A SERIAL
CONTROLLED BY THE ACADEMY OF THE NEW CHURCH
VOLUME II.
PHILADELPHIA
PUBLISHED FOR THE ACADEMY OF THE NEW CHURCH
BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT AND CO.
1883
Copyright, 1883, by J. B. LIPPINCOTT AND CO., for the ACADEMY OF THE NEW CHURCH
CONTENTS OF VOLUME II.
VII.
THE CONFLICT OF THE AGES.
PART I.
Page
THE CONFLICT OF THE AGES 5
I.--CONFLICT IN THE MOST ANCIENT CHURCH 7
II.--CONFLICT IN THE ANCIENT CHURCH 22
III.--CONFLICT IN THE ISRAELITISH CHURCH 35
THE INCARNATION 58
NOTES AND REVIEWS--THE AMERICAN CONFERENCE 70
THE GENERAL CONVENTION 73
THE MEMORIAL 77
THE GENERAL CONFERENCE IN ENGLAND 82
SWEDENBORG AND THE NEW CHURCH 87
AN EDITORIAL IN THE REPOSITORY 91
LAY-LECTURING AND RE-BAPTISM 96
STATE OF THE CHRISTIAN WORLD 100
ALCOHOL 128
VIII.
THE CONFLICT OF THE AGES.
PART II.
IV.CONFLICT IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 141
THE BAPTISM OF JOHN 144
MINISTRY OF THE LORD 149
COMMISSION OF THE APOSTLES 151
DAY OF PENTECOST 153
WORK OF THE APOSTLES 155
CONFLICT WITH THE JEWS 158
CONFLICT WITH THE EMPIRE 159
SCHISMS IN THE PRIMITIVE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 163
THE APOSTLES 169
THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS 173
THE CHRISTIAN FATHERS 176
JUDAIZING CHRISTIANS 183
OTHER PRIMITIVE HERESIARCHS 187
PRIMITIVE COUNCILS 190
THE COUNCIL OF NICE 192
ARIANISM 199
CONSTANTINE THE GREAT 203
THE CHURCH AND STATE 209
REFORMERS 220
RSUM 225
NOTES AND REVIEWS.THE GENERAL CONFERENCE IN ENGLAND 228
THE GENERAL CONVENTION 232
AN ERROR TO BE AVOIDED 236
THE INFINITE AND THE FINITE 245
SWEDENBORG LIBRARY 251
APOCALYPSIS REVELATA 254
LITURGIE DER NEUEN KIRCHE 256
IX.
THE CONFLICT OF THE AGES.
PART III.
IV.CONFLICT IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH (Continuation):
THE DARK AGES 261
MONASTIC LIFE 276
CAUSES OF MONACHISM 276
MONACHISM IN THE EAST 283
SIMEON THE STYLITE 288
MONACHISM IN THE WEST 290
CELIBACY OF THE CLERGY 297
RSUM 325
NOTES AND REVIEWS.SWEDENBORG AND THE NEW AGE 327
THE PROBLEM OF HUMAN LIFE 345
ONTOLOGY 352
AUTORITAT IN DER NEUEN KIRCHE 360
X.
THE CONFLICT OF THE AGES.
PART IV.
IV.CONFLICT IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH (Continuation):
THE CRUSADES 365
CONFLICT BETWEEN THE CHURCH AND STATE 373
THE GREAT SCHISM 382
THE INQUISITION 387
INDULGENCES 395
THE INTERMEDIATE STATE 399
PURGATORY 410
WICLIF 417
HUSS 418
JEROME 420
NOTES AND REVIEWS.THE WINE QUESTION 422
THE IMPORTANT ISSUE 449
INFANT AND ORPHAN HOMES 425
THE MINISTERS CONFERENCE 462
THE GENERAL CONVENTION 464
THE REV. JAMES PARK STUART 473
XI.
THE CONFLICT OF THE AGES.
PART V.
IV.-CONFLICT IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH (Continuation)
THE EASTERN CHURCH 479
MOHAMMEDANISM 500
THE REVIVAL OF LEARNING 518
NOTES AND REVIEWS.THE ENGLISH CONFERENCE 529
THE NEW-CHURCH REVIEW 532
THE BRAIN 557
THE END OF THE WORLD 573
A STAND AGAINST THE ACADEMY 586
THE NEW CHURCH MAGAZINE 597
WORDS
FOR
THE NEW CHURCH
A SERIAL
CONTROLLED BY THE ACADEMY OF THE NEW CHURCH
VOLUME II.
THE CONFLICT OF THE AGES.
PHILADELPHIA
PUBLISHED FOR THE ACADEMY OF THE NEW CHURCH
BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO.
1883
Copyright, 1880 by J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO., for the ACADEMY OF THE NEW CHURCH
[blank page]
CONTENTS
THE CONFLICT OF THE AGES 5
I.--CONFLICT IN THE MOST ANCIENT CHURCH 7
II.--CONFLICT IN THE ANCIENT CHURCH 22
III.--CONFLICT IN THE ISRAELITISH CHURCH 35
THE INCARNATION 58
NOTES AND REVIEWS:
THE AMERICAN CONFERENCE 70
THE GENERAL CONVENTION 73
THE MEMORIAL 77
THE GENERAL CONFERENCE IN ENGLAND 82
SWEDENBORG AND THE NEW CHURCH 87
AN EDITORIAL IN THE REPOSITORY 91
LAY LECTURING AND RE-BAPTISM 96
STATE OF THE CHRISTIAN WORLD 100
ALCOHOL 128
BOOKS RECEIVED 136
THE CONFLICT OF THE AGES.
WITHIN the Church and without it there is a conflict irrepressible and perpetual. The Church has this grand significance, that it comes marking distinctions where there are differences,--not sending peace, but a sword, and setting a man at variance with things within himself,--in fact, with his own household. All progress toward better states and conditions involves the discovery not only of the good that is to be, but also of the evil that has held dominion, and that must be apprehended, condemned, and cast down.
In the Glorification of the LORDS Human, and in the Regeneration of man, we have represented before us, in a single point of view, the Church in its various phases and uses from first to last. The end purposed by the LORD in respect to the Humanity assumed in the Incarnation was the removal of the evils and falsities of hell in it, and the bringing down and embodying in fulness the Divine Good and Truth, thus glorifying the Divine Natural, and constituting the Divine Human on the ultimate plane of human life. The end purposed by the LORD in respect to man was to remove the infestations and the dominion of the hells, to make man an image and likeness of the Divine, to unite good and truth in him, and to conjoin man with Himself; thus forming, in man, the Church as the LORDS kingdom on the earth. Consequently the conflict is with all things that pervert, oppose, or hinder the full realization of these Divine ends, purposes, and operations of the LORD.
The conflict began in the Most Ancient Church, and, under varying forms, has been continued throughout the succeeding dispensations down to the present time.
In all Ages the struggle is between the old man and the new; between mans self-will, and the Divine sphere of the LORD; between man's inclination toward things sensual and corporeal, and the Divine Goods and Truths in which the LORD comes to man, that He may dwell in him and crown him with the blessedness of celestial and spiritual life.
We are told in the Writings of the Church that
Every man, when first born, and while an infant, is interiorly an image of God, for the faculty of receiving and of applying to himself those things which proceed from God is implanted in him; and since exteriorly he is also formed dust from the earth, and hence there is in him an inclination to lick that dust, as a serpent, Gen. iii. 14; therefore, if he remains an external or natural man, and does not become at the same time an internal or spiritual man, he destroys the image of God, and puts on the image of the serpent which seduced Adam. But on the other hand, the man who endeavors and labors earnestly to become an image of God, subdues the external man in himself, and becomes spiritual interiorly in the natural, thus a spiritual-natural man; and this is effected by a new creation, that is, regeneration by the LORD. Such a man is an image of God, because he wills and believes that he lives from God, and not from himself: on the contrary, a man is an image of the serpent, while he wills and believes that he lives from himself, and not from God.--Coronis 25.
