ITALY.
THE general and severe financial depression which has prevailed for some time in this country, appears to have retarded, to some extent, the progress of the New Church among our Italian brethren. No new publications of New Church literature have appeared there during the past year, but Signor Scocia is still occupied with his untiring labor of translating the Writings into the Italian tongue, and the sale of former publications is still continuing. Signor Scocia is earnestly desiring to be regularly ordained into the Priesthood of the New Church, but in the meantime refrains from performing any public ministerial functions, even when called upon.
GERMANY, AUSTRIA, HUNGARY.
THE Rev. Fedor Goerwitz, on April 28th, set out upon a lengthy journey to visit the various centres of the New Church in Austria, Hungary, and Germany. He first visited the city of Reutlingen in Wurtenberg, where the late Gustav Werner many years ago established an orphanage, the "Bruderhaus," which is still flourishing. The founder was somewhat of a Newchurchman, but few remains can now be found of the Church in this institution, beyond a picture of Swedenborg. Mr. Goerwitz next visited Stuttgart, the centre of the German Swedenborg Society, which now is almost defunct. Here he baptized a child of New Church parents, and traveled next to Buda-Pesth, in Hungary. The Doctrines were introduced into this city some twenty-six years ago by Mr. Matthias Riener (now a member of the New Church in Berlin, Canada), and, after many vicissitudes, a regular Society was established five years ago. Here Mr. Goerwitz conducted the anniversary celebration of the Society, preached to an encouraging audience, administered the Sacrament of Baptism to one adult and the Sacrament of the Holy Supper to twenty-four communicants; besides performing the marriage ceremony for two members of the Society. From Buda-Pesth he went to the village of Gyorkony, also in Hungary, where there is a small circle of earnest disciples, who meet regularly for worship. Here he administered the Holy Supper to fifteen persons and introduced six adults into the New Church by the Sacrament of Baptism. From this place he traveled to Vienna, where he preached and administered the communion to twenty-nine persons, among them Mrs. Emilie Tafel, widow of the Rev. Dr. R. L. Tafel. The Society in this city has lately made some improvement in external circumstances, and is, spiritually, in a promising condition. Seine of the members of the former "Vienna Union," which was disrupted by the introduction of the Artopeian heresies, here visited Mr. Goerwitz, making overtures toward effecting a union with the new Society, but received no encouragement as they still maintain their destructive doctrinal attitude. The next stopping place was the city of Berlin, where the New Church is at present represented by a single person, the chief gardener, Schmidt, who, now eighty-three years of age, is still active as probably the most liberal supporter of the New Church in Central Europe. From Berlin Mr. Goewitz traveled to Hartha, in the neighborhood of Leipzig, where a small circle of Newchurchmen have gathered about Herr Karl Hering. The manufacturing town of Zschopan was next visited, where the Doctrines have lately been introduced by a Herr Bar, a manufacturer, who received the Doctrines during a recent visit to England. Mr. Goerwitz then visited Herr Karl Hofmeister, an earnest Newchurchman in Munden, Hanover. From this place he returned to Zurich, arriving there on May 29th.
AFRICA.
IN connection with the Society at Durban, Natal, a "Brotherhood of the New Church in Africa" has been formed with the object of giving thorough instruction in the Writings, "and to conserve the New Church in that broad and generous spirit which was so ably shown by our eminent friend, the Rev. Dr. Bayley."
WEDDING GARMENT 1894
A TALE OF THE LIFE TO COME.
BY LOUIS PENDLETON.
Price, in cloth, $1.00; white and gilt, $1.25.
ACADEMY BOOK Roost, 1821 Wallace Street, Philadelphia, Pa.
SWEDENBORG.
A BRIEF ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE AND WORK OF EMANUEL SWEDENBORG; WITH A SKETCH OF HIS PERSONALITY. By the Rev. C. Th. Odhner, A. B., Th. B. With a portrait of Swedenborg, taken from an original painting. Paper, 15 cents; cloth, 25 cents.
ACADEMY BOOK ROOM, 1821 Wallace Street, Philadelphia, Pa.
H. H. 371 The only receptacle of good is truth.- H. H. 371.
Title Unspecified 1894
THE address delivered by the Head-Master of the Pittsburgh School at the close of the school-year, the publication of which has been unavoidably delayed, is of great interest at the present time, when the thoughts of parents and teachers return actively to the work of our schools. The implantation of knowledge has been the theme of instructors from, time immemorial, but the true philosophy of the end and motive of such implantation has never been clearly and fully made known until the LORD revealed in the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg the realities of the Spiritual World.
Title Unspecified 1894
SINCE man is will and understanding, and the will loves and the understanding thinks, the business of the educator is to teach children to love and to think, and to do both properly. They are taught to think aright by the knowledges which are implanted in their minds, and they are led to love aright by means of the thinking that has come from the knowledges. That the training of the right thinking and right loving must take place under the constant watchfulness and care of the Church, need not be demonstrated to those who believe that the LORD has made His Advent and established a New Church for the very grave reason that the continuance of the thoughts and loves to which men had sunk meant inevitable death of the human race on this earth.
Title Unspecified 1894
THE thinking and loving of boys and girls is to lead eventually to thought and will that shall be heavenly in themselves, and that shall grow more and more perfect in the angelic and Divine surroundings of an eternal Heaven of angels. The lack of a realization of the actuality of such a life is at the root of the failure of the education, and of the works on education, of the world. That man must have a sound body, and in it a sound mind, is recognized by all. What a sound body is, is very well understood, but wherein the essential soundness of the mind consists, is not known and not recognized. Therein differ the respective philosophies of education of the Christian world and of the New Church.
Title Unspecified 1894
THE end of securing an angelic soundness of mind must he in everything that is done for and to children. To attain this end there are many means, means not of one degree only, but of various discrete degrees. Heavenly soundness of mind can be predicated truly of the more interior degrees-which cannot be opened during infancy, childhood, or youth-but only during mature life, and frequently not until old age. The field of active provision for the soundness of the interior minds, is the lower mind, the plane of morality, of civil life, and of science.
Title Unspecified 1894
WHILE the real end is the soundness of the Rational, the first end in time is the soundness of the body. By this being first in time is of course not to be understood that the care for the body is to last only during infancy, until a beginning has been made with the formation of the scientific plane. Throughout man's life his first care must be for the health of his body. Its importance demands that educators consider this seriously. If at any time the development of the mind be at the expense of the health of the body, the ultimate end is interfered with, for a sound mind needs a sound body as much as a house needs a solid foundation, or the body itself needs sound feet.
Title Unspecified 1894
HEALTH of body is the first mediate end that the educator must have in mind throughout. The danger that the soundness of body become regarded as in itself the end of existence, as is the case to a great extent with athletes, and as is advocated with increasing emphasis by indiscriminating writers and even teachers,-this danger is guarded against when the ultimate end is kept in mind, and mediate ends are made subservient.
Title Unspecified 1894
THE second mediate end is the soundness of the scientific degree of the mind. First, the knowledges themselves must be sound-that is to say, they must be such knowledges as will be of use, mediately or immediately, for the attainment of the ultimate end of the child's life, and, Secondly, their acquisition must be sound-that is to say, they must be taught by teacher and learned by child in an orderly manner. As the body is developed healthily by a correct natural life-by the body's doing those things which its order requires, so the scientific plane of the mind is developed healthily by the orderly exercise of its functions. The science thus acquired embraces the knowledges concerning the life and sustenance of the body, concerning the uses and duties of man in the community, concerning the precepts of morality, and concerning the truths of religion. And, as with the body, so with science. While a most important means, it must not be made an end in itself.
Title Unspecified 1894
THE third mediate end is the exercise of such things as make for a useful civil, or, as it is also called, political life-that is to say, a life in the body politic. The initiation into this takes place from childhood on, by the performance of duties in the home, in the neighborhood, and in business. Here is a field that needs the particular attention of every Newchurchman, for he is responsible for leading the youth employed in his particular calling to the good of citizenship. Here the New Church citizen may learn to realize a most important application of the doctrine that the New Church is to be a "kingdom of priests."
146
Title Unspecified 1894
CIVIL functions precede higher ones in time, because they are natural, and the natural is first formed in order that the spiritual may rest upon it. But by the faithful and conscientious discharge of their duties as integers of the civil society in which they live, their angelic character is being formed. As the life of the body in the natural world, receiving and emitting such things as enter into the constitution of the natural world, is a sine qua non for the life of the spirit, so the life of the natural mind in the civil community, receiving and emitting such things as form the substance of the civil or political life, is a sine qua non for the existence and growth of the moral and angelic nature of man.
Title Unspecified 1894
CIVIL duties into which youths are initiated are distinct from their moral and religious obligations, though not to be separated from either. The moral life is the nearest approach to the spiritual, yet it is discretely distinct from it, so that a moral man is not necessarily a spiritual one. Yet the Church is based on good morals. Where immorality prevails, the Church will find no real foothold. Morality, when spiritual, is charity. The fourth mediate end in education is, therefore, the training into habits of the moral virtues. While a spiritual life cannot be predicated of the young, a moral life can be cultivated in them. To make morality, high as it stands, the highest end of man, would defeat the end of his creation.
Title Unspecified 1894
THESE, briefly, are the general mediate ends of the educator, whether he be parent or teacher, by the attainment of which his charges will form habits of right thinking and living, thus fitting them to become, as of themselves, true Newchurchmen and women on earth and angels in heaven, and thereby doing their duty, which is to co-operate with this end of ends of the LORD, the Creator and Conserver, the Redeemer and Saviour of the world.
good of love 1894
The good of love is not possible unless there is also at the same time the truth of faith.- A. C. 10,177.
SPIRITUAL SIGNIFICANCE OF SLEEP Rev. J. E. BOWERS 1894
"In peace together I lie down and sleep; for Thou alone, O LORD, makest me dwell securely."-Psalm iv, 8.
MAN, before the beginning of regeneration, spiritually considered, is in a state of profound sleep. He is in this state because, being as yet destitute of the cognitions of truth and good by means of the Word, and, consequently, without affection for them, he is actually unconscious of the existence of God and of His Divine Attributes; he is in ignorance as to the ends and uses of the Church; and hence he is in darkness concerning all things of heaven, of salvation and eternal life. The earth of his mind is "vacuity and emptiness, and darkness is upon the faces of the abyss." He sees things in the fatuous lumen of his own intelligence, and thinks of all subjects according to the mere appearances as they impress the senses. He is incapable of forming a rational and sound judgment respecting the uses and duties of human life. Having no knowledges from the Word concerning the LORD as the infinite Fountain of Life, and concerning man as a receptacle of life from Him, he imagines that his life originates with himself or that he is life in himself, which is to be spiritually insane. Before the beginning of regeneration, man, when awake, is so merely as to natural consciousness, but spiritually he is in a deep sleep. He exists, indeed, as to the external conditions of the body, in the form of a man, but he is, nevertheless, spiritually dead as to the state of the mind and soul. He dwells in "the land of the shadow of death." He walks in darkness, not knowing whither his footsteps tend. It is with reference to the general unregenerate state of men, who are therefore asleep, but who can be aroused by the Spirit of the LORD, and who can at length be brought into the Church, and finally into the kingdom of heaven, that it is written in the letter of the Word, "Awake, awake, put on thy strength, O Zion; put on the garments of thy beauty, O Jerusalem, thou city of holiness" (Isaiah iii, 1). We also read that "many of them that sleep, in the dust of the earth shall awake" (Daniel xii, 2). And the Apostle Paul forcibly exclaims, "Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light" (Ephesians, v, 14). All those who are in the falses of the faith of the consummated Church, and especially those who confirm themselves in the evils of life which are in agreement with those falses, are in a state of sleep as to their internal man. The LORD speaks to them also, as He speaks to all men in His Word; He speaks to them out of the clouds of the letter of the Word, in the Revelations of Divine Truth in those Heavenly Writings wherein His Glory has been revealed at His Second Coming. But they have no ears to hear the glad tidings of salvation thus given to men in the new and eternal Gospel; they have only natural ideas, and therefore look for the appearing of the LORD in the clouds of the material world. The degeneracy of many generations has at last made men perverse, sensual, and stupid as to spiritual things, to such a degree that they despise the Divine Truth now revealed, and that few of the men of Christendom can be led to acknowledge the LORD in His New Advent. They will not come unto Him, that they may have the light of life, but prefer to walk in darkness. This, however, is light to them, and the LORD of Glory appears as darkness to them, because the LORD appears to every one according to his state. In so far as man is in self-derived intelligence and hence in self-conceit and in the love of self and the world, he is in the state described by sleep, in the bad sense. He imagines that he is wise from himself, which is to be spiritually insane. In this state it seems to him that he lives, thinks, speaks, and acts from himself. But the man who can be brought out of this state by regeneration, in the Divine Providence of the LORD, at the most suitable time, is led to a knowledge of the truth, which he receives from an internal affection for it. Then his mind begins to be enlightened with the truth, and he begins to see himself as he really is, begins to see how gross is the darkness with which his mind is enveloped, and how great are the delusions which have filled his imagination. Then he awakes, as it were, out of his sleep of spiritual death, and begins to receive life from the LORD. He begins to realize that he is a mere receptacle of life, which he momentarily receives from God. He sees also that of himself he is only evil; that the ability to think, speak, and act is from the LORD through heaven; that the LORD alone is Good, and that it is of the Divine mercy that he has been awakened out of his deep sleep, and that he has not been left to perish, by casting himself into hell and its direful and eternal misery.
147
The men of our world generally have been benighted for many generations. Darkness came upon them as far back in the spiritual history of the earth as the time when the posterity of the Most Ancient Church inclined to the proprium so as to love it. It grew worse afterward, when they were seduced by the serpent of the sensual, when they violated the spiritual law, which is a law of the Divine Order, that man must not learn from himself the truth of faith and the good of love; and that man must not think from himself of the things of heaven and the Church, but from that which is in or with him from the LORD. Thus it is from the LORD; and man acts and thinks as from himself knowing and believing, however, that whatever is from himself is nothing but evil and falsity. And the more that man is regenerated and perfected, the more fully does be realize and acknowledge that this is the case. But the sensual man is not able, because he is not willing, to acknowledge it. He confirms himself more and more against it, and in the hatred of the Divine Truth. What has been said is suggested by the text: "In peace together I lie down and sleep; for Thou alone, O LORD, makest me dwell securely." And in this, as in every verse of the Word, are involved infinite things concerning the internal and spiritual life of man. In the internal sense it treats of the man who from repentance has passed through states of reformation, and in whom regeneration is now being effected. In the explanation of the text it is said in the Doctrines, that by peace is signified the internal delight of heaven; by security the external delight; and by lying down and sleeping, and also by dwelling, is signified to live (A. E. 365). Man, before he enters into states of regeneration, is altogether incapable of experiencing states of peace; because he does not come into spiritual temptation; that is to say, he does not suffer temptation-combats against the hells; and only those who do endure these can experience states of genuine peace, which take place after the temptation-combats are over. Nor can man before regeneration have an idea of what the external delight of heaven is, and much less what the internal delight of heaven is. For he is in no knowledge and acknowledgment of the Divine Providence of the LORD Who is the God of Heaven. The unregenerate man, therefore, cannot utter the sacred words of the text, as applying to himself. It would be altogether contrary to his nature to do so. In the Arcana Coelestia it is stated that "The LORD is particularly watchful over man during sleep" (n. 959). And in the same number we are instructed how those evil spirits who desire and endeavor to infest man during sleep, are most grievously punished; which is necessary in order to prevent their doing so, and thereby seriously injuring man's spiritual state; because, unless man were protected by the LORD during sleep, evil spirits would certainly destroy him. Such is the diabolical nature of the infernals that they are continually in the desire to destroy man, and would destroy him if it were possible, both as to the body and as to the soul. People generally are ignorant of this; and they do not know to what terrible dangers they would be exposed, on account of the influx from evil spirits, if they were not protected by the LORD. And we can know only from what is revealed to us in the Writings of the Church, how tenderly and how mercifully our Heavenly Father cares for His helpless children every moment of their existence, and especially during the wonderful state of unconsciousness called sleep. Let us hear a passage from the Arcana Coelestia, wherein something is revealed to us concerning what the LORD does for man: "Hence it may appear how great an error it is to believe that the LORD has not foreseen, and does not foresee, the most individual things in man, and that He does not foresee and lead them; when the truth really is that the LORD'S foresight and providence is in the very minutest of all these most individual things, and in things so very minute that it is impossible by any stretch of thought to comprehend a thousand thousandth part of them. Every smallest moment of man's life contains in it a series of consequences extending to eternity, for leach moment is a new beginning of subsequent ones, and this is the case with all and singular the moments of life, both in regard to his understanding and will. And as the LORD foresaw, from eternity, what would be man's peculiar quality, and what it would be to eternity, it is manifest that the Divine Providence is operative in the most particular and individual things respecting him, governing and inclining him, as was said, to such a quality, and this by a continual management of his freewill" (A. C. 3854). In these words is revealed to us a most wonderful idea as to the significance of the life of man and as to the effects which will inevitably be exerted by the moments of his life in the material world, upon his spiritual life even to all eternity. What a revelation to the understanding of the man of the Church, respecting the nature of the Divine Providence of the infinite Father in the heavens, on behalf of His frail, erring, and wayward children! The government of the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom of the LORD is operative in things so very minute, of the life of man, that it is impossible for him by any stretch of thought to comprehend a thousand thousandth part of them. And the Divine Omnipotence Itself is also exerted on behalf of every human being. According to what is involved in the text, and according to what is taught concerning the subject in the Doctrines of the Church-which teaching is verified by the happy experience of every person who is being regenerated-the state of sleep is one of the merciful provisions of the LORD our Creator for the sake of the comfort and development, and thus the spiritual and eternal well-being, of men. The LORD does marvelous things for man during the hours of sleep, even as regards the conditions of the physical body. But still more marvelous are the things which our Divine Protector does for him in sleep, as to his spirit and the interior states of his mind and his soul, a knowledge of which things is deeply hidden from him. When a person has become fatigued from the labors of the day; when there has been an intense application Ito the uses and duties of one's employment; when the fibres of the body have lost their vigor and their tension, and crave to be relaxed; when the mind is weary as well as the body, and the whole being feels the need of a cessation of his activities for a time,-then one can realize what a blessing it is to be able to retire for rest and to pass into the sweet obliviousness of sleep. Then he who has, from Divine Revelation-that is, from the Word,-a rational faith in the God of heaven, and a trust in His Divine Providence, can say with perfect confidence: "In peace together I lie down and sleep; for Thou alone, O LORD, makest me dwell securely." Man is so constituted that in order to maintain good health, to be physically and mentally vigorous, and to be able to exercise to their full extent his faculties and powers, it is an absolute necessity for him to take certain hours of sleep every night.
148
It is therefore an important duty for us to see that we do not neglect the requirement of human nature in this particular. For the natural is the basis and the containant of the spiritual. Disorderly physical conditions are generally promotive of disorderly mental and spiritual states. This is because the ultimates of the body form a plane for influx from the spiritual world, the world of causes, into the soul of man, and influx is according to the quality of the form receiving it. And thus the activities of the soul, and the manifestation of the spiritual life of a human being, depend greatly upon, and are modified by, the conditions of the body, which is the instrument of the soul, during man's rudimentary and preparatory existence in the natural world. We have already heard from the Doctrines that the LORD is particularly watchful over man during sleep, and that He protects man from the infestations of infernal spirits, who would destroy him if this were possible. And in the letter of the Word it is also written: "Thus He giveth to His beloved in sleep" (Psalm cxxvii, 2). It appears evident that such are the internal states of man, as to his soul and spirit, that in the inscrutable ways of His Infinite Love and Wisdom, the LORD can do many things for man during his unconsciousness in sleep, which on account of man's evil and perverted nature cannot be done for him during his wakeful hours. And those things are done by means of the loving angels, whose delight it is to do the LORD'S will, to minister to man in myriads of ways he knows not of, to nourish, vivify, and strengthen his interior spiritual life, in order that regeneration may be effected in him, and that he may be prepared for the kingdom of heaven, and for an entrance at last into the unspeakable joys of everlasting life. And the man must be a miserable wretch, indeed, who is not moved from within to lift up his heart in thanksgiving to the beneficent Giver of all good, on awaking in the morning, after a night of refreshing rest and sleep. Destitute indeed must he be of any knowledge or acknowledgment of the LORD, and of his relation as a finite being to the Divine and infinite Being. The Christian, however, who is becoming rational and spiritual, by receiving truths from the Word and by living according to them, is well aware that it is a blessed thing to direct the thoughts to the LORD, the Father in the heavens, in the morning; to confess his own weakness and helplessness) and to implore the Divine aid, in order that he may faithfully perform his duties during the day, and be able to withstand the temptations and conflicts which are liable to arise. Among the many wonderful things revealed to us in the Writings of the Church concerning the life of man in the spiritual world, is this, that angels and spirits also sleep; and for a similar reason as that which requires men in the natural world to sleep, namely, because they are finite beings, and their spiritual bodies, and also their minds, must be recuperated by periodical states of inactivity and repose; and these are also states of unconsciousness with them. For the LORD alone, the Divine, the Infinite; and the Eternal, who is Life Itself,-"He doth not slumber nor sleep" (Psalm cxxi, 4). It is therefore revealed to us that in the mansions or dwellings of the blessed inhabitants of the heavens there are bed-chambers suitably furnished, to which they retire for rest and sleep. And in the morning, on awaking, they hear singing "by which they are deeply affected and moved on account of its sweetness." In Conjugial Love is described what takes place in a heavenly Society, as follows: "Every morning, from the houses around the forum, are heard the sweet songs of virgins and young girls, which penetrate through the whole city; it is some affection of spiritual love which is sung every morning-that is, is sounded by the modifications of a musical voice, and that affection in the song is perceived as it is in itself; it flows into the souls of the hearers, and excites them to a correspondence with it. Such is heavenly singing. The virgin singers say that the sound of their singing as it were inspires and animates itself from within, and is exalted with delight according to the reception of it by the hearers" (C. L. 17). According to the plain teaching in the Revelation of the spiritual sense of the Word, the only way in which man can be awakened out of his spiritual slumbers is by learning truths, and by living according to them. For by receiving truths from an affection for them man learns the nature of his evils, and that they must be shunned as sins against God. And as he thus shuns his evils, he does good, not from himself, but from the LORD. Thus he is regenerated; he becomes a spiritual man; hence he is like one who is awakened out of sleep, and becomes watchful. He was dead as to the internal man or soul, because he did not receive life from the LORD Who is the Fountain of all truly human life. But by means of truths, and a life according to them, he is brought from death unto life, by conjunction with the LORD, Who is Life in Himself, and the beneficent Giver of life to all finite creatures. Hence it is evident that the LORD has given such an all-comprehending and glorious Revelation of Divine Truth as we have in the Writings of the Church for the sake of the salvation of the human race. By means of this Revelation the Lord has made His Second Advent; and in it there is the LORD'S Presence with the men of the Church, when they acknowledge Him in His Divine Human. For "unless the LORD come again into the world in the Divine Truth, which is the Word, no one can be saved" (T. C. R. 3). Those who know the LORD in His new and most sublime Revelation of Himself, and acknowledge His Human to be Divine; those who renounce their own life, to the end that they may receive life from the LORD; those who confess their shortcomings, and in the spirit of humiliation before the LORD co-operate with Him in the work of regeneration; in a word, all who have entered into the pathway of the Christian life, shall at all times be able to say, with perfect confidence and with a living faith in the Divine: "In peace together I lie down and sleep; for Thou alone, O LORD, makest me dwell securely."- Amen.
PRAYER.
O LORD, our God, with Whom alone is the Fountain of life for angels and men, and without the reception of Whose Wisdom and Love into our minds and hearts we should remain in the deep sleep of spiritual and eternal death, awaken us more and more, we pray Thee, to a consciousness of our duties and responsibilities, as members of Thy New Church. And in Thy great mercy impart unto us of Thy Spirit, and revive our souls, and raise us up, and grant that we may live in Thy sight as obedient children, henceforth and even to eternity.- AMEN.
Truth without good 1894
The Lord is not present in truth without good.- A. C. 10,153.
149
LIBERATION OF THE FAITHFUL AND DAMNATION OF THE UNFAITHFUL 1894
EXODUS xc, 12-42.
(12-16.) FROM the presence of the LORD with those who infested, "and 1 shall pass through the land of Egypt"-who were in a state of evil and false, "in that light"-those of them who were in faith separated from charity were to be damned, "and I shall smite every first-born in the land of Egypt"-as to their interior and their exterior evil cupidities, "from man and even unto beast"-and all their falses were to be damned, "and against all the gods of Egypt I shall do judgments"-for the LORD is the only God, "I am JEHOVAH" The truth of the good of innocence, "and the blood shall be"-testifies to the will of good of those who are of the spiritual Church, "to you for a sign upon the houses where ye are"-and as this truth is perceived by those who induce the damnation, "and I shall see the blood"-being contrary to their delight, the sphere of damnation which inflows from them will shun those who are in this good, "and I shall pass by beside you"-so that the damnation from hell will not inflow and hurt those who are of the spiritual Church, "and there shall not be in you the plague of the destroyer"-when those are damned who are in faith separate from charity, "when I smite the land of Egypt." The quality of that state is to be in worship, "and that day shall be to you for a memorial" when, because the LORD has liberated them from damnation, He is worshiped, "and ye shall keep it a feast to JEHOVAH"-in those things which are of faith and charity, "to your generations"-thus according to the order of heaven which is for those who are of the spiritual Church who will worship the LORD by living a life of uses, in the exercise of good according to the precepts of the LORD, "for an eternal statute ye shall keep it." During the holy state, in which they will thus be seven days"-they are to be purified from falses, unleaveneds ye shall eat"-and there is to be altogether nothing false in the good, "also in the first day ye shall make to cease leaven out of your houses"-for he who appropriates the false to himself, "for every one that eateth leavened"-will be separated from those who are of the spiritual Church, and will be damned, because the false in the good makes it such that it cannot but receive evil from hell, "and that soul shall be cut off from Israel"-when the Church is in a full and holy state, "from the first day even unto the seventh day."-In the beginning of the liberation from the infesters and from damnation all should be together, "and in the first day a holy convocation"-and so at the end of the state, "and in the seventh day a holy convocation shall be to you." During that state they are to keep from earthly and worldly things, "no work shalt be done in them"-when the spiritual and celestial good is being appropriated, "except what shall be eaten by every soul"-and this only should they study, "this only shalt be done." (17-20.) There shall be no false, "and ye shall observe, the unleaveneds"-because they are then in the state of charity and faith, by which they are separated from those who are in evils and falses, because in this selfsame day I led forth your hosts' out of the land of Egypt"-and they then worship from faith and charity according to Divine order, "and ye shall keep this day to your generations for an eternal statute." In the beginning of the holy state, "in the first, in the fourteenth day of the month"-at the end of the former state of captivity, and the beginning of the new state of deliverance, "in the evening"-they will appropriate truth from good, purified of the false; and will be kept by the LORD in the good of innocence, "ye shall eat unleaveneds"-until the end of that holy state, " even unto the one and twentieth day of the month"-at the end of the former state and the beginning of the new one, "in the evening." During the entire period of that state, "seven days"-absolutely nothing of the false shall come to the good, "leaven shall not be found in your houses"-for he who adjoins the false to his good is damned-that is, he is separated from the spiritual Church, "because every one eating leavened, and that soul shall be cut off from the assembly of Israel"-whether he have not been born in the Church or whether he hays been born there, "in the sojourner and in the native of the land." By all means must they be on their guard lest they appropriate the false, "no leavened shall ye eat"-for if they appropriate it"-that is, if they firmly believe it, it is retained, and resists the very truth, and they do not receive the good of innocence, consequently they are not liberated from damnation. But by not appropriating the false, they will appropriate the truth in their interiors where good is, "in all your habitations shall ye eat unleaveneds." (21-24.) The understanding of those who were of the spiritual Church was illustrated by the influx and presence of Truth Divine, "and Moses called all the elders of Israel"-and they perceived, "and said unto them"-that they should compel themselves, "Drag forth"-to receive the good of innocence, "and take to you a sheep of the flock"-according to the good of the truth of every one, "according to your families"-and prepare for the presence of the LORD and for the liberation resulting from His presence, "and slay ye the Pesach." They need to acquire external truth, which is the external medium by which their earthly and worldly loves are purified, "and ye shall take a bunch of hyssop"-that it may be conjoined with the holy truth which is of the good of innocence, "and dip in blood"-which is in the good of the natural, "which is in the basin"-and then the goods and truths of the natural, "and make to touch unto the lintel and unto the two posts"-will be purified by the holy truth which is of the good of innocence in the natural, "of the blood which is in the basin." Then they must remain in good, which is not to be regarded from truth, and ye shalt not go forth any one out of the door of his house"-for good is interior and truth is exterior, and to regard good from truth is to regard the internal from the external which is not according to order, for all Divine influx is through the interiors into the exteriors, and hence truth must be regarded from good, until the state of illustration is reached, "even unto the morning"-when they come into the presence of the Divine, "and JEHOVAH will pass through"-whence those of the Church who were in faith separated from charity will be damned," to inflict a plague on Egypt." When these perceive the holy truth which is of the good of innocence in the natural, "and He see the blood upon the lintel and upon the two posts"-the sphere of damnation flowing from them will flee away from there, "and JEHOVAH will pass by beside the door"-so that the false and the evil which are from the hells will in no wise approach the will of those who are of the spiritual Church, "and will not give the destroyer to come into your houses"-with the damnation which they bring upon themselves, "to inflict a plague." All this was to be according to the Divine order obtaining thereafter with those who were of the spiritual Church, "and ye shall keep this word for a statute to thee and to thy sons even to eternity"-that order which ruled in heaven from the time when the LORD from His Divine Human began to dispose all things in heaven and in the earth, which was immediately after the resurrection.
150
According to this order those who were of the spiritual Church could be elevated into heaven and enjoy eternal happiness, but not so according to the former order; for the LORD previous to His Advent disposed all things through heaven, but afterward through His Human, which He glorified and made Divine in the world; by which such great strength came about that those were elevated into heaven who could not be elevated before; and also that the evil receded on every hand, and were shut up in their hells. (25-28.) When those of the spiritual Church shall come unto the heaven which the LORD will give to them, "and it shall be that ye be come unto the land which JEHOVAH will give you"-according to His promise in the Word, "as He hath spoken"-they are to worship Him on account of their liberation," and ye shall keep this service"-and when they have the interior perception of truth which is of their conscience, "and it shall be when your sons shall say unto you"-when they are in worship," What service is this to you?"-then they are to think, "and ye shall say"-that it is the worship of the LORD on account of their liberation, "The sacrifice of Pesach is this to JEHOVAH"-when the damnation fled away from the goods in which they had been kept by the LORD, "because He passed by beside the houses of the sons of Israel"-for when they passed through the places of damnation, or the hells, when they were liberated, they were kept in good by the LORD, and could, therefore, not be touched by the evils and falses, by the sphere of damnation which exhaled from the hells, when they were in proximity to the evil who infested them, "in Egypt"-and when those of the Church who were in faith separated from charity were damned, "when he inflicted a plague on Egypt"-and still nothing damnable came to them because they were in goods from the LORD, "and our houses He liberated." They humbled themselves outwardly and inwardly; "and beaded themselves the people, and bowed themselves"-and those who were of the spiritual Church obeyed the Truth Divine, "and went and did the sons of Israel as JEHOVAH commanded Moses and Aharon"-and did from the will, "so they did." (29-34.) It actually happened as had been foretold in the instruction given to the Church. In the state of the mere false from evil, "and it came to pass at midnight"-faith separated from charity was damned, "and JEHOVAH smote every first-born in the land of Egypt"-as to the falsified truths of faith, which were in the first place, "from the first-born of Pharaoh who was about to sit upon his throne"-and even as to the falsified truths of faith which were in the last place, that is to say in the mere sensual-corporeal, "even unto the first-born of the captive who was in the house of the pit"-and as to the adulterated good of faith, "and every first-born of beast." When all and every one who were damned were let into the mere false from evil, they apperceived aversion and fear for those who were of the spiritual Church, "and Pharaoh arose in that night, and all his servants and all the Egyptians"-and lamented interiorly, "and there was a great cry in Egypt"-because there was none that was not damned, "because there was no house where there was not one deed." In that state the Truth from the Divine afflowed to those who were in damnation, "and he called Moses and Aharon by night"-so that they begged those who were of the spiritual Church that they should go away, "and said, Arise, go forth out of the midst of my people"-with that truth from the Divine, and with the truth through which is good, and with the truth which is from good, "also ye, also the sons of Israel"-so that they might worship the LORD, "and go ye, serve JEHOVAH"-according to their will, "according as ye have spoken"-also with the interior and exterior goods of charity, "also your flocks, also your herds take ye"-according to their will, "as ye have spoken"-if only they would go away by all means, "and go ye"-so that they might intercede for the damned, "and bless ye also me." From aversion and fear for those who were of the spiritual Church, the infesters were urgent that they should go away, "and Egypt prevailed upon the people, hastening to send them away out of the land"-for thus they would have hell, " because they said, All we die." So then those who were of the spiritual Church entered upon the first state when they were in truth from good in which there was nothing of the false, "and the people carried their dough before it was leavened"-the delights of affections adhering to the truths, "their kneading-troughs bound in their garments"-according to all power, "upon their shoulder." (35, 36.) Those who were of the spiritual Church obeyed the truth Divine, "and the sons of Israel did according to the word of Moses"-and acquired the scientifics of truth and good that were taken away from the evil who had been of the Church, "and asked of the Egyptians vessels of silver and vessels of gold and garments"-and those who were damned feared those who were of the spiritual Church, "and JEHOVAH gave the grace of the people in the eyes of the Egyptians"-and the scientifics were transferred, "and they loaned to them"-and those who were in damnation were utterly devastated of the scientifics, "and they spoiled the Egyptians." (37-89.) In the first state of their departure, "and the sons of Israel journeyed from Raamses unto Succoth"-all things of the truth and good of faith were in one complex," as it were six hundred thousand footmen men"-in which was the good of innocence, "beside infant"-and goods and truths which were not genuine, "and also a great mixed crowd"-were adjoined, "went up with them"-and they had good acquired by truth, interior and exterior, in much abundance, "and flock and herd, a very heavy acquisition." So they came into the second state in which from the truth of good, good was again produced in which there was nothing of the false, "and they baked the dough which they had brought forth out of Egypt, unleavened cakes "-because in the truth from good there was nothing of the false, "because it was not leavened"-since they were removed from those who were in the false from evil, "because they were expelled from Egypt, and could not tarry"-and had with themselves no other sustenance from truth and good, "and also viaticum they did not make for themselves." (40-42.) The infestation of those who were of the spiritual Church, and were kept in the lower earth endured, "and the dwelling of the sons of Israel which they dwelled in Egypt"-until they were vastated as to the evil and false, which were successively separated and rejected to the sides, and the goods and truths were collected to the midst, as remains, and until this state of remains was full, filling up the measure of good which they had acquired by their life in the world, "thirty years and four hundred years." Then the LORD made His Advent when they were saved," and it was from the end of the thirty years and four hundred years then, "and it was in this self-same day"-those who were in truth and good, and were still kept in the lower earth, were removed, "went forth all the hosts of JEHOVAH out of the land of Egypt"-the LORD being present with those who were in truth and good, and with those who were in evil and thence in mere falsity, for His presence illustrates those who are in good and hence in truth, and blinds those who are in evil and hence in the false, "a night of watches is this to JEHOVAH"-and delivers the good from their spiritual captivity, "to lead them forth out of the land of Egypt"-then were detained from every evil and false, "this is that night to JEHOVAH of watches"-those who were of the spiritual Church, with whom was the good from truth and truth from good, that is to say, who were introduced through the truth which is of faith to the good which is of charity, and who, when so introduced were led from good to truths, "to all the sons of Israel unto their generations."