And as every man is a new beginning, and his regeneration a work to be wrought out of new materials and in new conditions, so the founding of a New Church is a new beginning: states which in the human race are new are to be provided for, and therefore the LORD meets the new conditions with new materials, new revelations, and new Divine and heavenly influences. Thus the form of the conflict is changed, but the conflict continues.
One of the most remarkable facts in respect to the several Churches is that they have all gone down excepting only the New Church which the LORD is now establishing.
Age after age, the Churches, introduced and arranged as the Divine means of saving the human race from hell, had their morning, noon, evening, and night;--they had their infancy, their youth, their manhood, their old age, their decrepitude, and their death. Whether we fully comprehend the philosophy of these facts, or not, the facts remain. We have them recorded in the Word, and in the Writings of the New Church, as well also as in the monumental remains of antiquity, and in the books that have survived the downfall and destruction of these nations and peoples. And, however in other respects we may dispose of the matter, we shall hardly be able to doubt that the struggles and temptation combats through which the people of these Churches were regenerated, were continued in the decadence of the Churches themselves, and that the increase of power in the evils and falsities which infested, hastened the consummation of the Churches, and their ultimate extinction.
I.
CONFLICT IN THE MOST ANCIENT CHURCH.
MEN were not in the Most Ancient Church by their natural birth into the world, but by regeneration; they received from the LORD Spiritual and Celestial life and thus became men of the Church. Regeneration with them was by the elevation of the natural into the spiritual, the spiritual into the celestial, and the conjunction of the celestial man with the Divine of the LORD. And the work implied conflict, distinctions where there are differences; and this progressive movement is represented in Genesis by the days of creation, and its completion by the description of the Garden of Eden.
The transition was not instantaneous, but by a well-defined progress from things chaotic and natural to things spiritual and heavenly. For in the pristine state of the race, man, before his regeneration, is called the earth empty and desolate; and also the ground which has nothing of good and truth sown, in it. It is written: And the earth was empty and desolate: and darkness was upon the faces of the abyss: and the Spirit of God moved upon the faces of the waters.--Genesis i. 2.
The explanations of these words given in the Arcana Coelestia show us that in the regeneration of the man of the Most Ancient Church there must have been combat and conflict, differing no doubt from the temptation combats of the present day, but nevertheless actual conflict with whatever there was in the natural sensuous life of the Pre-Adamites out of harmony with the spiritual man into which they were formed, and then with the Celestial man of whom, in fact, the Most Ancient Church consisted. In the Arcana it is written:
The faces of the abyss are his lusts, and thence his falsities from which and in which he totally is, who because he has nothing of light is like an abyss, or like something obscure and confused.... Before man can know what is true, and be moved by what is good, those things which hinder and resist must be removed: thus the old man must die before the new man can be conceived.A. C. 18.
The mercy of the LORD is meant by the Spirit of God which is said to hover, as a hen broods over her eggs. It moves over the things which the LORD has treasured up in man, and which are everywhere in the Word called Remains: these are the knowledges of truth and good which never come to the light, or the day, until external things are vastated These knowledges are here called the faces of the waters.A. C. 19.
In these places we learn that during the regeneration of the man of the Most Ancient Church there were things to be removed, because they hindered and resisted, thus the old man had to die before the new man could be conceived:
and that the Remains by which the LORD regenerates man never come to light until external things are vastated. Thus in the very beginning of the Church the conflict began which has continued to the present day, and from the first, the principles constituting the Church were known as the LORDS Goods and Truths in man and for him; and also the men constituting the Church were practically separated from those in whom there was no Church. These discriminations are marked out step by step in the Arcana as the internal sense of the first three chapters of Genesis is unfolded. And these chapters treat in general of the Most Ancient Church which is called Man, from its very beginning even to its end, when it perished. A. C. 137.
In the progression from the first day of creation to the seventh, in the literal and in the spiritual sense, these distinctions are most vividly portrayed. Indeed, the progress from one stage to another seems chiefly to consist of divisions and sunderings of things incorgruous, and which in the Divine order are held most distinct. A few instances will illustrate this view:
On the first day, God made the light and divided between the light and the darkness. And by the influx of the divine of the LORD, represented in the formation of light, man first began to know that genuine good and truth are from the LORD, and that his own good is evil and his truth falsity.
In the Arcana it is written:
When man is conceived anew, he first begins to know that his goods are not goods; and much more when he comes to the light that the LORD is, and that the LORD is good itself and truth itself.A. C. 20.
Then on the second day the internal man is distinguished from the external. This is represented by the formation of an expanse or firmament in the midst of the waters, to divide between the waters in the waters.
From the Arcana we learn that
The internal man is called an expanse; the knowledges which are in the internal man are called waters above the expense, and the scientifics of the external man are called waters below the expense. Man, before he is regenerated, does not even from that there is an internal man, much less what the internal is, not thinking them distinct; for being immersed in things corporeal and mundane, he also immerses in them the things which are of the internal man, and, from two things distinct, he makes one that is confused and obscureA. C. 24.
To save the man of the Church from falling under the dominion of the external man through the fallacious appearance that the knowledges of what is good and true are self-derived, springing up from the memory of things gathered in through the senses, a further distinction is represented by the work of the third day, when the waters were gathered together in one place and when the dry land was made to appear. What these things represent we learn from the Arcana:
Whatever is insinuated into the memory of the external man, whether it is natural, or spiritual, or celestial, remains there as a scientific, and is thence called forth by the LORD. These knowledges are the waters gathered together in one place, and called seas; but the external man himself is called dry land, and presently, the earth.A. C. 27.
These discriminations were multiplied and intensified as the regeneration of these Most Ancient people advanced.
The creation of luminaries in the expanse of the heavens, to distinguish between the day, and between the night, and to be for signs, and for stated times, and for days and for years, a work done on the fourth day, represents a still further progress, in which the men of the Most Ancient Church rose into a full acknowledgment of the LORD alone as the very essence and life of faith. Before this they had groped in darkness as the blind; they were blinded by their own imagined wisdom, nor could they find the path of life.
But how changed the state when in the internal man, the firmament of the heavens, the sun is in place and ordained to rule the day, and the moon the night! In the Arcana it is written:
The progress of faith in those who are created anew is as follows: At first they have nothing of life; for in the evil and the false there is no life, but only in the good and the true. Afterward they receive life from the LORD by faith; first by the faith of the memory which is scientific faith; then by the faith of the understanding which is intellectual faith; and finally, by the faith of the heart which is the faith of love, or saving faith. Love is the great luminary which rules the day: and faith from love is the lesser luminary which rules the night.
The day signifies good, the night, evil, wherefore goods are called works of the day, but evils, works of the night: the day signifies truth, and darkness, falsity, as the LORD says: Men loved darkness rather than light. He that deed truth cometh to the light--John iii. 10, 21; A. C. 30-38.
The creations of the fifth day represent the dawn of actual spiritual life in the men of the Most Ancient Church. For God said: Let the waters bring froth the creeping thing, the living soul: and let the fowl fly above the earth, upon the faces of the expanse of the heavens.
The signification of these classes of living creatures is declared in the Arcana as follows:
The creeping things which the waters bring forth signify scientifics which are of the external man; birds in general things rational, and then the intellectual things which are of the internal man.A. C. 40.
The work of creation culminating on the sixth day is described under three aspects:
First, God said: Let the earth bring forth the living soul after its kind, the beast, and the moving thing, and the mild beast of the earth after its kind.
Second, it is said: And God made the wild beast of the earth after its kind, and the beast after its kind, and every thing that creepeth on the ground after its kind.
Third, God said: Let us make man in our own image and after our likeness.
This minute description of the creation of the living soul, the beast, and the wild beast, manifestly represents the mysteries of regeneration in the Most Ancient Church. The aspects of the work which we have indicated as the first and second are explained in the Arcana as follows:
That these words contain arcana of regeneration is manifest even from this: That in the previous verse it is said that the earth should produce the living soul, the beast, and the mild beast of the earth; while in the verse following, the order being changed, it is said that God made the wild beast of the earth, then the beast. For man at first, and, indeed, afterward until he becomes celestial, produces as of himself; and thus regeneration begins from the external man and proceeds to the internal, therefore, there is another order here, and external things come first.A. C. 47. See also A. C. 62.
The progress toward the sixth state, and the conflicts in the transition from the fifth to the sixth stage in the regenerate life, are described in the Arcana as follows:
In the fifth state of regeneration, man speaks from the faith which is of the understanding, and confirms himself in truth and good; and the things which he then produces are animate, and are called the fishes of the sea, and the birds of the heavens. And he is in the sixth state, when from the faith which is of the understanding, and thence from the love which is of the will, he speaks things that are true, and does things that are good: the things which he then produces are called the living soul and the beast. And because he then begins at once to act from faith and also from love he becomes a spiritual man and is called an image.A. C. 48.
In the sixth stage of regeneration the work was finished, man was made into the image and after the likeness of God, that is, he became, in the true sense, MAN, with dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the heavens, and over the beast, and over all the earth. The representative imagery is full and complete. Creation advances from day to day, from stage to stage seemingly without man;
finally man is made in the image and after the likeness of God, and then all created things are subordinated to him, and thus the differentiation between man and all other creatures animate and inanimate is pronounced with Divine emphasis. Thus the perfection of man depends upon the order and subordination of all things within and without to the Divine Love, Wisdom, and Life of the LORD, whole is, in fact, the only Perfect Man. As written in the Arcana:
In the Most Ancient Church with whom the LORD spoke face to face, the LORD appeared as Man, ... therefore they called no one Man but the LORD Himself, and the things which are of Him: neither did they call themselves men, but only those things which they perceived they had from the LORD, namely, all the good of love, and the truth of faith; these things they said were of Man, because of the LORD.--A. C. 49.
Beginning in the rudiments of a life altogether natural, sensuous, and corporeal, the men of the Most Ancient Church were lifted up from one state to another until they became spiritual and celestial and were made into the image of God. This Divine work of regeneration was accomplished by the LORD through angels and spirits; and it was resisted by mans corporeal and sensual inclinations, and by evil spirits whose influences could he restrained and subjugated only by the Divine Sphere of the LORD. Thus the regeneration of these most ancient people was represented in the Word by the six days of creation, culminating in the formation of man in the image of God. In the Arcana it is written:
The angels indeed guide man, but they only minister, for the LORD alone governs man through angels and spirits. And because this is done by the ministry of angels, it is here first said in the plural: Let us make man in our image; but because the LORD alone governs and arranges, in the following verse it is said in the singular: God created in him in His own image.... The angels also confess that they themselves have in themselves nothing of power, but that they act from the LORD alone.A. C. 50.
The conflict incident to the work of regeneration in the Most Ancient Church is declared in the Arcana as follows, where the command to subdue the earth is explained:
When man is spiritual, and also while he is becoming spiritual, he is in combat, wherefore it is said: Subdue the earth and have dominion over it.--A. C. 55.
The intensity of these combats is described as follows:
The combat is continuous while man is being regenerated and made spiritual, consequently the Church of the LORD is called militant: for before regeneration cupidities are dominant, because the whole is composed of mere cupidities and falsities thence.
Unless the LORD defended man every moment, yea, even the least part of a moment, he would instantly perish; for such deadly hatred reigns in the world of spirits, against those things which are of love and of faith toward the LORD, that it cannot be described.A. C. 59.
The conclusion of the conflict by which the men of the Most Ancient Church became celestial is briefly given in the Arcana in the following general summary:
The times and states of mans regeneration in general and in particular are divided into six, and are called the days of his creation: for by degrees from what was no man, he becomes, at first, something, but only a little, and then more and more even to the sixth day, in which he becomes an image of God.A. C. 62.
During this time the LORD continually fights for him against evils and falsities, and through combats confirms him in truth and good. The time of combat is the time of the LORDS operation; wherefore the regenerate man is called by the Prophets, the work of the fingers of God; neither does He rest until love becomes the principal thing, then the combat ends. When the work is so advanced that faith is conjoined with love, then it is called very good, because the LORD then acts upon him as His likeness. At the end of the sixth day the evil spirits depart and good spirits take their place, and man is introduced into Heaven, or into the Celestial Paradise.--A. C. 63.
So far the Divine work of regenerating the Man of the Most Ancient Church, the six days of labor and conflict.
During this work man was lifted up from the rudiments of a life natural and corporeal,a most abject condition,--into a manhood at first spiritual, when he became an image of God, and then celestial, when he became a likeness of God.
We are now to contemplate briefly this Celestial Man as he is described in the Arcana:
Man from being dead is made spiritual, and from spiritual he becomes celestial: the celestial man is the seventh dry in which the LORD rests.A. C. 73, 74.
But because at this day it is not known what the celestial man is, and scarcely what the spiritual is, nor what the dead man is, I am permitted to tell what each one is, that the difference may be known.
First: The dead man acknowledges nothing to be true and good but what is of the body and the world, and this he adores. The spiritual man acknowledges spiritual and celestial truth and good, but not from love, but from faith, from which he still acts. The celestial man believes and perceives spiritual and celestial truth and good; nor does he acknowledge any other faith than that which is from love, and from this he acts.
Second: The ends of the dead man look only to the life of the body and of the world, nor does he know what eternal life is, nor what the LORD is: and if he does know, he does not believe. The ends of the spiritual man look to eternal life, and thus to the LORD. The ends of the celestial man look to the LORD, and thus to His Kingdom and eternal life.
Third: The dead man when he is in combat, almost always yields: and when he is not in combat, his evils and falsities rule over him, and he is a slave....
The spiritual man is in combat but is always victorious, the bonds that hold him are internal and are called the bonds of conscience. The celestial man is not in combat. If evils and falsities assault him, he despises them, and therefore also he is called a conqueror. He is free. None of the thing which appear in the things done does he hold as restraints: his only restraints are those things which do not appear, and these are the perceptions of the good and the true.--A. C. 81.
In showing why the celestial man is called the seventh day or the sabbath it is written:
The Most Ancient Church above all that followed was the sabbath of the LORD. Every subsequent inmost Church of the LORD is also a sabbath; so is every regenerated man when he becomes celestial, because he is a likeness of the LORD: six days of combat or of labor precede the sabbath. These things were represented in the Jewish Church by the days of labor, and by the seventh day, which was the sabbath.A. C. 85.
Then also the celestial man is sabbath or rest, because the combat ends when he becomes celestial. Evil spirits then depart, and good spirits draw nigh, then the celestial angels; and when these are present, evil spirits can never be present, but they flee far away. And it is said that the LORD rested, because man himself did not fight, but the LORD alone for man.A. C. 87.
The welfare in the regeneration of the Most Ancient Church was with the external man, for we learn that there was combat because the external man would not yield to the internal man and serve him. But when he became celestial, then the external man began to follow and to serve the internal, wherefore the combat ended, and there was tranquillity. The ineffable blessedness of that state of peace in the external man of the Most Ancient Church is briefly set forth in the Arcana as follows:
None but those who comprehend the state of Peace itself, can know the tranquility of pence of the external man, when the combat or the unrest from cupidities and falsities is ended. This state is so delightful as to transcend every idea of delight: it is not only the end of combat, but it is Life coming from interior peace, and so affecting the external man that it cannot be described. Then also are born the truths of faith, and the goods of love, which derive their life from the delight of peace.--A. C. 92.
Finally the, intelligence of the celestial man which flows in from the LORD through love, is represented by the garden planted eastward in Eden in which JEHOVAH GOD put the man whom He had formed. We learn that
The garden in Eden eastward planted by JEHOVAH GOD, in the supreme sense, is the LORD: in the inmost sense which is the universal sense, it is the Kingdom of the LORD, and Heaven, in which man is placed when he has become celestial.