151
Title Unspecified 1894
The reason every good has its own truths is because good is formed through truths- A. C. 10,291.
DEVELOPMENT OF THE WILL THROUGH KNOWLEDGES 1894
[Address by the Head-master of the Pittsburgh School at the closing, June 16th, 1894=124.]
THE following words of the ancient Sophi are the key-note to the subject of our address: "Is not every man what instruction has made him, insane from falses, and wise from truths?" (T. C. R. 692). Having made this announcement, I wish to first call your attention to the following passages, before entering upon the subject. The first is from the Letter of the Word. In Genesis we read: "And God said let us make man in our image, according to our likeness, and let him have dominion over the fishes of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over the beasts in all the earth, and over every creeping thing, which creepeth upon the earth. And God created man in His image, in the image of God created He him." These words describe man such as the LORD desires to make him. Man is an image and likeness of God, when celestial and spiritual things have dominion over natural, sensual, and corporeal things. Such is the true order in which man should be; and it is the LORD'S constant endeavor to make him so. Indeed, for such a state every man is created. Such is the teaching of our first passage. Our second passage shows, not what man should be, but what he is. We read: "Man is nothing but evil. He is a congeries of evils. All his will is mere evil; as is said in Genesis viii, 21, 'The fashion of the heart of man is evil from his childhood.' I have, been shown by living experience that man, spirit, and even angel, regarded in himself-that is, as to his proprium, is the vilest excrement; and that when left to himself he breathes nothing but hatreds and revenges, cruelties, and the filthiest adulteries. These things are proper to him, and these are his will. This may be evident from the fact that man, when born, is the vilest living thing among all wild animals and beasts; and when he grows up . . . unless external bonds, which are [the bonds] of the law prevented, he would rush into every wickedness. He would not rest until he had subjugated all in the universe, and had' raked together the wealth of all in the universe. Nor would he spare any except those who submitted themselves as vile slaves. Such is every man. Wild beasts are never such. Those who are wild and rapacious indeed commit evil to others, but only for the sake of protecting themselves, and if they devour others, it is to satisfy their hunger, which when, satisfied, they do no further harm. Hence it may appear what the proprium of man is, and what his will" (A. C. 987). Such is the teaching concerning the innate nature of every man. But although man is such by heredity, the LORD in His mercy places man into the world, with all his hereditary tendencies in a state of quiescence, and provides that they should remain dormant a long time, in order that preparation may be made for better states. The LORD adjoins angels to him, who surround him with a sphere of innocence which evil spirits cannot penetrate. Thus is man protected from within; and his ignorance protects him from without; for man alone of all living beings is born in utter ignorance. And why is man alone thus born in ignorance? It is because were he born otherwise, it would be impossible for him to become spiritual. All animals are born into the order of their life, which means that they are endowed with all the knowledges corresponding to their affections. Nor can they be elevated above their affections, for they can receive no other knowledges than those that are innate with them. Man cannot be born thus; for were he born with the like limitations it is perfectly clear from the teaching just read, that he would be born a devil, and could never be raised out of his inborn state. He would have such knowledges, and only such, as agree with his hereditary tendencies, which are all evil, and could receive no other; which would of course preclude every possibility of amendment, in other words, of salvation. Thus his first ignorance becomes one of his greatest blessings, in that it prevents his ultimating his innate life, and thus his confirming himself in it. Indeed the LORD does not give man the ability to fully ultimate his life, until he has arrived at that period of life when he can discriminate between good and evil; while in the meantime the Lord makes preparation for better states, by implanting remains both from within and from without. The reason why man cannot ultimate his innate tendencies in early life is that he is so constituted that his affections must first embody themselves in thoughts before they can ultimate themselves in deeds. But thought, again, is not possible without the knowledge of something which can become the object of thought. Hence knowledges are the means through which thought can be formulated, after which affections can inflow and act through them. Since this is the order, it is impossible for man to ultimate any of his evil affections before he has acquired knowledges corresponding with them, through which they then receive the ability to act No man can think his affections. He can think from them. But his ability to think from them is constantly limited by the quantity and quality of his knowledges; and if his ability to think is thus limited his ability to act is of necessity likewise. Thus it is perfectly clear that without knowledges affections are powerless; indeed, without them they must remain forever dormant, and not being able to manifest themselves, man cannot even know that they exist in him. That such is the fact is fully illustrated by the case of the children who were found in forests, having been abandoned in infancy. Several cases of this kind are known, and in no single instance, as far as can be learned, have they manifested any other disposition but that of the animals with which they had associated. The two great evils inherent in every man hereditarily-namely, the love of self and the love of the world-none of these children manifested.
152
They did not know what pride, vanity, greed, and kindred evils, which so often manifest themselves in children, are. They desire nothing but to satisfy their wants in the way in which they had seen the animals, with whom they had grown up, satisfy theirs; and it was only with difficulty and after repeated efforts that they could be induced to accept anything besides food, thus showing conclusively that man can become neither good nor evil except by instruction and association with those who know and practice the one or the other. Without instruction, either by word or example, the hereditary tendencies of man would forever remain dormant. Man at birth is an form, which, though distorted by hereditary evil of every kind, is nevertheless an empty form, ready to receive anything that is offered. It rejects nothing, either good or evil, until some affection has received a snore or less definite form. Then, and not before, does it begin to close itself against whatever does not agree with that. Thus it is by instruction that man can become a man, and how much his future development depends upon the kind of instruction man receives is taught in many places in the Writings. Thus we read: "That which man knows, he can think, will, and do; but not that which he does not know" (A. E. 105). Thus man's mental development is limited by the knowledges which he possesses. Man at birth is nothing but a mass of affections, which need only be supplied with corresponding knowledges to excite them to activity. Indeed the use of knowledges is simply to give direction and determination to affections, as, without such direction and determination, affections are without any ability to ultimate themselves in acts. But there is an innate conatus in every affection to ultimate itself; hence, we are taught that "every affection desires to be nourished by knowledges which agree with it. The fact that the life of every affection finds no other way to ultimate itself, except through knowledges, is the cause that every man eagerly seizes upon such knowledges as agree with his affections, and passes by with indifference all such as do not agree with them, however useful they may be. This fact deserves well to be remembered by parents and teachers, as it is one of the most important factors in the whole work of education. It is their duty to be constantly on the alert, in order to detect the tendencies of the affections as they appear in their charges, and either to feed or to starve them, as the case may require. But in order to make ourselves clearly understood, it may be necessary to state that by knowledges we do not mean only the scientifics which are generally imparted by a regular course of instruction, but everything that may be communicated by any one in any way whatsoever. There is, therefore, required an unremitting vigilance on the part of all to whom the training of children is entrusted by the LORD, in order that they may observe what comes under the notice of the young, especially what persons and spheres they come in contact with. Much mischief may be done in a thousand ways, which all the subsequent efforts of parents and teachers may never be able to correct. Nor let parents trust that the innocence and good disposition of their children are sufficient safeguards against vicious influences. The innocence of children is the innocence of ignorance, which lacks the power to resist evil. To resist evil more is required than a good disposition. It requires a rational conviction that evil is evil, and sin against the LORD. Such a conviction is not possible with any one until he has arrived at the age of rationality. Accordingly children lack this power to ward off evil. All that can protect them is an ignorance of evil. And the more they can be kept in ignorance of evil, the longer their hereditary affections will remain dormant, and thus be powerless to oppose the implantation of remains of good. The duty of protecting children from injurious influences is recognized, by the educators in the Academy, to be so important that it has been made one of the conditions for admission into our schools that parents pledge themselves to keep their children from the influences of the world around us, as this is the only way in which our work can become really effective. The fact, that "man can think, will, and do that which he knows, but not that which he does not know," is equally true of what is evil, as of what is good; and as every man has tendencies to evils of every kind it is of the greatest importance to prevent them, as long as possible, from being called out, in order that they may not by habit be confirmed before sufficient remains are implanted to counteract the poison. This, and this alone, is the object of our rule, to which parents are expected to conform No fear of a wrong interpretation of their or our motive in the matter, should blind them against their duty. The human mind is like soil which receives seeds of every kind, good as well as evil; and what we wish to prevent is, that evil seed get the start before the instruction which the school can give has had time enough to affect the minds of our charges sufficiently, so as to give them a bent in the right direction. There is bound to be in their minds, sooner or later, a life-and-death struggle between the good and evil which they have received, and the result will ever be in favor of the one which has been allowed to obtain the stronger hold upon their affections. The longer children are kept in ignorance of evil, the more easy will be the work of implanting remains of good and truth. It were best if they never learnt what evils are, except through instruction from the Word, for then it would at once be pointed out as evil, and as something that is contrary to the LORD'S will. For wherever in the Word evil is described, there at the same time the penalty is indicated. The child would thus at once learn how the LORD regards evil, and a fear to act contrary to the LORD'S will would at the same time be instilled. Thus, with the knowledge of evil, remains of good would be implanted. The chief use that parents and teachers can perform toward the young is to implant remains of good and truth. It is the chief use of our schools. This use it is which distinguishes our work from all other educational work in the world. For the principal object of our schools is to prepare the young for a life of heaven. This is done by teaching knowledges of good and truth, and, as far as lies in our power, by implanting affections corresponding to these knowledges. This is our object. And that it is a duty pointed out to us by the LORD is evident from teaching like the following. We read: "The external man is corporeal and sensual, nor can it receive anything spiritual and celestial, unless knowledges as a ground are implanted in him (A. C. 1461). The reason why man cannot receive anything spiritual or celestial without previous knowledges, is further explained in the following from the work entitled The Apocalypse Explained. We read: "That which man does not know he cannot think, and thus cannot will; therefore neither can he believe nor love. Hence it is evident, that man by knowledges learns the way to heaven.
153
That without the knowledges of good and truth the Lord cannot be present with man and lead him, is also known, for he who knows nothing concerning the LORD, concerning heaven, concerning charity and faith, his spiritual mind, which is intended to see by the light of heaven, is void and has nothing from the Divine in it, and yet the LORD cannot dwell with man except in that which is His own, . . . that is, those things which are from Him. Hence it is said that the LORD cannot dwell with man, unless he be in knowledges of good and truth from the Word, and thence in a life thereof (A. E. 112). This teaching will also enable us to understand what is taught in another place, namely, that man can only be regenerated according to the quantity and quality of the remains implanted in him. It is our endeavor to increase the store of remains of our charges every day. Not only does every day's work begin with instruction in heavenly things, but all other instruction is given in the light of the Divine Truth, as far as we are permitted to see it. This the world cannot do, for it does not possess that Light; nor does it desire it. Its whole tendency is away from the LORD. It loves none but such knowledges as will enable it to attain its ends, all of which are evil, and lead to evil Hence it only seeks falses, for these favor such ends. That such is the state of the Christian world, and the result of the training which children generally receive, is not only revealed to us, but sufficiently illustrated by the life of dishonesty, insincerity, and other kindred evils, that manifests itself everywhere around us, and since such is the state of the world into which our children must go sooner or later to follow their uses of life, the importance of a proper preparation, which will enable them to meet such a state, cannot be over-estimated. Thus, before they go out into such a world, it is important that they should be well equipped with all the knowledges which will enable them to resist its evil influences; and not only possess such knowledges, but these should also be well grounded in corresponding affections; for true as the words of the ancient Sophi are, that "man is what instruction has made him, insane from falses, and wise from truths," they are true only when such instruction finds corresponding affections in the mind to receive it; for, as we are taught, nothing is received without some affection. But as no man has any good affections inherent in him, they must be implanted. Such endeavor would clearly be in vain with any who are much exposed to opposite influences; these latter would easily and effectually neutralize all such endeavors.
All the good 1894
All the good which man has from the Lord is given him through truths.- A. C. 10,661.
PRESENTATION TO THE CHANCELLOR OF THE ACADEMY 1894
THE unveiling of a most beautifully illuminated address to the Chancellor, from the Pastor, the members of his Council, and the other members of the particular Church of the Academy of the New Church in London; was made the central object of a social meeting at the Hall of Worship, Burton Road, Brixton, on Thursday evening, August 16th. The Chancellor, owing to a slight indisposition, was unable to be present, but, as it was thought that another such opportunity of making the presentation would probably not occur again during the visit of the American ministers to England, it was determined to unveil the Testimonial and to make the actual presentation on some other occasion. Words cannot convey an adequate impression of the richness and tastefulness of the design, with its fine coloring, nor of the many emblematic and ornamental details, which, however, are so interesting as to warrant the attempt. In the centre, to the right, in illuminated Old English text, is the Address proper, the text of which is given below. Above, and introducing it, is the word "Presented," in large letters of the same text. Over this are the Academy arms, while below the Address is a group emblematic of New Church education. In the upper left corner, at the left of the Academy arms, is a bust of Chancellor Benade; below this and at the left of the Address, a group of smaller portraits of the five Academy Priests in England; and below this and at the left of the emblematic group, is a picture of the new Camberwell school and church building, the first Academy building in England. Above all this is the inscription, in blue, "Sacerdotium est Primum Ecclesiae," "The Priesthood is the First of the Church," and at the foot of the whole a Hebrew inscription, in gold on blue ground, "A lamp unto my feet is Thy Word, and a light to my path." This difficult combination of symbolic and practical subjects has received masterly treatment at the hands of the artist, with surprisingly happy results. The Rev. R. J. Tilson spoke to this effect: We are taught in The True Christian Religion that order is God and that God is order, and that the very existence of all things depends upon the observance of order. We are also familiar with the teaching in The Apocalypse Explained [n. 229], that the Priesthood is the first of the Church, and that by means of the Priesthood the LORD forms His Church as His Kingdom upon earth. The Priesthood, however, is an office adjoined, and not conjoined to man, and when we think of the Priesthood we are not to think of mere human instrumentalities, but of the high and sacred office which is adjoined to those who perform its duties. There is a trine in everything that is perfect, and among the priests there is a trifle which is represented in our midst, and in the Church as an outward organization, by the Bishops, Pastors, and Ministers. Above and beyond this, however, the LORD is the only High-Priest of His Church, in the truest sense of the word. It is our joy to know that the LORD is the Head of His Church, and we have had many confirmations of that great and glorious fact. In connection with a subject which has caused considerable thought among us lately, and which has led to a new step being taken in the history of the Church, one very interesting confirmation was brought to my notice. A sermon appeared in one of our journals, weighty in the presentation of a great truth; editorials appeared in that same journal with the same great burden. The sermon and the editorial, written in America, were precisely in the, one direction, clearly pointing us the way out of the mists in which we, some of us, found ourselves. The editorials and the sermon were written independently, neither of the writers knowing of the other's work; and those who wrote them were unaware that others were ultimating a similar work here-were teaching the same position and working on the same lines. This may appear a trivial confirmation, and yet it is a weighty one, that the LORD is the High-Priest of His Church; that we are not depending upon man, but upon the LORD as Chief Governor of the Church; and that through His Divine Providence He will lead her to the end for which He has prepared her.
154
But while the LORD is the only governor, we know that He deigns to use instrumentalities, and in His Divine Providence He permits men to be appointed over Churches in different localities, and one man, according to His own teaching, as His High-Priest; and to-night we desire to do honor and express our gratitude and affection for one whom the Lord has deigned to in the organization of His Church upon earth, the Church of our beloved Academy and of its kindred institutions. For some time past it has been the desire of the Pastor, Council, and members of the particular Church of the Academy here, to give some expression of their feeling of gratitude, for the use he has performed in the' Academy, to Chancellor Benade, and to-night was selected as a fitting opportunity to do that. We are very sorry that the Chancellor is unable to be with us tonight, but, after consultation with my fellow-priests, and the Vice- Chancellor who now sits in the Chair, it was determined that we should not let this opportunity pass, but that the Testimonial should be unveiled and presented to your view.
The testimonial bears an address in the following words:
To the Rt. Rev. W. H. Benade, Chancellor of the Academy of the New Church,
BELOVED CHANCELLOR: We, the Pastor, Joint Council, and Members of the Particular Church of the Academy of the New Church in London, and also the Members generally of the Congregation worshiping under the auspices of that Church, desire to express to you our sincere affection and our deep appreciation of the great use which the LORD has enabled you to perform in the foundation and direction of our beloved Academy. We rejoice that during your sojourn with us you have added to the number of our Priests, have organized a Particular Church of the Academy of the New Church in our midst, and have given help and counsel, all of which we trust the LORD will deign to use in His Divine work of forming the New Church as His Kingdom on earth. We earnestly pray that the LORD may continually bless and prosper you and your wife, and that He may give you increasingly His greatest Blessing, Love truly Conjugial. (Signed) R. J. TILSON, Pastor.
I do not desire, in the short time that I ought to take now, to pass in review the history of the past with which Father Benade's name has been most prominently associated, but I cannot let the opportunity pass without calling to your notice that from the chaos of other institutions with which he worked, Father Benade was, in the hands of the Divine Providence, the Priest chosen to lead us onward up to the position into which we have come, known as the Academy of the New Church. Through good report and ill, through persecution terrible to be borne to the natural man, Father Benade has been strengthened by the Divine Providence to keep his face steadfastly toward Jerusalem, and to go dauntlessly forward endeavoring to do the right as the LORD opened his eyes to see. The work which he has done by the help of the LORD, will be seen in clearer light as age' succeeds age in the history of the true New Church. We are standing too near to him to realize the extent of the work he has done. If you will look at it, even in the light of the small struggles we have had in this country, the better position we have been permitted to attain has been attained simply and solely, as far as human instrumentality is concerned, under the chief directorship of the grand old man whom we now love to have in our midst as our Chancellor. I ask you not to confine your attention to the year just past. I ask you to go back eighteen years, when in 1876, the Academy was formed; and some of us may be able to go back further, and from the journals of the American Convention see the great work he did even in the midst of chaos of that body; as it was also his guiding hand that enabled the banner to be upheld amid the chaos of our own Conference. We therefore felt that we could not allow Mr. Benade to go back from these shores without taking with him something tangible which shall be a constant reminder to him of our feeling toward him-of our great gratitude to the LORD for the work He has permitted him to do in the formation and in the development of the Academy of the New Church. I therefore now have the pleasure of unveiling the Testimonial which we desire to give to him. I cannot for one moment pretend to be adequate to any full description of this Testimonial; you must see it for yourself; and the more you see it and examine it the more you will find out its worth. The work is the work of one of the Councillors of this Particular Church. I am forbidden to say which, but I am bound to say that we, as a congregation worshiping in this room, are placed under very great indebtedness to his ability for so magnificently showing forth our feelings. The Vice- Chancellor: It would be difficult for me to add to what your Pastor has so well said in regard to the Chancellor of the Academy. I have known him for twenty-one years intimately and well, and have worked with him, and from my inmost feelings I can say that I am the better for having known him. That is expressing it in very mild terms. In the mercy and providence of the LORD the Chancellor has been gifted with an illustration superior to any man of our time, and for this we are thankful. The LORD uses instrumentalities for the building up of His Church. He does not need any man, but He does raise up one man to do a given work, to be a leader in a given work; and this man has been raised up to be a leader in this work; and so far as we can see we would not be where we are now without that leadership. As I remarked the other night, it is right to be grateful for the blessings which the LORD has given us; and for this illustration which has come through this man we cannot but be grateful, because it involves the very end for which the world was created, which is the end of a heaven from the human race. Unless there be a Church on the earth, though only with a few, there is no conjunction of heaven with the human race, and hence no salvation and eternal life; and we see how the New Church at large, as it has existed in the past and exists now, has been going to ruin by permitting evils to enter from the Old Church, destroying the genuine understanding of the Doctrines and of the spirit of the Doctrines of the New Church. But by this movement,-by the establishment of' the Academy,-the Church has been saved; and we cannot be too thankful that we have been led into this light that is now pouring down upon us from heaven. The Chancellor lately called a meeting of Ministers, and some of us were able to come; and those of us who are here are thankful that we are here-thankful that we came over to meet you and form your acquaintance, and thankful that we were able to meet together as we have done; and thankful for the results of the meeting. We understand each other better by coming together. It has been said; "let us love one another," but it may be added to that, "let us understand one another;" and I am sure, speaking for myself, we understand each other better than we have before.
155
And so we are thankful that we have come together, thankful for this result, and I have no doubt there will be good and useful-grand results, flowing from this meeting. It is the beginning of a new state in the Church, because a new state in the Priesthood; for as your Pastor said, speaking from the Doctrines, the Church is by the Priesthood. It is by the special illustration given to the Priesthood in their use that the LORD establishes the Church; and the clearer that illustration the better is the quality of the work that is done. Now this coming of the Priests together will bring greater freedom as well as illustration to the Church because it brings greater freedom to the Priesthood; for unless the Priesthood be in illustration there is no illustration in the Church, and unless the Priesthood' be free there is no freedom in the Church. So it is the duty of every one to cherish and cultivate the freedom and uphold the freedom of the Priesthood; for you may depend upon it-and the more you grow in intelligence and knowledge of spiritual things the more you will see it-that the Church is not free unless its Priesthood is free. In understanding each other better we trust each other more; but the foundation of trust is mutual love, and we are instructed in the Doctrines, that mutual love is the firmament of heaven, and that which is the firmament of heaven is the firmament of the Church. Unless there be mutual love we cannot hold together as a Church. Of course this mutual love flows, from the higher love, which is love to the LORD; this trust of each other is from the higher trust, which is trust in the LORD. If we love the LORD and trust in Him we will love each other and trust each other. Let us cultivate this trust in the LORD and this trust in our neighbor. And how do we cultivate it? We do it by shunning those things which oppose and obstruct and interfere with such trust and confidence, under the general law of shunning evils as sins against God; and when that is done good comes from Him. Shunning that which opposes mutual love and confidence, mutual love as a good from heaven will flow in. We must trust the LORD; we must trust Him blindly. Of course the doctrine of a blind faith has been perverted in the Christian world, but still it contains in it this true teaching, that we believe what the LORD says whether we understand it or not, because He says it; and what is true of our relation to the LORD is true of our relation to the neighbor; we must be willing to trust the neighbor out of our sight. If we want to see everything he does, then that is a superficial confidence. So I can truly say that a blind trust is the foundation and beginning of all faith and confidence. Man is not to remain in it. If he remains in it he is not a free man, or if he confirms himself in it as those of the Roman Catholic religion do. But man must begin with that, and on that is built up a true and intelligent faith. The Apostles trusted the LORD blindly, and so it must be with us; we must trust Him in the dark as well as in the daylight. And so it is with our neighbor. The husband must trust the wife blindly and the wife must trust her husband, and on that basis will grow up a true and intelligent, a spiritual conjugial trust and confidence with them. I cannot sit down without expressing my feeling in regard to this work (the Testimonial). It is a most magnificent piece of art; and as I have said in regard to our music, so I must say in regard to this: I never expected to see the like in our time. Rev. E. J. F. Schreck, after paying a tribute to what "Father Benade" had been to him, and after referring to the appellation "Father" as one applied to priests in the Doctrines, said, that an essential element in the trust of the neighbor is the recognition that others have evils as well as we; the recognition that the evils which they have may be much stronger than ours, and the trust that they are shunning them as sins, however the appearance sometimes may be to the contrary. From evils there arise clouds, but those clouds are afterward often seen to arise not so much from the evil in the neighbor as from that which is in ourselves. The speaker regarded Father Benade not only as representing the Priesthood,-not only as a representative of the LORD in His work of salvation-but also as a representative of the progress of the Church. In all human progress there are certain media which help on the establishment of a higher principle, and when this higher stage has been attained those media are laid aside. This is taught in the story of Jacob's sojourn with Laban, and their eventual separation when Jacob became representative of a higher good. Father Benade represents the gradual establishment of the Church upon the fundamental basis of the recognition of the LORD JESUS CHRIST and of a true worship of Him in the uses of life and charity. In the course of his life, as Church uses have been established through him on this basis, various sets of men have been associated with him. And these have been able to follow him, for the most part, only up to a certain stage until the work that was done thus far had led, through their cooperation, to the establishment of a higher good, and then they have not been able to follow him further. Some have continued with him, but most of them have turned aside. This is a remarkable fact. The history of the Church shows that there have been several such periods. One reason for the separation is that men have not thoroughly understood him. To understand him aright requires a judgment, an ability to look through the manifestations of his external character, and to get at his real end and object and bosom love. In performing his work from the inmost affection of his heart he is steadily following the truth as the LORD gives him to see it, entirely forgetful of all considerations but that of having the truth established. It is possible that in the prosecution of that end he may do things that do not appear to be just and right, but by applying that element of trust of which Bishop Pendleton had spoken-trust that the LORD has given him an illustration and power in his office to go on and carry out that work which is the LORD'S work and not man's-it will be seen that such injustice, if it really exists, is of minor consequence as compared with the internal progress in which he leads; and we shall be delivered from a great responsibility, which we often think is ours but which is the LORD'S, and a very little part of which He gives to certain of His servants. All we have to do is to see where our particular duty lies, and then steadily and faithfully and piously-looking to the LORD above all things, and shunning all further assumption of responsibility as a sin against Him-do the use which has been given us by the LORD. The LORD leads His Church, and one principle that we need to encourage and confirm in ourselves from the Word which the LORD has given us in the Doctrines of the Church, is, that in the New Church we should look to the LORD alone, and not to men, to guide us. He is the Priest. However much men and their personality may obtrude themselves upon us, we may be certain that the LORD alone is Priest; and spite of all the imperfections of men, He, through the office adjoined to the Chief Priest, will guide it on and on to ever higher and higher planes of existence, to ever loftier ideals, to ever loftier conceptions and perceptions of the truth, and to the establishment of goods of which we can now have but the very faintest idea.
156
Rev. N. D. Pendleton: I will say a few words as to the use the Chancellor has performed in this generation. It is a fact known to you all that men in this world have ceased to worship God, and worship themselves; or, as in olden times, they worshiped gods, so now they worship simply men. There is one manifestation of self-worship which is plainly shown at this day, which is called by the word democracy. Democracy is nothing more than the ruling of self-love in the individual man, and the desire of ruling over others. Otherwise there could be no such thing as democracy with the idea that men have of that word. Our Bishop has, with a firm and steady hand, like a true priest, fought against the spirit of democracy in the Church, and, by his leading, those of us who have followed him have been led to a certain meed of success; and I feel convinced that this meeting has brought us one step forward in that direction, so that now the Priesthood of the Academy stands before the Academy and the world with a power that has not been granted to it by any man, or any body of men. That power and authority, great as it is-and it is very great-is given to them by the LORD alone, and it rests upon their conscience how they shall exercise that power. The Priesthood of the Academy comes before the world as a body exercising great power, and great as it is, it is needed for the salvation of the Church; for without power no good can be done, and the greater the power, the greater the good. So that it need not be a matter of fear on the part of men-as the natural man will suggest that this is too great a power to be given into the hands of men-there need be no fear of that, because the LORD in His Divine Revelation has given that power, and the LORD Himself can take away that power. And what is more, since He Himself has given it, He Himself is the only one that can take it away. This recognition, I can see, will be the salvation of the Church, for it will be an admission, on the part of the Church, of the LORD'S power with His Priesthood; and by that recognition and obedience to it He leads in the way of salvation. Rev. F. E. Waelchli: I will add but a few words to what those who have preceded me have so well said. I wish to speak a few words in regard to a work of the Chancellor which has not been referred to; but which is spoken of in this beautiful presentation. We read here "Their chief care is the education of little children whom they love most tenderly." These words are spoken concerning certain angels in heaven, a certain heavenly society. There is no doubt that the great work of our Chancellor's life has been under the direction and guidance, under the influence and care of this heavenly society; that he has worked in association with these heavenly societies whose love it is to care tenderly for little children and for infants; for in the hands of the LORD our beloved Chancellor has been the one to establish here on earth a true education; an education which will come more and more into harmony with that education and training which those children who are called away from this world into the other receive at the hands of the angels. For this we feel full of gratitude to our beloved Chancellor; and the coming generation of the Church, those who, in the various centres, have received the benefit of the New Church education established by our beloved Chancellor in the LORD'S Providence, will feel that gratitude toward him in a higher degree probably than we at the present time are possibly able to do. Rev. E. S. Hyatt: Among English Protestants, with whom land probably many of you have spent the early part of our lives, and in the sphere of which Protestantism we still are, there is one great fear. With this fear we have been affected-the fear of Popery. This fear has had this result: the natural man, when he sees an evil and undertakes to escape from it, invariably rushes into a still greater one on the other side. And so from this fear the English Protestant has come to regard every man as his own Pope, and it is out of this state that the New Church has come to save. The Chancellor of the Academy has been the instrument by which this is now taking place. I should say that perhaps in the nominal New Church this feeling to which I have referred has gone to a further extreme than even among those of the Old Church. In my own experience, having been educated to some extent under the auspices of the Conference, I was led to see very forcibly the difference between the kind of government which is popular at this day, and that which is advocated by the Academy, by which I mean the government that is taught in the Writings of the New Church. In the Providence of the LORD the English people have been established on a new continent, where, in many respects, there is more external freedom than in our own country; and although on the one hand that has perhaps led to greater excesses of license, it has opened the way for greater progress in the Church, and has led to higher developments in the Church, than was possible in this country. My hope is that the Chancellor may still be preserved to lead the Church into a wore complete separation from the states of the Old Church; and it is for the sake of this that we are called upon to give confidence to our Leader. The blind faith that has been spoken of seems very contrary to what we have been educated in. But it is very easy to understand it. In all matters that do not come into direct connection with the work of our own employment, whether in the Church or outside of it, it is our bounden duty simply to place our confidence and trust in the Divine Providence, remembering that with all offices in the world there is nothing of chance, but that they are controlled by the LORD Himself, and that therefore we have no responsibility and need not disturb ourselves about any question beyond that which strictly comes within our own recognized duties. I cannot close without expressing my full concurrence in the expressions of gratitude to the Chancellor for all the work he has been enabled to do in the Church. And may we not recognize in this work of the Divine Providence in raising up such an efficient instrument for this purpose, a promise that we may yet see among us men who will enable us to see more clearly what the LORD Himself has revealed? Rev. G. C. Ottley: I deem it one of the greatest privileges of my life to be present on this occasion. Little did I dream, when Mr. Benade landed in this country just one year ago, that he would extend his stay in London to the extent of twelve months, and that during that time it would fall to my lot to be able to get from him that instruction which others have got from him under more favorable conditions,-instruction such as I have never had from any human being. I have been able to see, in the course of twelve months and more, why it is that he, of all men in the Church, has been most misunderstood; why it is that at this day his name is associated with that popery to which Mr. Hyatt has referred, with ideas of arbitrary government; and the reason is, as Mr. Schreck put it, men are not prepared to follow him wherever he goes.
157
And the reason for that is very simple: he has been ever ahead of a large section of his generation; for when the future history of the Church is written, if ever there be one fact which will come out more prominently than another, it will be this: that Bishop Benade, in his day and generation, was head and shoulders above his contemporaries, ministers and laymen. That he has been above the ministers is clearly proved by this, that some were ready to go so far and no further, for the simple reason that they did not enjoy the same degree of perception, that wonderful interior perception which is worth more than mountains of knowledge, because knowledge may be a thing of mere memory. What Mr. Benade has enjoyed is that insight, that perception of what the Doctrines teach; and he has thus been the means of showing us what we should not otherwise have seen, viz.: what they do really point out as necessary for the establishment of the Church. If it had been your lot to have been present at the meetings that we have had here lately, you would have seen that although age has been creeping over him, that although he has been beset by inevitable physical weakness which might well have impaired the acuteness of his faculties, despite these drawbacks he is the same man as ever; that his energy is just the same; that his capacity to unravel and place before you a point of doctrine is as intact to-day as it ever was. It is not a matter to be surprised at then that to some of us he might seem to be leading where we were not quite prepared to go. We were not, in the past. Take this one fact alone: he saw, fourteen or eighteen years before, that the Writings are the Word of the LORD to the New Church. He saw that fact, and his most intimate friends were staggered at its announcement. Speaking for myself, I thought "this is going too far; this is claiming what the doctrines do not claim for themselves." But the cobwebs were in my own brain, my own perception was at fault. It is true! The Writings are the Word of the LORD to the New Church, or the New Church cannot be founded upon them; for the New Church must be founded on the Word, and on that alone. Wherever that truth is driven from the minds of men as is now being done, it will split the Church to pieces; but where that truth is acknowledged, there the Divine will have a footing and there the Church will grow, and nowhere else. In view of these facts, it is our bounden duty to exercise that trust to which reference has been made; trust in the one who has led us so well and so wisely and so firmly in the past. We may trust him because he fills the highest office in the Church; because he is gifted with the highest illustration; because he has labored for the Church so well and so consistently and without art atom of an idea of reward, or from any other end than that of the recognition of his bounden duty to his God and his fellow-beings.
ON the following Monday, at the close of a meeting of Priests, at which the Chancellor presided, Pastor Tilson, in the presence of the assembled Priests, presented the Testimonial to the Chancellor, who spoke as follows: My dear Brother, I find it difficult to express what comes into my mind on this occasion. Man, as man, is nothing; what use a man is enabled to perform is given to him from the LORD, in mercy to his state and for his eternal happiness. We cannot regard man as of any consequence, except so far as he is willing to become an instrument in the Divine hands; and what is done the LORD does: He alone doeth all things well. I cannot take this gift any further than as recognizing the use which the LORD has given me in common with you. I have endeavored to perform that use as looking to Him, and to the Church as the object of His love for the salvation of the human race. He has mercifully saved me from the evils and errors to which as a man I am liable; and if there is any good in the Church and if it has developed, He alone has placed the good there and He alone has brought it forth; and to Him would give all thanks and glory and honor, and I would ask you to do the same. I begin to realize what a heaven on earth we may have in the Church if we love each other as He loves us, regarding each other as objects of His love and laboring for the good of all according to our intelligence and ability. He has given us the Academy as a Church in which we can work in freedom in the doing of His will according to His revelation of that will; and to this Church we may give all our best affections and best services, feeling that we are acting in the sphere of His Infinite Love for all men, and believing, with a certainty as great as is possible for man to have, that this is the way for us to go. For, is it not that we can hear a voice behind us saying, "This is the way, walk ye in it"? The LORD is continually saying that to us, for He inflows into the souls of men and there places His image and the things that go to form His image in man; and, from the soul of man He speaks to the spirit of man and leads him forth from an external and natural life into the way of right action and good living. Let us then unite in giving Him praise for all the good that He has given us for our salvation, and in His leading us into the Church in which we can find Him and Him alone as the one Life of all-the Church in which His Providence has provided the things that shall be for the salvation of the human race in all coming time. For this is the crowning Church of all the Churches; in it are gathered all the things of the past work of the LORD in the Church, and in it to eternity all things will work together for the salvation of the human race, which is the LORD'S Divine End. Having all the things of all the Churches of the past, this Church, which now exists, is to be regarded by us as the very Church of the future; for it is the crowning Church that shall be in all time to men the Divine means of communication with the heavens and conjunction with the LORD. In it He will continue His work of the salvation of human souls through His representative instrument, the Priesthood, which is to carry forward to the future that which He has done in the past; and by it He will lead millions yet unborn into His heavenly fold and into conjunction with Him. Again, let me thank you, my dear Brother, and through you the friends who have united with you in this act of great kindness, which I do not feel that I deserve, and which I can only ascribe to your good-will and goodness and generosity.
Title Unspecified 1894
A. C. 880 In every work of charity the work itself is nothing but a somewhat material; but to be animated, this it derives from the truth of faith which is in it- A. C. 880.
CHURCH IN AFRICA 1894
(Concluded.)
CONSPICUOUS among those African travelers who seem to show real sympathy for the natives and an insight into their character, is the daring Scotchman, Mungo Park, who nearly a hundred years ago landed on the coast of Senegambia and penetrated unexplored regions of the dark continent to points upwards of a thousand miles inland.
158
The character of this man is unconsciously revealed in the simple narrative of his own adventures, as he advances alone through dangers and hardships, animated always with hope, courage, good temper, and prudence. The nobility and firmness of his own soul were his weapon's and his safeguard. It is no ordinary man who, when robbed of his horse, stripped to his shirt in a remote African forest and left desolate upon the track of a lion, can look down upon the unusual beauty of a tiny moss at his feet, draw comfort from its wonders, and go forward bravely, with trust and confidence in that overruling Providence which ordains that sufferings no human foresight can possibly avert, in the end shall bless the sufferer. As an instance of the child-like simplicity of the natives, he relates that on one occasion some women surrounded him, and having examined him closely, declared that both his complexion and his nose were artificial, his mother having produced the former by dipping him frequently in milk when a babe, and the latter by persistently compressing his originally flat organ of smell until it assumed its present unnatural shape. Although every tribe visited by Mungo Park was cursed by the presence of slavery-not merely the accidental fate of prisoners of war, but a state of hereditary servitude dating back to remote antiquity, and of such vast extent that he computed the proportion of the enslaved to the free to be as three to one-the traveler saw much that excited his admiration, and he strikingly contrasts the mildness and simplicity of the people of this region with the fierceness an cruelty of their northern neighbors, the Moors, dwelling along the border of the Great Desert. "I have conversed with all ranks and conditions [of the negroes] upon the subject of their faith," he writes, "and can pronounce, without the smallest shadow of a doubt, that the belief of one God and a future state of reward and punishment is entire and universal among them." Although feared and shunned for the most part, the white traveler was the recipient of many kindnesses, the women particularly being moved to compassion by the sight of his wretchedness. However, it was through the good will of a slatee, or professional slave trader, who allowed him to follow the march of a coffle going toward the coast and to share in the food provided for the slaves, that the brave but unfortunate white man was enabled to escape from the helpless situation of a suspect and beggar, lost in the far interior kingdoms. Some months before his encounter with the friendly slave-trader, the white wanderer on one occasion sought and was refused admittance into the town of Syo, the king sending him word to depart forthwith from his dominions. Mungo Park was at a loss to account for this edict, but it seems quite evident that the influence of the white man was regarded as dangerous by the king of Bambarra, and that in ordering him to depart he was consulting the welfare of his own subjects. Appreciating the white man's helpless situation, however, the king sent him a present of five thousand kowries* in order that he might pay his way through the country. Thus is the king's act seen to have been in accord with the principles of true charity. * The shell money current throughout Africa. At the recent World's Fair at Chicago a negro from the Soudan was exhibited dressed in absolutely nothing but a short girdle made of thousands of these little shells strung together and attached to his belt. It was while the helpless white man was halting near Syo, awaiting the king's pleasure, that the following interesting incident occurred. Being advised to seek a lodging in a neighboring village, he went thither, but, to his great mortification, found that no person would admit him into his house.
"I was regarded with astonishment and fear," he writes, "and was obliged to sit all day without victuals in the shade of a tree; and the night threatened to be very uncomfortable-for the wind rose and there was great appearance of a heavy nun-and the wild beasts are so numerous in the neighborhood that I should have been under the necessity of climbing up a tree and resting amongst the branches. About sunset, however, as I was preparing to pass the night in this manner and had turned my horse louse that he might graze at liberty, a woman, returning from the labors of the field, stopped to observe me, and perceiving that I was weary and dejected, inquired into my situation, which I briefly explained to her; whereupon, with looks of great compassion, she took up my saddle and bridle and told me to follow her. Having conducted me into her hut, she lighted up a lamp, spread a mat on the floor, and told me I might remain there for the night. Finding that I was very hungry, she said she would procure me something to eat. She accordingly went out, and returned in a short time with a very fine fish, which, having caused to be half broiled upon some embers, she gave me for supper. The rites of hospitality being thus performed toward a stranger in distress, my worthy benefactress (pointing to the mat, and telling me I might sleep there without apprehension), called to the female part of her family, who stood gazing on me all the while in fixed astonishment, to resume their task of spinning cotton, in which they continued to employ themselves a great part of the night. They lightened their labor by songs, one of which was composed extempore, for I was myself the subject of it. It was sung by one of the young women, the rest joining in a sort of chorus. The air was sweet and plaintive, and the words, literally translated, were these: "'The winds roared and the mitts fell. The poor white man, faint and weary, came and sat under our tree. Be has no mother to bring him milk, no wife to grind his corn. Chorus-Let us pity the white man, no mother has he,' etc., etc. "Trifling as this recital may appear to the reader, to a person in my situation the circumstance was affecting in the highest degree. I was oppressed by such unexpected kindness, and sleep fled from my eyes. In the morning I presented my compassionate landlady with two of the four brass buttons which remained on my waistcoat-the only recompense I could make her."
This touching picture of a tender compassion, exercised in behalf of a feared and suspected object, may well be supplemented by the following statements from the Writings as to the quality of the better Africans: "In heaven the Africans are the most loved of all Gentiles. They wish to be called the obedient, not the faithful" (A. C. 2604). "The meekest of all spirits are Africans" (S. D. 480). "The Africans are more receptive of the Heavenly Doctrine than any ethers on this earth. . . They are of a celestial nature" (S. D. 4788). "They detest their blackness, knowing that their souls are white" (L. J. 115). "The Africans live according to their religion and its laws, which they love, and therefore they are of such a character, namely, interior" (S. D. 5518 1/2).
FROM The American Swedenborg Printing 1894
FROM The American Swedenborg Printing and Publishing Society we have received Apocalypse Explained, English, vols. 2, 8, and 4, and Apocalypse Explained, Latin-English, vols. 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, an d8. (See advertisement, page 160)
Truth about Homeopathy 1894
The Truth about Homeopathy, a little brochure, the last literary work of that eminent disciple of Hahnemann, Dr. William H. Holcombe, has been sent to the Life by the publishers, Boericke and Tafel, Philadelphia. The work was called forth by a prize-essay pamphlet, by one W. W. Browning, entitled Modern Homeopathy: Its Absurdities and Inconsistencies. This Dr. Holcombe, in his incisive and convincing way, shows to be a tissue of "fallacies and misrepresentations." A sketch of Dr. Holcombe's life is appended to the body of the brochure.
159
LIFE OF THE NEW CHURCH Various 1894
THE ACADEMY OF THE NEW CHURCH.
Philadelphia.- SUNDAY services were resumed by the congregation on North Street, on September 30th. The Holy Supper will be administered on October 7th. Chicago.-WITH the Immanuel Church activities have recommenced. Services are held both at Oak Glen and in Chicago, the Rev. N. D. Pendleton and the Rev. W. H. Acton preaching alternately in each place. The Friday evening class and supper have also been resumed. The school is waiting for the completion of the clubhouse at Oak Glen, which is to shelter school and church uses until funds are available for a more suitable building. Pittsburgh.- THE School here was reopened on September 17th. The Society is at present without a minister, the Rev. Homer Synnestvedt having resigned in order to re-enter the teaching staff of the Philadelphia Schools. THE camp on Ganoga Lake, composed of past and present students and pupils of the Academy Schools in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh proved eminently successful from a New Church social, as well as from a sanatory point of view. At one time the party included twenty, old and young; but for the four weeks ending September 15th, it consisted of five young men. Canada.- THE first social of the new season, in the Church of the Academy in Berlin, was held on the 7th of September, to welcome the pastor on his return from the meeting of priests in England. The pastor gave an outline of the trip and spoke of the great use of the meeting in establishing the law that the High-Priest is the governor of a Church, responsible to the LORD alone and not to men. The fourth school-year of the Academy School in Berlin began on the 17th of September. The opening services were conducted in the chapel, by the Head-master and his assistant. A number of parents and other visitors were present. The subject of the Head-master's address was Conjugial Love, n. 163-165, where the constituents of rational wisdom and of moral wisdom are enumerated in detail. The end of New Church education is that boys may grow up to become forms of wisdom, and girls to become forms of love of that wisdom. The school opened with twenty-six pupils: eight in the Primary School, ten in the Girls' School, and eight in the Boys' School. Three of last year's pupils will this year enter the Philadelphia School. On Sunday, the 16th of September, a young man was baptized into the Church. On the following Sunday the Sacrament of the Holy Supper was celebrated.
THE CHURCH AT LARGE.
Maine.- THE Missionary of the Maine Association, the Rev. J. W. Shafer, reports these results from his ten months' work: Five persons have become receivers and fully a dozen others are reading with an interest which warrants the hope that they may become receivers. Few of the New Church people, however, seem to take an interest in this field. Mr. Shafer lectured at West Dresden, Leeds, South Windham Brunswick, East Vassalboro, and Bangor, with a total estimated attendance of eight hundred and fifty, the highest single attendance being two hundred, at West Dresden. Through Mrs. Schafer's co-operation encouraging interest on the part of the young people and children was elicited. Services by the Rev. G. H. Dole, at Thomaston, and by the Rev. J. K. Smyth, at Gardiner and Augusta, supplemented the missionary work. Massachusetts.- AT Monument Beach the enterprise of holding services in a tent this summer gave great satisfaction, the average Sunday attendance being over seventy. A tent is an eminently fitting place of worship, and it may he added that used as a dwelling this external, derived from the Most Ancient Church, seems to be accompanied by something of a peaceful influence in which the effect of correspondence may be traced. The Messenger's account, speaking of "services at the tent and Methodist Chapel," does not make it quite clear what denominational services were held in the latter. New Jersey.- THE pastor of the Society in Paterson has inaugurated a series of discourses on the correspondences of the various systems in the human body, illustrated by means of life-sized anatomical charts. Maryland.- THE Rev. P. J. Faber, of Baltimore, preached and lectured during the summer in Berlin, Can., and at Chicago, Milwaukee, and several places in Iowa. Ohio.- THE Rev. Frederic William Dahlmann, an elderly German Lutheran minister of Monticello, Ill., openly professed the faith of the New Church this summer and has begun the attempt of forming a German New Church Society in Toledo. The English Newchurchmen of that city grant him the use of their hall of worship in the evenings. He reports that the English Society is weak and the members indolent. THE Rev. L. H. Tafel has resigned his professorship in the Urbana University. Indiana.- THE Rev. J. E. Bowers has made evangelistic visits to a number of places in this State, and has given instruction in the Heavenly Doctrines, by conversations, sermons, and lectures. At a country meeting-house, ten miles south of Logansport, where line spent Sunday, September 16th, the audiences numbered 60, 100, and 150. Several of the hearers seemed to receive the teachings affirmatively, and the evangelist was invited to repeat his visit. Wisconsin.- THE Rev. J. B. Bowers spent Sunday, August 26th, in Milwaukee, and in the evening delivered a lecture at the residence of John M. Stowell, Esq. Michigan.- THE Rev. Louis Rich has lately been called to minister to the Detroit Society. California.- A course of three Sunday evening lectures on "The Garden of Eden," was begun by the Rev. F. L. Higgins, at San Jose, on August 19th. SINCE Mr. Savory's return to the Theological School in Cambridge, Dr. Samuel Worcester has ministered acceptably to the Los Angeles Society. Washington.-DURING his vacation, spent on Puget Sound, the Rev. J. S. David has been giving lectures on "The World's First Parliament of Religions," illustrated by lantern views. In these lectures his practice has been, after describing other religions, to "finally come home to Christianity and explain the spiritual philosophy of Swedenborg which is permeating the churches."
CANADA.
Berlin.-DURING the summer the Berlin Society was visited, first by the Rev. P. J. Faber, of Baltimore, Md., and then by the Rev. Messrs. Wm. Diehl, of Brooklyn, and L. H. Tafel, of Urbana.
GREAT BRITAIN.
London.- THE Rev. Samuel Clarence Eby, who has become the successor of the late Dr. R. L. Tafel, is the fourth American minister to be called to the pastorate of the Camden Road Society; his predecessors having been the Rev. Messrs. O. P. Hiller, S. M. Warren, and Dr. Tafel. Mr. Eby has introduced the Church of England Liturgy at evening services. THE General Conference of the New Church in Great Britain held its eighty-seventh meeting in the Temple of the Society in Moss Side, South Manchester, from June 25th to the 30th. The attendance (132) was the largest in the history of Conference. This number included thirty-two ministers. The Secretary reported a general membership of 6,277, the highest number yet reached. The Rev. Peter Ramage was elected President, the retiring President, the Rev. John Presland, being elected Vice-President, according to the time-honored custom of Conference thus to let the successive incumbents down "easy" from the dizzy heights of that rotatory office, after the manner of the Ferris Wheel. The Rev. W. Westall was nominated to succeed Mr. Ramage next year. The continuance of the ministerial office is becoming a serious problem with the Conference. While three newly ordained ministers received their certificates at this meeting, yet for two years there have been no fresh applications for adoption by intending students for the ministry A resolution was passed urging upon the members of the Conference to lay the claims of the ministry before earnest young men of good ability connected with their various Societies, or little use are such resolutions where the ministerial office, by both Clergy and Laity, is looked upon as man's office instead of as the Lord. And what inducements to study can Conference offer? A College without teachers. The New Church Magazine, now in its eighty-third year, was granted another year of grace. If at the end of that time the subscription list be not substantially increased, the Magazine will be discontinued; and the Conference refused even to grant a small pecuniary allowance to enable the Editor to improve the quality of this faithful servant. Many of the New Church Societies in England rejoice in the possession of Day Schools, institutions built by Newchurchmen to foster New Church education. A number of these schools, besides being subsidized by the Government, receive also financial aid from the General Conference, and thus, to some extent, come under its supervision. At this meeting it transpired that in many of these schools no biblical instruction has been given, and no religious services conducted, within school hours, for years In some of the schools doctrinal instruction had occasionally been given after school hours to the few that especially desired it. Does this fairly represent the state of New Church education among the Societies of the English Conference? A resolution was adopted inviting the schools to open and close their sessions with a short religious service. The discussion of spiritual principles seems to have occupied much less of the time of this meeting than that of schemes of various kinds, devices of human prudence. There was the "half penny per week scheme," a sort of voluntary minimum tax to be raised by the individual members of Societies In behalf of the Building Fund.
160
LIFE OF THE NEW CHURCH Various 1894
NEW CHURCH LIFE. PUBLISHED MONTHLY BY THE ACADEMY OF THE NEW CHURCH.
TERMS:-One Dollar per annum, payable in advance. FOUR SHILLINGS IN GREAT BRITAIN.
The EDITOR'S address is 1821 Wallace Street, Fairmount Station, Philadelphia. Address all business communications to MR. CARL HJ. ASPLUNDH, No. 1821 Wallace Street, Fairmount Station, Philadelphia, Pa. Subscriptions are also received through the following agents: UNITED STATES. Chicago, Ill., Mr. A. E. Nelson, Chicago Agent of Academy Book Room, No. 565 West Superior Street. Pittsburgh, Pa., Mr. Wm. Rott, Pittsburgh Agent of Academy Book Room, Tenth and Carson Streets. CANADA. Toronto, Ont., Mr. R. Carswell, 20 Equity Chambers. Waterloo, Mr. Rudolph Roschman. GREAT BRITAIN. Mr. E. W. Misson, Agent for Great Britain, of Academy Book Room, Burton Road, Brixton, London, S. W.
PHILADELPHIA, OCTOBER, 1894=125.
CONTENTS. PAGE EDITORIAL: Notes 146 The Spiritual Significance of Sleep (a Sermon), 146 Liberation of the Faithful and Damnation of the Unfaithful (Exodus, xii, 12-42) 149 Development of the Will Through Knowledges, 151 Presentation to the Chancellor of the Academy, 153 The Church In Africa, 157 LIFE OF THE NEW CHURCH: The Academy of the New Church 159 The Church at Large 159 BIRTHS 160 DEATHS 160 ACADEMY BOOK ROOM 160 Sixty-one Societies have entered into the enterprise. Another "scheme" with which the Church was threatened in the way of "money-angling" is the "week of abstinence," which plan was reported to have netted the Salvation Army L5,000, It was thought that the New Church should raise at least L1,000 by the same method, Then there was the "Referendum Scheme," proposed by Mr. W. Graham, of plebiscitary fame. This is a plan to refer every question directly to the direct vote of the Societies Instead of, as now, to committees in Conference, such decisions to be published in the May number of the Magazine. Naturally, a scheme which would leave Conference nothing much to do did not meet with favor, and it was extinguished by an amendment of a very general character. The Eighty-seventh Conference will be conspicuous in history for the number of unpractical resolutions proposed-and extinguished by amendments or voluntary withdrawal. There is, as is known, a spirit abroad among our brethren in England-a spirit yearning for "practical good"-for "taking part in the word's work of ameliorating the conditions of the suffering and oppressed, etc. Thus the Rev. J. Tansley, for want of a nearer object on which to grind his reformatory teeth, offered a resolution condemning the practice-one might almost say the habit-of lynching colored violators, in the south in of the United States. The Rev. J. J. Thornton called attention to the fragility of the walls from behind which this English missile was to be sent, by referring to the infamous Kanaka traffic and to the oppression of the Australian natives. Mr. Eby assuring the presenter of the resolution that the United States as a whole "could not really be held responsible for actions limited to certain sections, he withdrew his motion. Another resolution recommended all New Church Societies to provide unfermented wine at the Sacrament of the Holy Supper for those desiring he same." This too, was withdrawn, the mover being pressed "to be content with the present satisfactory position" in which the unfermented article is indeed provided but not brought into debate, the question being too sore to re-open. Yet another ineffective motion sought to have the law of the land so amended as to prevent the employment of children under twelve years of age in any factory, workshop, or mine. Another-killed by amendment-embodied the land nationalization scheme, but this the Conference really could not indorse, since among its bequeathed possessions is included a farm. A motion urging the Government to invite a general disarmament by the European powers, was passed in a very modified form. Viewing the meeting as a whole it cannot be said that Conference advanced any new spiritual principles or proposed any new uses of charity. One member had this to say in its favor, that "no rules were suspended," contrary to custom, but this is explainable by the fact that no opportunity arose for Conference thus to exert its sovereign power. It is not surprising that a leading member of Conference and one who is well acquainted with the various Societies, complained in private, that the state of that part of the New Church which is identified with the General Conference is everywhere like that of a desert. Glasgow.- THE Rev. Louis G. Hoeck, a recent graduate at the Cambridge Theological School, on the last two Sundays in August preached to the Queen's Park Society in the temporary absence of Pastor J. J. Woodford. Mr. Hoeck has accepted the assistant pastorate of the Newtonville (Massachusetts) Society. Embsay.- THE notice in Morning Light, of a conversation in the Embsay Society on the subject of "how to help the Church" is a reminder of how often this problem comes up for consideration. As generally used, the phrase "help the Church," suggests the erroneous and hurtful idea that the Church needs man's efforts. It is the LORD'S alone from Whom all help to the Church comes, while man is permitted for his own sake to co-operate in uses. This co-operation, in a sum, is, to shun evils as sins; and as this involves the shunning of the evils of self-regard and idleness, the man who most fully and consistently shuns his evils as sins is the one who may be said to most truly and effectively help the Church. Wigan.- THE ordination of Mr. Joseph G. Dufty, by the Rev. H. Storry, took place August 20th, at Wigan, where Mr. Dufty will serve as minister. The service, which is described as having been very impressive, was conducted in part by the Rev. Peter Ramage.
AFRICA.
Natal.- A HALL, 25 by 50 feet, has been erected in Durban, Natal, "for the use of the Church and for our scholastic studies generally." As the nucleus for a library a set of the Writings has been sent to the "Brotherhood" by the Swedenborg Society. Cape Colony.- A NEW CHURCH circle has been formed in Cape Town, where ten or twelve persons meet regularly for worship on Sundays. In Paarl also there Is a New-churchman. Max O'Rell's "John Bull and Company," in the September Cosmopolitan Review, helps us to picture the home of these distant friends.
NEW TRANSLATION of Apocalypse Explained 1894
The American Swedenborg Printing and Publishing Society has just added Volumes II, III, and IV, to the first volume published some time since, of a new translation of "Apocalypse Explained"; and also Volumes III to VIII, inclusive of its publication of the Latin-English edition of this publication. It therefore has on hand for sale two-thirds of this great work as follows:
English Edition.
Volume I, Chapters I to iv. Volume II, Chapters v and vi. Volume III, Chapters vii to x. Volume IV, Chapters xi to xii.
Nicely printed on excellent paper. 8vo. (6x9 inches). Well bound in muslin, price, $1.00 per volume.
Latin-English Edition.
Volume I, Chapters i and ii. Volume II, Chapters iii and iv. Volume III, Chapters v and part of vi. Volume IV, Chapter part of vi. Volume V, Chapters vii and part of viii. Volume VI, Chapters part of viii to x. Volume VII, Chapter xi. Volume VIII, Chapters part of xi to xii.
Well printed on fine paper. 8vo. (6 1/4 x 9 1/2 inches). Substantially bound in half leather, price, $2.00 per volume. Address,
ACADEMY BOOK ROOM, 1821 Wallace St., Philadelphia.
161
Conjugial love is 1894
New Church Life Vol XIV, No. 11. PHILADELPHIA, NOVEMBER, 1894=125. Whole No. 169.
Conjugial love is conjoined with the love of infants, in parents, by means of spiritual and thence natural causes.- C. L. 404.
Title Unspecified 1894
THE end of the Creation of the universe is man, and the end of man is an angelic Heaven. The most serious consideration of men and women, therefore, should be devoted to the eminent use of procreating and caring for, offspring-a use which has been given to them, of the LORD'S mercy. The inmost Heaven is particularly concerned in this use, and therefore true thought concerning it opens that heaven to man, and a true doing in accordance with the true thought conjoins man to the Inmost or Celestial Heaven.
Title Unspecified 1894
BUT this most noble use, like all good and heavenly things, may be, and frequently is, perverted. The truths about it are profaned, the goods adulterated. Because it is the most noble of human uses, because all the heavens are concerned in it, and especially the celestial heaven, and because it is the use which brings man nearest to the LORD, therefore the Devil constantly endeavors to destroy it, and with consummate cunning he devises the most seductive falses in order to lead men to be willing means for his infernal object.
Title Unspecified 1894
GOD is Infinite, and it is His Will that the number of angelic beings shall approach as near as possible to the Infinite. For this reason there are innumerable earths in the starry heaven, all peopled with human beings. For this reason there is an image of infinity in the procreative ability of every single human being of this stupendous universe.
Title Unspecified 1894
THE exalted self-intelligence of man would limit the number of human beings, where the LORD has not set a limit; and it argues itself into an apprehension concerning the over-population of the world, without giving a moment's thought to the consideration that the Infinite Creator, Who alone actually creates the human beings, brought forth into the world by human instrumentalities, Himself operates to prevent any conditions which in His eyes would be a calamity to His own creatures. He does not require for an instant the aid of man's self-intelligence. For men to limit the number of their children is to assume the role of Providence, which belongs to Infinite Wisdom alone, and is a transgression of the commandment, "Thou shalt not have other gods before My Faces."
Title Unspecified 1894
THE Malthusian doctrine, begotten of conceit, and brought forth by an affection of substituting man's for the Divine Providence, recently insinuated prudence into the columns of The New Church Messenger. Its fakes were effectively and thoroughly exposed in subsequent numbers of the same periodical. Still the advocacy of the murderous doctrine, without even editorial objection, manifests that within the gale of the New Church there is soil receptive of such doctrines as this, which would undermine and destroy the work of Heaven itself.
Title Unspecified 1894
THE argument that the world will not be able to support an increasing population is shown to be wholly groundless by the consideration that in such an event the LORD provides for a shortening of the term of man's life. (See A. C. 8851; E. in U 84; S. D. 546.) But the argument, applied to mankind at large, becomes more seductive when it appeals more immediately to the circumstances of individual families, as when it is said (as it has been by New Church teachers and others), "Let New Church parents beware how they bring little children into the world whom they cannot support and educate." Not only is this a pronounced mistrust of the Divine Providence, but worse.
Title Unspecified 1894
THE love of procreation is intimately bound up with the love of the consort, and the establishing and confirming of conjugial love in ultimates is necessary for the real growth and continuance of the spiritual love. In fact, conjugial love is primary, and procreation is secondary, or the end of creation is attained when husband and wife are conjoined in love truly conjugial, in the union of good and truth, for thus there is a full reception of the Divine proceeding from the Divine Human of the LORD. Heaven is there, and the delights of delights then experienced are from the heaven of celestial innocence. In the use of procreation this union comes into its fruition, and leads to the multiplication of little heavens of conjugial love, so that the large heaven may increase and he perfected.
Title Unspecified 1894
THE apparent prudence, therefore, which is conveyed in the saying, "Let New Church parents beware how they bring little children into the world whom they cannot support and educate," strikes a blow at conjugial love; for to imagine the conjunction of husband and wife, and at the same time an attempt to prevent conception, is too horrible and murderous and anti-conjugial to be entertained by a mind that is in possession of its spiritual free judgment.
Title Unspecified 1894
IT is urged that the physical condition of a mother may be such as to make almost certain the production of a child weakened in body or in mind or in both. The question, however, goes back farther than the child-bearing. Conjugial love is the union of love and wisdom, and in every marital relation, love, of any degree, should be tempered by wisdom. When the conjugial state, with all due loving and wise consideration for the spiritual and physical state of the wife, renders necessary that ultimate expression of love which has been ordained by the LORD, then the LORD is present, and the consequences are in His hands. The consorts are in the stream of His Divine Providence, and can lovingly trust in Him. And if, under such circumstances, children should be born weak and imbecile, it is better than that they should not be born at all.
162
Title Unspecified 1894
THE question is asked, Should not a father use all wise control to have the sphere of protection of infants (which is received first by the mother and through her by the father) come to him directly from the mother? Should he avert it by using his influence to induce her to undertake a charge she knows she cannot, for she is unable physically to preserve it and protect it? The principle involved is one that is not peculiar to the assumed case. In every human action those who take part in it, should do so freely and rationally. So in all actions in which married consorts are engaged. While the understanding of the husband must lead, it must be his understanding, not his will. And his understanding, his judgment, takes into account the wishes and the intelligence of the wife. It is not blindly led by them, but allows them to have due influence in the formation of his judgment, which must always be deduced from the spiritual truth of the heavenly doctrine, in order to be an understanding or a judgment worthy of the name.
Title Unspecified 1894
THE errors and evils that are committed in the carrying out of the uses of procreation and education, which the LORD has given to married consorts, are to be cured from within. Where conjugal love is received, and the delights of wisdom concerning it are faithfully studied, there the love of offspring, with the love of its attendant wisdom, will be sure to come; for "the first end at conjugial love is the procreation of offspring, and the ultimate end, which is the effect, is the offspring procreated" (C. L. 385).
Prolification 1894
Prolification corresponds to the propagation of truth, and the love of infants corresponds to the defending of truth and good.- C. L. 127.
LORD, THE GOD OF THE ANCIENT CHURCHES Rev. EUGENE J. E. SCHRECK 1894
In order that they may believe that seen unto thee was JEHOVAH the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Iaaak, and the God of Jacob.-Exodus iv, 5.
THE first truth of the Church is, that God is One. The LORD who came into the world to subjugate the hells and glorify His Human-the LORD Who is the Word, and Who makes His Second Advent in the Word, and is the LORD and God of the New Church-is the LORD from eternity: the God of our fathers; that is to say, the God Who was worshiped in the Primitive Christian Church, in the Ancient Church, in the Most Ancient Church; the God who is adored by all who are in good-by all in the heavens: "that they may believe that seen unto thee was JEHOVAH, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaak, and the God of Jacob." The worship of the LORD JESUS CHRIST, as to His Divine and as to His Divine Human, by angels who were men of the Most Ancient Church, and by angels who were men of the Ancient Church, and by angels who were men of the primitive Christian Church, makes of all the heavens one heaven, and unifies them, and brings their complex organization into one closely inter-related whole. The recognition, in the New Church, that the LORD, Who newly manifests Himself as to the Divine Itself and the Divine Human, is the same God who was worshiped of old, ever since there was such a thing as a Church upon earth, unites it closely to the whole of Heaven, which thus breathes one breath, the breath of lives, the breath of holiness, the Holy Spirit, infused into it by the Centre and Soul of it all-the LORD our GOD. As the starry universe is one, each star being the centre of the influences of all the others, as this little earth of ours is shined upon by the countless suns that sparkle in the expanse of the heavens, and is influenced by them to greater or less extent, so the Church on this earth is the centre of all the heavens, and is open to influences from the countless societies of the angelic heavens which, themselves, are sources of light that is enkindled in them by the God of the Heavens. For centuries past there has been in the world no knowledge of the existence, even, of Churches before the time of the Jews. It was not known that those Churches worshiped the LORD. It was not known that there are heavens of immense extent, containing millions upon millions of angels, who, when on earth, as members of the Ancient Churches, worshiped the LORD, and, as angels, worship and glorify Him now. Among the most important articles of the Doctrines of the New Church, is that concerning the existence, the doctrines, the religion, the worship, the life of the Most Ancient and Ancient Churches. These were revealed by the LORD JESUS CHRIST when He made His Second Coming into the world, and they were revealed for a purpose. The New Church would always, be lacking in some essential particulars, did she not know of these Churches. Indeed, her very name "New Church" would be, to a great extent, meaningless, for the New Church is not merely so called, because her doctrines and life are new as contrasted with the doctrines and life of the Old Christian Church, but she receives her name especially by virtue of her being distinguished from the Ancient Churches; for, as to the Christian Church, that has been a Church in name only, not in essence and reality. The New Church descends from the New Heaven, which at the Second Coming was formed of all the good who had lived since the time of His First Coming. This Heaven is below the Ancient Heavens, but they communicate with it by means of influx. And in order that the men of the New Church may enter in thought and affection into the life of the Ancient Churches, therefore the abundant testimony concerning their life, doctrine, and worship. The manifold teaching of the Word concerning the Ancient Churches may be seen in many places of the Sacred Scripture, by a mind which is but initially instructed; markedly in Malachi iii, where the LORD has revealed that He was to come into the world and teach the Word in its purity, for there He teaches that the Church, doctrine, and worship shall be such as they were with the Ancients, in these words: "Behold I send Mine angel, who shall prepare the way before Me, and suddenly shall come unto His temple the LORD whom ye are seeking, and the Angel of the Covenant whom ye desire: Behold He cometh, said the LORD ZEBAOTH. And who shall sustain the day of His Advent, and who shall stand when He appeareth. For He, as the fire of a refiner and as the soap of fullers. And He shall sit, refining and purging the silver, and He shall purify the sons of Levi, and shall defecate them as the gold and the silver, and they shall be bringing to the LORD a mincha in justice. Then sweet shall be to the LORD the mincha of Jehudah and Jerusalem, according to the days of an age and according to the former years." (Mal. iii, 1-4). The Most Ancient Church which was before the flood and was in love to God, is understood by the "days of an age," or "of eternity," and the Ancient Church is understood by "former years."