His state then is such that he is with the angels in heaven, and as if one among them; for man was so created, that while he lives upon the earth, he may be at the same time in heaven. Then all his thoughts, and the ideas of his thoughts, yea, his words and actions, having in them the celestial and the spiritual, are manifest, and they are open even to the LORD; for the Life of the LORD which gives to it perception is in each one of them.A. C. 99.
Perception in that Church was represented by the trees of the Garden; and to eat of every tree was to know and understand what is good and true from perception. Then, as we have seen, their minds were open even to the Lord. In the Arcana it is written:
The men of the Most Ancient Church had the knowledges of the true faith through revelations, for they conversed mid the LORD, and with the angels; and they were instructed through visions and dreams which to them were most delightful and paradisal. From the LORD they had continual perception, so that when they thought from those things which were in the memory, they instantly perceived Whether they were true and good; even to the extent that when a falsity was presented, they not only turned from it in disgust, but they shuddered at it. Such also is the state of the angels.A. C. 125.
The beginning of the descent from the heavenly state of the Most Ancient Church is foreshadowed in the command of the LORD forbidding them to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; that is, forbidding them to obtain the knowledge of what is good and true from self such the world, or to inquire into the mysteries of faith through things sensual and scientific.
Here in fact was the beginning of the Fall, as we learn from the Arcana:
That the men of that Church wished to inquire into the mysteries of faith through sensual and scientific things, was not only the cause of the fall of the posterity of the Most Ancient Church, but it is also the cause of the fall of every Church, for hence come not only falsities but; also evils of life.A. C. 127.
The true order is that man should he wise from the LORD, that is, from His Word: then all things follow in order, and man is also illustrated by things rational and scientific. For man is never forbidden to learn the sciences, because they are useful to his life, and delightful. Neither is he who is in the faith forbidden to think and to speak as the learned of the world; but he must do it from this principle: He must believe in the Word of the LORD, and, as far as possible, he must confirm spiritual and celestial truths by natural truths, in terms familiar to the learned world. Thus his beginning must be from the LORD, and not from himself; for this is life, and that is death.A. C. 129.
In the course of time we come to a posterity of the Most Ancient Church which not only wished to explore the mysteries of life by means of things sensual and scientific, but withdrawing from the state of absorbing conjunction with the LORD, they wished to come into their own self-hood, to be more self-conscious, and independent. This is represented in Genesis by the words: And JEHOVAH GOD said: It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a help as with him. In the Arcana we have the internal sense as follows:
To be alone signifies that he was not content to be led by the LORD, but desired to be led by himself and the world. The help as with him signifies the proprium, which also is afterward called a rib built into a woman.
In ancient times those who were led by the LORD as celestial men were said to dwell alone, because evils, or evil spirits, no longer infested them.... But this posterity of the Most Ancient Church did not wish to dwell alone, that is, to be a celestial man, or to be led by the LORD as a celestial man; but they wished to be among the nations like the Jewish Church: and because they desired this, it is said: It is not good that the man should be alone: because he who desires it is already in the evil, and it is granted to him.A. C. 135, 130.
As the man of the Church here treated of was of a good disposition a proprium was granted to him, but it was such that it appeared as his own, wherefore it was said to be a help as with him.--A. C. 140.
What, then, is the proprium? The following from the Arcana, without being given as an abstract definition of the term, will help us to determine the use of the word, here and elsewhere, in the Writings:
Innumerable things may be told about the Proprium, showing how it operates with the corporeal and worldly man, how with the spiritual man, and how with the celestial men, proprium with the corporeal and worldly man, is his all; he knows nothing else but the proprium; he thinks that he would die should he lose the proprium. With the spiritual man also the proprium appears similar; for although he knows that the LORD is the life of all, and that He gives wisdom and understanding, and also the power to think and to act,--although he knows this so that he even says it, yet he does not believe it. But the celestial man acknowledges that the LORD is the life of all, and that He gives the power to think and to act, for he perceives that it is so. He never desires a proprium, and yet although he does not desire a proprium, still a proprium is given him by the LORD, which is conjoined with every perception of good and truth, and with every felicity. The angels are in such a proprium, and then in supreme peace and tranquillity, for in their proprium are the things which are of the LORD, who governs their proprium, or themselves through their proprium. This proprium is the very celestial itself, but the proprium of man is corporeal and infernal.A. C. 141.
The man of the Most Ancient Church at times knew full well the quality with which the affections of good and the knowledges of truth were endowed by the LORD; for this is signified by his naming the beasts and the fowls of the heavens; and still he inclined to proprium which is represented by the words that there was not found a help as with him. And we learn that those who come really to desire a proprium begin to despise the things which are of the LORD, however fully they may be represented to them and demonstrated. (See A. C. 146.)
The dominant evil in the posterity of the Most Ancient Church was the love of self leading them in their spiritual conflicts to withdraw from the Divine Sphere of the LORD, and to confide in the appearances of truth drawn from the senses. The love of the world was not so absorbing then as now, for they lived within houses and families, nor did riches influence them.
Inordinate self-love and self-absorption were evidently the direful passions that swept them away. In the Arcana the full is further explained as follows:
The evil not only of the Most Ancient Church which was before the good, but also the evil of the Ancient Church which was after the good, and then the evil of the Jewish Church, and then also the evil of the New Church, or the Church of the Gentiles after the advent of the LORD, as well also as the evil of the Church at this day, is, that they do not believe the LORD or the Word, but themselves and their own senses: consequently there is no faith; and when there is no faith, there is no love of the neighbor, thus every falsity and evil.A. C. 231.
To explore the mysteries of faith through scientifics is as impossible as for a camel to enter the eye of a needle; and it is as impossible as for a rib to rule the purest fibres of the chest and of the heart; so gross, yea, much more gross are the sensual and the scientific compared with the spiritual and the celestial. He who wishes to investigate only the hidden things of nature, which are innumerable, discovers hardly one; and, as is known, when he investigates, he falls into falsities. What then would result should he wish to investigate the hidden things of spiritual and celestial life, where there are myriads of things invisible for every one that is invisible in nature?--A. C. 233.
The miserable state into which the Most Ancient Church lapsed is represented by the curse pronounced on the ground, and on the man himself when it was said to him, that in great sorrow he should eat of it all the days of his life. We learn from the Arcana:
That to eat of the ground in great sorrow signifies a miserable state of life is evident from what precedes and from what follows, especially from this, that in the internal sense, to eat is to live: then from this, that the life is miserable, when the evil spirits begin to fight, and the angels who are with man begin to labor for him. Still more miserable when evil spirits begin to domineer over him; evil spirits then govern his external man, and angels his internal, of which so little remains, that the angels can scarcely find anything by which to defend him: consequently there is misery and anxiety.A. C. 270.
The struggles of the angels with evil spirits to turn back the influences which were dragging the posterity of the Most Ancient Church down to perdition are set forth in the Arcana in disclosing the malediction spoken to the woman:
When therefore the sensual averts itself or curses itself, the evil spirits begin to fight vehemently, and the angels who are with man begin so to struggle for him, that the combats are described by the words: in multiplying to multiply sorrow, as to the conception and as to the birth of sons, that is, as to the thoughts and productions of truth.A. C. 263.
The decline and downfall of the Most Ancient Church was through a series of posterities answering somewhat to the states of regeneration:
The Most Ancient Church itself was celestial, and from the life of faith in the LORD was called Eve, and the mother of all living.--Gen. iii. 20.
Its first posterity was principled in celestial spiritual good: its second and third in natural good.-- Verse 21.
In the fourth posterity natural good began to be dissipated: in this state, had they been created anew or instructed in the celestial things of faith, they would have perished.--Verse 22.
In the fifth posterity they were deprived of every good and truth, and were reduced to the state in which they were before regeneration.--Verse 23.
In the sixth and seventh posterity they were separated from the knowledge of good and truth, and were left to their own filthy loves and persuasions, lest they should profane the holy things of faith. They were given out of the garden and sent forth to till the ground from which they were taken; that is, to become corporeal as they were before regeneration.--Verse 24. (See A. C. 280-285, 305.)
To shield the antediluvians from the direful evils of profanation they were east out of the garden of Eden and so vastated that they could not acknowledge that anything is true.
They were altogether cast out; of Eden, that is, they were vastated of all understanding of truth, and they became, as it were not men, and they were left to their insane cupidities and persuasions. (See A. C. 303, 307.)
II.
CONFLICT IN THE ANCIENT CHURCH.
THE Conflict in the Ancient Church cannot be comprehended without that Church, its origin and doctrines, and the end of the Divine Providence in its establishment. The spiritual and even the physical changes wrought in man himself in entering into this new Church, the opening of the understanding into conscious action, the development of external breathing and articulate speech, with the miraculous separation of the will and the understanding, which had hitherto been one,--all these things must in some measure be understood, otherwise we shall fail to grasp the nature of the conflict during the rise, the development, the glorious maturity, and. the final consummation of this Church. In the Arcana these things are unfolded. We can lay before our readers only a few of the many things therein set forth. We begin with the essential distinctions between the Ancient find the Most Ancient Church.
Noah found grace in the eyes of JEHOVAH.--Noah signifies a New Church, which was after the flood, and which must be called the ANCIENT Church, to distinguish it from the MOST ANCIENT CHURCH, which was before the flood. The states of these Churches were altogether different. The state of the Most Ancient Church was such that from the LORD they had perception of Good, and thence of truth. The state of the Ancient Church, or of Noah, was such that it had a Conscience of good and of truth; and as the difference is between having perception and having a conscience, so was the difference between the state of the Most Ancient Church and of the Ancient Church.
Conscience is not perception: the celestial have perception, the spiritual have conscience. The Most Ancient Church was celestial, but the Ancient was spiritual. The Most Ancient Church had from the LORD immediate revelation, through consociation with angels and spirits, and also through visions and dreams, from which it was given them to know in general what is good and true; and then after they knew these general knowledges to confirm these quasi principia through perceptions by innumerable things. These innumerable things were either the particulars or the singulars to which the more general things referred themselves. Thus these quasi general principles were daily corroborated. Whatever did not agree with these general things, they perceived to be not so and whatever agreed, they perceived to be so. Such also is the state of the celestial angels. But the Ancient Church was altogether different.A. C. 597.
The actual formation of the New Church, which was called Noah, is described by the ark, into which the living things of every kind were received. But before that New Church could exist, as is usual, the man of the Church could not but endure many temptations; these are described by the elevation of the ark, its fluctuation, and its stay on the waters of the flood; until at length he becomes a true spiritual man, and is liberated by the subsiding of the waters, and the many things which follow.A. C. 605.
The change in respiration from internal to external, and the consequent origin of spoken language is described as follows:
But what was hitherto unknown in the world, and is perhaps incredible, is this: The men of the Most Ancient Church had internal respiration, but no external respiration but what was tacit: consequently they did not converse, as afterward and at this day, by words, but, as the angels do, by ideas, which they could express by countless changes of the looks and of the face, especially of the lips, in which there are innumerable series of muscular fibres which were then free, but which at this day are not unloosed, by which they could set forth, signify, and represent ideas, so that in a moment of time they could express what at this day would require an hour to say by articulate sounds or words: and this much more fully and manifestly to the comprehension and understanding of those present than is possible by words, and even by series of combined words. This is perhaps incredible, but it is nevertheless true.
In the process of time this internal respiration was changed....
But in their posterity it vanished little by little; and with those who were occupied with direful persuasions and phantasies, it became such that they could no longer set forth an idea of thought, except the most deformed; the effect of which was they could not survive; wherefore they all became extinct.--A. C. 607. See also A. C. 805.
Then as to the origin and use of doctrinal forms we learn that
When the ideas of thought were thus determined into the words of speech, then they could no longer be instructed, as the most ancient man had been, through the internal man, but through the external: wherefore doctrinals immediately followed in the place of the revelations of the Most Ancient Church; these could at first be taken in by the external senses, from which the material ideas of the memory, and thence the ideas of thought, could be formed, through which, and according to which, they were instructed.A. C. 608.
But as man could not be instructed unless by the external way of the senses it was from the Providence of the LORD that the doctrinals of faith, with certain revelations of the Most Ancient Church, were preserved for the use of this posterity. These doctrinals were first collected by Cain, and laid up that they might not be lost. Wherefore it is written that a mark was set upon Cain lest any one should slay him. Gen. iv. 15. Afterward Enoch reduced these doctrinals to doctrine, but because this doctrine was at that time of no use, but was for posterity, therefore it is said that God took him. Gen. v. 24. These were the doctrinals of faith which were preserved by the LORD for the use of this posterity, or Church: for it was foreseen by the LORD that perception would perish; wherefore also it was provided that these should remain.A. C. 609.
The strength of the hells at that time, and the infestations endured by the remnant which was to constitute the Ancient Church, appear from the fact that all flesh had corrupted his way on the earth; for this signifies that the corporeal part of man had destroyed all understanding of truth. Every man who was on the earth where the Church was, had corrupted his way, so that no one understood the truth: because every man had become corporeal. Even those who were called NOAH, before they were regenerated, were altogether corporeal.
They had remains, without which regeneration is impossible, and some doctrinals, but nothing else either of truth or of good. Neither had they any understanding of truth, for this is not given without the will of good.
In the Arcana it is written:
In the end of the days of the Antediluvian Church, all understanding of truth and will of good perished. Not even the least vestige of these appeared with the antediluvians, so steeped were they in direful persuasions and filthy lusts. But with those who were called Noah, remains continued, but these could not establish anything of the understanding and the will, except only rational truth and natural good: for as the man is, such also is the operation of remains.A. C. 635.
The Church signified by Noah was small and at first seemingly insignificant, the world was massive and grand in comparison with it. You could count the members of this Church: the others could not be numbered; they were as the sand of the sea. And still before the LORD the Church stood as the apple of the eye. That the Church whether great or small is essential to the well-being of the human race, and even to its continued existence on the earth, we learn from the Writings is many places. We quote the following:
Should the Church of the LORD in the earth become altogether extinct, the human race could by no means exist, but each and all of them would perish. The Church is like the heart in the body. As long as the heart lives, the surrounding viscer and members can live. But when the heart dies, at once each and every part must die with it. The Church of the LORD on the earth is as the heart, thence the whole human race has life, even that which is without the Church.A. C. 637.
The miraculous separation of the will and the understanding was the means by which the Ancient Church was lifted up out of the ruins of the Most Ancient Church, and saved.
In this we have the origin of the Spiritual Church, in which the understanding being separated from the will is elevated above it;
so that from this time onward mans regeneration is by means of the truths of faith received into the understanding, and cherished as the law of spiritual life.
In the Arcana it is written:
The Most ancient Church knew from love whatever was of faith, or what is the same, from the will of good they had the understanding of truth; but their posterity derived from their hereditary that their lusts which are of the will should rule over them; in these also they even immersed the doctrinals of faith, and hence became Nephilim. When therefore the LORD foresaw that should man continue of such a nature he would perish eternally, the LORD provided that the voluntary part should be separated from the intellectual: and that man should be formed, not as before, through the will of good, but that through the understanding of truth he should be endowed with charity, which appears like the will of good,A. C. 640.
Again it is written:
Inasmuch as the will of man is mere cupidity, lest the intellectual principle, or the truth of faith should be immersed in his cupidity, the LORD provided miraculously that the intellectual principle of man should be separated from his will through a certain medium, which is conscience, in which charity is implanted by the LORD; and without this miraculous Providence no one could have been saved.A. C. 863.
Why the necessity of this miraculous change in the very formation of the mind in the transition from the Most Ancient to the Ancient Church is set forth in the Arcana, as follows:
Wherefore when the love of self, and the unbridled lusts thence originating, began to occupy their voluntary part, where love to the LORD and charity toward the neighbor had been before, then not only did the voluntary part, or the will, become altogether perverse, but also, at the same time, the intellectual part, or the understanding: and in this the more, when the last posterity immersed falsities in their lusts, and thus became Nephilim, Hence they became such that they could not be restored, because both parts of their mind, or the whole mind, was destroyed.