163
"According to the days of an age, and according to the former years," therefore, signifies according to the worship in the Ancient Churches. The peculiar genius of the men of those remote ages, the lives which they led- under their peculiar circumstances, established forms for the reception and transmission of the Divine Life which can never be reproduced, but which are essential for the corporate life of mankind, and which continue their use of reception and transmission in the spiritual world, where they constitute the expanses of the heavens through which the Divine sunlight passes on its way from the Sun of the Spiritual World to the New Heaven. The influx from these heavens may not be received immediately by men, and hence the further mediation of the New Heaven, which the LORD has established for the purpose. But, although there is this adaptation and accommodation, yet it is essential for the right reception of this influx, modifying as it does the lower heaven into which it inflows, that there should be vessels formed in the New Church, even as they have been formed in the New Heaven, to receive this influx adequately. Thought brings presence. Thought concerning God brings Him so present that it opens heaven to man, for God is the inmost vital of heaven, the Divine of the LORD constituting heaven, And as thought about God thus opens heaven to man, thought about the LORD as the God of those who from the beginning have been of one Church or the other, opens their heavens to man. The history of the past Churches is revealed to us in the Word, principally because of their relation to the LORD. The study of that history forms a thought in our minds and a judgment about the successive Churches and an affection for their peculiar reception of the Divine, which enables us to receive in a becoming manner the influx through these Churches or Heavens into our minds. Thus the whole humanity, as it stands before the LORD at any one time, is knit together in one common love, one common thought, the varieties of which are as infinite as the least crystals that compose the minerals of this globe, as the leaves of the trees of the whole orb, as the features of the inhabitants of all the earths in the universe which all bear the general outlines which they have received as an inheritance from their Infinite Divine Father. The whole heaven would not be a Gorand Man, it would not be the Temple, the Dwelling-place of the Most High, were there not an intercommunication by influxes. The holy of holies may be separated from the holy, the whole temple from the outer court, yet they form together one whole, communicating by the properly appointed means of ingress and egress. To emphasize this communication and conjunction-which very rarely takes the form of personal intercourse between the heavens, even as the intercourse between heaven and the world is rare-the Divinely accredited Apostle of the New Church, who alone of mortals was permitted to be in both worlds at the same time, was likewise permitted to visit the Ancient Heavens. By his recital, the men of the New Church are enabled to think of the present as well of the past worship of the LORD by the denizens of those heavens, and their influxes are focused, as It were, upon the New Church, thus imparting to it a most important and wonderful power of development into the state of love and wisdom indicated by its denomination as the "Crown of all the Churches." The pomegranate with golden seeds, which was presented to Swedenborg by the angel who had lived in the golden age, the white grapes with silver leaves presented to him and his companion by the angel who had lived in the silver age, the balsamic twigs of shining brass with tips of gold, presented to him by the angel who had lived in the copper age, were signs that he had been among the people of these ages, enduring signs to us also of their consociation with us in the universal love and worship of the Divine Human, in which is the Divine Itself the Knowable in Whom is the Unknowable, the Visible in Whom is the Invisible: "In order that they may believe that seen unto thee was JEHOVAH the God of the; fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaak, and the God of Jacob." They are our fathers-for father is a word meaning good-by virtue of the good of love to this our LORD, and of charity toward those who, in Him, are brethren and neighbors. They have gone before us, these men of the Ancient Churches, models of spiritual and moral virtues; and we, their sons, profiting by all that the LORD has done for the world through their loving mediation while on earth and then in heaven, may wisely study their ways, and, looking up to them for a counsel and for example, follow on in the path which they have trodden. The LORD was so frequently announced to the Israelites as the "God of their fathers," in adaptation to their intense love of family-which is only another form of the love of self-in order to rouse them in this manner out of the worship of the calves of Egypt to the worship of JEHOVAH, if this were possible. To those who were of the spiritual Church, who lived in the lower earth at the time of the LORD'S Coming, and who were to be led and elevated to Heaven after the Judgment-the LORD, their Saviour from the infesting spirits of hell, was announced as the God of the Ancient Church. They had been in great obscurity, although for the most part themselves of the Ancient Church. They were instructed that the Divine of the Ancient Church, Who is the Divine Itself and the Divine Human, must be in their Church in the spiritual world, for He is present in their law, and thus makes His Advent to them as their Deliverer and Saviour. And so to the New Church the LORD manifests Himself as the God of the Ancient Churches. Unknown in the Christian world-where three gods are worshiped, none of whom is the LORD, but all three of whom are the hideous offspring of man's phantasy, conceived from the evil and infernal lust for dominion and glory-it was and is necessary for those who are to be of the New Church to know that the living God Who sends His Word, His Moses and Aharon to them, is not the God of Protestants, Catholics, or Unitarians, that He has nothing in common with the gods of these perverted Churches, but that He is the God who was worshiped in the Most Ancient and Ancient Churches, and, for a very brief period, in the Christian Church, and manifests Himself anew in His Divine Human, in order that men may again draw breath of Heaven from Him, throw off the poison that lurks in their systems from the wretched contaminating atmosphere that has been surrounding them, and rise up out of the chilling mists and fogs onto the tableland of the LORD'S own glorious mountain, whence, with clearer eye and stouter heart, they may perform uses that originate in heaven and lead the doers of them to heaven.
164
So long as the professing Newchurchman still clings to the idea that the God revealed to him in the Heavenly Doctrines and in the letter of the Word, is the same God who is worshiped in the Old Church, he fails to grasp what the New Church is-be fails to see the LORD, for there still floats before his imagination the image of a god who is not divine, but who has been made by men-a mere idol; he fails to grasp the revelation that the Old Church is utterly dead and consummated, having not even a spark of spiritual life left that might be fanned by the Divine breath into a flame of Jove to Him and to the neighbor. The Newchurchman, if he loves his LORD, heeds His Divine words, as they reveal to him the good and true state of the Ancient Churches and the utterly false and evil state of the present Church: "Thy mother as the vine in thy likeness, beside the waters planted, fruitful and branchy was she from waters many. Hence she had rods of strength for sceptres of the lordly ones, and lifted up itself the light thereof upon between the intertwined ones, so that he appeared by his height in the multitude of boughs. And plucked up is she in wrath, on the earth hath she been cast, and the wind of the orient hath dried up her fruit; torn off and dried up are the rod of her strength, fire devoured every one. And now, she is planted in the desert, in a land of drought and thirst. For there went forth afire out of the rod of her branches, the fruit thereof hath it devoured, so that there is not in her a rod of strength, a sceptre to rule" (Ez. xix, 10-14). The First Christian Church, as represented by the innumerable divisions and heresies about us, is the veritable Egypt, out of which the New Church is to be led forth, under the leadership of the Divine Law in which is recognized for the first time the God of the Ancient Churches, the Divine and the Divine Human, "the God of Abraham, the God of Isaak, and the God of Jacob." If Egypt be not recognized as Egypt, but be assumed to be Canaan, if no difference is discernible between its idols and the living God, the exodus out of the doomed land will never take place, Israel will never become a nation. But when the desert, parched state of the Old Church is realized, and it is seen that the fire of evil lusts has entirely consumed it, that there is in it not the slightest resemblance to the true and living Church, then the eyes of the Newchurchman is turned upon the Ancient Churches, "thy mother as the vine in thy likeness." The New Church is to be like the Ancient Church, aglow with the love that animated her and drew her many parts together in the performance of heavenly uses, the fruits of which filled the lands, so that her branches overshadowed the whole of them. Thus animated, the New Church will cherish a love of the neighbor never realized before-an interior love for the Ancient Church, which the LORD has brought to our knowledge in order that our hearts may expand and go forth to the good and truth that was embodied in the life of that wonderful, glorious Church. If our affections are drawn out toward an individual to whom-we may learn to realize-the LORD has mercifully imparted His heavenly gifts in abundant measure, how much greater must be the yearnings of our love toward an entire Church which existed for centuries over many countries? And in this love for a neighbor with whose external embodiment of internal, spiritual, and celestial virtues and graces we become better acquainted by the help of modern researches and discoveries-in this love, which projects our thought into the societies of the Heavens formed from the men of that Church, our love for the LORD grows and expands. It feeds upon the deepened love of the neighbor, and brings us nearer to the LORD of our fathers, "the God of Abraham, the God of Isaak, and the God of Jacob." "The God of Abraham, the God of Isaak, and the God of Jacob!" the LORD Who with unwearied, Infinite patience and loving-kindness watched over us in earliest infancy, when celestial remains were stored up by Him; in childhood, when spiritual remains were stored up; and in adolescence, when we descended to the natural man! Whatever good is insinuated into the man of the Church during his life, preparatory for regeneration, is from Him, and to this good is he to return. As to the New Church as a whole so to every man individually there is this appearance of the LORD as the God of his fathers. When, budding into manhood or into womanhood, the man and the woman has been divested by the LORD, with Infinite Divine care, from the bonds which had surrounded them from infancy and kept them for their own safety subject to others, and they enter upon the freedom which has come to them so gradually and so insensibly, under the tenderly gentle and infinitely loving hands of their Divine Father, that they cannot distinguish when the period of service ended and the period (if freedom began-they undergo various states, until of the LORD'S Mercy, in His own good time, He appears to them in His Divine Word, and they realize His presence freely, and of themselves, in a manner so different from that in which they have been wont to think of the LORD, that their soul is filled with an unspeakable delight, accompanied with a holy fear that they are not worthy of so great a blessing. Operating through the holy remains which, years before and all through their previous life, the LORD has providentially hidden away in the interior recesses of the soul's affections, He leads them, on the threshold of their new, independent life, to have faith and confidence in Him; confidence that He is in His Holy Divine Word and that by implicitly obeying His Word as He now reveals it to them in their own study of it, He will lead them safely through the midst of the infesting falses of whose virulence they begin to have some cognizance. Such states of a realization of the Divine Presence in His Human, cannot continue long at a time. The poor mortal could not endure it. But though they pass away, apparently, and the man returns to the occupations of his daily life, and meets with interests that fain would develop the fund of worldliness and selfishness that is in him, yet he carries with him the signs of the appearance of the LORD. The LORD has made His Coming to him, and the signs follow after. The very selfishness which besets him, the sensualism which rises up within him, now is an evidence to him of what he has experienced. He realizes what a fearful, what a horrible, thing is the external man when separated from the internal and not made subject to it, as horrible as the serpent into which the staff of Moses was turned when he cast it to the ground. The staff was but an extension of the power of his arm and hand, serving for support and for the exercise of his power, but when separated from him, when east on the earth it became a deadly and infernal animal. Reunited with his hand, it turned again into a staff. And so, when the external and sensual man is made subject to the human intelligence which the LORD, the only Human, is lighting up in his mind, the external and sensual become a power for good, an instrumentality without which all the interior affections and forces of man would be totally ineffective. The realization of the alternative which lies before him in his life is the sign to the novitiate man and woman that the LORD has appeared to them.
165
Happy, thrice happy they, if with a firm reliance upon the LORD who has shielded them from every evil, they retain their grasp upon the power, the newly-discovered and precious power, which the LORD has given them, and with this token of the Divine Omnipotence that is powerful over all the hells, they go forward: that sweetest of human possessions, spiritual liberty, their end, the heavenly land of Canaan their goal.- AMEN.
PRAYER.
O LORD JESUS, our SAVIOR, Thou in whose Omnipotent hands are all our times, from infancy to death, all our states, from now unto eternity-we humbly thank Thee that Thou hast so mercifully revealed Thyself in Thy Divine Word as the GOD and LORD of the Ancient Churches, Who didst establish the Heavens and the Church, and Who leadest all Thy children out of the sphere of infesting evils and falses, with a high hand and a stretched-out arm. Thou hast brought us together this day, old and young, of every age and every state, those also who are entering upon life's journey, beset as it is by Thine and their foes, but guarded likewise by Thee and Thy holy angels:- Thou hast brought us together in order that we may the more fully realize Thy presence and powerful help in every state of life, and to give us courage for the conflict that is before us, and rages around and in us. As Thou art merciful to us, help us, O LORD, to be merciful to one another, that we may offer to the neighbor, not ourselves, but that which Thou so graciously givest to us for his use and enjoyment. May we thus, O LORD, learn to become, in truth, Thy children: love Thee as our Father, and live in true fraternity among ourselves, so that we maybe turned to Thee, raise our eyes to Thy countenance, and receive Thy Divine aspect upon our foreheads. We pray this, 0 LORD, trusting solely to Thine Infinite Mercy.- AMEN.
There is a conjugial sphere 1894
There is a conjugial sphere which inflows from the Lord through heaven into all and single things of the universe, even to its ultimates.- C. L. 222.
LAWS OF ORDER FOR THE DELIVERED 1894
EXODUS XII, 43-51.
(43-49.) THOSE who were liberated from damnation and infestation were informed through the Divine Truth, "and-JEHOVAH said unto Moses and Aharon"- that these are the laws of order for them, "This is the statute of the Passover:"- Those who are not in truth and good are to be kept separate from those who have been liberated, "every son of a foreigner shall not eat it"- and the man who is still natural, "and every servant of man"-who has some spiritual truth, "the purchase of silver"-is to be purified of filthy loves, "and thou shalt circumcise him"-then he may be with them, "then he shall eat it." Those who from a merely natural disposition do good, and those who do good on account of gain, shall not be with them, "a lodger and a hireling shall not eat it." The consociations must be of agreeing goods in order that they may make one good, "in one house it shall be eaten"-and this good is not to be commingled with the good of another, "thou shalt not bring forth out of the house, of the flesh, abroad"-and the scientific truth is also to be entire-that is to say, the scientific truth is to admit nothing but truths which agree with its good, "and a bone ye shall not-break in it." This is the law of order for all who are in the good of truth and in the truth of good, all the assembly of Israel shall do it." He who has been instructed in the truth and good of the Church, and has received them and lives according to them, "and when there sojourneth with thee a sojourner"-if he wishes to be one with those who have been liberated, "and he doeth the Passover to JEHOVAH"-his truth is to be cleansed of all impure loves, "circumcised shall be to him every male"-and then he shall be with them, "and he shall then come near to do it"-and he will be accepted like him who is in that truth and good, and purified of filthy loves, "and he shall be as the native of the land"-but he who is in the loves of self and of the world cannot be with them, "and every one uncircumcised shall not eat it." Thus he who, having been instructed, receives the truth and good of the Church, and lives a life according to it, shall he like him who has been previously instructed, and is within the Church, and lives a life in conformity with the precepts of faith and charity, "one law shall be for the native and for the sojourner sojourning in the midst of you." (50, 51.) Those who were of the spiritual Church acted in obedience to the Truth Divine, "and did all the Sons of Israel as JEHOVAH commanded Moses and Aharon"-not only from the understanding, but also from the will, "thus they did." In this state of the presence of the LORD, "and it was in this selfsame day"- He liberated from damnation those who were in the good of truth and in the truth of good, "JEHOVAH led forth the sons of Israel out of the land of Egypt"-distinguished according to the quality of good from truth, "as to their armies."
FURTHER PREPARATION FOR INTRODUCTION INTO HEAVEN.
EXODUS XIII.
IN this chapter, in the internal sense, faith in the LORD is treated of, and that they are to remember perpetually that by Him they were liberated from damnation. Faith in the LORD is signified by the sanctification of the first-born; and the perpetual remembrance of the liberation by the LORD is signified by the Pesach. Afterward the ulterior preparation of those is treated of, who were of the spiritual Church, and were kept in the lower earth before the Advent of the LORD, before they could be introduced into heaven; and that for the sake of that end they were first sent safely through the midst of damnation, and that they then underwent temptations; the LORD being constantly present. The transmission through the midst of damnation is signified by the transition through the Sea Suph; the temptations, are signified by the life in the desert, to which they were led; and the presence of the LORD is signified by the column of cloud by day and of fire by night.
FAITH IN THE LORD-PERPETUAL REMEMBRANCE OF THE LIBERATION.
(1, 2.) Those who were of the spiritual Church were informed by the Divine, "and JEHOVAH spake unto Moses, saying"-that faith, or, all the truth which the spiritual Church has, is to be ascribed to the LORD-that is to say, they are to confess and acknowledge that it is from the LORD, "Sanctify to Me every first-born"-for this faith, being from charity, "the opening of every womb"-in the spiritual Church, "in the sons of Israel"-be it of the good of faith interior or exterior, "in the man, and in the beast"-is the LORD'S, "Mine it is."
166
(3-10.) They were further instructed through the Truth Divine, "and Moses said unto the people"-that they were especially to remember that state in which they were when they were liberated by the LORD from spiritual captivity, "Remember this day in which ye went forth out of Egypt, out of the house of servants"-for it was of the Divine Power of the LORD that they were liberated, "because in strength of hand JEHOVAH led you forth from hence." Not anything falsified will be appropriated to them, "and not shall be eaten leavened"-but they are to be liberated to eternity, "to-day ye, ye go forth"-from this beginning of a new state, "in the month Abib." When they should come to the region of heaven occupied by those who are in the evil and the false, "and it shall be when JEHOVAH shall have introduced thee unto the land of the Canaanite and of the Chittite and of the Emorite and of the Chivite and of the Jebusite"-that is to say, the region occupied by those who are in evil from the false of evil, by those who are in the false from which is evil, by those who are in evil and thence in the false, by those who are in idolatry in which there is something of good, and in idolatry in which there is something of truth-which region was promised to those who are in good and truth, "which He sware to thy fathers to give to thee"-where there is gladness and joy, "a land flowing with milk and honey"-they are to worship the LORD perennially on account of His having liberated them, "and thou shalt keep this service in this month"-they are to be purified of the false and to appropriate the truth, "seven days thou shalt eat unleaveneds"-and offer holy worship to the LORD, "and in the seventh day is a feast to JEHOVAH"-they are to be altogether purified from falses, "unleaveneds shall be eaten seven days"-and the falsified shall by no means be admitted, "and not shall be seen to thee leavened"-nor anything false, "and not shall be seen to thee leaven"-whithersoever the truth which is from good extends itself, "in all thy border." And they will perceive interiorly, "and thou shalt tell thy son in that day, saying"-that they have been liberated by the LORD from spiritual captivity and from damnation, "For the sake of this did JEHOVAH to me when I went forth out of Egypt"-and the perception of this is to be perpetually in the will, "and it shall be to thee for a sign upon thy hand"-and perpetually in the understanding, "and for a memorial between thine eyes"-in order that the Divine Truth may be in everything which thence proceeds, "that the law of JEHOVAH may be in thy mouth"-for they were liberated of Divine power, "because with a strong hand JEHOVAH led thee forth out of Egypt." This law of order is to be in that state constantly, "and thou shalt keep this statute for a stated time from year to year." (11-16.) When they come to the region of heaven occupied by those who are in the evil and the false, "and it shall be when JEHOVAH shall have introduced thee unto the land of the Canaanite"-which, from the Divine promise, is for those who are in good and truth, "as He aware to thee and to thy fathers and have given it to thee"-then the faith of charity which is of regeneration, will be the LORD'S, "and thou shalt make to pass every opening of the womb to JEHOVAH"-and all charity which is of the new generation, "and every opening of the young of beast"-which is of the truth of faith, "which shall be to thee the males"-will be the LORD'S "to JEHOVAH." Faith merely natural shall not be ascribed to the LORD, "and every opening of an ass thou shalt redeem in a sheep"* and if there be not in it the truth of innocence it is to be separated and cast forth, "and if thou redeem it not and thou shalt behead it"-indeed the truths of faith by themselves, separate from good are not to be ascribed to the LORD, but its goods, "and every first-born of man in thy sons thou shalt redeem"-for the truth of faith has no life, and therefore cannot be ascribed to the LORD, before it becomes the good of faith. From the truth which is of conscience they will perceive, "and it shall be that thy son shall ask thee"-and always when this perception takes place "tomorrow"-and the inquiry is made why faith is thus ascribed to the LORD, "saying What is this?"-then reply shall be made, "and thou shalt say unto him"-that of the Divine Power of the LORD they were liberated from spiritual captivity, "In strength of hand JEHOVAH led us forth out of Egypt, out of the house of servants"-and that when those who infested by falses made themselves obstinate, so that the spiritual should not be liberated, "and it was that Pharaoh hardened to send us away"-then all were damned who were in faith separate from charity, "and JEHOVAH slew every first-born in the land of Egypt"-both those who were in the separated false of faith interior and those who were in the false of faith exterior, "from the first- born of man and even unto the first-born of beast"-therefore the faith of charity which is of the new generation is to be ascribed to the LORD, "therefore lam sacrificing to JEHOVAH every Opening of the womb, the males"-and the truths of faith are not to be ascribed to the LORD, "and every first-born of My I redeem"-and it is to be perpetually in the will, "and it shalt be for a sign upon thy hand"-and perpetually in the understanding, "and for frontlets between thine eyes"-that of the Divine Power of the LORD they were liberated, "because in strength of hand JEHOVAH led us forth out of Egypt." * Sheep here means a lamb or kid; no English word expresses it exactly.
THROUGH THE MIDST OF DAMNATION.- TEMPTATIONS.
(17, 18.) When those who infested, left those who were of the spiritual Church, "and it was when Pharaoh sent away the people"-it was provided of the Divine that they should not pass over unto the opinion concerning faith separate or concerning the truth of faith which is not from good, "and God led them not in the way of the land of the Philistines"-which first comes up in the mind, "because it was near"-for the Divine foresaw, "because God said "-that through assaults they would decline from truth, "perchance it will repent the people when they see war"-hence they would lapse into falses, which are altogether against the truths and goods of faith, "and they will return to Egypt." Therefore, of the Divine auspices, they were led to confirm the truths and goods of faith through temptations, "and God led the people about, by the way of the desert"-first passing through damnation, "the sea Suph"-they were released from the state of infestations, and thus prepared to sustain temptations, "and girded went up the sons of Israel out of the land of Egypt." (19.) As to the representative of the Church which they had, "and Moses took the bones of Joseph with him"-in conformity with the bond, "because adjuring he adjured the sons of Israel, saying"-that when this last and first of the Church should come, "Visiting God will visit you"-they were to have the representative of the Church, not the Church, which also is in the internal, "and ye shall make to go up my bones from here with you." (20-22.) In the second state after they were liberated, "and they journeyed from Succoth, and encamped in Etham"-in the first state of temptations, "in the end of the desert"-the presence of the LORD continued with them,
167
"and JEHOVAH went before them"-and when they were in a state of illustration, His presence was tempered by the obscure of truth, "by day in a column of the cloud"-under the auspices of the LORD, "to lead them in the way"-and when they were in a state of obscurity of the understanding, it was tempered by illustration from the good of love, "and by night in a column of fire to give them light"-so that they might live in either state, "to go by day and by night." So the presence of the LORD was perpetual with them, "there receded not the column of cloud by day, and the column of fire by night before the people."
Love of infants 1894
That the love of infants is perpetually conjoined with conjugial love, may be evident from its origin from which it inflows.- C. L. 385.
INSISTENCE OF THE ISRAELITES 1894
NOT long ago a passage in the current lessons in the Arcana Coelestia, referring to the insistence of the Israelites to become the Church, led a reader to ask, In what manner the Israelites insisted? for there appears no record in their history that such was the case, although every one is familiar with their persistent insistence, as a leading trait of the Jewish character. It is true that the literal sense of the Word does not record any instance when the Israelites or their leaders insisted upon being the Church. On the contrary, it appears as if they were chosen for this purpose. But in the internal historical sense a number of instances serve to reveal the contumacy of this people. A notable illustration of this characteristic of theirs is the encounter of their father Jacob with the angel, when Jacob would not let him go unless he blessed him (Genesis xxxii, 26). Again, after the people had made the golden calf, and the LORD had manifested unmistakably that it was not His Will that they should become the representative Church, Moses nevertheless insisted, on behalf of the people, that they should. For instance, after the plague, which followed the worship of the golden calf, the LORD told Moses that he should go up from there, he, and the people whom he [Moses] had made to go up out of the land of Egypt, showing, in these words, that it was not of the Will of the LORD that the people were led forth, but that it was the doing of Moses. The LORD, in agreement with the laws of His Providence, made use of the insistence of Moses, which He could not repress without interfering with the freedom of this Israelitish leader. The LORD suffered him to institute a worship which, in spite of the incorporation therein of rites and ceremonies that were displeasing to the LORD; He accepted as the representative of true worship. He suffered Moses to lead the people to the land of Canaan, in which country every mountain and hill, every well, stream, and valley, every town and village, was representative from of old, and adopted their national life as a representative of the life of the true Church. The insistence of the Israelites found vent at the time of the plague, in manifestations of extreme displeasure. When the people heard that the LORD had dismissed them, they laid aside their ornaments and grieved, and Moses stretched his tent outside the camp. There never was a people that could carry on mourning and lamentation so long and so continuously and with such manifestations of despair as the Jews. They could keep up their fasting and their weeping and their rolling in the dust for days at a time. To the present day they still weep at the walls of Jerusalem over the glory which has been taken away from them. It is of the laws of the Divine government that when men insist on attaining their object, the LORD, under given conditions, may permit them to attain it. And so, when the people, by their contumacious lamentation, insisted on the Church's being established with them, the LORD gave His assent, although only the merest representative could be established, and utterly nothing of the spiritual and celestial things that really constitute the Church. It may be asked, Why should the Israelites insist upon having the Church established among them, if they really cared nothing for its genuine essence? They were in the most intense love of self and love of the world, and as they knew that the worship of JEHOVAH would distinguish them above all other people, therefore they were so anxious, in spite of their proneness to idolatry, to have that worship instituted among them. This is evident even in the literal sense of the Word from the declaration of Moses himself: " Wherein shall it ever become known that I have found grace in Thine eyes, I and Thy people? Is it not in Thy going with us, and we shall be rendered pre-eminent, I and Thy people, above every people which is upon the faces of the earth?" (Exodus xxxiii, 16).
Title Unspecified 1894
C. L. 127 There is a correspondence with conjugial love, semination, prolification, the love of infants, and with like things which are in marriages and from them.- C. L. 127.
ROBERT HINDMARSH 1894
IX.
THE LEADER OF THE CHURCH.
ROBERT Hindmarsh, at this period of his life, was looked up to as the foremost minister and acknowledged leader of the Church, whether in peace or in war. Such was the general confidence which the Church reposed in him that he was unanimously elected the President of the General Conference at five consecutive sessions of that body (1818-1822), and when attacks were made upon the Heavenly Doctrines by the forces of the Dragon, as often happened in those days, he it was whom his brethren called upon to ride forth as unconquerable champion of the Truth. Thus, in the year 1820, when the Rev. J. G. Pike, a Baptist Minister of Derby, poured out upon the Church a vial of malignant misrepresentations and calumnies, in a volume entitled Swedenborgianism Depicted in its True Colours, Hindmarsh was requested by the Conference of that year to draw up a suitable reply. At first he expressed his disinclination again to enter the field of controversy, but at length acceded to the wishes of his brethren, and, in the following year, issued his well-known Vindication of the Character and Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg, against the slanders and misrepresentations of the Rev. J. G. Pike (Manchester, pp. 290). The volume contains, further, a refutation of the false reports propagated by John Wesley respecting Swedenborg's alleged madness, and is one of the most important and powerful works that have been written in defense of Doctrines and of Swedenborg himself. A second edition was published in the following year. His next work, which was one of a similar character, was published in the year 1824, under the title, Christianity against Deism, Materialism, and Atheism.
168
This volume was occasioned by a blasphemous letter openly I addressed to the author by Richard Carlile, the notorious English infidel and radical, who used to travel about England, lecturing against the existence of a God. It is not known what effect Hindmarsh's answer to this letter had upon him, though it was sharp enough in tone and arguments, but he soon found a formidable adversary in another Newchurchman, a simple Lancashire weaver, named Thomas Wilson, who literally pursued the atheist. Wherever Carlile lectured in Lancashire, Thomas Wilson was sure to be there, sometimes in disguise, to trouble him with New Church arguments and unanswerable questions, until Carlile finally fled in terror at the first sight of his relentless antagonist, never again to appear in that county. In the year 1824 Robert Hindmarsh resigned his pastoral charge in Salford; owing, it is said, "to some unfortunate differences of opinion" (Goyder's History, p. 111), or, according to another authority, to failing physical strength (I., 1835, p. 407). On leaving Salford, an elegant and valuable silver cup was presented to him by his Society, with an appropriate inscription expressing the gratitude and affection of his flock for his many years of faithful ministry. To the Pastor's heart this token was made especially dear from the fact that the children of the Sunday-school under his charge had voluntarily asked, and received, permission to contribute toward it each one penny. Hindmarsh and his wife now took up their residence in the home of a married daughter in Canterbury, but though he withdrew from the regular work of the ministry, his activity in behalf of the Church by no means ceased. He still devoted his best energies to the defense and exposition of the Doctrines, and the pages of the Intellectual Repository during this period were enriched by many valuable articles from is en. A bout this time he became involved in a friendly controversy with the Rev. Samuel Noble, the editor of that journal, on the subject or the Integrity of the Word. Mr. Noble held that the Word, in the sense of the Letter, is, indeed, preserved entire, but is not to be found so preserved in any one particular manuscript or text. Hindmarsh, on the other hand, firmly upheld the teachings of the-Doctrines of the New Church on this subject, and proved that the Word is preserved entire, without fault or omission, in the Textus Receptus, which was the one used by Swedenborg himself. Hindmarsh's position was that of simple faith in the authority of the Writings of the New Church, as the only reliable source of our information respecting the canonicity and integrity of the Word in the Letter. Mr. Noble, on the other hand, based his position more on the "facts" brought to light by biblical criticism, and denied, in toto, the authority of the Writings in dealing with matters of natural science! (I., 1824:24, 137; 1825:383, 484). The external progress and affairs of the Church were still followed with great interest by Hindmarsh in his retirement, and he occasionally officiated in the ordinations of ministers and the consecration of Churches. At the General Conferences of 1827 and 1831 he was again elected President of this most general body of the New Church in Great Britain. After a few years of quiet study and preparation, Hindmarsh, in the year 1833, brought out two new and important works. The first of these was An Essay on the Resurrection of the LORD (283 pages), in which the author attempts to answer the much-discussed question, "With what Body did the LORD rise from the Dead?" After reviewing exhaustively the different opinions on this profound subject-, he states, as his own conclusion from the Doctrines, "that the material body was dissipated in the sepulchre, at or before the time of the LORD'S resurrection in and with a Divinely-substantial body, perfectly distinct from the former." We cannot here enter upon a critical examination of the book as a whole, but may safely state that, though not free from errors, it forms one of the most solid works on interior theology ever produced in the New Church. The other work, referred to above, was entitled The Lamb Slain from the Foundation of the World (237 pages), being a forcible exposure of the false doctrines held by Christians in general concerning the Person of the LORD, the work of Redemption, and the Means of Salvation. This was the last of his works to be published during his life in this world. It was not, however, the last production of his ever busy pen, for in the following year he completed two manuscripts of equal, if not even greater, excellence and importance. Of these the first appeared in London, in the year 1846, under the title The Church of England Weighed in the Balance of the Sanctuary and Found Wanting, being an examination of the "Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion," the three Creeds, and the Book of Common Prayer. The other was published in the year 1861, under the editorship of the Rev. Edward Madeley, and was entitled Rise and Progress of the New Jerusalem Church in England, America, and other parts. For the compilation of this, the first History of the New Church ever written, posterity can never be thankful enough. It is too well known to require any particular description in the present sketch.
(To be continued.)
conjugial itself 1894
The conjugial itself is inscribed on the soul, to the end that soul may be propagated from soul, and [that] of the father into offspring.- C. L. 236.
NEW RITUAL IN DIFFERENT CENTRES 1894
THOSE of the Church in the various centres are accustomed to turn their eyes toward Philadelphia for new things in the way of teaching from the Doctrines. It is, as it were, the emporium or distributing-point for the goods of the Church, by which spiritual life is nourished and sustained. Trade is free in this great mart, and all may come and buy corn and wine, and also bring gifts to it of the produce of their own soil. The Divine inflows from the LORD through man to man, and, when in order, through the clergy to the laity (Canons, Holy Spirit, IV), and, we may add,-for order is like itself in greatests and in leasts,-through the higher degrees of the priesthood into the lower. It is of order, therefore, that the Episcopal seat, and also the seat of a priestly institution of learning, should be looked to for new light. All influx is from centres to circumferences. A centre is a centre by virtue of its relation to a circumference wherein its ends of use may terminate and thence react. And, on the other hand, every circumference is such in view of its relation to a centre. Thus all things cohere and subsist, and the Church makes a one, in the image and form of Heaven. But among living things every circumference is properly a lesser centre,-a reactive centre, reacting upon-not against-its influx. If merely passive, the centre will work itself to death trying to carry it on.
169
It is only as far as each one who receives of the Divine through his centre, takes it up and applies it to the common use, and brings back something of the fruits of the use in exchange, that the centre is able to go on and strengthen in its work. The fruits may be affections of the will, or thoughts of the understanding, or both conjoined in various assisting uses. It may, therefore, be profitable to see how new principles of worship, emanating from the centre, have been applied in the lesser centres.
A NEW Ritual has been inaugurated with the congregation worshiping in Philadelphia, as one of the forms of its growth, the like of which has never existed before upon earth, for it has grown up under the motto: "Behold, I make all things new." It is now over a century since the institution of the New Church, and yet this seems to be the first time that a priest (Bishop Pendleton) has found himself sufficiently untrammeled by prejudices to enter upon this field in this way. No shackles of men's propria have bound his hands; no cloudy "views" (as the opinions of self-derived intelligence are called) have been interposed between this Priest and the light of heaven. Formerly our priests spent much time in endeavoring to "meet the views" of irresponsible parties who, nevertheless, wielded a club in the shape of a vote. But the Priesthood has been ransomed from this barbarous servitude, w that it is free to serve the LORD alone; and there is no better witness of the growth which freedom always entails, than the new Ritual now being developed within the Church, upon which the blessing of heaven has descended in the beautiful music wherein the delight of this state is ultimated. As the congregation enter the hall where worship is held, the freewill offerings are deposited in a basket at the door. At the appointed hour quiet music ushers in a period of silence for rest, meditation, and preparation for the worship. During this time the door remains closed, tardy arrivals being admitted later, when likely to cause the least disturbing effect. 1. As the Priest enters, the congregation rises and stands while he advances to the Chancel, at the eastern end of the hall-where is the altar and sacrarium-draws the curtains of the latter, and taking out successively the Word of the Old and the New Testament, in the original tongues, and then a volume of the original Latin edition of the Writings of the Church, places them side by side on the altar. 2. All kneel and repeat the LORD'S Prayer. 3. Rising, all sing the Sanctus or some similar brief selection. 4. The Priest, from the desk at the northern side of the Chancel, leads in the unisonal reading of a chapter from the Book of Doctrine. The chapters consist of the sub-headings in the" contents" of The True Christian Religion. 5. A Psalm is sung, a summary of the internal sense being read by the Priest. This is followed (or preceded) by an interval of silence, for prayer or restful meditation. 6. The Lessons are read, one from the internal sense of the Word and one from the letter, usually closing with the offering of an ascription to the LORD, while the people, remaining seated, bow their heads. 7. A musical selection-usually a Psalm-is sung. 8. Another short interval of silence follows. 9. The Priest, taking from the Sacrarium a copy of the Word, opens it upon the reading-desk at the south side of the Chancel and offers an invocation, the people, as before, joining silently in the prayer, while seated. 10. The Sermon, or other Doctrinal Instruction, follows here, concluding with a prayer, to which the Priest invites the people by uplifting his hands, upon which they rise, and remain standing with bowed heads, during the prayer. 11. A musical selection is sung. 12. The Priest repeats some passage expressive of acknowledgment and thanks, and then, while all sing "What shall I render to the LORD for all His benefits toward me," etc., a layman brings forward the offering from the entrance and the Priest receives it and dedicates it to the LORD by placing it upon the altar, uttering-some appropriate passage from the Word, such as, "The eyes of all wait upon Thee," etc. 13 The Priest blesses the people, closes the Word, returns the volumes to the Sacrarium, and draws the curtains, and as he retires to the vestry, bearing the offering, slow music is softly played, which changes to a voluntary as the vestry door closes and the people begin to silently retire. Those who wish to remain in the sphere of worship for further meditation and spiritual communion remain in their seats as long as they desire. No conversation or noise occurs in the building within sound of the place of worship. Occasionally the service is varied by the introduction, after the Lessons, of a Psalm read unisonally, the internal sense to which is read by the Priest. Other slight modifications also occur. One feature that has been especially noted and enjoyed, is the presence of children and infants at the service; their innocent sphere and quiet behavior seem to render full and complete the solemn and affecting character of the occasion.