But as this was foreseen by the LORD, it was also provided that man should be built up again; and indeed through this, that he might be reformed and regenerated as to the other part of his mind, or the understanding; and that in this a new will, which is conscience, might be implanted, through which the LORD, might operate the good of love or charity, and the truth of faith. Thus by the Divine mercy of the LORD, man was restored.--A. C. 927.
In this way mans consciousness was removed to the intellectual plane of his mind; and to the man it seemed intensified because it was more external. The conflict with evil now became a matter of thought, of deliberation, and of conscious determination. The LORDS covenant with man was then established in his understanding.
The covenant with the man of the Ancient Church involves his regeneration, and indeed his conjunction with the LORD by love, and this is, in fact, the celestial marriage. In the Arcana it is written:
The celestial marriage with the man of the Most Ancient Church was in his voluntary proprium. But the celestial marriage with the man of the Ancient Church was in his intellectual proprium. For when the voluntary principle of man had become altogether corrupt, then the LORD miraculously separated his intellectual proprium from this corrupt voluntary proprium; and in his intellectual proprium formed a new will, which is conscience, and into conscience insinuated charity, and into charity, innocence, and thus conjoined himself with men, or what is the same, entered into covenant with him. So far as mans voluntary proprium can be separated from this intellectual proprium, the LORD can be present with him, or He can enter into covenant or conjoin Himself with man.A. C. 1023.
The understanding of the Ancient Church being thus elevated into the light of truth, the way was opened for that series of conflicts with the evil and the false by which the man of that Church was reformed, regenerated, and saved. But then as now, the LORD could deliver man from the love of self and of the world only as these evils were seen, acknowledged, and resisted. The preparation for this combat was represented by entering into the Ark.
The new mind of the man of that Church was necessarily self-poised, deliberate, and conscious, resting in the LORD, and confiding in Him for salvation.
The direful persuasions and falsities which infested them had respect to the LORD, to heaven, and to the life of charity. For the men of the fallen and ruined Church had made themselves gods, and instead of the beautiful order of celestial life, they had abandoned themselves to cupidities and phantasies, and in these things they had immersed all that had hitherto been held as Sacred and Divine. The conflict of the man of the Church with such a deluge of infernal influences must have been most formidable, engulfing the most of men; a mere remnant, at the outset, constituting the Ancient Church.
The preparation for the combats in which that Church was regenerated is described in the Arcana as follows:
Unless prepared, that is, instructed in truths and goods, man could never be regenerated; much less could he endure temptations. For the evil spirits who are then with him excite his falsities and evils, so that unless truths and good were present, to which falsities and evils might be bent by the LORD, and through which they might be dispersed, the man would fall. Truths and goods are the remains which are reserved by the LORD for such uses.A. C. 711. See also 668.
As to the temptations themselves from which Noah was protected we learn:
Temptations are nothing else than the combats of evil spirits with the angels who are with men. Evil spirits excite all the perverse deeds and also the thoughts of the man, which he has had from infancy: so that both his evils and his falsities should condemn him.... But the LORD protects man and restrains the evil spirits and genii, lest they should break forth and inundate beyond their limits, and beyond that which the man could bear.A. C. 741.
The man of the Ancient Church, during his regeneration, often fluctuated between truth and falsity. These fluctuations were represented in Genesis by the waters receding from off the earth, in going and returning. But the nature of these fluctuations can be known only as the nature of temptation is known.
When the temptation is celestial, then the fluctuation is between good and evil: when the temptation is spiritual, then the fluctuation is between truth and falsehood: when the temptation is natural, then the fluctuation is between those things which are of the cupidities and those which are contrary to them....
From these few things it may be somewhat known what temptation is, namely: that it is anguish or anxiety from those things which resist the loves.A. C. 841.
As to the extent of the Ancient Church, and the countries in which it prevailed, we learn from the Writings that
This Noahtic or Ancient Church was diffused throughout Asia, especially into Syria, Mesopotamia, Assyria, Chaldee, the land of Canaan, and the parts adjacent, Philisthia, Egypt, Tyre, Sidon, and Nineveh, and also into Arabia and Ethiopia, and in course of time into Great Tartary, and thence as far the Euxine, and thence again into all the countries of Africa. That the nations in every part of the earth have been in habits of worship derived from some kind of religion is a well-known fact; and religion cannot exist but by some REVELATION, and the propagation of it from nation to nation; see the True Christian Religion, 273 to 216; where it is shown, that prior to the Israelitish Word there was a Word, which in time was lost, but by the Divine Providence of the LORD is still preserved in Great Tartary, and that their Divine worship remains to the present day; on which subject see also T. C. R. 264, 265, 266, and 279,--Coronis 39.
The conflict of opinion, faith, and life in the age of the Ancient Church, an age anterior to written history, at the birth of nations,--the conflict in respect to the fundamental principles to be adopted or rejected we shall probably never fully comprehend. But the extent of it we may imagine from the revelations given us as to the nature of that Church, its varied doctrines, and multiplied forms of worship, and the numerous nations and peoples constituting it.
Noah and his sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, represented the Ancient Church: not that such persons ever existed, but the worship then instituted with all its specific differences was reduced into this category. As given in the Arcana it is as follows:
Shem is internal worship; Japheth, the corresponding external worship; Ham, internal worship corrupted; Canaan, external worship separate from internal.A. C. 1140.
How diversified these forms became in the further development of that Church is set forth is the Arcana in treating of the posterity of Shem, Ham, and Japheth:
All were called sons of Japheth who had external worship corresponding with the internal: that is, those who lived in simplicity, in friendship, and in mutual charity, and who knew no other doctrinals than external rites. Those are called the sons of Ham who had a corrupt internal worship. Those were called the sons of Canaan who had an external worship separate from the internal. Those who were called the sons of Shem were internal men, and they worshiped the LORD, and loved the neighbor: and their Church was almost such as our true Christian Church.--A. C. 1141.
From each of these again there arose other forms of faith and worship indefinitely varied and diversified. The Church began as a unit, but in the end its unity was lost, as love to the LORD, and love to the neighbor, gave way in the interminable conflicts of warring opinions. The unity of that Church was founded in its life of Love to the LORD, and charity toward the neighbor, resulting in worship which however diverse in form was one in spirit. In the words of the Arcana
All true worship consists in the adoration of the LORD, adoration of the LORD in humiliation; and the humiliation of self is the acknowledgment that in ones self there is nothing living, and nothing good, but that in ones self all is dead, yea, cadaverous;
and in the acknowledgment that all that is living and all that is good is from the LORD.A. C. 1153.
There were many of those ancient nations who placed worship in external things, neither did they know what is internal; or, if they knew, they did not think about these things.A. C. 1160.
Ham and his sons, Cush, and Mizraim, and Phut, and Canaan, were so many nations which signified knowledges, sciences, and modes of worship which are of faith separate from charity, and which were in corrupt internal worship, versed as they were in science, and especially in the Science of Correspondences, known everywhere in the Ancient Church, their power for evil must have been enormous. The conflicts of the sons of Japheth and the sons of Shem with these faith-alone heretics who had corrupted the very sanctities of Divine worship, must have been long continued and most direful. The result of these combats we know. The Ancient Church was disintegrated, overwhelmed, and lost. Its beautiful science, its worship, and its life degenerated into idolatry, magic, and witchcraft. (See A. C. 2507.) The monumental remains of Egypt, Assyria, and Babylon, with the internal sense of the Word, tell the lamentable tale. Fallen, vastated, and consummated, is written over the face of the whole Ancient Church.
We need only add in confirmation of this view the story of Nimrod the mighty hunter, and of the tower of Babel which they began to build on the plain of Shinar.