THIS Ritual has undergone various modifications from time to time, but the essential idea has not been changed. All Ritual is teaching, and the teaching embodied herein is this: First, the approach to the LORD in humiliation, the state being prepared by music and silence, in order to leave behind the ordinary cares of life in the world. The appearing of the Lord Can then take place, which is represented by the entrance of the Priest and the solemn opening of the Word, before which all prostrate themselves, having as yet uttered no word. Prom this, on to the end, is represented, in three degrees, the elevation of man by the Lord as he is filled with His praise, and receives the Holy Spirit through the reading of the Word and Preaching. We are taught that there are three degrees of worship, represented by the three postures in prayer. (See the Concordance, under "Gesture.") "Humble" means low; and to humiliate means to lower one's self in acknowledgment of one's own state. It may be only as to the head; or as to the body, or as to the extremities in a partial or total prostration. These three degrees are represented in the new order of worship by the first prayer upon the knees; the second, which is the asking for illustration, in the sitting posture, inclining the body and face toward the earth; and the third, after receiving the instruction, is upon the feet, since the standing posture represents the intention, or conatus, of applying to life, as it precedes walking or the going forth, whereby is represented the life according to that which the LORD has insinuated through the worship. Before departing with the Divine Blessing, however, the whole state of thought and affection finds harmonious expression in the singing of a Psalm. Then, in order that the first may also become the last, the offering deposited at the door as the first of worship-namely, as an ultimate acknowledgment that all is from the LORD-is reverently presented to the LORD and placed upon His altar.
170
IN Chicago, Pittsburgh, and Berlin the service is essentially the same, except that in the latter two places the psalms from the Liturgy are used in part, especially in the responsive reading. In Berlin, intervals of silence do not form a part of the ritual, but many details in the handling of the Word have been thought out. In Parkdale, also, the same leading idea has been adopted, but with this-possibly an improvement-that the Hebrew [Hebrew] is the first thing sung, as the Word is opened. Alter the lessons the Doxology is sung in Greek. Thus a plane is presented for the fuller, holier, and more powerful influx of the heavens. In London the old liturgy service is used throughout, except that, when desired, the new music is substituted for the selections, and unisonal reading from the Liturgy "Book of Doctrines" in place of the responsive service. The order of worship is neatly printed in red upon slips with blank spaces for date and for the selections used. It is only quite recently that this society was emancipated from the old ritual derived from the Established Church, which is used by Conference societies and which requires a layman to assist the minister in conducting the worship. These are the usual orders of worship now in use. In the festival services which are being developed the same essential ideas are embodied. Thee are much snore full and elaborate, and are usually without a sermon or discourse. Various modes of responding are introduced, making the whole service like one great chorus, wherein many varieties of affection, singly and in different combinations, are brought into play. Various musical instruments also contribute their peculiar affections to these services, making a more complete harmony. The ritual of shouting has also been used. But as yet we are probably not prepared for the choral dances which formed part of the worship of the ancients (A. C. 8339). Doubtless the LORD will only permit the externals of our worship to be perfected as the internals are prepared to fill them, lest we pervert order, and the Church pay more attention to her garments than to her LORD. It is only in proportion as self and the world are kept out of the way, that even those externals which have already been received from the LORD can perform their proper use. The "Sanctissima" of worship, the Sacraments of Baptism and the Holy Supper, have yet to be clothed with their garments of splendor. May we be considered worthy for the fruition of these also.
In the marriage of love truly conjugial 1894
In the marriage of love truly conjugial each becomes a more and more internal man, for that love opens the interiors of their minds.- C. L. 200.
DEDICATION OF THE IMMANUEL CHURCH CLUB- HOUSE AT OAK GLEN, ILLINOIS 1894
ON Sunday afternoon, October 14th, most of the members of the Immanuel Church, of Chicago, and many of its friends, assembled at Oak Glen to witness the dedication of the new building of the "Immanuel Church Club." The attendance of about one hundred almost over-taxed, the seating capacity of the hall, and the bright sunshiny weather seemed to typify the joy every one felt that the Church had found such an excellent, though temporary, home in which to carry on its uses. The service opened in the usual way, with prayer, the singing of Psalms, and reading from the Word in the literal and internal senses, after which the Pastor gave an address which is given below. In conclusion, the Pastor added a few extemporaneous remarks and then invoked the Blessing of the LORD on the uses to be performed in the building. Then taking in his hands a copy of the Word in Hebrew and Greek, he proceeded to the floor above, followed by the Directors of the Club, and placed the volume upon the altar in the reading-room. On their return, Psalm xxx was sung and the service was closed with the benediction. A SOCIAL in the evening appropriately ended a most delightful day. Mr. H. S. Maynard, the President of the Club, and his wife, acted as host and hostess. The early part of the evening passed quickly, and music, dancing and conversation, it being the first time the whole Church had met in a social way since June. Then, wine being served, the first toast was pledged to "The Church," and responded to by the Pastor. The second toast, to the "Club," was answered by the President of the Club. The third toast was to "Our Host and Hostess," and in proposing it the Pastor said that it was really a triple toast: first as announced, Our Host and Hostess; secondly, to the President of the Club, who has cheerfully and efficiently designed and superintended the construction of the building in which we are; and thirdly, to the gentleman an d lady who so kindly have given the Church the use of their home for worship during the summer. On behalf of the society he presented Mr. and Mrs. Maynard with a set of The Apocalypse Explained, as a testimonial of affection and gratitude. Afterward toasts were pledged to the Academy School, which will occupy the building on week-days, and to a number of persons for whom the affection felt was too strong to be restrained from expression. The writer cannot better describe the quality of the meeting than by repeating a remark overheard by him that the day had strengthened our love for the Church and our charity toward each other.
THE PASTOR'S ADDRESS.
WE are, by the Divine Mercy of the LORD, assembled together in this building for the purpose of dedicating it to the uses for which it was built; and, inasmuch as their uses are many and of various kinds, it will be well to recount the most important of them, in order that they may be rightly understood in their relation to each other. In doing this it will be well to go back and recall the conditions which confronted us last spring when it became manifest that a number of our families would be permanently situated in this place in the very near future. At that time we saw, first, the need of continuing in their midst the uses of Divine worship and instruction. Also we saw the imperative need of providing accommodations for the Academy School. Besides these more interior uses, we saw the need of a place for social purposes within the Church, and also the more external, but still important, use of providing accommodation for those of our brethren who were either moving out here from the city, or only temporarily visiting in our midst. All of these uses are important, each on its own plane, and, indeed, they seemed imperative. Now, at the time of which we speak, it was impossible to provide for each of these uses separately, and to have provided a building suited to one of them alone would have, to a large extent, excluded the others; some would have been partially excluded or only partly accommodated, while others would have been excluded altogether.
171
Then it was said, "Let us build a building which, to all intents and purposes, will accommodate temporarily all of these uses, and in time we will provide for each of them separately." This proposition met with approval, and the result is the building in which we are now assembled, and which was built, not by the Church as such, but by certain members of the Church, who formed amongst themselves a corporation or "Club," as it is called. This they did after hearing the expressed wish of the Church that it should be so done. The work is now done, and we have assembled here to-day for the purpose of dedicating the building and at the same time of opening the building for the purpose of worship. We are thankful that, in the merciful providence of the LORD, a building so well suited to all our, needs has been provided, and our prayer is that the LORD may send a blessing upon all the uses carried on under its roof, especially those interior uses which are so important to our spiritual well being. In looking back over the history of our Church from the beginning, we can see that the hand of the LORD has been leading us onward, and at no time has this become more manifest than the present, when we are about beginning our Church work under external conditions radically different from any that have preceded. This leading of the LORD has, I think, become manifest in the very external conditions by which we are surrounded, and this we can see when we recognize the motive in our minds which gave birth to these conditions. Naturally and spiritually speaking, it is true that with progress the end comes more clearly into view. So it is with us; as we have progressed, led-as we are profoundly convinced-by the LORD, our end has come more clearly into view; and this has been much facilitated by a radical breaking up of old conditions and states, and its entering upon new ones. This move into the country: What does it mean? What is the motive in it? Surely there was a motive, and a powerful one, that could have produced this result. Well, this motive involves the very reason of existence of our Church; otherwise we have taken a false step, and this we cannot believe; therefore, when the motive or the end in the movement is seen, then will our use, the reason of our existence, be seen. And then let us no longer disguise from ourselves the fact that this is our use, and to it the LORD has been leading us. I would have you, therefore, consider this, and try and see if you have not already seen that motive, that spiritual use of charity, which has dominated our minds from the beginning of our Church, and which has manifestly dominated in this movement to the country. And it is proper and fitting at this time to bring forward this matter in order that we may have clearly before us the end in our movement. "First states enter into all that follow." Our Church, together with all other true Churches, has as an end the salvation of human souls. This is the highest and inmost end. All else are but means to that end; and yet to say that this is the end without recognizing certain spiritual uses of charity as means to that end, is to deal in mere generalities to no effect. But when these spiritual uses are seen, then our mediate end comes into view, which mediate end is our ultimate use; and this is the point to which we have been leading. There has, of course, never been a doubt as to our inmost end, for this is involved in the very word "Church"; but doubt has been cast upon our mediate end, or, to be more plain, we have not all recognized clearly those special means we, as a Church, should perform in effecting the end of salvation, and this is what I claim has come clearly into view by our movement into the country. We did not come here for the purpose of external evangelization, for the purpose of leading men from the old Church into the New; for we recognize that a large city is probably the most promising field for such a work. But, on the other hand, I ask you, Did we not come here in order that our surroundings might be better suited to the most important use of bringing up our children in the Church? have we not come to see that the future of our Church, humanly speaking, depends upon our children? And, furthermore, have we not also come to see that, in order that our children may realize the end we have, in view for them, they must be educated from earliest infancy in the Church? If we have seen this, and I think we have, we cannot fail to see that our use as a Church is to foster, first and foremost, this most essential use as our mediate end, or our special means, of effecting the LORD'S work of salvation of human souls. This house which we are to dedicate to-day was built in order that this use, along with certain others, might find a temporary lodging or accommodation until the time should arrive when they could be more fittingly accommodated; but when that time arrives, then this building is to be entirely given up to another class of uses. What those uses are in detail, will become more manifest as time goes on; but the intention now is that it shall be devoted mainly to social uses; but in this, as in other things, you will be governed by the needs of the Church from time to time. For the corporation, formed in the building of this house, has stated in its instrument of organization that it was formed for the purpose of aiding the Immanuel Church in its uses, and by this is meant the rendering of certain external aids by doing certain uses, which do not come under the head of Church work, strictly speaking, but which are a necessary adjunct to effective Church work here. Such an organization is especially necessary here under our present conditions, in order that certain uses of a public nature, which are necessary, and which the Church cannot well undertake, may be done. At any rate, we see the need of such an organization stow, and I think we can also see that it will grow and increase in usefulness. But this must be said, Let those who have the management of this organization keep constantly before their minds the purpose and use of the organization in its relation to the Church. Let them have the field of its operation clearly defined. It is not and cannot be an independent organization, as that word is usually understood. It is dependent upon the Immanuel Church, and under its dominion. Those who at present control this organization are in full confidence with the Church; they understand its proper position, as they were instrumental in forming the organization and placing it in its present relation to the Church. But these things are now said in order that all may understand them, and to prevent any mistaken sentiment arising as to the real use and position of this Club. By having this matter clearly defined now, we will be less apt to fall into doubt and danger in the future. For there would be serious trouble were such an organization to grow up in our midst and, from either willfulness or ignorance, forget its position and proper field of usefulness, and come into conflict with the Church; and this will be largely guarded against by a clear statement in the beginning.
172
We must have but one government I here, and that must be of the Church; upon this our safety and our freedom depend. Let the Club confine itself to the providing of means; the determination of these means must be in the hands of the Church. If this be done, confusion will be prevented and all will be well; the Church will progress in freedom, and the Club, I am sure, will find increased usefulness.
Notes and Reviews 1894
THE September number of the Life (page 140) gives a table, indicating the respective membership and proportionate wealth of the principal sects. The number of Theosophists is represented as being 695,000, a misprint for 69,500. A correspondent informs us, however, that inquiry discloses the fact that the total membership of the Theosophical Society includes only about seven thousand.
WE DO not recollect having seen in the literature of the Church any mention of the British Museum Catalogue of New Church works which was published in London in the year 1883, a copy of which has lately been presented to one of the editorial staff of the Life by Dr. J. J. Garth Wilkinson. The catalogue contains the tithes of about four hundred different editions of works by and about Swedenborg in various languages, and is of great historical value. Many rare and forgotten editions are mentioned, but the catalogue does by no means represent a complete collection of the New Church literature. The world would, indeed, be astonished were a complete New Church Bibliography to be published.
THE Sower is published as "a New Church Sunday-school paper," but it is difficult to imagine what possible principles of the New Church, or of any civil, moral, or religious truths, it expected to instill into the minds of its young readers by the fairy-tale called "The Lovely Princess," which has lately appeared in three of its issues. An omnipresent and omnipotent "witch," in a black mantle, plays the part of Providence in the talc. Is such a picture likely to implant in children remains of good and truth, of confidence in the Power of the LORD, and in the loving presence and ministry of His angels? The Sower should discriminate more wisely in selecting seeds by which to form the childish mind into a lovely and well-ordered garden.
THE New Jerusalem in the World's Religious Congresses of 1893, edited by the Rev. L. P. Mercer (Chicago, 1894, pp. 454), a very handsome volume, may serve as a monument to commemorate the infatuation of the considerable number of New Church people who participated in that vast meeting, joining in the worship of a "golden calf"-mere natural good. This idolatry pervades and vitiates most of the addresses and papers presented at the "Congress" and published in this volume. Other essays contain very clear and interesting expositions of the principles of the New Church, but suffer from the company in which they appear. The papers on "the Planting of the New Church" are of especial value, as, in them at least, there is preserved something of the distinctiveness which used to characterize the New Church in former times. At this day, however, it would appear from works such as the one under notice, that the readers of the Writings have but little to do except to wait for immediate influx and hold meetings for rejoicing at the progress of the Old Church.
THE Brahmo- Somoj, or New Dispensation of India, and the New Church. By the Rev. John Goddard. Cincinnati, 1894, pp. 47. The author in this pamphlet briefly compares the leading principles of the late Keshub Chunder Sen's new sect in India with the revealed Doctrines of the New Church. In the introduction the pamphlet is characterized as "an echo of the 'Parliament of Religions,'" and it does, indeed, reflect the general vagueness and confusion of that assemblage. As the Parliament itself is imagined by many in the New Church to be an outcome of the new spirit or "new dispensation" of the descending New Jerusalem, so the "Brahmo- Somaj" is considered by Mr. Goddard to be a manifestation of the fulfillment of "the last promise of the Divine Word: 'Behold, I make all things new.'" Not only do the Writings teach that the establishment of the New Church among the gentile nations will be effected by a distinct revelation of the Heavenly Doctrines of the New Jerusalem, but the ordinarily intelligent and instructed Newchurchman ought easily to discover in the new and man-made philosophy of the Hindoos its unmistakable Unitarian and anti- Christian quality.
ONCE more the perennial question, why the New Church grows so slowly, is being discussed in the columns of Morning Light. In some of the recent issues the correspondents appear to have come nearer to finding the real origin of the lack of progress-indeed, the retrogression-of the Church at large; a retrogression both as to quality and as to numbers. It is now being seen, as is evinced by a number of the writers, that it is due to a lack of love and study of the Writings of the Church, and the consequent neglect by New Church parents to educate their children in the Church and for the Church. But the only practical remedy for the latter of these evils-the establishment of distinctively New Church Schools-is still bitter in the mouth of Newchurchmen. Home-training, according to the principles of the Church, is most essential, but where it is supplemented by schools those schools should be schools of the New Church, in which the teaching and the matters taught all are influenced by the principles of that Church. But among the many and loud lamentations over the present most serious crisis in the state of the Church, no voice has yet been raised in behalf of New Church education.
MR. HENRY HORST, of Shelbyville, Ind., has published a small pamphlet, entitled Doctrines of the New Church, the New Jerusalem, as a well-meant effort at evangelization. It consists, to a great extent, of extracts from a Compendium of the Doctrines of the New Church, and is so far in good form. But the author further launches forth upon a "poetical" description of his own conversion, and of some of the Doctrines. This effort must be deemed unfortunate. It places his opus among the manifold "curiosities" of New Church literature. A few extracts from the "poetry" may serve as a warning to ambitious but unqualified aspirants to literary fame.
"While sport with fun and bread with butter, My thoughts exclusively controlled, Religion did not much me bother, I did believe as I was told.
"But when with years my understanding More clear became, mind more pensive, My faith in things was more demanding, I had to see what to believe.
"For more enlightenment to acquire, I went to churches here and there, But for my thirst like truth's desire, The water I found smelled every where."
There would seem to be more truth than poetry in this stanza, no less than in the following:
"But although not a Christ believer, A living God I never denied. For he that does must have brain fever, Or be a fool, though otherwise bright."
Mr. Horst seems to have mistaken a good, steady workhorse for Pegasus, and his efforts to ride him, under that impression, have placed him in a false position.
THE Rev. S. S. Seward's essay on "The Church and Reforms," in the October issue of The New Church Review, is a timely and manly exposure of an evil which at this period is infesting the Church at large-a desire, manifested both among the clergy and laity, to sacrifice the purely spiritual work of the Church for promoting the internal regeneration of man, and to devote itself instead to the various ephemeral external reforms of the world.
173
Mr. Seward combats this movement in what is probably the most internal and the most thorough-going treatment of the subject that has appeared in the literature of the Church. It practically settles the question, though it is strange that there should be such a question among the people of the New Church. Going directly to the fountainhead of the evil, the writer shows that it originates in a disbelief in the reality of the LORD'S Divine work of Redemption; that it is due to the faith-alone state among the men of the New Church. "If they did believe in this Divine work, is it possible," he asks, "that they would be turned aside from reaching so great a salvation for the sake of the external and oftentimes puerile reforms of the day?" Mr. Seward speaks with no uncertain tone, fearless of the offense which the truth will give to many, if not the great majority, of present-day Newchurchmen. Be boldly denies that the reform movements, now being agitated, are a part of the Second Coming of the LORD, or an evidence of the "coming down of the new heaven," and shows that they are, on the contrary, intrinsically selfish, the last spasms of a dying Church to keep up an appearance of life. "So long as men are selfish, no amount of charity or legislation or education or philosophy can heal the sores of the body politic, and nothing but the Religion of our LORD and Saviour JESUS CHRIST can make men unselfish." "What we need first of all is to hold ourselves to this truth: `to tarry in Jerusalem,' until we shall be as thoroughly convinced that the LORD JESUS CHRIST reigns (T.C.R. 791), and that He reigns in our behalf, as we are of any of the facts and forces of nature." It is to be hoped that teaching such as this will counteract the trend of thought among the younger ministers of the Convention who have imbibed from their Alma Mater the notion that the reform movements and the natural good of the age are the "fig-leaves" which show that "the summer is nigh."
Communicated 1894
Responsibility for the views expressed in this Department rests with the writers.
"INSTRUCTION CONCERNING GENERATION." G. N. SMITH 1894
EDITOR NEW CHURCH LIFE:- Having recently returned from my summer vacation trip to my northern home I found several numbers of the Life awaiting me. Among many valuable papers I found there none perhaps are more valuable and timely-nay, necessary to the preservation of the conjugial principle from the contaminations of this filthy, but prudish age, the last because of the first-than the theme on "Instructing Children Concerning Generation." The conclusions of the writer are preeminently clear and sound. I wish that they could be put into a form that would reach every household in the New Church, and wherever else, too, they would be received and read, It might check somewhat the fatal harm that parents are everywhere doing their children by letting their first ideas of that love which is heavenly, spiritual, holy, pure, and clean, above every love with angels in heaven or the Church on earth, come from the hell of-the life of a consummated and adulterous Church, instead of the heavenly teachings of the New Jerusalem. I write to suggest: Can you not make an arrangement by which you can so place these papers? If you could r would suggest in their preparation a careful re-reading of the doctrine bearing on the recommendation on page 88, second column, as to what girls should not be taught, followed on page 119 by the conclusion that they should be introduced into knowledges on the subject only by marriage, such re-reading would lead to a qualification of what appears to be the recommendation that they should come to marriage without any such knowledges. This is too much the case now, and very disastrous has been the result, as I have too often been forced to learn from cases that have come under my observation. Such qualification also would result from other suggestions that the author makes, of the need of knowledges. Careful re-reading of the number there cited in part (C. L. 183) would qualify the author's conclusion from n. 295, that wives never speak of the ultimate delights of conjugial love, in its application made by him that girls should not be taught, but should be introduced by marriage. In that number there is very much taught, and the outline is given of what should be taught, and what should not be left to be known till marriage makes it known. In the main I have no doubt he is right that caution should be used, not to anticipate a certain sense side of the subject, but that a higher side should not be taught, does not seem a justifiable conclusion. Why there is a need of caution, see C. L., n. 502 end. G. N. SMITH. GORAND RAPIDS, Mich., September 10th.
REPLY.
THE teaching contained in Conjugial Love, n. 183, suggests to the writer of the address no qualification of the conclusions drawn from numbers 219 and 293. The instruction given by the angel is addressed to married pairs and to betrothed pairs, and the former and the latter each draw from it that which their state makes them capable of receiving. The same applies, also, to those on earth who read this Memorable. Married pairs will derive the most from it, and will see in it much that those who are not in the married state cannot. Those who are betrothed will draw from it the measure of instruction adapted to them; some things will be obscure, especially to the maiden, and it is well and orderly that it should be so; the full state of a marriage will make them clearer. When mothers are reading the book on Conjugial Love with their daughters, it is important that, in reading teachings such as this number contains, due prudence be exercised and that details be not entered into by which states are anticipated. In (4) of this number we read: "Love and wisdom with use not only make man, but also are man; yea, what possibly you will be surprised at, they propagate man; for in the seed of a man is his soul in a perfect human form, covered with substances from the purest things of nature; from which a body is formed in the womb of the mother. This use is the highest and ultimate use of the Divine love through the Divine wisdom." This is the extent of the teaching here given concerning the means of propagation, and it would not be well, for reasons given in the address, that more than this general be given to girls. The angel teaches concerning the delights of conjugial love, in the soul, in the interiors of the mind, in the exteriors of the mind, in the bosom, and in the genital region. Concerning the delights of the bosom, which come into activity after consent to marriage, it is said that they are of inmost friendship; and concerning the delights in the genital region, that they are the delight of delights. The doctrinal statement that there are such states it is good for girls to know, but what they are in particular had better not be explained, and especially is any explanation of states with the male sex uncalled for. There is danger in too great anxiety to explain; let the remarks, if any, be confined within the limits of the doctrinal statement, and leave the rest to the interior operations of the LORD and the angels.
174
When the girl asks questions in particular concerning the male sex, which is not likely unless she have premature knowledges on the subject of propagation, then the perception and prudence of the mother must dictate the proper answer. In this connection let us again emphasize the importance of a state of full confidence, so that the daughter will make known to the mother any knowledges which she may acquire on this subject from other sources. When a girl is thus educated in the sphere of the Church, with the end that she may become the wife of a man who, during his boyhood, has also been properly educated for a life of conjugial love, it does not seem possible that there could be any "disastrous results." F.E.W.
conjugial 1894
The conjugial of one man with one wife is the jewel of human life.- C. L. 457.
"THE CHURCH IN AFRICA." W. F 1894
TO THE EDITOR OF NEW CHURCH LIFE:
I was much interested in the article in your September and October numbers, on the Celestial Church in Africa, and would like to make a few observations on the subject. It must be evident, from a study of Nos. 4774 to 4776 inclusive, of the Spiritual Diary, that the people of Africa with whom the Church is being established, are on the eastern side near the middle, since in the above numbers Swedenborg speaks of people in Asia near Africa, who either are expecting revelation or were then receiving it; and then in No: 4777 he shows that the revelation will advance in Africa "from this place" i. e., "the entrance to Africa" mentioned in No. 4776; thus it must begin near Asia. And furthermore, the revelation is described as going toward the centre, then north, "and them . . . should bend its way back . . . towards Egypt." This last expression can only mean that when it goes from the centre toward Egypt, it is advancing in the opposite direction from what it did when advancing toward the centre; so it could only start near the eastern coast, as otherwise these conditions would not be fulfilled. Now Joseph Thomson, in his book Through Masai Land, describes a tribe, the Kavirondo, which seems a very promising one, not only from the character of its people, but also from its situation, which is on the eastern shore of the Victoria Nyanza, consequently not far from the coast, or from Asia; and another point is, that between them and the coast dwells the Masai tribe, one of the fiercest in Africa, making it almost impossible to penetrate through their country, and thus they would, act as a protection to the Kavirondo. The following is a summary of Thomson's account of them:
We were now in the midst of abundance; almost every foot of ground was under cultivation, and what impressed me was the surprising number of villages, and the generally contented and well-to-do air of the inhabitants. Their huts are either ideally clean and nice or disgustingly filthy. The former are those of the pourer people, who have no goats or cattle. The flour is of clay, beaten hard and smooth, there is a fireplace in one corner, and not a speck of refuse is seen. The latter kind is not only the habitation of the family, but also of its goats, sheep cows, chickens, and dogs. The fire is built in the middle, and there is no exit for the smoke but the door, and it is kept closed. The clothing of the girls consists of a string of beads; the married women exhibit the rudiments of dress, but the men go absolutely naked. They eloquently illustrate the fact, which some people cannot understand, that morality lies nothing to do with clothes. They are the most moral of all the tribes of this region, and are simply angels of purity beside the decently-dressed Masai.
One thing in the above description seems to me to be rather a proof of your author's position, that those of the Church must be scattered among different tribes, and that is the fact of these people differing so much in their style of living; for if people of such cleanly and of such filthy habits can compose one tribe, might not those of, and not of, the Church? But aside from this, though the idea seems prevalent that those Africans who will receive the new doctrines must compose entire tribes-that is, they will either be accepted by every member of a tribe or by none-still it should be considered that though those who will be of the Church constitute the best of the Africans, yet as no man is without evil, neither is a body or tribe of men without its evil ones, and so those constituting the best must include some who are incapable of receiving the revelation, and it seems to me that this must be the true solution of the problem. W. F. PITTSBURGH, PA., Oct. 10th, 1894.
Conjugial sphere 1894
The universal sphere of all is the conjugial sphere, because this is also the sphere of propagation.- C. L. 222.
QUESTION OF CORRESPONDENCE 1894
EVERY effort to raise the subject of marriage and of the organs particularly devoted to conjugial love out of the low plane in which it is kept in affection and thought by the present evil and adulterous generation, ought to receive a glad welcome. Such a welcome we extend to the little treatise written by the Rev. Charles H. Mann, and published by the Massachusetts New Church Union, and entitled, What God hath Cleansed; or, The Sexual Organs, Their Order and Quality in the Body, and Their Spiritual Significance. The writer says: "So distorted have been our thoughts and lives in reference to them [the sexual organs], that they are not regarded as proper subjects of conversation in society, and the gravest ignorance and the most unworthy conceptions concerning them prevail among us. The grade of their life, their beauty, their dignity, and their glory have been lost in a sphere of shame which has been placed about their consideration." It is unfortunate that the writer has placed the sexual organs in the province of the head, in the threefold division of the human system into head, trunk, and extremities; this on the ground that the head corresponds to the Inmost Heaven, and that the sexual organs likewise correspond to the Inmost Heaven. These organs adhere to and belong to the loins and the thighs, all of which correspond indeed to the Inmost or Celestial Heaven, yet this correspondence does not place them in the province of the head. The breasts also are intimately connected with the generative organs; these are placed even higher in the body and correspond to the conjunction of conjugial love with the love of offspring; yet neither do they belong to the province of the head. The sanctity and purity of the generative organs is due to their eminently pure and holy use, and this is represented in the body by their being placed in a region apart by themselves, and by their receiving the purest blood and the most refined animal spirit, head and trunk exerting their utmost efforts for the purpose.
175
LIFE OF THE NEW CHURCH Various 1894
THE ACADEMY OF THE NEW CHURCH.
Philadelphia.- THE Schools of the Academy of the New Church in Philadelphia were opened on Monday, October 1st, with Divine Worship conducted by Bishop Pendleton, who, in his address to the teachers and pupils, dwelt upon the rule of the School that no pupils be received that have entered the New Church through the gate of Baptism, whereby a plane is formed for the influx of the spirits and angels of the LORD'S New Heaven, and whereby a distinction is made, representative of the separation which exists between the ends of this School and the ends prevailing in the Old Church. The latter are worldly and lead to Hell, while the former are spiritual and lead to Heaven. It is useful from time to time to call to mind the ends we have in view; to remember that in this School our end is in Heaven, and conjoins us with angels and good spirits who are performing uses of a similar character. The consociation of man with angels and with spirits-good and evil-is so intimate that if it were severed man would die, though he knows nothing of it except by revelation. This consociation, unlike the natural consociation of man with man, is internal, for it is a consociation of affections. External consociation with spirits is not to be sought, but as man thinks from doctrine about internal consociation he comes more and more to realize it, and it is with that realization that regeneration is to come. The LORD'S presence is with this work, for He is present with every good work which is from Him, and He is present everywhere, whether we are sleeping or waking. THE whole number of pupils in Philadelphia is fifty-five. Two students are continuing their course in the Theological School. The College is attended by ten students, of whom seven are preparing for the office of the Priesthood. The Boys' School consists of twenty-two pupils under the charge of the Rev. Homer Synnestvedt, assisted by Candidates Keep and Doering. The Girls' School contains thirteen pupils,-and the Primary Department eight. The first hour of every Monday morning is devoted to a theological lecture addressed to all the Schools. Bishop Pendleton has this month, delivered three lectures on the subject of the conjunction of man with Heaven by means of the Word. He was followed by Professor Schreck, who is delivering a course of lectures on the classes of the neighbor (the blind, lame, poor, etc.). On Wednesday mornings Professor Odhner lectures on the History of the New Church. Daring the past month he described the first introduction of the Heavenly Doctrines into America. The lectures take the form of biographies, and have thus far treated of the lives and works of the Rev. Jacob Duche, Mr. James Glen, Mr. Francis Bailey, Baron Heinrich von Bulow, and the Rev. William Hill. The lecture on Mr. Glen brought out the fact that the Doctrines of the New Church were publicly announced in Philadelphia before any other place in the whole world. In the evening of October 1st a reception was tendered by the professors and teachers; to the students and their parents. A new feature of the Morning Worship 18 the orchestral accompaniment to the singing, rendered by a number of the pupils in the College and the Boys' School. THE Friday evening congregational classes for choral practice of the new Psalmody began on October 5th. Pastor Schreck continues as the instructor and leader. On the LORD'S Day, October 7th, the Sacrament of the Holy Supper was administered to 100 communicants. The Sacrament of Baptism was administered to two new pupils of the Schools. Minister Synnestvedt preached, on October 14th, on the subject of "The Ruling Love; its Quality Manifested Through Delights." (Matth. vi, 21). The evening services were resumed on the same day, Bishop Pendleton continuing reading the work on The Divine Providence, and commenting on it. On October 21st Minister Acton preached on the "Smiting of the First-born in Egypt." (Exod. xii, 12, 13). Mr. Acton this year devotes himself exclusively to the department of Worship in Philadelphia. On October 28th Pastor Schreck preached on "The Redemption in the Spiritual World." (Exod. xii, 5.) THE Academy Book Room has lately established a branch at Denver, Colo., which is in the charge of Mr. George W. Tyler. Friends living in the far West may, therefore, obtain their books from Denver in shorter time than from Philadelphia. Other branches of the Book-Room exist in Pittsburgh, Pa.; Chicago, Ill.; Berlin, Ont., Canada, and London, England. Chicago.- THE Chicago Schools opened on the 22d of October with an attendance of twenty pupils, the largest enrollment of any year so far.
ENGLAND.
Colchester.-ON Sunday, October 14th, at Colchester, Bishop Benade ordained the Rev. T. F. Robinson into the second degree of the Priesthood.
CANADA.
Berlin.-ON the 27th of September Mr. J H Schnarr and Miss Annie Daring were married it "Union Grove Farm," near Milverton, by the Rev. F. E. Waelchli, of Berlin, in the presence of a large number of relatives and acquaintances. After the service the newly-welded pair received the congratulations of the guests, which was followed by a supper. The toast, "The Newly-Married Pair," was responded to by the Rev. J. E. Rosenqvist. A second toast, to "The Parents of the Couple," was responded to by Mr. Henry Doering, Sr. After supper the festivities continued. On the evening of October 1st a reception was tendered to Mr. and Mrs. J. H. Schnarr in Berlin, to welcome them into the congregation of the Church of the Academy. The social assembly hall was decorated with arbor vitae and branches of maple, whose outer leaves were already beautifully tinged with autumnal tints. Two mottoes adorned the walls: "Happy May You Be," and May There Be a Blessing." All arose as the couple entered and welcomed them by singing "Happy, happy, happy, may you be." After a few dances, wine and cake were served, and the pastor proposed the sentiment. "The Church," which was responded to by singing "Our Glorious Church." The next toast was introduced by the pastor by remarking that the last verse of the song just sung led to the second sentiment, which was to "Conjugial Love, Restored in the New Church." The Rev. J. E. Rosenqvist responded by reading the last Memorabile in the work on Conjugial Love, drawing particular attention to Number 534, where it is stated that the ignorance of the inhabitants of earth concerning Conjugial Love is on account of their not having "come to the LORD, and lived according to His precepts, by shunning evils as sins, and doing goods," and also that that love "is given to those who live according to His precepts." The necessity of following revelation in order that we may learn what evils are, and thus what evils are to be shunned, was dwelt on. Another sentiment to "The Newly-Wedded Pair" was responded to by Mr. J. H. Schnarr. A few more dances filled up the remainder of the evening. SUNDAY vespers were inaugurated here on October 7th. The subjects for the discourses at these services are taken from The Doctrine of Life.