Of Nimrod it is written that he was the son of Cush, and that he was a mighty one in the earth, and mighty in hunting before JEHOVAH. Cush signifies the interior knowledges of things spiritual and celestial; and Nimrod those who made internal worship external, thus such external worship itself. He was called a mighty hunter before the LORD to signify that he persuaded many. In the Arcana it is written:
Internal worship, which is from love and charity, is worship itself: but external worship is no worship. But to make internal worship external is to make the external essential in preference to the internal, which is to invert the true order, as if to say: that there is no internal worship without external, when yet the fact is that there is no external worship without internal.A. C. 1175. See also A. C. 1175.
Indeed, faith separate from charity is itself persuasive to the last degree. For the most of men then, as now, are immersed in things of sense, sensual pleasures and lusts, and regard only themselves and the world, therefore they were easily caught by such a religion.
Nimrod was not merely a man, one man, but in him we have a tribe, a nation in fact, powerful in persuasion and banded together in a bad cause. They were persuaders. They believed in faith alone. They had external worship without internal. The will, with its direful passions, they set free: the understanding they bound in fetters and manacles. These men, splendid in outward form, unsurpassed in science, grandiloquent in speech, magicians possibly of the deepest experience, who could withstand them, in the assemblies of the people, in the councils of the nations?
And then what shall be said of the Tower of Babel which they began to build? It is written that they journeyed from the east, that they journeyed from the east, that they found a valley in the land of Shinar, and dwelt there. That is, they receded from charity, and their worship became more unclean and profane. They said: Come, let us make brick: and this means that they framed to themselves falsities. Stone in the Word signifies truth; hence brick being made by man, signifies the false; for brick is stone artificially made.
They said: Let us build a city and a tower. In this the city is the heretical doctrine which they devised, and the tower is the worship of self. The worship of self is the exaltation of ones self above another even so as to be worshiped;
it is haughtiness, pride, and loftiness, and is represented by things that are high, thus by the Tower of Babel: for its head was to be in heaven; and this signified the insane love of ruling even over heaven.
In the Arcana it is written:
The love of self is that which least of all agrees with heavenly life, for all evils are from it, not only hatred, but also revenge, cruelty, and adultery; and still less does it agree, when it enters into worship, and profanes it. The hells, therefore, consist of such.A. C. 1307.
Those who build Towers of Babel make to themselves a name by doctrinals and holy things, otherwise they could not be worshiped.... In proportion as such can raise their heads higher toward heaven, they make themselves more a name. Their dominion is greatest with those who have something of conscience, for these they lead whithersoever they will; but those who have no conscience they rule by various external bonds.A. C. 1308.
The kind of worship signified by Babel was inwardly full of self-love, and consequently of everything filthy and profane.A. C. 1326.
The Ancient Church, as is usual with other Churches, in process of time, began also to fall away, and owing principally to this, that many of its members began to direct worship toward themselves, that thus they might become per-eminent above others. For they said: Let us build to ourselves a city and a Tower, and its head in heaven, and let us make to ourselves a name. Such men in a Church could not be otherwise than as a kind of leaven, or as a firebrand causing a conflagration. When from this cause the danger of the profanation of what is holy was imminent, by the Providence of the LORD the state of this Church was changed, so that its internal worship perished, and the external remained: this is here signified by the words that JEHOVAH confounded the lips of the whole earth.A. C. 1327.
As the internal worship perished, the conflict with evil was over, the Church itself died, and its vastation, consummation, and judgment followed.
Arising in the prehistoric ages, this Church continued down to the times of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and indeed until the death of Joseph in Egypt. For we learn in the Arcana that when Joseph said to his brethren, I die, there was signified that the internal of the Church was about to cease.
The internal of the Church is the good of charity in the will; therefore, when this ceases the Church itself ceases, for the good of charity is its essential: external worship, indeed, remains afterward as before, but then it is not worship, but ceremony, which is preserved because it was appointed: but this ceremony, which appears as worship, is as a shell without a kernel, for it is the external that remains, in which there is nothing internal; when such is the Church it is at its end.--A. C. 6587.
The vastation and consummation of this Church was prolonged and diversified, the time of the end not being the same in the various nations and countries through which the Church extended. We are told in the Writings that
The third and fourth states of this Church, which were its states of vastation and consummation, are described in the Word throughout, both in the historical and in the prophetic parts: the consummation of the nations round about Jordan, or the Land of Canaan, is described by the destruction of Sodom, Gomorrah, Adman, and Zeboim, Gen. xix.; the consummation of the Church of the nations within Jordan, or in the Land of Canaan, is described by the expulsion of some and the universal slaughter of others, in Joshua, and in the book of Judges; the consummation of that Church in Egypt is described by the drowning of Pharaoh and the Egyptians in the Sea of Sedges.Exod. xiv. Coronis 41.
III.
THE CONFLICT IN THE ISRAELITISH CHURCH.
WHEN the internals of worship perished in the Ancient Church, they were restored, for a time, in Heber, with whom a Second Ancient Church. began, which as a representative Church was continued among the Hebrews, until the time of Abraham. The Arcana treats of this subject as follows:
To prevent the destruction of the whole Church, it was permitted by the LORD that significative and representative worship should be somewhere restored. This was done by Heber, and this worship consisted principally of external things. The external things of worship were high places, groves, statues, anointings, besides priestly offices and whatever had relation to their functions; and various other things, which are called statutes or ordinances. The internals of that worship were doctrinals derived from the Antediluvians, especially from those who were called Enoch, who collected the truths which the Most Ancient Church saw by perception, and thence framed doctrinals: and these were their Word--A. C. 1241.
Further in respect to the Hebrew Church it is written:
This Second Ancient Church degenerated from a sort of internal worship, and became so adulterated as at last to be idolatrous; as is usual with Churches which proceed from their internals to externals, and at last sink into externals alone, internals being obliterated. That this Church became such insomuch that a great part of them did not acknowledge JEHOVAH as God, but worshiped other gods, appears in Joshua xxiv. 2, 14, 15, where it manifestly appears that Terah, Abram, and Nahob were idolaters. Nahor was a nation given to idolatrous worship, as appears from Laban the Syrian, who lived in the city of Nahor, and worshiped images or teraphim which Rachel took away. Gen. xxiv. 10; xxxi. 19, 26, 32, 34. From Gen. xxxi. 53, it appears that Abram had one God, Nahor another, and their father, or Terah, another. It is also expressly declared of Abram, that JEHOVAH was not known to him. Exodus vi. 3.--A. C. 1356
The historicals of the Word therefore begin in telling us of this family of idolaters; for Terah and his sons, Abram, Nahor, and Haran, were idolaters; and so also were the nations that descended from them.
In the Arcana we learn that
There are three universal kinds of idolatry: The first is of self-love; the second is of the love of the world; the third is of the love of pleasure. All idolatrous worship has for an end one or the other of these. The worship of idolaters can have no other end, because eternal life they neither have knowledge of, or care for, they even deny it. These three kinds of idolatry are signified by the three pens of Terah.A. C. 1357.
The divers kinds of idolatrous worship signified by Terah and his three sons, and also by Lot, the son of Haran, will appear from the classification given in the Arcana:
In general there are four kinds of idolatrous worship, one being more interior than another; the three more interior kinds being as the sons of one parent, and the fourth as the son of the third. Idolatrous worship may be either internal, or external; the internal condemns man, but not so the external. The more interior the idolatrous worship is, the more it condemns, but the more exterior the idolatrous worship is the less it condemns.
Internal idolaters do not acknowledge a God, but they adore themselves and the world, and have for idols all their lusts: but external idolaters can acknowledge a God, although they do not know who is the God of the universe. Internal idolaters are known by the life which they have acquired to themselves: and so far as that life recedes from the life of charity, so far they are interior idolaters. But external idolaters are known from their worship alone; and although they are idolaters, still they can have the life of charity. Internal idolaters can profane holy things; but external idolaters cannot. Wherefore lest holy things should be profaned, external idolatry is tolerated.A. C. 13G3. See also A. C. 1327.
The Hebrew Church was intermediate between the Ancient Church in its purity and the representative of a Church which began in Abraham. At that time the knowledge of correspondences was gradually fading out, and the Church was sinking down into idolatry.