THE GENERAL CHURCH OF THE ADVENT OF THE LORD.
Pennsylvania.- THE Rev. L. G. Jordan pays visits to the Church in Pittsburgh, when necessary, in order to administer the Sacrament of the Holy Supper. He has lately visited also the Church in Middleport, Ohio; Allentown, Pa., and Brooklyn, N. Y.
THE CHURCH AT LARGE.
Massachusetts.- THE Rev. John Worcester, in consequence of continued ill health, has resigned his position as President of the Board of Managers of the Convention's Theological School in Cambridge. The Rev. James Reed has been chosen President in his place. The Rev. Samuel F. Dike has been relieved of all actual teaching in the school and has been given the honorary title of Professor Emeritus. The Roy. A. F. Frost, lately of Detroit, Michigan, will give instruction in Systematic Theology during the present school year. THE New Church School at Waltham opened this year with an attendance of seventy-five pupils, a number that has been exceeded but once in thirty years. Maryland.- A PECULIAR method of raising money for the Church is the one tried by the Young People's League of the New Church in Baltimore. Pennies were distributed to the children in the Sunday-school, to be invested and returned in two or three months. From seventy-seven cents, distributed to as many children, the League realized $32.5O. The principles underlying this action, and the method of the "investment," are not explained in the published report of the League. Certain it is that "investments" and trading do not belong to childish states, the innocence of which must be injuriously affected by initiation into the exercise of human prudence and the stimulus business furnishes to affections proper and useful only to adults. South Carolina.- THE following interesting letter from Beanfort appears in the New Church Messenger for October 17th: "Probably it may seem strange for me, an African, to be interested in the Writings of Swedenborg. I had the opportunity of reading a part of an old torn book called The True Christian Religion. No man could write such a book as that unless God or angel dictates to him. That book has given me the longing of my mind-a right understanding of God. I see now that JESUS CHRIST is the only God, the only Father. My whole thought has been changed. I am an ordained deacon of the Baptist Church, but I have found a truth and a wisdom in the book which make me
176
LIFE OF THE NEW CHURCH Various 1894
NEW CHURCH LIFE. PUBLISHED MONTHLY BY THE ACADEMY OF THE NEW CHURCH.
TERMS:-One Dollar per annum, payable in advance. FOUR SHILLINGS IN GREAT BRITAIN.
The EDITOR'S address is 1821 Wallace Street, Fairmount Station, Philadelphia. Address all business communications to MR. CARL HJ. ASPLUNDH, No. 1821 Wallace Street, Fairmount Station, Philadelphia, Pa. Subscriptions are also received through the following agents: UNITED STATES. Chicago, Ill., Mr. A. E. Nelson, Chicago Agent of Academy Book Room, No. 565 West Superior Street. Denver, Col., Mr. Geo. W. Tyler, Denver Agent of Academy Book Room, No. 544 South Thirteenth Street. Pittsburgh, Pa., Mr. Wm. Rott, Pittsburgh Agent of Academy Book Room, Tenth and Carson Streets. CANADA. Toronto, Ont., Mr. R. Carswell, 20 Equity Chambers. Waterloo, Mr. Rudolph Roschman. GREAT BRITAIN. Mr. E. W. Misson, Agent for Great Britain, of Academy Book Room, Burton Road, Brixton, London, S. W.
PHILADELPHIA, NOVEMBER. 1894=125.
CONTENTS PAGE EDITORIAL: Notes 161 The LORD, the God of the Ancient Churches (a Sermon) 162 Laws of Order for the Delivered (Exodus xii, 42-51) 165 Further Preparation for Introduction Into Heaven (Exodus xiii) 165 The Insistence of the Israelites 167 Robert Hindmarsh, IX 167 The New Ritual in Different Centres 168 Dedication of the Immanuel Church Club- House at Oak Glen, Illinois 170 NOTES AND REVIEWS 172 COMMUNICATED: "Instruction Concerning Generation."-Reply 173 "The Church in Africa," 174 A Question of Correspondence 175 LIFE OF THE NEW CHURCH 175 BIRTH 176 love the Bible more. The Trinity to me now is easy. This book, and some writings from a preacher called Chauncey Giles, have stamped eternal principles of God and heaven in my soul. I would be doing violence to my conscience if I did not teach my children and others these sublime and, to mule, new truths. Had I the means I would purchase every volume that Swedenborg ever wrote. I want Swedenborg's works and all the old magazines that I can get. J. P. DEVEAUX."
Ohio.- THE Ohio Association held its annual meeting at Urbana on September 28th. The Rev. Frank Sewall, of Washington was present. The Second Society of Toledo was received into the membership of the Association. Resolutions were passed in commemoration of the services of the late J. B. C. Moores, for many years Treasurer of the Association, and of the Hon. William C. Howells. In the evening several papers were read, treating of the present needs of the Church. "These were listened to with great attention, especially that of the Rev. L. H. Tafel, who spoke with great boldness on what he considered to be the evils at present infesting the Church. It was remarked that his paper would probably be the one thing longest remembered in connection with this Association meeting" (Messenger, Oct. 17th.) On the preceding day the ministers of this Association held their annual Conference. The relations of the Church to external charities, and to the Woman's Rights' movement, were among the subjects discussed. The Rev. L. H. Tafel severely denounced the practice of women's preaching or addressing public assemblies of the Church on spiritual matters. On the other hand, the Rev. W. L. Gladish thought we should not be dogmatic on this subject. The Rev. John Goddard defended the practice, stating that he did not consider the meetings of the Church as forensic, but more like family-gatherings, and that there seemed to be no harm in women addressing them. If the President of the General Convention meant this in earnest, then he must consider his own office in the Church as a domestic one. There can be no doubt that a woman has a perfect "right" to "address" her family-circle on sundry occasions, yet the public-spirited ladies who of late have favored the assemblies of the Church with papers and addresses would hardly feel flattered if their performances were to be classed with curtain-lectures! "Let your women keep silence in the Churches. For it is a shame for women to speak in the Church" (I Cor. xiv, 34, 35). "I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to authority over the man, but to be in silence" (I Tim ii, 11, 12). "The Writings of the Apostles do not contain a spiritual sense; still, they are useful books for the Church" (A. E. 815). THE Hon. William Cooper Howells passed away at Jefferson, Ohio, on August 28th, 1894. In the early part of his life he took a very active part in the work of the New Church in Ohio, and from 1842 to 1844 published a New Church periodical called The Retina. Mr. Howells was the father of the well-known novelist, William Deans Howells, who, in a recent letter to the Rev. John Goddard, bears testimony to his father's continued, though modified, interest in the Writings of Swedenborg until the time of his death. THE Rev. J. E. Bowers is at present performing evangelistic work in the State of Ohio, where he has visited isolated New Church people in Chandlersville and Cambridge. Illinois.- THE Chicago Society, which has disposed of its Temple on Van Buren Street will for one year meet for worship in a hall on Waubash Avenue, near the site of thus former church-building. Iowa.- THE Rev. John Jacob Lehnen, an ordained minister of the New Church, on September 3d met a sudden death by drowning in a well. Mr. Lehnen, who was a familiar figure at the meetings of the General Convention, was born in Switzerland 1820, and did a great deal of missionary work among the Germans in this country. He was the founder of the little New Church Society at Norway, Iowa, where the "General Society of the New Church in Iowa" held its sixth annual meeting on September 9th. Missouri.- THE Rev. Gerhard Bussmann, who for many years has been ministering to the First German New Church Society in St. Louis, has recently dissolved his pastoral connections with that body. The Second German Society is still under the pastoral care of the Rev. Louis Carriere. California.-
A CORRECTION.
EDITOR NEW CHURCH LIFE:-In your Sept. No. of the N. C. Life you stated that Rev. G. Reiche is ministering to a small circle of New Church people in Ontario, Cal. He was here on a visit and preached one Sunday. He now resides in Los Angeles. Please correct this and oblige, Yours truly, Ontario, Oct. 25th, '94. D. V. BOWEN.
GREAT BRITAIN.
London.- THE Society worshiping at Argyle Square reports a total decrease of six members since its last annual meeting. This Society, of which the Rev. John Presland is the pastor, will shortly celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of its establishment. Preston.- THE Society at this place, now under the leadership of the Rev. W. F. Lardge after many years of a lingering existence has lately adopted as its "motto" the sentence, "We want rousing up," and has come to discover that "one of the very best ways of doing this is in the endeavor to get the members to read a little of the Word and the Writings every day." A more useful method of building up the Church cannot be adopted, but it cannot be successful unless the members of the Church are led to the Writings as the very Word of God, preaching with Divine Authority not only for the intellectual illustration of the understanding, but also, and especially, for the reformation of the life, corporate as well as individual. Manchester.-MR. THOMAS POTTS, the father of the Rev. John Faulkner Potts, the Editor of the Concordance, died at Manchester, on September 6th at the age of eighty-three years. Mr. Potts has been connected with the New Church about sixty years, and during this entire period has taken an active and useful part in the work of the Church, not only in Manchester, where he was the leader of the Sunday-school during many years, but also in the more general capacity of Secretary of the New Church Sunday-school Union. He was a great friend of small and struggling societies, some of which have been established permanently through his active sympathy. Wales.- THE little New Church Society at Ynysmeudwy is still active and apparently progressing. The services are conducted alternately in the Welsh and English tongues by the Pastor, the Rev. William Rees, who is assisted by the Rev. J. R. Davies, of Llandyssil. A New Church monthly periodical has lately been established, and a movement is on foot for a more general association of the New Church in Tales, to be conducted, we are sorry to see, on the principles of the "Referendum Scheme."
GREECE.
MRS. Eurydike Zahn, born in Mastraka, died at Calamata, in Greece, on August 19th. This lady was the wife of Professor Heinrich Zahn, formerly the Treasurer of the German New Church Association, but since the year 1884 resident at his wife's birthplace in Greece. He is probably the only Newchurchman in that country.
AFRICA.
THE hall lately erected by the New Church Society in Durban, Natal (see the Life for October, p. 160), has been named "Bailey Hall" in commemoration of the late Rev. Jonathan Bailey. It is to be used by a Girls' School and Kindergarten, to be conducted "on undenominational lines" by Miss Florence Warland, who was lately a teacher in the London School of the Academy of the New Church She will be assisted by the Misses Cockerell.
A Priest, or the Priesthood; signifies holy good. . . This is the Divine Celestial.- A. C. 1728.
Title Unspecified 1894
THE development of the Church is similar to that of the individual man, passing through similar periods of infancy, childhood, youth, and manhood, each of which, on its part, is again made up of particular states, in the image of the general ones.
Title Unspecified 1894
THE only human is the LORD. Accordingly, man's development is nothing else than growth in the faculty of receiving the LORD. The growth of the mere corporeal frame is not the development of the real human being, although it is a token of it when the mind is in order and the correspondence between body and soul is full and complete. The Church is the Church only from the LORD. Its development is nothing else than growth into the more affirmative and more intelligent reception of the Divine Truth, and into fuller life in agreement therewith. Increase in membership is not growth of the Church, although where order obtains it may be a token thereof.
Title Unspecified 1894
IN the life of the individual, provision is made for bringing to him, at different periods of his life-notably in the earliest age-goods and truths, which, though not consciously appropriated, are stored up by the LORD in his interiors, where they remain, ready, like ministering angels, to carry out the Will and Wisdom of the LORD in greater or less fullness, as occasion may arise. There can be no doubt that the same law is operative in the life of the Church as a whole. Although the Church, like the individual, is to be a heaven upon earth, it is subject to the same law of development and growth out of a vile and external state into the fullness of heavenly intelligence and wisdom. In the Divine Providence, from time to time, goods and truths are more actively presented to it, and although these may not enter at the time into the conscious life of the Church as a whole, impressions are made which have an effect upon the interior sphere of the Church, and are there reserved by the LORD for use, to bring Him more fully present in the Church, when, in His Wisdom, the time has arrived. And, as, in the individual, the operation of the LORD, through the remains implanted by him, is often accompanied by the recalling to memory of the incidents when these remains were stored up-so in the Church, the establishment of a good in the corporate life of the Church leads sometimes to the discovery of past history, When the same good or truth was brought to the Church, and in case it was not adopted, was withdrawn or indrawn.
Title Unspecified 1894
SUCH a good, which, in the Providence of the LORD, came to the New Church in its earliest days, is the acknowledgment of the Priesthood in the LORD, and the consequent acknowledgment that from Him comes the appointment and ordination of the office of the Priesthood among angels and men. Rejected at the time by the majority of the professing Newchurchmen, it was nevertheless so firmly and earnestly maintained by a few, that it led to a separation in the external Church, young as it was. And although, in course of time, this acknowledgment was kept in the background, condemned by the majority, and obscured by fallacies in the minds of a few who still held it, it has at last, after a century, become enkindled into a bright and clear flame of light in at least one part of the visible New Church.
Title Unspecified 1894
THE Priests of the Church of the Academy have freely and gladly testified to their acknowledgment of the Divine origin of the Priesthood, and therewith have placed themselves, in the performance of the functions of the holy sacerdotal office, under the immediate auspices of the LORD JESUS CHRIST, and turned away from the ensnaring doctrine that their commission, as teachers and leaders, is derived from men. To this position they have been led gradually, and their meeting in London-a report of which appears in this issue-was the occasion for their open profession of the new state of life into which, as a society of New Church priests, they have been led, under the infinitely wise and inscrutable leading of their LORD and SAVIOUR.
Title Unspecified 1894
IT is unnecessary to add at present any further considerations of the justice and truth of the position there assumed-the acknowledgment there made. But it may be of use at this time, and in this connection, to see how, in the Divine Providence, this good of the Church was foreshadowed in the early history of the external New Church, a few years after the Church had been inaugurated by the ordination of ministers. The principles of the minority, which led to their separation, are set forth at large in the minutes of the Fourth General Conference, held in London, in the year 1792, and are to this effect:
We the undersigned Ministers and other Members of the New Jerusalem, observing with serious concern the present alarming progress of infidelity and democracy in this country, systems which ascribe to the people at large the right and power not only to decide upon every question relative to Civil and Ecclesiastical Government, but also to appoint and remove, at pleasure, their Governors and Teachers; and thinking it a duty incumbent upon us, in order to prevent any misapprehension of the real and genuine Doctrines of the New Jerusalem on the above subjects at this time to declare our sentiments of the same, as derived from the Word of God, and inculcated by the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg, do hereby, in the most solemn and deliberate manner, declare our disapprobation of the aforesaid Republican or Democratic Principles, which we believe to be hostile to the peace of society, and therefore object against for the following reasons: 1. Because we believe and acknowledge that all power is derived from the LORD alone. 2. Because we believe that all Ecclesiastical Power and Authority is delegated by the LORD to those whom He has been pleased to appoint to the Office of the Ministry, as representatives of Himself in respect to the administration of Divine Good and Truth in the Church.
178
3. Because we believe that all Civil Power and Authority is delegated by the LORD to those whom He has been pleased to appoint to the Kingly Office as representatives of Himself in respect to the administration of Divine Truth and Good in the State. 4. Because we believe, that those Ministers whom the LORD has appointed to the Office of the Ministry, and those Kings or Governors whom Re has appointed for the government of Nations, are the proper mediums or channels by and through which the LORD appoints other Ministers and Kings or Governors. 5. Because we believe, that as all Kings and Ministers, in respect to their Office, represent the LORD and not the People, therefore they ought to be appointed by the LORD whom they do represent and not by the People whom they do not represent. 6. Because we believe that every Society is or ought to be in a human form; and that every individual occupies a certain province in that form, according to the uses which the LORD has qualified him to perform, and not according to any election of the people. 7. Because we believe that they who excel in celestial love and wisdom constitute the head; that they who excel in spiritual love and wisdom constitute the breast and body; and that they who are principled in natural love and wisdom constitute the legs and the feet: And further, that the celestial principle produces the spiritual, and governs it; and that both these in union produce the natural and govern it: Whereas it appears to us that the bulk of the people are principled in natural love and wisdom, and therefore ought to submit themselves to be governed by those who from their office and habits of life are supposed to excel them in the reception of superior degrees of love and wisdom from the LORD. 8. Because all influx is from the head of the members, from the internal to the external, from the soul to the body, from spirit to matter, and not vice versa; which nevertheless appears to us to be implied in ascribing to the bulk of the people at large the right and power of deciding upon every question of a civil and ecclesiastical nature. 9. Because it appears to us that throughout the Holy Scriptures all true Prophets, Priests, and Kings were appointed by the LORD alone, and not by the People, who in any cases opposed the Divine Will, not only in majorities, but with one voice and consent. 10. Because we believe that the appointment to all offices in Church and State, and the determination of all questions by the popular voice, is so much like the atheistical doctrine that the centre is produced from the expanse, which is expressly condemned by Emanuel Swedenborg (True Christian Religion, n. 35), that as members of the New Jerusalem, we are bound in conscience to express our disapprobation of such a false and dangerous principle. 11. Because it appears to us that by the People electing persons to fill the Office of the Ministry, is implied, though indirectly or remotely, that they are the authors of their own salvation: Whereas by the LORD choosing His Ministers, and these again, as His representatives, appointing their successors, is implied that the LORD alone is the Author of salvation, as well as of the means to promote it. The same will hold good, as applied to the hereditary succession of Kings; in which case the LORD equally provides successive representatives of Himself, and by their means governs the nations as a King. 12. Because we believe, that the persons who are in ignorance and need instruction in Divine things, as the bulk of the people confessedly are in consequence of their attention being principally engaged in worldly affairs, cannot be supposed qualified to judge of the necessary qualifications of a teacher. We admit,-indeed, they may know whether a Minister pleases them or not, but we do not apprehend that pleasure in the hearer is the proper criterion whereby to judge of the ministerial function; for this may be effected by an appeal to the will and its passions rather than to the understanding; whereas all instruction ought to be directed to the understanding, because there reformation commences, and the new will is to be formed. 13. Because we believe that as a Minister is a shepherd or pastor, and the people the sheep or flock; and as the sheep are entrusted to the care of the shepherd, by the LORD, who is their Owner; it is an absurdity to say that the sheep have the right or power of choosing and dismissing their shepherd, and yet entrust themselves to his care and protection; for if they had the power of displacing him, it is plain they would be stronger than him; and if they are stronger than him, what occasion can they have for his protection? The right and power of protection against the wolf would in such case be in the sheep themselves, and not in the shepherd. But sheep, as such, are helpless; and the shepherd, as a man, is able to protect them: consequently the shepherd has more power and authority than the sheep, neither does he receive his power and authority from the sheep, but rather communicates his power and protection to the sheep. 14. Because we believe that it is agreeable to Divine Order and to the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg that there should be a distinction of ranks among mankind: whereas the doctrines of republicanism now circulating in the country at large, seem to confound all ranks, and to place all men on a level, which we consider to be hostile to the peace and welfare of society, both in a religious and civil point of view. 15. Because we believe that however true it may be in some respects, that human nature is alike in all, yet all men have not equal rights, because all men are not equal in their degrees of reception of love and wisdom from the LORD. The bead has an exclusive right to govern the body, and this right is a Divine right, because it is derived from the LORD through heaven, which is above the head, and not from the body which is beneath it, and subject to it. To say that all men have equal rights is to say that a society of men is not arranged according to the human form; or that all constitute the head, in which case there would be no trunk, no arms, no feet. But the truth is, some men by nature, or rather by Divine Providence and appointment; constitute the head, some the neck, some the breast, some the back, some the arms, some the legs, and some the feet. The uses which every one is qualified to perform to and for the whole determine the respective situation of each. And if the whole man be in order, the head will arrange every member according to wisdom, the members will voluntarily and freely subordinate themselves under the head, and thus the happiness of the whole will be ensured.
Title Unspecified 1894
A. C. 2015 All the laws [of order] by which the Lord governs the universe as Priest, and by which He rules truths themselves, are Goods.- A. C. 2015.
PURIFICATION Rev. ENOCH S. PRICE 1894
And he was on the way in an inn, and met him JEHOVAH and sought to kill him. And took Zipporah a stone, and out off the foreskin of her son and made it touch his feet, and she said, For a bridegroom of bloods art thou to me. And He ceased from him; then she said, A bridegroom of bloods for circumcision.-Exodus iv, 24-26.
THE words of the text treat especially of the posterity from Jacob that they were in externals without internals, or, in other words, that they were of such a character that their externals did not agree with their internals. Externally they were in pious observances to an extreme degree, but internally they were in evils and falses; this is meant by He was on the way in the inn. In what precedes, and also in what follows these three verses, the internal sense treats of the Spiritual Church which is meant by the sons of Israel, and which might have been established with them but for their being in the state above described, with no desire for reformation and purification from evils. On account of this representation now, Moses does not here represent the law or the Word as heretofore, but he represents that nation or posterity from Jacob of which he was about to be the leader; thus also he represents the worship of that nation; for in the Word throughout, a leader or judge, and also a king, represents the nation and people of which he is the leader, judge or king; because he is the head, which represents the whole, since it contains the most internal and vital things of the body. For this reason Moses is not named in these three verses; but it is evident from the series of the letter that he is meant, and that JEHOVAH met him and sought to kill him, although before he had so expressly commanded that he should go and return to Egypt.
179
By his being in the way signifies that the Israelitish nation were in what was instituted; for the way is the regularly-appointed road or highway; but that he was in an inn signifies that that nation was in a state wholly external, natural or sensual; for an inn is only a temporary lodging-place, and not a permanent abode. Since now a Church was to be established with the sons of Jacob, and that is treated of, therefore the thing signified is such as appertained to them, namely, an external without an internal, thus also an external natural or sensual, but separated from an internal-that is, not agreeing with the internal. Much, very much, doctrine might he adduced from the Writings of the Church to show that the posterity of Jacob were in falses and evils; that they became not a Church, but only the representative of a Church; the Divine worship among them was only external, separate from internal, and that to that worship they were driven by external means; that they were not chosen, but that they obstinately insisted on being a Church; that they were of such a quality that they could represent holy things, although they were in worldly and corporeal loves, and that that nation was of such a quality from its first origin. But it will be sufficient for present purposes to know that they were of the quality just described to the extent that there was opposition that any Church should be established with that nation. Such opposition is signified by and JEHOVAH met him. In this place, as in many others in the letter, it appears as if JEHOVAH, or the Divine, opposed Himself, for it is said that JEHOVAH met him. But here, as in all similar passages, the internal sense is the direct converse of the literal sense, and what is meant is that that nation was opposed to the Divine; for the Divine never opposes itself to any one, but it is man, or a nation, which opposes itself to the Divine. It may be remarked, in passing, that very many things in the letter of the Word describe actual scenes in the spiritual world. One of these scenes is given us illustrating this passage. Some come into the other life, it is said, who desire to be admitted into heaven, even as these Israelites desired to be a Church, and yet they are of such a quality that they are incapable of being there. When their desire is granted, instantly when they are in the way, and near to the entrance of heaven, they appear to themselves as monsters, and begin to be tortured and tormented, because they cannot endure the truth and good which prevail there; and they believe that heaven and the Divine have opposed themselves to them, when yet it is they who bring this upon themselves, because they are in the opposite. It was impossible that a representative Church should be established among the sons of Israel; for so great was the opposition of that nation to the Divine that it appeared that the LORD wished, at more than one time, to destroy it. And JEHOVAH met him and sought to kill him. When the external observances of the Israelites were stripped off-that is, when their piety, grounded, not in the good of truth, but in the filthy loves of dominion, vengeance and so forth-were removed, And Zipporah took a stone and cut off the foreskin of her son; then the quality of the natural with them was made to appear, And she made it touch his feel; and it was seen that it was full of all violence and hostility against truth and good, and she said, Thou art a bridegroom of bloods to me. Nevertheless, it was still permitted that nation that they should e a representative of a Church, and He ceased from him; for, although they never removed their filthy loves, still they had established with them various purificatory rites, and among these especially circumcision, which represented the removal of those loves, then she said a bridegroom of bloods for circumcisions. This now is in general the internal sense of these three verses of the letter of the Word, and unless this sense had been revealed to us by the infinitely tender mercy of the LORD, who could ever have known what these verses meant? Who could see without instruction-Divine instruction-that the statement that JEHOVAH first sent Moses to Egypt as a special messenger to the sons of Israel and to Pharaoh, and yet immediately afterward met him on the way and sought to kill him, means that Moses, or the sons of Israel whose leader he was now to become, sought to kill JEHOVAH-that is, that they destroyed everything of the LORD that could be with them? How this is shown, and what its application may be to us, shall he the subject of the remainder of this discourse. The Sons of Israel, and Moses as their leader, represent not a Church, but the representative of a Church-that is, they represent external rites and ceremonies that may be good and correct in themselves, considered as rites and ceremonies, but are with a people who are not in any corresponding internal of good and truth, thus who are in externals without internals. What the quality of such is, is exposed by examination in the light of spiritual truth, such as is with a Church truly representative-that is, a Church whose rites and ceremonies are in themselves good and correct, and are with those who are in corresponding internal goods and truths, thus who are in externals, with corresponding internals. This exposure or showing of quality is represented by, And Zipporah took a stone; for in this passage Zipporah represents a representative Church. With the representative Church there is spiritual truth or the truth of faith, which is represented by the stone, or knife or little sword of stone, which is here meant. And Zipporah took a stone and cut off the foreskin of her son. This signifies that the truths of faith applied remove filthy loves from man, and lay bare the internal, and show what its quality is. The foreskin represents terrestial and corporeal love which defiles spiritual and celestial love. In this case, which is specifically an examination of the character of the Israelites, it is shown that they, despite all their wonderful appearances of piety, were as to the natural- And she made it touch his feet-full of all violence and hostility against truth and good- And she said, A bridegroom of bloods art thou to me. Nevertheless the Israelites were permitted to represent I a Church although they were not a Church. And although they were not pure, nor did they desire to be- come pure, still there was established with them the representative of the purification from evils. And He ceased from him; then she said, A bridegroom of bloods for circumcisions-that is, circumcision was with them the established rite significative of purification. The special lesson to us, after clearing the mind of fallacious ideas concerning the Jews, is, that man must be purified of evil loves in order that he may he really a Church of the LORD, and may come into heaven, after death, by having heaven in him. With the New Church also has been established a ceremonial rite to represent this purification, namely, baptism, which has taken the place of the circumcision of the Jews. Here again the representation is that falses and evils are to be removed by means of the truths of faith.
180
When the man of the Church comes to examine himself by means of the truths of faith he will discover that he too, as to the natural, is full of all violence and hostility against truth and good, and he will come into a state similar to that of Moses when it appeared to him that the LORD sought to kill him. But the LORD has most mercifully made it impossible for a man to get more than a glimpse at one time, of the terrible abyss full of monsters his natural is. If the man of the Church were able to see all the frightfulness of his unregenerate natural at one-time, he would immediately destroy himself in despair. How then is man to know that he is in such evil and thence to see the necessity of purification? In two principal ways: first by being taught from doctrine that he is in himself nothing but evil, and that the Divine mercy alone can save him from the hell within himself; and, second, by being tempted concerning certain particular evils, by which means he is confirmed of the truth of the doctrines concerning some of his evils, which makes a fulcrum, base or standing-place from which he may rationally conclude that the doctrines concerning his evil state are true as a whole. As with the performance of uses in life every one finds he has certain preferences, that some uses he had much rather perform than others, that for some even, which he may acknowledge to be good uses, he has a decided repugnance to performing, so with man's evil; upon examining himself be will find he has tendencies to particular evils, while he has a repugnance for others. He may depend upon it, however, that his repugnance is on the outside only, so long as he is not a regenerate or regenerating man; and that unless he begins the life of regeneration while in this world, when he comes into the other life there will be no evils that are repugnant to him. The place, then, where man is to begin to purify himself by means of the truths of faith-thus to reform himself, as it were of himself, that he may be regenerated by the LORD-IS with the particular evils to which he finds himself inclined. No man can obey a general law; but he must obey the law as applied to him in the peculiar circumstances in which he finds himself. As for instance, the commandment, Thou shalt not steal: this law in its general form no man can obey; but when he is tempted to appropriate to himself what belongs to another-for instance, the money of another-then the law to him is no longer general, but becomes particular, and is, Thou shalt not steal this money. This law he can obey, and if he does obey it, not from fear of the law' nor from fear of hell, but because it is a sin against God, he has made a step toward reformation; he has been circumcised with a knife of stone as to this one filthy love, and he has at the same time had his natural tendency exposed to him. Let him not flatter himself on account of one victory in temptation; let him rather humbly acknowledge that he himself had really nothing to do with the victory, but that the LORD alone conquered for him. When one evil is shunned, another and more interior one shows itself, and the fight is always more and more severe even to despair. But with the regenerating man though he fall he is not cast down. He will he comforted after each desperate struggle, only to enter into another which, while it appears harder that the one previous, is balanced by the fact that it brings him one step nearer the goal to which he is striving. But by circumcision is meant not only the removal of gross external evils, but in particular and in general it signifies the removal of the loves of self and the world. And how many forms of evil may not be included under those heads? Yea, verily, all evils, and many-very many-things apparently good. Whatever is done for the sake of reputation and honor, whatever is done to gratify self-as one's affections or natural sympathies, and not for the sake of the LORD and His kingdom-is of evil; wherefore it becomes evident that a few simple truths do not constitute the knife of stone; but all the truths of faith; that is, all the revelation of Divine truth to the man of the Church. Does not every one need instruction to know that if he cares for the members of his own family, tenderly rears and educates them and supplies them with the means of a livelihood, because they are his, and not for the sake of preparing them for citizenship in the LORD'S Kingdom, he is acting from the love of self, and that this IS an evil and must be removed if he will come into heaven? This is indeed one of the most tenacious of the evils of the love of self. Does man not need instruction to know that if he is compassionate because it hurts his natural feelings to contemplate suffering, and not for the sake of use to the neighbor, that he is acting from the love of self, hence from evil, and that this is to be removed? Does he not need instruction to know that if he serves his fellow-man, his country or even the Church, for the sake of honor and reputation, that he is acting from the love of the world and not from the love of heaven? Indeed, he that is freest from the commission of gross evils, such as are forbidden in the letter of the decalogue, may need this circumcision of filthy loves as much or even more than the common malefactor. When man learns the truths of faith they are in his memory, but not at first in his will, hence not operative. But when he is tempted to evils, and, with the aid of the LORD, conquers, or, more properly, when the LORD conquers for him, then the truths of faith are illustrated in his mind, and warmed to life in his will, by the LORD, and become goods of truth, and man comes gradually to love the good which is the opposite to the evil to which he was tempted. If the man fails apparently in his combat with the evils that are with him from heredity, let him still not yield to the extent of acknowledging that the evil originates with him and is his; but let him ever confirm himself that evil is of hell, and is his only so far as he cherishes it, and wills it to be his. If he earnestly desires to be rid of his evils, although he continually falls into the commission of them, his desire is imputed to him for good, and he will be purified of them in the other life. If man's external, evil, hereditary will leads him to the commission of evils against the truths of faith in his rational-If thy brother sin against thee, let him examine himself in the light of such truth as is with him-Go, and charge him between thee and him alone. If he is able to resist the evil immediately, the opposite good is immediately implanted-if he hear thee thou shalt have gained thy brother. But if, as will generally be the case, the hereditary inclination is strong, and tenacious of hold-If, however, he will not hear-then let the man of the Church add to his already acquired knowledges of doctrine, other and more particular doctrines bearing directly upon the evil to which he finds himself inclined-take with thee one or two more; so that he may be confirmed in the doctrines concerning his own state, and not be led astray by false persuasions and excuses-so that by the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be made to stand. But, if he finds that, still, with this preparation, he is unable to resist his natural inclinations-if, however, he shall neglect to hear them-let him bring to bear the whole revelation of Divine truth-that is, all that he may learn of the truths of faith from study, from reflection, investigation, instruction, every means by which he may gain a knowledge of GOD'S will let him bring this to bear upon his own particular faults-tell it to the Church.
181
If after all this he finds himself unable to resist the burning passions of his hereditary will-but if he neglect to hear the Church-let him, nevertheless, not yield and acknowledge the evil as of himself and his own, and thereby appropriate it to himself, but let him ever and always relegate it to hell where it belongs-then let him be to thee as a heathen and as a publican, and look to the LORD and pray, Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. We can do nothing of ourselves; for Thine is the Kingdom and the Power and the Glory for ever.- AMEN.
All power 1894
All power is of good by truth.- A. C. 9809.
FIRST TEMPTATION 1894
EXODUS XIV.
IN this Chapter, in the Internal Sense, the First Temptation of those who were of the Spiritual Church is treated of, and that they were led through the midst of hell, and protected by the LORD at the time. Those who were in faith separate from charity were immersed in hell, where are falses from evil. Those who were of the spiritual Church are represented by the sons of Israel; those who were in faith separate from charity, by the Egyptians; their first temptation is described by the murmuring of the sons of Israel when they saw the army of Pharaoh; hell is signified by the sea Suph, through which the sons of Israel were led in safety, and into which the Egyptians were immersed; the fakes from evil are signified by the waters which covered the Egyptians.
THE DIVINE TRUTH INSTRUCTS THE MEN OF THE SPIRITUAL CHURCH.
(1-4.) Those who were of the spiritual Church were instructed by the Divine, through the Divine Truth, "and JEHOVAH spake unto Moses saying"-the Divine Truth, by influx into the minds of those who were of the spiritual Church, bringing to their perception and thought, "Speak unto the sons of Israel"-that they were not yet prepared for the introduction into Heaven, "and let them return"-but that the goods and truths in their minds would first have to be so ordered that they could begin to undergo the temptations, "and let them encamp before Pi-chiroth, between Migdal and between the sea, before Baal-Zephon"-that is to say, so that, through the immediate influx from the LORD and the mediate influx through Heaven, they would be able to resist the falses and evils, which are from hell, and that thus they could be kept protected in temptation, which inflowed from the hells near which they were, "over against it encamp ye, by the sea"-and that those who were in damnation would then think-about the state of those who were of the spiritual Church, "and Pharaoh will say concerning the sons of Israel"-that they were confused as to those things that are of the Church, "Perplexed are they in the land"-and that obscurity occupied them, "closed upon them hath the desert"-and those who were in falses from evil would thus make themselves still more obstinate, "and I shall harden the heart of Pharaoh"-and they would still endeavor to subjugate the spiritual, "and he shall pursue after them"-who would then see the Divine effect from the Divine Human, in the dissipation of the false, "and I shall be glorified"-for those who infested the upright would be cast into hell, and would there be surrounded by falses as by waters, simply as the Divine effect from the mere presence of the LORD, "in Pharaoh and in all his army"-from which it would be known, that the LORD is the only God, "and know shall the Egyptians, that I am JEHOVAH" This Divine instruction was obeyed by those who were of the spiritual Church, "and they did so."
THOSE WHO ARE IN FALSES FROM EVIL ATTEMPT TO SUBJUGATE THE FAITHFUL.
(5-9.) Those who were in mere falses from evil thought that they would be utterly separated, "and it was told the king of Egypt that the people fled"-and all of them underwent a change of state into evil against those who were of the spiritual Church, "and turned was the heart of Pharaoh and of his servants against the people"-and they rebuked themselves, "and they said, What is this that we have done"-because they had left them and had not subjugated them, "that we have sent away Israel from serving us." So they made use of the doctrine of the false which is of faith separated from charity, "and he harnessed his chariot"-with all and single the falses belonging to it, "and his people he took with him"-and all and single the doctrinals of the false which are of that faith, in their order, "and he took six hundred chosen chariots"-also the doctrinals of the false that were of service to the principal falses, "and all the chariots of Egypt"-reduced to order under the general falses, "and the leaders of thirds over all his"-and they made themselves obstinate from the false which was from evil, "and JEHOVAH hardened the heart of Pharaoh the king of Egypt"-and endeavored to subjugate those who were in faith conjoined to charity, "and he pursued after the sons of Israel"-when nevertheless the latter were delivered by Divine Power from their effort of subjugating them, "and the sons of Israel were going out with a high hand." The effort made by those who were in falses from evil to subjugate those who were of the spiritual Church had this effect, "and the Egyptians pursued after them"-that their falses from evil communicated with those who were of the spiritual Church round about the region of hell where were falses from evils, "and overtook them encamping by the sea"-the communication involving all things which were of the false from perverted understanding, such as scientifics, reasonings, and falses, "all the horses of the chariots of Pharaoh, and his horsemen, and his army"-from which was the communication, and hence the first state of undergoing temptations, "beside Pt. Chiroth before Baal-Zephon."
TEMPTATION EVEN TO DESPAIR.
(10-14.) Hence the false from evil inflowed grievously into those who were of the spiritual Church, "and Pharaoh drew near"-so the latter raised the intellectual of their mind and thought, "and the sons of Israel lifted up their eyes"-and the false became increasingly more grievous, "and behold Egypt was journeying after them"-so that their conscience was smitten with the falses and evils, and they became averse to them and feared that spiritual death would overtake them, and were horror-stricken, "and they feared greatly"-nod made supplication for help, "and the sons of Israel cried unto JEHOVAH"-and came to the very height and despair of temptation, "and they said unto Moses"-in which they thought, that if damnation was to overtake them, it was indifferent whether it came through the falses of the infesters, or through a state of temptations in which they would succumb, "Were there no sepulchres in Egypt? thou hast taken us to die in the desert"-so that their being delivered from infestations by falses was useless, "What is this thou hast done to us, to lead us forth out of Egypt!"
182
They had thought some such thing in a former state when they were infested by falses, "Is not this the word which we spake unto thee in Egypt, laying"-namely that they would not be withdrawn from the evil by the Divine influence, but that they should give themselves up as vanquished to those who were infesting them by falses, "Cease from us and let us serve the Egyptians"-because the damnation caused by the violence of the false in a state of infestations is preferable to the damnation which comes through succumbing in a state of temptations, "for it is good for us to serve the Egyptians rather than to die in the desert." But they were raised out of this state of despair through the Divine Truth, "and Moses said unto the people"-that they are not to despair, "Fear ye not"-but to have faith, that they will be saved by the LORD alone and not by themselves, "stand ye and see the salvation of JEHOVAH"-for He alone resists in temptations and conquers, and the salvation which He effects is to eternity, "which He wilt do to you to-day"-for the falses which are removed once, will be removed to eternity, "because whom ye see Egyptians this day ye shall not add to-see them even unto an age." The LORD alone sustains the combats of temptations, "JEHOVAH will fight for you"-while they, of their own powers, effect nothing whatever, "and ye, be ye silent."
FURTHER INSTRUCTION CONCERNING THE TEMPTATION.
(15-18.) And they were exhorted, "and JEHOVAH said unto Moses"-that there was no need of intercession, "Why criest thou unto Me?"-but that by the influx of the Truth Divine into their minds, they would perceive, "Speak unto the sons of Israel"-that they would continue to undergo successive states until they would be prepared to undergo the temptations, "and let them go forward." The power of the Divine Truth, "and thou, take up thy staff"-would have dominion where the hell of the false from evil would be, "and stretch forth thy hand over the sea"-and the false would thereby be dissipated, "and cleave it"-so that those who were of the spiritual Church might pass through it safely, and without receiving the influx of the false, "and let the sons of Israel come into the midst of the sea in the dry"-although those who were in the falses from evil would become obstinate, "and I, behold lam hardening the heart of the Egyptians"-and would be in the endeavor of doing violence to those who were of the spiritual Church, by inflowing with the false from evil," and they shall come after them"-but then they would see the dissipation of the false, and of the doctrinals of the false, and of the reasonings, effected from the Divine Good of the Divine Human of the LORD, "and I shall be glorified in Pharaoh, and in all his army, and in his chariots, and in his horsemen"-so that it would be known that the LORD alone is God, and that beside Him there is none other, "and the Egyptians shall know that I am JEHOVAH"-because they would see the dissipation of the false, and of the doctrinals, and of the reasonings of the false effected from the LORD alone, "when I am glorified in Pharaoh, in his chariots, and in his horsemen."
UNDER THE LORD'S PROTECTION, THE FAITHFUL PASS SAFELY THROUGH HELL.
(19-22.) It was so ordered by the Divine Truth, and the Angel of God journeyed "-about the truths and goods of the Church, "marching before the camp, of Israel"-that the voluntary was protected from the influx of the false of evil, "and he went behind them"-and the LORD became present, protecting the voluntaries as He had before protected the intellectuals, "and the column of the cloud journeyed before them and stood behind them"-and being between the falses of evil on the one side and the goods of truth on the other, prevented the influx of the falses from evil, "and it came between the camp of the Egyptians and between the camp of Israel." The presence of the LORD condensed the false from evil on the one side, and illustrated the truth from good on the other, "and it was the cloud and the darkness and it illuminated the night"-whence those who were in the false from evil could not communicate their falses to those who were of the spiritual Church, "and this did not draw near to that"-in the obscure state," the whole night." By the dominion of the power of Truth Divine, "and Moses stretched forth his hand upon the seas"-a means for the dissipation of the false was produced,-"and JEHOVAH made the sea to go away, by a strong east wind"-in that obscure state, "the whole night "-the false was dissipated, "and He set the sea for a dry"-and was separated from the truths, and removed, "and the waters were cleft"-so that those who were of the spiritual Church entered into hell and safely passed through it, without suffering the influx of the false, "and the sons of Israel came into the midst of the sea in the dry"-and they were withheld from the falses on all sides, "and the waters were to them for a wail on their tight and on their left."
THE EFFORT TO DO VIOLENCE REACTS UPON THE EVIL.
(23-25.) Those who were in falses from evil, were in the endeavor of doing violence to those of the spiritual Church, "and the Egyptians pursued"-by inflowing with the false from evil, "and came after them"-filling hell with their scientifics from their perverted intellectual, with their doctrinals of the false, and with their reasonings, "all the horses of Pharaoh, his chariots and his horsemen, into the midst of the sea." While those who were in the false from evil were in a state of thick darkness and were being destroyed, these who were in truth from good were in a state of illustration and were being saved, "and it was in the morning watch"-the influx of the Divine was extended toward those who, by means of the false endeavored to do violence, "and JEHOVAH looked forth toward the camp of the Egyptians"-good and truth Divine being there present, "in a column of firs and of cloud"-whence the extensions of the falses from evil relapsed upon those who endeavored to induce them upon the good, "and disturbed the camp of the Egyptians"-and took away from them the power of inducing the falses, "and He removed the wheel of his chariots"-making this power resistent and impotent "and led it in heaviness." So those who were in falses from evil thought, "and the Egyptian said"-of separating from those who were in the good of truth and the truth of good, "I will flee before Israel"-since the LORD alone sustained the combat against evils and falses, "for JEHOVAH fighteth for them against the Egyptians."
THE FALSES ARE OVERWHELMED BY THEIR OWN FALSES.
(26-28.) The Divine inflowed, "and JEHOVAH said unto Moses"-in order that the Truth Divine might have the dominion of power over hell, "Stretch forth thy hand upon the sea"-and that the falses from evil might overflow to those who were in falses from evil, and surround them, "and the waters shall return upon the Egyptians"-and also their doctrinals of the false,* and their reasonings from the perverted intellectual, "upon his chariots, and upon his horsemen."
183
The Divine Power thus had dominion over hell, "and Moses stretched forth his hand over the sea"-and from the presence of the LORD the falses from evil overflowed unto them, "and the sea returned to the turn of the morning to the force of inflow"-and they themselves immersed themselves in the falses from evil, "and the Egyptians were fleeing to meet it"-thus they cast themselves into hell, where are falses from evil, "and JEHOVAH shook off the Egyptians into the midst of the sea"-and the falses relapsed upon them, "and the waters returned"-and hid them with their doctrinals of the false, and their reasonings, "and covered the chariots and the horsemen, unto all the army of Pharaoh"-and occupied them, "coming after them into the sea"-all and every single one of them, "there was not left in them even to one." * No. 8215 of the Arcana gives a special view of the reason why the expression "doctrinals of the false" is used, instead of "false doctrinals" as one would expect. The doctrinals are as it were receptacles of the false.
VICTORY OVER THE FALSE FROM EVIL, AND ADORATION OF THE LORD.
(29-31.) And those who were in the good of truth and the truth of good, passed through that hell safely, without infestation, "and the sons of Israel went in the dry into the midst of the sea"-and were withheld from falses on every side, "and the waters were to them a wall on their right hand and on their left"-and the LORD in this state protected those who were of the spiritual Church from all violence from the falses from evil, "and JEHOVAH saved in that day Israel out of the hand of the Egyptians"-and they looked upon the damned who were dispersed from hence, "and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the shore of the sea"-and they acknowledged the Omnipotence of the LORD, "and Israel saw the great hand, which JEHOVAH did in the Egyptians"-and adored Him, "and the people feared JEHOVAH"-and had faith and trust, "and they believed"-in the LORD as to the Divine Good, and as to the Divine Truth proceeding from Him and ministering, "in JEHOVAH and in Moses His servant."
Power over evils 1894
[Celestial] good has power over evils.- A. C. 9809.
SUN OF THE SPIRITUAL WORLD 1894
NOTHING in the universe can more impress the mind of the beholder with its grandeur and splendor than the sun of our solar system, at once the parent and sustainer of the various earths that move around it. "The sun," to use the beautiful and expressive language of the Worship and Love of God "like an aged parent regards these revolving globes no otherwise than as his offspring, which have now attained a considerable age. For he constantly consults their general and individual, interests, and although they are distant he exercises a perpetual and parental care over them. For by means of his rays, his presence is as it were with them and provides. He cherishes them with warmth gushing forth from his great bosom. Their bodies' members he `adorns year by year with most lovely clothing. Their inhabitants he nourishes with food perennially. He prolongs' the life of all and moreover he illustrates them' with light" (n. 7). As one contemplates the wondrous glory of the sun of this world the mind is at once elevated to another Sun, in comparison with which all the magnificence and splendor of our natural sun fade into insignificance, and in its place he sees the Sun of Heaven and the LORD Himself-the Creator and sustainer of all things. To form a just and adequate idea of the natural sun it is most necessary first to understand a right the nature and quality of its spiritual prototype and origin, or we shall be in danger of falling into all kinds of fallacies and delusions concerning the various phenomena of our sun The man of reason who knows nothing of the sun of the spiritual world easily raves in his idea concerning the creation of the universe, which when he revolves profoundly he perceives no otherwise than that it is from nature, and because the origin of nature is the sun that it is from the sun as the creator" (Int. 4). Such at the present day is the state of the man of science who has induced upon his mind spiritual insanity by thinking only from the sight of the eye. On the other hand, the New Church scientist, who views nature with an eye opened by an understanding enlightened by revelation, knows that there is a spiritual as well as a natural world, and hence that there are two suns; for he sees that all creation is from a sun, and that in a world where all things are natural they derive their origin from a sun that is natural, so in like manner in a world where all things are spiritual they must derive their origin from a sun that is spiritual (Int. 4; A. E. 1196, etc.). "The Sun of the Spiritual world is pure love from Jehovah God Who is in its midst" (Int. 6). That the LORD is the Sun of heaven may be known from the Word. Thus in David it i. said "A Sun and a Shield is JEHOVAH GOD" (Ps. lxxxiv, v. 11). Also in Mal. iii, 20 (A. V., iv, 2) speaking of the coming of the LORD, it is said "And then shall arise upon those fearing My Name, the Sun of Justice." That the LORD does actually appear before the angels as a Sun is evident from His appearance when transfigured before Peter, James, and John, when "His face Shone as the Sun and His garment became white as the light" (Matth. xvii, 2). Such was the appearance of the Divine Human of the LORD when seen by the three disciples with the eyes of their spirit. (See A. R. 63, 54, 55; A. E. 401 [b]; A. C. 3212, 6585.) In like manner did the LORD appear before John who saw His face shining as the Sun in its potency (Apoc. i, 16. See also Chap. x, 1). And in order that Swedenborg might describe and thus make it known to men in the world as an actual fact, he also was permitted to see the LORD as the Sun of heaven. Such indeed is the appearance of the LORD continually before the angels of the third heaven, and frequently before the angels of the second heaven. But before the angels of the first or ultimate heaven He appears as Light, and only occasionally is He seen as the Sun (D. L. W. 85; A. E. 412 [d]. See also A. C. 10,809). This Spiritual Sun appears situated constantly in the eastern quarter above the heavens, at a middle altitude of 45 degrees. On this account heaven enjoys a state of perpetual spring and morning, subject, however, to certain variations, to which attention will be called further on. It is from the Sun or the East that all other quarters are derived, not as in the World from the Southern quarter or the meridian line which the sun crosses at noon. As the Spiritual Sun remains constantly in the East there are no alternations of day and night in the Spiritual world, nor changes of the seasons, spring, summer, autumn and winter as in the natural world caused by the daily and yearly motions of the earth.
184
Nevertheless the sun of heaven is constantly rising with those who are in heaven and setting with those who are in hell. It appears to rise upon the man who becomes an angel, or to set upon him who becomes a devil. It is from this appearance that the LORD is called in the Word the Dawn or the Rising from on High, as in Luke i, 78; and for the same reason the setting of the Sun, or evening and night, as also the obscuration of the Sun and its being turned into darkness, signify the life of hell, thus the rejection of the LORD and the end of the Church (A. C. 9031; A. E. 179, 422, end; D. L. W. 119. See also A. C. 101, 920, 2405, 3458, 10,134-5, 10,189; C. L. 261, A. R. 151). From the appearance of the LORD as the Sun of heaven in the East, is derived the signification of "east" in the Word, viz., the LORD Himself, and hence the good of love to Him or celestial good. This was known to the Ancients, who, for this reason, built their temples so that the interiors, where was the adytum, should look to the east, and in worship turned their faces to the east and directed their prayers to the rising sun, as is the case with the Mahometans and many Oriental religions at the present day. This in later times became turned into Sun worship, which is denounced in the Word as abomination, for it is the lowest of all forms of God worship (D. L. W. 157; H. H. 122; Ezek. viii, 16. See also A. C. 9642 end; H. H. 119; A. E. 422, 401 [g]). The appearance of the Sun of Heaven at an altitude of 450 causes the heavens to receive light and heat in equal proportions and properly attempered, for if it were at a higher altitude more of heat would be received, as is the case on earth in summer time. But, on the other hand, were the Sun to appear at a lower elevation, more of light than of heat would be received, as is the case on earth in winter. In either case this would destroy the state of perpetual spring, which results only from the equal reception of love and wisdom, which are spiritual heat and light. Owing to the Sun being at a middle elevation, not only do the angels thereby enjoy a state of peace corresponding to springtime on earth, but it also enables them to turn their faces constantly to the LORD and behold Him with their eyes, which would not be the case if their Sun were to appear higher or lower, and, least of all, if overhead (D. L. W. 105). In this case they would be unable to sustain the intense heat of the Divine Love, whereas if the sun were nearer the horizon they would approach more to a state of faith alone, which is spiritual winter. (See also D. L. W. 106). As to this appearance of the LORD as the Sun above the Heavens, we learn that it appears to the angels there of similar magnitude as the sun of the world, and like it fiery and flamy, but far more brilliant and resplendent. It is, however, to be noted that this is the appearance of the LORD far above the heavens. When He appears in the heavens, which often happens, He is seen by the Angels as a Divine Man, distinguished from the Angels by the Divine translucence from His face. (See H. H. 121; D. L. W. 97; A. E. 401 [b]; A. C. 7173.) The appearance of the LORD above the heavens is not the same in the Spiritual Kingdom as it is in the Celestial Kingdom. To the angels of the latter kingdom the LORD appears in the East as a sun, fiery and flaming from fire. But in the Spiritual Kingdom He appears in the South 300 from the East not as a sun but as a moon surrounded with many smaller moons, as it were, and glittering and brilliant from light far exceeding the light of our sun at midday (H. H 118; S. D. 4219.) The cause of this difference is not in the LORD but in the essential difference of the affections prevailing throughout these two kingdoms. In the Celestial Kingdom the affection of the good of love to the LORD rules, whence they derive love and wisdom in the highest degree. In the Spiritual Kingdom the affection of truth prevails, whence they have charity and faith. These two affections of good and of truth are as it were organic and constitutional, and hence in these two kingdoms all things received from the LORD are varied in correspondence with those fundamental affections. Thus the flamy and ruddy from fire is the appearance of Divine Love and Wisdom from the love of good, but the brilliance and glittering from light is the appearance of Divine Love and Wisdom from the love of truth. It is to be understood, however, that when mention is made of the LORD appearing as sun and moon in the two Kingdoms respectively, that such is the relative appearance as would be seen by one, who, like Swedenborg could see both, and thus institute a comparison. In each Kingdom the LORD appears to the angels there as a Sun, but the Sun seen in the Spiritual Kingdom appears as a moon in brightness compared with the brilliancy of the sun as seen by those in the Celestial Kingdom. This comparison is made in order that the distinction between the two Kingdoms may be more clearly seen, and thus the difference between celestial love, which is love to the LORD, and spiritual love, which is charity towards the neighbor. The difference between those of the Celestial and those of the Spiritual Kingdoms consists in this: the former receive pure Divine Truth from the LORD, and this they receive immediately into the life. Of them it is said the law of the LORD is written in their hearts, "for they know truths not from science and hence faith, but from internal perception." Thus they see not by reflected light but by the direct light of the sun. "Hence it is that those who are in the Celestial Kingdom of the LORD do not know but perceive truths; for the good implanted in the voluntary part is presented in its quality and in its form in their intellectual part and there in a light as it were flamy" (A. C. 9818; see, also, 10,261, 3704). With the spiritual angels the Divine Truth is not received pure, for the interior degree of their mind is not opened, and in consequence they have no interior perception of truth which they love from more external affections, as, that they may be learned and instruct others. When they hear truth they receive it on the authority of those in whom they have faith or because it is so taught by the doctrines of the Church as a matter of science and reason. Hence, and from not understanding the Word in the Letter, many fallacies and falses inhere in their faith; but because those falses are such as are not of evil they can be received by the LORD as truths and are continually purified. Thus truth with the Spiritual is seen as it were by reflected light as of the moon by night, and the scientifics and doctrinals of their faith, which they learn, serve as objects which receive and reflect the genuine light of Divine Truth, as the moon and planets reflect the light of the Sun. (Those who wish to study farther the difference between the two kingdoms and the appearance of the LORD there may consult H. H. 20-28, 116-140; A. E. 708, 527, 401, 412 [a] [b] [d], 422; A. R. 414; A. C. 2715, 7233, 8521, 9670, 10,124.) The appearance of the LORD as Sun, Moon, and Light depends entirely upon the degree of reception and acknowledgment by the heavens (D. L. W. 85).
185
Before the first Advent the LORD could be present only representatively, and the angels could have had comparatively but an obscure idea of Him as a Divine Man. But after He had assumed the Human and made it Divine then was literally fulfilled the prophecy that "the light of the moon should be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun as the light of seven days" (Is. xxx, 26); The Divine Truth as it appeared before the angels of the Spiritual Kingdom was after that event perceived as clearly as it had formerly been by the angels of the Celestial Kingdom, and with these the Divine Truth became full and perfect-that is, was perceived as Divine Good. Similar purification in the ideas of the angels took place after the Last Judgment, when the LORD appeared in the heavens in much greater brilliancy and splendor than at other times, and this because then the angels there were more powerfully protected; for the inferiors with which the exteriors of the angels had communication were then in disturbance. (See A. E. 401[c]; D. L. W. 221, 233; T. C. R. 109, 641; Dict. Prob. p. 17; A. C. 4180 2/3; compare also T. C. R. 625; Doc. 244; Eccl. His. 7.) Owing to the constant position of the Sun of the Spiritual World in the East, there are, as was stated above, no alternations of day and night, nor of seasons of the year, and hence no determination of time as in this world. There are, however, appearances of certain changes due to variations in the states of the angels themselves, to which times in the natural world correspond. Changes of times in the natural world and alternations of state in the Spiritual World are necessary to growth and perfection of life. In the Spiritual World alternations of state occur not at regular stated intervals, nor throughout all the heavens at the same time, but they take place alternately in the two kingdoms and successively through one society after another, and variously even in the societies and individual angels. These changes take place without the cognizance of the angels, just as we are unaware of the progress of the day ` By these changes their perception and sensation of good and truth becomes perfected and exalted, and the delight of their life increased; for all perfection, I sensation and delight is from variety and contrast. (On these changes of state in the other life see H. H. 154-161, 162-169; A. C. 8426 and 8431, 10,134-5, 6110; A. E. 610; A. C. 5962, 5672, 935.). It was shown to Swedenborg how these changes in the appearance of the LORD take place in the Celestial and Spiritual Kingdom-that is, how the states of perception and reception of love and wisdom from the LORD vary with the angels of these Kingdoms. In their first or morning state the LORD is seen by the Celestial angels as the sun, ruddy and sparkling in splendor indescribable. Gradually this flamy appearance forms a great belt around the sun, and in the midst something obscure, by which the former glittering and sparkling which had appeared in such splendor begins to be diminished. This, it was said, is the appearance of the sun to those angels in their second or midday state. As this state progresses toward evening, this belt grows more and' more obscure, until its ruddiness becomes as if bright white. Then, as the evening state advances, the sun, now bright white, is seen to proceed toward the moon and add itself to its light, from which the moon begins to shine brightly. Then commences the first or morning state with the Spiritual angels, which is the last state with the celestial angels. The moon now appears to pass through similar successive changes, decreasing in splendor by degrees, until the evening state is reached, and then morning begins once more with the Celestial. Thus it is morning with the Celestial angels when it is evening with the Spiritual. These are the common changes, and are changes of state as to wisdom and intelligence. (See H. H. 159; S. D. 4639; A. C. 8431.) "The angels said that the sun in itself is not so changed, nor does it thus progress, but that it nevertheless appears so according to the successive progressions of states with them; since the LORD appears to every one according to the quality of his state, thus ruddy to them when they are in intense love, less ruddy and at length bright white, when the love decreases; and that the quality of their state is represented by the obscure belt which induces on the sun those apparent variations as to flame and light" (H. H. 159). Something of this alternation of state between the Celestial Kingdom and the Spiritual Kingdom may be seen in the case of man. When in a state of activity from affection conjoined with wisdom, his understanding is as it were quiescent, and his acts flow forth spontaneously and without interruption, and thus naturally. But when he acts from thought he is in a state of obscurity, and his will cannot act freely. Thus his acts flow forth with restraint and also artificially. It is similar in the body: where the voluntary is active, the involuntary is quiescent and as it were asleep, and vice versa. (See S. D. 3183; A. C. 10,134, 4029.) Hence uses, which make the life of the angels, are performed in their morning state, and recreations follow toward evening (C. L. 17).
Thou are a Priest forever 1894
Thou are a Priest forever, signifies the Divine good of the Divine Love from [the Lord].- A. C. 9809.
ROBERT HINDMARSH 1894
(Continued.)
x.
THE LAST YEARS.
IN the year 1833, the beloved wife of Robert Hindmarsh, after more than fifty years of most happy and lovely companionship, preceded him into the spiritual world. Be contributed an account of her last moments to the pages of the Intellectual Repository, from which we quote these touching lines: "Having lived for so many years in the bonds of married love with her partner, she was [while on her death-bed] almost constantly inquiring for him, if on any occasion he happened to be absent from her (which, however, was seldom the case), and when present she with equal earnestness begged him to be as near to her bedside as possible, and to continue with her. Indeed, in her very last moments, when through weakness she was unable to articulate her words, she was still beard, in feeble and dying accents, to call upon him to keep close to her; and when she was assured by those around her, and by the well-known voice of her husband, that he was present, she then seemed satisfied for a while; but presently she again called for him, and was again answered as before; and this continued as long as she was capable of uttering an audible sound. In a few minutes afterward, her pain having previously left her, she expired apparently in great peace and tranquillity of wind: a rare example of the affectionate attachment of a wife to her husband through life, and in the very article of death itself" (1833, p. 437).
The issue of the long married life of Robert and Sarah Hindmarsh were five children: Henry, Elizabeth, Charles, George, and Jane. From their infancy these children were instructed in the Heavenly Doctrines by their father, but they do not appear to have taken any active interest in the uses of the Church, with the exception of the eldest, Mr. Henry Hindmarsh, who was a solicitor in London, and, in the year 1820, prepared the "Conference Deed," or legal document of Trust, whereby the Conference was authorized to receive, hold, and apply legacies, etc., for the sole use and benefit of the Church at large.
186
Robert Hindmarsh bore his grievous bereavement with the resignation and fortitude of a true Newchurch man. He was now seventy-four years of age, yet his health seemed as robust and his mind as active and vigorous as ever. He attended the twenty-sixth General Conference, held in Bath, in August, 1833, when, for the ninth time in his life, he was chosen to preside over the deliberations of this body. He afterward visited Manchester, and then returned to London, where he saw his last two works through the press. He again went to Manchester, whence he returned to London in February, 1834. On this, his last journey, he contracted a severe cold from which he never recovered. Being fully persuaded that the fullness of his time had come, he devoted the remainder of his days to revising his manuscript works, collecting and arranging his papers, and generally "setting his house in order." To a friend who visited him a short time before his death he remarked, "It is a great mercy to have warning before we go, that we may be able to do what is necessary to leave things right behind us; but now I have done everything, and am quite ready." To the very end he delighted in conversing with his friends upon the spiritual things of the Church, and dwelt with rapture upon the pleasure which he anticipated in soon being able to understand the Word so much better than it was possible to do in this world, and especially upon the blessed privilege, which he hoped would be given him, of beholding the LORD in His Divinely Human Person. In his very last days, when panting for the breath which was fast leaving him, he comforted his sympathizing friends with the words that he did not suffer as severely as they might think, saying, among other things, "You might think it odd to be told that there are two parties concerned about one dying man; but there are two friends near me, who do all the hard work for me." He also said that the delight of the state to which he was going at times so burst upon him that he was obliged to pray to the LORD that he might not be overpowered by it; that such myriads of transporting thoughts rushed in a moment upon his mind, that he perceived that the increased activity of perception, which he should have when altogether in the spirit, would be such as to surpass all description, and be attended with delights now inconceivable. The day but one before his death he somewhat revived, and, sitting up in bed, requested that his manuscript history of the New Church be brought to him that he might examine a certain part, which he thought needed correction. Finding alterations unnecessary, he pronounced the work ready for publication, and, with a mind perfectly at ease, patiently awaited his release from the body, which took place on Friday, the 2d of January, in the year 1835. He was then in the seventy-sixth year of his age, and in the fifty-third year after his reception of the Heavenly Doctrine of the New Jerusalem. Such was the work and such the life of this faithful servant of the LORD. It remains now but to add a few words concerning his personal qualities as described by his contemporaries in the New Church. The Rev. David Howarth, who was his successor as Pastor of the Society at Salford, thus describes him as a man among men:
"In the manners of Mr. Hindmarsh there was nothing of pharisaical austerity; his piety was equally free from the fanatic's gloom and the dissembler's affectation; and his equability of temper and cheerfulness of mind plainly evidenced that, in his estimation, religion was not intended to diminish, but rather to purify and exalt every human joy and pleasure, whether internal or external. In private conversation our friend was communicative, animated, and engaging; and here, as in his discourses from the pulpit, he was zealous alike to maintain the truth and to expose the fallaciousness of error; his intelligent remarks, therefore, would sometimes appear sharp and indiscriminate, yet they were evidently made without any consciousness of improper feeling, and designed to promote the spiritual welfare of all with whom he conversed" (Memorial Discourse, p. 17).
The Rev. Edward Madeley, of Birmingham, thus summarizes his personal virtues:
"His time, his learning, his talents, his influence, and whatever he could secure from but scanty means of support, were all, for the protracted period of upwards of half a century, cheerfully devoted to the LORD'S service. He maintained in all the relations of life, as a husband, a father, a minister, and a friend, that uncompromising integrity, that devoted attention to duty, that ardent attachment, which, combined with true Christian piety and even child-like humility, commanded the universal affection and respect of all who had the high privilege of his association" (Intellectual Repository, 1835, p. 418.)
And the Rev. Samuel Noble thus indicates the historical significance of the career of Robert Hindmarsh to the future generations of the New Church:
"So long as the New Church exists, which will be as long as the earth endures, the great promoter of the establishment of the New Church distinct from the Old wilt be spoken of with honor; and the name of a Peter and a Paul will not be remembered longer than that of ROBERT HINDMARSH" (Intellectual Repository, 1835, p. 422).
The lesson of his life is before us. May it serve to illustrate the Divine Truth, which he so clearly perceived, so lovingly obeyed, and for which he so faithfully labored. May the thought of his personality recede before the recognition of the LORD in His Divine Human, who is the One and only Priest, Ordainer, Organizer, and Sustainer of His Church, the New Jerusalem.
(The End.)
Lord at thy right hand 1894
The Lord at thy right hand, signifies the Divine Truth then from Him.- A. C. 9809.
MEETING, IN LONDON, OF THE PRIESTS OF THE ACADEMY OF THE NEW CHURCH 1894
A MEETING of the Priests of the Academy of the New Church was held in London in August, the meetings being held on the 8th, 10th, 14th, 17th, and 20th days of the month. The following is a condensed report of the deliberations of
THE FIRST DAY.
There were present: The Chancellor, Bishop Benade; The Vice- Chancellor, Bishop Pendleton; Pastors Bostock, Hyatt, N. D. Pendleton, Schreck, Tilson, and Waelchli; Ministers Ottley, Robinson, and Stephenson; Candidate C. E. Doering and Student E. J. Stebbing, the last two by invitation. The Chancellor, assisted by Pastor Bostock, conducted worship during which The Apocalypse Revealed, n. 816, was read, The Chancellor read an address in which he stated the object of the meeting to be to secure a full and frank expression of views upon the order of government in the Church, with the end of better defining and establishing that order.
187
That order is based upon the teachings of Divine Revelation, which ascribes government in things ecclesiastical to the LORD, and places its administration with His representatives, the Priesthood. The Chancellor, in the course of the address, read from, or referred to, various parts of the Writings- The Heavenly Doctrine (last chapter), the Arcana Coelestia, and Heaven and Hell. He alluded to the tenet of government once advocated by him, that there should be a governing body in which one should be "primus inter pares" ("first among equals"). This he now stigmatized as a contravention of the Divine Teachings. "Pares" means "equals." The equals of a First must be Firsts; so it needs but a rendering of the Latin into the meaning of the phrase to reduce to an absurdity this application of it. A First among Firsts ceases to be a First, and brings to an end the existence of the other firsts, his "equals." The Chancellor called attention to this teaching of Arcana Coelestia, n. 7773, that "The subordinations in Heaven are entirely different from the subordinations in Hell. In Heaven all are as equals,"-noting the point that it does not say "equals" but "a equals." This teaching occurs in the following passage: "In Hell as well as in Heaven, there is a form of government, or there are ruling powers, and there are subordinations, without which society would not cohere . . . In Heaven all are as equals, for they love one another, as brother loves brother, yet, nevertheless every one prefers the other to himself, accord in g as he excels in intelligence and wisdom; the love itself of good and truth produces the effect that each subordinates himself as it were spontaneously-to those who exceed him in the wisdom of good and in the intelligence of truth. But the subordinations in Hell are the subordinations of command, and hence of severity, for he who commands is severe to those who do not favor all his wishes; for every one regards another as an enemy, though outwardly as a friend, for the sake of combining against the violence of others. This combination is like the combination of robbers. Those who are subordinate continually aspire at dominion, and also frequently break forth; in this case the state there is lamentable, for then there are seventies and cruelties; this happens with alternations." In these doctrines revealed from the LORD out of Heaven for the use of the Church-commented the Chancellor-heavenly subordinations are presented to the view of the rational. "Persons in authority are necessary for the keeping of communities of men in order. Order also should be among those in authority, lest any one from self-will or ignorance should permit evils which are opposite to order, and should thereby destroy order; which is guarded against when those in authority are higher and lower, and when there is subordination among them". (H. D. 813). "Those in authority who are placed over those things among men which belong to Heaven-that is, over ecclesiastical things, are called Priests, and their office is called the Priesthood" (H. D. 314). "The LORD'S government in Heaven and on earth is called Providence; and since all the good, which is of love, and all the truth, which is of faith, by which there is salvation, are from Him and not at all from man, it is thence evident that the LORD'S Providence is in each and all things which conduce to the salvation of mankind" (H. D. 267.) Having thus contrasted the form and quality of government where self-will and self-intelligence prevail with that where love of good and truth reign, the Chancellor asked whether, having advanced thus far, the Academy was ready to surrender its position, and thus its welfare and its use of charity-should be turned back on its chosen way-to brand the authority of the highest office of the Priesthood with the stigma of absolutism. Absolute authority, he said, is not claimed for that office, nor has it been claimed in the Academy. Then, premising that, as Governors of the Church, the Priests are intimately concerned, and ought to be deeply interested in, this subject, the Chancellor presented further the Doctrine of Order (from the Heavenly Doctrine, n. 279, 106), and then invited an expression of views in respect to Government of the Church, by the Priesthood, and especially as to the government, by the highest degree, of the whole Church-a government which he stated is not an absolute government; but government from the higher and more interior principle which pertains to the illustration of the office to a more interior understanding of the truth. This truth so understood, being interior, covers a wider and broader ground than any inferior understanding of the truth with man. Referring to freedom of speech concerning the established government, the Chancellor said that there can be no objection to a difference of opinion on the subject of the government, but there is objection to the expression of this difference in quarters and in a manner which leads to disturbance of the peace of the Church. At the very outset of the discussion that followed the address, the question was raised as to how the Chief Priest shall govern. The questioner understood that the Writings were the law; but it seemed to him that the Writings were considered to have a sort of literal sense; therefore there had to be a kind of interpretation of this law, and he was not clear as to whether this interpretation is to be made by the Priesthood as a whole, or by the Chief Priest. To this the answer was returned that there must be an interpretation of the law. It is so in the civil law. The business of the Priest is to interpret the Divine Law. But, urged the first speaker, every person makes an interpretation for himself; thus the interpretations vary, or may possibly vary; and, from that, misunderstandings arise; or may arise. The questioner was referred to the teaching in the Heavenly Doctrine, n. 313. Independent of the peculiar state of the priest, the office itself gives an illustration. If a priest of a lower degree interprets a doctrine differently from what appears to be the true understanding of it to one in a higher degree, it is the duty of the one in the higher to instruct the lower in regard to the truth he is teaching, and to endeavor to lead him to see the truth in a clearer light. Differences of understanding need not produce misunderstandings of each other among the priests. Another speaker declared that the only alternative from advance on the lines pointed out by the Chancellor would be to surrender the whole position, to the destruction of the Church. Government may be of one of three forms: an absolutism, a limited monarchy, or a democracy; but the spiritual mind may discern a form not coming under either of the three-a form which to an Oldchurchman would most nearly resemble absolute government; and yet which, truly administered, would be just the reverse of that. The light by which it may be seen comes through a more interior perception of government. In such a form of government would be the greatest good, and that it would be easily capable of perversion, does not take away the great good that lies therein.
188
Hence there should be no fear or imaginings as to possible evils arising from administration by an evil Chief Priest seeking his own selfish ends. The LORD will protect His Church. We are under His hands in that as in all things. We ought to do every thing in our power to see that each officer shall have the sole responsibility of performing, according to the freedom of his conscience, the use which belongs to his office. And that ought to be regarded as the highest use of office to which pertains the governing of the Church; this belongs to the Chief Priest. There should be the greatest freedom granted him, and his sole responsibility to the LORD should be seen and taught in the Church as the true doctrine of priestly government. Any other course and the Church would fall back into democracy and the democratic government, which is the spirit that has ruled up to the present. In regard to the orderly procedure, when priests of a lower degree differ from one in a higher degree as to the interpretation of the Law of the Church found in the Writings, one speaker said, that while there seemed practical unanimity as to the government of the Church belonging to the Priesthood, there seemed to be serious differences of opinion as to how that government was to be effected. Since it is evident that every priest must administer according to his light, in case differences arise among priests, who is to decide? The speaker held that since a priest in the first degree cannot have the same degree of illustration as one who is in the degree above him-for the reason that entrance into a more interior degree carries with it its own proper illustration-it must be that the priest who enters upon the performance of the highest function of the Church, must have the more interior illustration and understanding of the Divine Law, and therefore he is the one whom it is safest to follow. It is from questioning that fact that the difficulty arises. It is supposed that if a layman is in an affirmative state he is at liberty to call the decision of the Chief Priest into question, and if his influence be not enough to alter that decision, to create disturbance, which, being of an interior character, is the more calculated to do mischief. The very serious question is, as to the right of the one occupying the highest office in the Church to administer the law and to declare the law of the Church. The doubt as to that right arises from the idea that it is absurd to entrust to one man the government of the Church. There is a common opinion that there is wisdom with many, and that therefore the government should be put into the hands of a council which would land us in the worst form of an autocracy. The question is, whether the government of the Church is to be entrusted to the Chief Priest, or to be entrusted to a "Bench of Bishops." Not whether the Priesthood shall govern, but whether the Chief Priest shall have the power to administer the law in freedom. Shall he be the final interpreter of the law, or shall there be a court of appeal above him? Another speaker said that his views accorded entirely with the teachings, on the subject under consideration, that had appeared in New Church Life [Editorial Notes, January and May, 1894]; that he had no doubt but that there could be only one head of the Church, in the highest degree of the priesthood; and that in each Church there can be but one man representative of the LORD as the one Governor of His Church; and that the lower degrees of the priesthood must look to the higher for the interpretation of the law, where there is doubt in their minds or where there is lack of harmony and agreement among those who are in lower degrees of the priesthood. The way to avoid misunderstandings is to have confidence in one another and in the Bishop of the Church. Where that exists misunderstandings will be but external and will be easily settled. But in order for this to exist there must be a higher confidence still-a confidence in the Divine Providence of the LORD. When the true order of the Church is recognized it remains simply to follow that order, trusting that in His Providence He will lead everything for the good of the Church. It is for men to follow order. It is not for them to seek to forestall possible difficulties which may arise from following order; that must be left to Divine Providence. An inferior priest in the Church will have I confidence in the highest degree in the Priesthood because in the LORD'S Providence the one occupying it has been placed there as the highest interpreter of the law to whom he must refer his difficulties. If a priest cannot see the interpretation that is given, or if the laity cannot see the interpretation of the particular priest who has been placed over them, it is their privilege to avert their face; but the lower degrees of the priesthood should be careful how they do that, and be sure they have looked at the matter in an affirmative light before they take such a position. Such an affirmative state toward what has been instituted according to the order which the LORD has laid down, will prevail where there is trust in Providence. If, in that affirmative state, any teaching of the Writings be not understood, by patient waiting the light will come. So with the teaching of the Priesthood; it should be regarded affirmatively. If, then, it be not seen, there is nothing to be done but wait until it can be seen; the negative attitude, that it is not true, should not be taken except in a very extreme case. The affirmative attitude brings the ability to see clearly. If the supreme interpretation of the law be recognized as pertaining to the highest degree, difficulties in regard to practice, and as to the law which should guide the practice, will be easily overcome. As to the question whether the government of the highest degree should be vested in one man or in many, the speaker said that it amounted to a question between the government of Heaven and that of hell. Bearing on this last point the next speaker cited the familiar doctrine, that the parts are like the whole, which involves that there must be one head. All the subordinate parts must be under one head, or the order of influx is broken. The head may make mistakes, but the members are quite as likely to err. It should be remembered that even mistakes are under the control of Divine Providence. It is our duty to trust the person to whom an office is adjoined. Discrimination should be made between the exercise of rational prudence and judgment, and trust in the Divine Providence. In the work of one's own office there is room for the exercise of judgment in subordination to trust in Divine Providence; but in the administration of another's office no responsibility should be assumed by others; an opinion may be held, but there should he no interference. The state in the world is so much one of looking after other people's business, and putting them right if they are going wrong, that it is difficult always to keep in mind that there is quite enough to do within the legitimate limits of one's own province. "We are all apt to be so nervous about our freedom being interfered with. We should trust the LORD that even the mistakes of men are best for us under the circumstances There must be one head, inasmuch as the parts should emulate the whole." The next speaker could not see any middle course between government by one, and democracy.
189
The questions as to whom the final interpretation of the law should rest with-and whether or not there should be a supreme council-find their answer in the affirmation that there must be one head. In the establishment of this order-the next speaker said-the Church has come much nearer to the acknowledgment that the LORD JESUS CHRIST is actually the Head of the Church, and governs it as High Priest in His Divine Human. It was pointed out by the following speaker that at the Pittsburgh Meeting, where the General Church of Pennsylvania determined upon separation from the General Convention, the issue was, the freedom of the High Priest. The point now reached is simply the bringing out of the logic of the decision then arrived at, and seeing it more clearly. It was further pointed out that it is simply the application of the doctrine "that every man is to be regenerated in freedom according to reason." Regeneration is effected with man in his freedom according to his reason; that is, according to his reason as formed by the truth. So of necessity every layman and every priest will see the truth in the light of his own understanding. As regards the liability of the High Priest to error, or wrong-doing, it must be left to the LORD, who governs all things, and does not need man. The LORD is inflowing into the minds of His priests. To the question whether it would be utterly wrong for the Church in any way to reject or cast off a High Priest who utterly goes wrong, the Chancellor made reply that the Church has no power but this: let the members of the Church follow their own convictions and relieve themselves of their connection with the priest-that is, depart from him-they cannot, according to the law given in the Doctrine, depose him. If the Bishop of a church does not command the confidence of the Church he will be helpless: so also with the Pastor of a Society; he must command the confidence of the Church or he cannot govern it according to reason. It was suggested that in an emergency, where revolution was threatened, the LORD would instruct the Church; that we easily get into the region of phantasies when we begin to think of what might possibly happen. The Chancellor commended for consideration the teaching that "Persons in authority are necessary for keeping the assemblies of men in order; such persons ought to be skilled in the law, wise and God-fearing. Order should he also among those in authority Jest any one from favor or ignorance, should permit evils which are in opposition to order and should thereby destroy order; which is guarded against when those in authority are higher and lower, and when there is subordination among them" (H. D. 313). That is the answer to the question, given by the Doctrines. We ought not to go about trying to invent other modes of accomplishing what the LORD has provided certain directions for. No one is required to act contrary to his own conscience in following the High Priest. If every one engages diligently in learning the laws governing has own function, and will then seriously perform his duties according to those laws, he will not have time to get into great errors, or to see whether or not others are in errors. Man has not the power to foresee contingencies and troubles; he is apt to try to provide for eventualities which do not happen, If a High Priest goes wrong and does not interpret the law according to the interpretation of another lower priest, who is to yield? It does not concern the lower priest to interpret the law for the higher priest; it concerns him to interpret it in his own function; he cannot interpret the law for the other. What is seen on a higher plane is not seen on a lower. When the LORD was about to reveal the Laws of the New Jerusalem, He did not leave Swedenborg in the lower plane in which He had placed him. When more interior things were to be revealed He took him up into the Third Heaven so that he might there see the descent of the New Jerusalem out of Heaven. To some there is given a perception which others may not have, because they are not in the same function. Office has great power in giving illustration. Conscience must be admitted in others as well as in ourselves, and the freedom of their consciences must he respected. The plan of providing beforehand for possible troubles is a plan to affect the freedom of conscience of all who come within the scope of its operation. Is the Chief Priest to be as free as the other members of the Church, or is he to be under their control? He is to teach the Truth as the LORD gives him to see it; and it must be believed that he, as well as others, is in the effort to act according to conscience. Priests have the right to differ but they have not the right to cause others to think and act in opposition to those who are in authority. There is a right to think and will, but not the right to act at will. The effort to make rules and laws for the possible restraint of priests in possible contingencies, is as evil as it is futile. It cannot be done. A minister added that the effort to do that involves this very serious evil state, the belief that the Church in the future will not be as fully governed by the LORD as it might be, and so, in order to provide against such a state of things, that men must make certain laws and regulations of their own. It was suggested that the Laws which are in the Writings will need to be drawn out and interpreted; to was replied that interpretation involves an interpreter. Another point made was, that if we can trust the LORD we can trust the men of the future, indeed better then ourselves. Also that the Church had been brought to a state of ruin because men have invaded the domain of the LORD. Also that the highest view to take of the subject is, consider the High Priest in the hands of the LORD, which agrees with the view already held, that the governor is the High Priest of the Church. One member still expressing obscurity as to the law in regard to government-although recognizing that all is in the hands of the LORD-the reply was made by the Chancellor that the LORD has revealed the government of Heaven, and the Church is to be Heaven on earth. The government of the Church is to be such as is the government in the heavens. In the Celestial kingdom of the LORD, when difficulties arise (and difficulties will arise, because there are varieties of mind), they are referred to the wiser ones, and so on to the still wiser; and if these cannot solve the difficulty they go to the LORD. That is the precise teaching of the Writings on the subject. The final appeal is always to the LORD, and there are steps by which the stage of final appeal is reached, because men must be in freedom. The function of government of Heaven cannot be carried on without intermediates. A Pastor said: The Church was instituted by the LORD Himself in Person when He called His twelve disciples in the spiritual world. That is a token that the LORD in His Divine Person is present with us, or else all the doctrine concerning the Divine Human goes for nothing. He is above the High Priest and rules him, as much as a superior priest rules his inferior.
190
It is in a peculiar sense that the High Priest is in the hands of the LORD. He is more closely present with the LORD in that capacity than in any other. One of the Pastors emphasized the point by asking, Do we give the High Priest the power to rule the Church? Does he have it from us? If we have given it to him we can take it away; if we have not, then we cannot." He added, "We as priests have received our power and authority from the LORD, to administer His office, and that is true of all the priests, even the High Priest amongst the rest; and he, having received that from the LORD, the LORD is in truth the only One who can take it away from him. So that whatever disorderly condition may arise it is said for us to stand simply by that teaching, that the LORD has granted this power, and that what He has granted only He can take away: I feel that for myself I have not the right to do it. So that we can do nothing more than trust in the LORD and go plainly according to what He has laid down. And if we cannot see how the LORD will provide, it is because we are not capable of seeing. If the Church falls into evils it will be because the members of the Church are not worthy of it. So that I have no fear or worry about what would be done in case the High Priest should go wrong, or any other outbreaking of evil should disturb the Church. If the High Priest disturb the Church, then the High Priest must take the responsibility, and we cannot prevent his doing it if he wants to do it." The Chancellor confirmed the point that the idea that men must provide comes from the idea that the Priesthood is established by the men of the Church. The Doctrine of the Church is that the LORD has established the Priesthood as His representative in the work of salvation. By it the LORD operates his work of salvation, and it is therefore a Priesthood to the LORD, and not a priesthood to men derived from men; it is a Priesthood derived from the LORD for the use of men. To illustrate the common idea that the Priesthood is derived from men, it was recalled that when the General Church withdrew from Convention, a writer in the New Church Messenger asked, what those ministers who had separated from Convention were going to do about the ordinations they had received from Convention? indicating that, in his estimation, the Church is made by men. It was in line with that idea that the Convention had called the Bishop of the General Church to account for ordaining without their authority. The last speaker brought out the thought that the reason why to some there is an appearance of absolutism or popery in our form of government, is, that it is the very opposite. Opposites appear in the ultimate, to the natural mind, as if they were the same thing. The Meeting was adjourned until Friday, August 11th, at 11 A. M. Psalm i was sung, and the Chancellor pronounced the Benediction.
Notes and Reviews 1894
THE Kensington New Church Pulpit is the title of a new English publication, which is intended to contain each week sermon by the Rev. Thomas Child, of London.
Holy Names, by the Rev. Julian K. Smyth, has been translated into the Swedish language, and published at Stockholm by the New Church Publishing Association in that city.
AFTER a suspension of three months the publication of the Concordance is continued with the seventy-seventh number. The passages on the subject of "nakedness" begin the issue, and present a beautiful picture of celestial innocence, in strong contrast with the shameful condition of fallen man. The entries under "name" may be studied with profit by parents who desire to name their children according to spiritual principles instead of merely natural circumstances. Under the word "nation" highly interesting teachings are collected on the subject of the gentiles. The issue concludes with the article "Natural," which promises to be of great length.
THE sixth volume of the Rotch edition of the Arcana Coelestia,-or "Heavenly Arcana" as the title is there rendered-has lately been published. It contains the twenty-fifth to the twenty-eighth chapters of Genesis, including n. 3228 to 3649. The-present volume contains the same mis-translations of the word's scientificum and scientifica, which impair the value of the preceding ones, to the careful student of the Writings. For example, vera scientifica are rendered "truths of knowledge" instead of "scientific truths" (n. 3309), and scientificum is translated (the) "knowing" instead of "the scientific." Why this dread of using New Church technical terms? A scientific is a constituent part of a knowledge, just as a doctrinal is of a doctrine. Here are distinctions which commend themselves to the thoughtful mind, and which ought to be carefully preserved.
ANOTHER welcome visitor that appears again after a few months' vacation, is The New Church Standard in its October dress. The editorial notes deal vigorously with the notion, which just now is quite a la mode in the Church at large, that the time for "aggressive" warfare against the falses of the former Church has passed away, since people in general are losing interest in doctrinal teachings and discussions. The sermon by the Rev. R. J. Tilson on "Education an Endless Use," deserves a careful reading by all members and friends of the Church of the Academy as one of the results of the late meeting of Priests in London. It presents a new aspect of the work of the particular churches of this body. The article on "The Conjunction of Conjugial Love and the Love of Children" is a very clear and useful presentation of the relations and distinctions between these two loves.
William H. Hayden. Selected Essays and Discourses, with Memorials of his Life and Services. Boston, Massachusetts New Church Union, 1894. pp. 319. This finely edited publication is valuable both from an historical and literary point of view. The name of the Rev. William B. Hayden, who for forty-two years was a well-known and popular minister of the New Church, has here received a memorial which is representative of the quality of his mind and work. While not distinguished for the depth of his theological insight, Mr. Hayden possessed a pleasing ability to present the general truths of the Church in a clear and cultured style. In the early part of his life he did good service by defending the Church with his ready pen against the then prevailing infestation of modern Spiritualism. When expounding the distinctive doctrines of the New Church, and confirming them from the rich store of his historical and literary knowledge, his productions have ever been useful and attractive. Many of the discourses included in the present publication are well worth reading. It is a pity that the same cannot be said of all of them, some being greatly vitiated by the fashionable "permeation" heresy, which has perverted the doctrines of Influx, of Freedom, and of Order. Mr. Hayden, for instances, teaches that "the LORD in His Second Coming, and the Church now triumphant in heaven, will not let the Church on earth rest" until it acknowledges the Heavenly Doctrine (p. 45). Surely, the LORD'S Love to the human race has not undergone a change! It was ever as great and as Omnipotent as it is now. Nor will He and H is Heaven force the Old church into the acknowledgment of truth. The Law of Influx is immutable: Unwilling hearts and beclouded minds cannot receive good and truth without repentance and reformation, now any more than at any other period of human history.
191
LIFE OF THE NEW CHURCH Various 1894
THE ACADEMY OF THE NEW CHURCH.
Philadelphia.- CANDIDATE Doering, on November 4th, preached on "The Happiness of those who are in the Truths of Doctrine" (Rev. i, 3). Bishop Pendleton, on this occasion, administered the Sacrament of Baptism to a lady, recently converted to the faith of the New Church. On the following LORD'S Day, November 11th, Minister Acton delivered a sermon on "The Perception of Conscience" (Exod. xii, 26, 27). Bishop Pendleton, on November 18th, preached a sermon on the "Judgment," from the internal sense of the first Psalm, and at the same service administered the Sacrament of Baptism to a child. On November 25th he preached again upon Psalm i, the subject being "The Celestial Man." PROFESSOR Odhner has, on Wednesdays of the past month, continued the lectures on the History of the New Church. The subjects of the last three lectures have been the Rev. Messrs. Ralph Mather, John Hargrove, and Adam Hurdus. Especial historical interest attaches to Mr. Mather as the first ordained New Church minister in this country, to Mr. Hargrove as the first ordained minister, and to Mr. Hurdus as the founder of the New Church in Ohio. Following Professor Schreck, in the Monday morning lectures, Mr. Odhner is at present delivering a series (three in all) on the historical development of the doctrine concerning the Priesthood in the New Church. Two classes in Physical Training, one for the boys and one for youths and young men, have been inaugurated in the Schools. The classes have been held on Wednesday and Saturday evenings. The boys' hour comes first, at 7.16 p.m. Exercise is divided into drill (without arms), calisthenics, and some more active form of gymnastics, s jumping, club-swinging, or the use of bars, rings, etc. The work is carefully adapted to the strength of the pupils, and its increase will be graduated by their increase in physical vigor. There is much need of apparatus and more room. The Children's Dancing Class has been resumed, occupying two hours of every Monday afternoon. Last year the progress gratified the teachers of the School. The "glide waltz" is being learned this year. SEVERAL Children's Socials have been held this term. A special feature in the last one was the enactment of a little fairy drama. London.- THE Rev. Glendower C. Ottley, on October 21st, was ordained by Bishop Benade into the pastoral degree of the Priesthood of the Academy of the New Church. In his "Declaration of Faith" the candidate for ordination expressed his intention to minister to the spiritual wants of the little circle of Newchurchmen in France, who accept the Divine Authority of the LORD in His Second Coming. FROM the beginning of the new year the Book Room of the Academy in London will be under the charge of Mr. James Posthuma, Mr. Misson being unable to continue his agency on account of other pressing duties Colchester.-ON October 14th, Bishop Benade ordained the Rev. T. F. Robinson into the second or pastoral degree of the Priesthood of the New Church. After the ordination service, the new Pastor assisted the Bishop in the administration of the Sacrament of the Holy Supper, twenty-six communicants partaking. In the evening of the same day a very enjoyable social was held at the studio of Mr. Gill, when the Bishop delivered an eloquent and vigorous address on the subject of the Priesthood and its use. Pastor Robinson will continue his ministrations to the Church in Colchester. Berlin.-ON the evening of October 17th the house of Mr. I. B. Steen was dedicated by Pastor Waelchli to the uses of the home. The service consisted in worship, and instruction, after which the Word, in the sense of the Letter and in the Spiritual sense, was placed in the sacrarium. After the dedicatory service proper the meeting took on a more social aspect. Several toast-sentiments were proposed by the pastor and responded to by others. The first sentiment was, "The Church." The next was proposed in German, "Zu dem neuen eingeweisten Hause" (to the newly-inducted house), to which Mr. Jacob Stroh responded, also in German. Another sentiment proposed by Mr. Steen, to "The Faculty of the School," was responded to by the Rev. J. E. Rosenqvist. Dancing and general conversation occupied the rest of the evening. The orchestra here, resumed its weekly practice in the early part of October, and is making fair progress. A class of the young men has been formed by the pastor for the purpose of studying the work, Conjugial Love. The class at present consists of six members. On Friday evening, November 16th, a social gathering of the young folk of the congregation took place. There were present fifteen young people, the largest number ever present at any of these gatherings. A pleasant time was spent in dancing, charades, conversation, and games.
THE GENERAL CHURCH OF THE ADVENT OF THE LORD.
Pittsburgh.- THE Rev. John Stephenson, lately a teacher in the School of the Academy in London, is at present preaching to the Church of the Advent, in Pittsburgh. His family is yet remaining in London. Renovo.-ON October 31st, the Rev. Ellis I. Kirk returned from a two weeks' visit to the New Church people at Richmond, Va. and Atlanta and Cascade, Ga. The trend of the teaching given-which was well received-was that the New Church is all from the LORD and nothing from man. Also that Newchurchmen should carefully distinguish between the Divine, as manifested in the Writings of the Church, and the mere human products of man, such as the collateral works of the Church; that the former is the LORD Himself; teaching what to believe and how to live; and consequently there can be no error there, but that the latter is the teaching of man, based on finite understanding of the Divine Truth of the Writings, and hence liable to mistake. The instruction evoked evidence of rational comprehension and gratitude for the fuller acknowledgment, thus made possible, of the Divine Human of the LORD. Chicago.- A GENERAL Social of the Immanuel Church was held in Chicago, on November 8th, the occasion being the presentation of sets of the Writings by the Church to three of the young men lately come of age: Messrs. Alfred Goerwitz, William Smeal, and Charles Lindrooth. The books were given them by the men of the Church, while the ladies, through the Pastor presented each of them with two beautiful bookmarks, on one of which was embroidered one of the moral virtues, and on the other one of the spiritual virtues recounted in Conjugial Love n. 163, 164. The recipients responded appropriately in acknowledgment. Messrs. Hugh L. Burnham, C. F. Browue, and Alvin E. Nelson spoke to the themes, "Man in relation to the Church," "The State," and "Society."
THE CHURCH AT LARGE.
THE UNITED STATES.
Massachusetts.- THE Massachusetts Association held its semi-annual meeting at Providence, R. I., last month. A communication was read from the General Pastor, the Rev. John Worcester, who is slowly recovering from his severe illness. Among the subjects discussed at the meeting was the publication of the New Church Review. The Executive Committee was charged with the duty of increasing the list of subscribers for the coming year. New York.- THE Rev. Charles Mann has resigned his pastoral charge of the Society in Newark, and has accepted a year's leave of absence from his Society in Orange, N. J. Having also arranged for the editorial management of the New Church Messenger, he sailed for Germany on October 30th, in order to secure complete rest from his manifold duties, and the restoration of his impaired health. THE New York Sabbath-school Association held its annual meeting in the city of New York, on October 6th. Very few teachers were present, but, says the reporter to the Messenger, "as election feeling was running high in this neighborhood, that must have interfered with the attendance." Washington, D. C.- THE long-expected building of the "National New Church Temple" in Washington was initiated on October 24th, when ground was broken for the foundation. Nearly ninety thousand dollars have been subscribed for this undertaking, of which sum the Washington Society has contributed sixty-seven thousand dollars. The Temple is to be built of gray Indiana limestone, in the perpendicular Gothic style. Judging from the historical development of this movement for a "national" church-building, it seems that the pride of magnificent external appearance to the world has had a very great share in the erection of the building. Surely, this is a sandy foundation for a house of the LORD. While waiting for the completion of this edifice, the Washington Society is worshiping in a hall in the National University Law School, near Franklin Square. In this place a meeting of the Board of Missions of the Maryland Association was held on October 16th. As is usual at this day in the meetings of the Church at large, the wonderful change in the theological teachings of the Old Church furnished a prominent subject of discussion among the ministers present. It is refreshing to find a layman, Mr. Spamer, of Baltimore, contending on this occasion that a reverent regard in the families for the Writings of the New Church, and a devout observance of family worship, is one of "the best evidences of a New Church." Better, indeed, than modern liberalism and agnosticism! Better, even, than a "National New Church Temple." Ohio.- The Rev. J. E. Bowers has recently been making evangelistic visits in Ross, Meigs, and Athens Counties. He has preached and held parlor meetings in several places, and has been well received by New Church friends as a teacher of the Doctrines
192
LIFE OF THE NEW CHURCH Various 1894
NEW CHURCH LIFE. PUBLISHED MONTHLY BY THE ACADEMY OF THE NEW CHURCH.
TERMS:-One Dollar per annum, payable in advance. FOUR SHILLINGS IN GREAT BRITAIN.
The EDITOR'S address is 1821 Wallace Street, Fairmount Station, Philadelphia. Address all business communications to MR. CARL HJ. ASPLUNDH, No. 1821 Wallace Street, Fairmount Station, Philadelphia, Pa. Subscriptions are also received through the following agents: UNITED STATES. Chicago, Ill., Mr. A. E. Nelson, Chicago Agent of Academy Book Room, No. 565 West Superior Street. Denver, Col., Mr. Geo. W. Tyler, Denver Agent of Academy Book Room, No. 544 South Thirteenth Street. Pittsburgh, Pa., Mr. Wm. Rott, Pittsburgh Agent of Academy Book Room, Tenth and Carson Streets. CANADA. Toronto, Ont., Mr. R. Carswell, 20 Equity Chambers. Waterloo, Mr. Rudolph Roschman. GREAT BRITAIN. Mr. E. W. Misson, Agent for Great Britain, of Academy Book Room, Burton Road, Brixton, London, S. W.
PHILADELPHIA, DECEMBER, 1894=125.
CONTENTS PAGE EDITORIAL: Notes 177 Purification (a Sermon) 178 The First Temptation (Exodus xiv) 181 The Sun of the Spiritual World 183 Robert Hindmarsh (concluded) X 185 Meeting In London of the Priest, of the Academy of the New Church (First Day) 186 NOTES AND REVIEWS 190 LIFE IN THE NEW CHURCH 191 BIRTHS 192 ACADEMY BOOK ROOM 192 revealed by the LORD at His Second Advent. Isolated people who are in the endeavor to follow the LORD in and according to the Revelation which He has made of Himself in the Writings, are always glad to welcome an evangelist, and gratefully acknowledge the uses which he performs. Mr. Bowers has labored in an interesting historic field of late, namely, in portions of the State where, many years ago, some of the earliest and the ablest champions of the Church, as the Reverend Messrs. David Powell, R. De Charms, J. P. Stuart, and C. Giles, preached the Gospel of the LORD'S New Advent. Illinois.- THE Illinois Association held its annual meeting at St. Louis, Mo., on October 19th to 21st. The present critical state of the New Church, and the theological changes of the Old Church were discussed. The President, the Rev. L. P. Mercer, in his address, repeated the now quite familiar notion that the New Church is at present passing from its first intellectual state of doctrinal teaching into a state of good and love, necessitating a change in the methods of Church work. A resolution was passed, directing the representatives of the Association to ask the sanction of the General Convention, at its next session, for investing the Presiding Minister of the Association with the ordaining functions of a General Pastor during his continuance in that office. This Association believes, with the General Convention, that the LORD'S Priesthood is in the hands of a body of men to give and to take. Washington.- THE Rev. Jacob Kimm preached at Lone Pine, near Tekoa, Washington, on November 21, and administered the sacrament of Baptism to one adult and seven little children. On the same day this minister organized "The General Society of the New Church in the States of Washington Idaho, and Eastern Oregon," eleven persons signing the articles of agreement.
GREAT BRITAIN.
London- THE Rev. Samuel Clarence Eby, formerly Pastor of the Society in Peoria, Ill., after a year's experimental engagement, has been chosen the permanent pastor of the Camden Road Society. Liverpool.-MR. Edmund Swift, the oldest and probably the most widely known member of the New Church in Liverpool, departed this life on September 22d, at the age of eighty-five years. Mr. Swift was by profession a portrait painter, but is better known as the author of the work called Spiritual Law in the Natural World (London, 1890), beside a number of other collateral works. Bristol.- THE Rev. J. J. Thornton, formerly pastor of the Society in Melbourne, Australia, has accepted the pastorate of the Bristol Society, which was left vacant by the resignation of the Rev. Charles H. Wilkins. Hull.- A FORMER New Church minister, the Rev. G. H. Lock, has lately resigned his connection with the General Conference, giving as his reason for this step his abhorrence of the secretarian tendencies of that body. Mr. Lock has been known as one of the most radical ministers of the Conference, and as one of the most extreme opponents to the Writings of the New Church in their Divine authority. Of late he has established himself in "business" as a professional clairvoyant, and is at present promulgating the superstitious falsities of astrology through the ready channel of The New Christianity. Thus far may a Newchurchman drift when once he has cast off the anchor of Faith in Divine Revelation. Preston.- A "SALE of works," or Church Bazaar, was opened in the New Church Temple at Preston, on October 27th. The Pastor, the Rev. W. T. Lardge, who accidentally had been called upon to officiate at the opening ceremony, explained that he disliked this method of obtaining money for the uses of the Church, and that he has decided to abolish any lotteries and raffling in connection with the present effort, as being not only in violation of the law of the land, but also in violation of true principles of uprightness and integrity. Such frank speaking has been unusual, of late, among the ministers of the Conference. It is sad to think that it should even be required in the New Church on such subjects.
AUSTRALIA.
THE Rev. W. A. Bates, who, after the return of the Rev. J. J. Thornton to England, and the death of the Rev. E. G. Day, remained the only minister of the New Church in Australia, has lately become incapacitated for active work by a serious illness. The immediate prospects for the Church on that continent are not very encouraging at present. Adelaide.-ON July 7th, the Society in Adelaide celebrated the fiftieth year of its existence The worship of the New Church was first established in Australia by the late Jacob Pitman, at Adelaide, on July 7th, 1844.
CHRISTMAS GIFTS 1894
THE WORD IN GREEK AND HEBREW. According to the New Church Canon. Especially bound for us in Europe. Full red morocco, red under gold edges. Price, $10.00. A most suitable book for Church or Family Repository.
THE SACRED SCRIPTURE; OR, THE WORD OF THE LORD. Oxford 8vo Edition. According to the New Church Canon. Handsomely bound in full cochineal morocco, gilt edges. Price, $5.00. The same, very neatly bound in red cloth, gilt edge. Price, $2.50.
THE TRUE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. The Double-column Edition. Bound in cochineal morocco. (An old translation, but the best existing.) Price, $4.00.
CONJUGIAL LOVE. New English Edition. Full red morocco, gilt edges. Price, $5.00 blue cloth, price, $1.25.
SPIRITUAL DIARY. Five volumes, 8vo, of which four have been published thus far. Brown cloth, $2.50 per volume; postage, 15 cents per volume.
APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. Four volumes. (Two more to be published to complete the work.) Cloth, price, $1.00 a volume.
Same. LATIN-ENGLISH. Eight volumes. (Four more to be published to complete work.) Half leather, gilt top. Price, $2.00 a volume.
A BRIEF ACCOUNT ON THE LIFE AND WORK OF EMANUEL SWEDENBORG, WITH A SKETCH OF HIS PERSONALITY, by the Rev. C. The. Odhner, with a portrait of Swedenborg, taken from an original oil painting. Price, in paper, 15 cents; cloth, 25 cents.
THE WEDDING GARMENT. A Tale of the Life to Come. By Louis Pendleton. Price, in cloth, $1.00; white and gilt, $1.28.
The following books in Hebrew, specially printed for us: The Psalms, cloth 35 cents. Exodus, cloth "35 " Ruth, cloth 25
We hope to have the following ready before Christmas:
ROBERT HINDMARSH.
A Biography by the Rev. Carl The. Odhner. With two appendices. I. "Reasons for Separating from the Old Church," by Robert Hindmarsh. II. A Chronological and Biographical Account of the Ministers of the New Church in Great Britain, 1788-1888. The work is furnished with a portrait of Robert Hindmarsh, the Priest of the New Jerusalem. Bound in cloth. Price, 50 cents.
A complete list of the Writings of the New Church, and other valuable Collateral New Church Literature sent on application. BRANCHES at Chicago, Pittsburgh, Denver, Berlin, and London. For particular address of each place, see top of first column of this page.
ACADEMY BOOK ROOM, 1821 Wallace Street, Philadelphia, Pa.