The LORD then provided that a certain representative of a Church should be begun in Abraham. This Church is also in the Writings sometimes called a representative Church, as where it is said that a representative Church began in Abram, and was established with the posterity of Jacob. What then was the origin of representatives in this Church?
We are told in the Arcana that
Representatives arose from the Significatives of the Ancient Church; and the Significatives of the Ancient Church were from the Celestial Ideas of the Most Ancient Church.A. C. 1409.
Abraham and his posterity sojourned in the land of Canaan, and it was given them for a possession, in order that they might represent the celestial and spiritual things of the kingdom and the Church of the LORD, and that a representative Church might be established among them. (A. C. 1447.) They sojourned also in Egypt because Egypt signifies the science of knowledge, sad to sojourn there is to be instructed. For, as we learn,
The Ancient Church was in Egypt, and when the Church was there, the sciences above everything else flourished there, whence Egypt signified science. But after they wished through science to enter into the mysteries of faith, and thus from their own power to explore the Divine arcana, and see whether they were so, then it became magical, and Egypt signified scientifics which pervert, whence came falsities, and from these, evils.--A. C. 1462.
Concerning the idolatries of the Jewish nation the historicals and propheticals of the Word declare in many places that that nation was not only prone to idolatry, but was continually falling into it. In the Arcana it is written:
Idolatry is not only to worship idols and graven images, and also to worship other gods; but also it is to worship external things without the internal: in this, that nation was continually idolatrous. For they adored external things alone, and altogether removed internal things, and, in fact, they were unwilling to know about them. They indeed had holy things with them,as the tent of the assembly with the ark, and in it the propitiatory, the tables and the leaves on them, and the candlestick, and the incenses;
and out of the tent, the altar on which were offered burnt offerings and sacrifices, which were all called holy: and inmost in the tent the holy of holies; and also the sanctuary. There were also with them the garments of Aaron, and of their high priests, which were allied the garments of holiness; for there was the ephod with the breast-plate, where was the Urim and Thummim; beside other things.
But these things were not holy in themselves, but they were holy because they represented holy things, namely, the Divine, celestial, and spiritual things of the LORDS Kingdom, and the LORD Himself. Still less were they holy from the people among whom they were; for this people was not at all affected by the internal things represented, but only by the external; and to be affected by external things alone is idolatry; for it is to worship wood and stone, then gold and silver by which they are covered, from a phantasy that they are holy in themselves: such was that nation, and such it is at this day.
Still with such a nation the representative of a Church could be established, because the representative does not regard the person, but the thing. Consequently the worship [of that people] did not make them blessed and happy in the other life, but only prosperous in this world so long as they stood fast in the representatives, and did not turn aside to the idols of the nations and become idolaters openly; for then nothing of the Church could any longer be represented by that nation.A. C. 4525.
Thus from the Writings we learn that notwithstanding the fact that the Jewish nation had the representatives of holy and Divine things, still their worship was merely idolatrous. In fact, more than the Gentiles, they believed that there were many gods, but that JEHOVAH was greater than the other gods, because He could work greater miracles. Consequently when miracles ceased, or when from being frequent and familiar, they were little thought of the Israelites immediately turned themselves to the worship of other gods. (See A. C. 4847.)
In the internal life of the Israelites there was no conflict. Their interiors were closed and temptation combats were therefore unknown to them. The work then to be done with them was to hold them to a life of obedience to the LORD in the one office of representing the Church.
The holy representatives of the LORD and of the celestial and spiritual things of His kingdom were presently to be given them by revelation from heaven: Could they then be caused to administer these things end to enter into this representative worship with holy, clean, and orderly externals? Could the sons of Israel, caring only for external things without internals, receive and administer even the representatives of the true Church? This question must he answered before we proceed.
In the Arcana this matter is fully explained:
It is a general law of representation that the person or thing which represents is not at all reflected upon, but only the thing itself which is represented. As for example:
All kings whoever they were, whether in Judah or in Israel, or even in Egypt and other places, might represent the LORD, their regal function itself being representative; the anointing itself, whence they were called the anointed of JEHOVAH , involved this. In like manner all priests, how many soever they were, represented the LORD, the priestly function itself being representative. The quality of the person was not reflected upon.
Nor did men alone represent, but also beasts, as all those which were sacrifice.... Nor did animate things alone represent, but also, as was said, things inanimate, as the altar, yea the stones of the altar; likewise the ark and the tabernacle, with all things which were in them; the temple rise, with all things belonging to it, as may be known to any one; thus the lamps, the bread, and the garments of Aaron.
Nor were these things alone representative, but also all the rites which were in the Jewish Church.
In the Ancient Churches representatives extended to all the objects of the senses: as mountains and hills, valleys, plains, rivers, brooks, fountains, and pools, groves and trees in general, and each species of tree in particular, insomuch that every tree had some determinate signification; and thus then the significative Church ceased these objects became representative.--A. C. 1361.
Elsewhere we are told how the representative of a Church was administered among the Israelites:
That the representative of a Church might exist among them, statutes and laws were given them by manifest revelation, that were altogether representative; wherefore so long as they were in these, and observed them strictly, so long they could represent. But when they turned aside from them, as to the statutes and laws of other nations, and especially to the worship of another God, then they deprived themselves of the faculty of representing, wherefore, by external means, which were captivities, overthrows, threats, and miracles, they were driven to laws and to statutes truly representative: but not by internal means, as with those who have internal worship in the external.A. C. 4251.
The representative of a Church was established with the sons of Israel because of their love for things external and representative, and because they neither had any love for internal and spiritual things, nor any knowledge of them. If they had known and acknowledged things spiritual and Divine, they could have perverted them and profaned them: and the direful evils that desolated and destroyed the Ancient Church would have been repeated. The Israelites were so immersed in corporeal and worldly love, that they had neither spiritual nor celestial love, therefore they were chosen to act the part of the Representative of a Church. The Arcana unfolds this mysterious Providence as follows:
Nevertheless that they might act the representative of a Church, it was miraculously provided of the LORD, that when they were in a holy external state, and were then also encompassed about with evil spirits, still the holy external which they were in could he elevated into heaven, but this by good spirits and angels not within them, but without them, for within them was nothing but emptiness or uncleanness.A. C. 4311.
The posterity of Jacob were urgent to become the representative of a Church not from their love of the Divine principles which were to be represented, but for other reasons. In Egypt they saw the miracles which the LORD wrought by the hand of Moses: and when deliverance from their grievous bondage was offered, they were glad, and, from the mingled emotions of hope and fear, they were obedient. Their final escape from Egypt, and their passage through the Sea of Sedge, and their the overthrow and destruction of Pharaoh and his host, grave the Israelites unbounded confidence in the power of the God that could do such things, and it is said:
And Israel saw the great land which JEHOVAH did against the Egyptians, and the people feared JEHOVAH, and believed in JEHOVAH, and in Moses His servant. Ex. xiv. 31.
From the intercessions of Moses when he represented that and because they delighted to be in the holiness of representatives, they were chosen and permitted to enter upon this work.
In the Arcana it is written of them:
After they were punished they could be in such external humiliation as no other nation could be in; for they could lie prostrate on the ground fur whole days, and roll themselves in the dust not rising up until the third day; they could also mourn for many days, go in sackcloth, in tattered garments, with ashes or dust sprinkled on their heads; they could fast without intermission for many days, and in the mean time burst forth into bitter weeping; but this was only from corporeal and caught love, and from the fear of losing pre-eminence and worldly wealth: for it was not anything internal that affected them, because what is internal, as, that there is a life after death, and that there is eternal salvation, they did not know at all, nor did they indeed wish to know.--A. C. 4293. See also A. C. 4290; Ex. xxxiii. 1, 5; Num: xiv. and Deut. xxxii. 20, 35.
The LORD said concerning that nation:
Ye are of your father the devil, and the wishes of your father ye will do: he was a murderer from the beginning, and stood not in the truth. John viii. 44.
As the history is given in the Word, Moses was indignant because the Divine of the LORD could not go before them, and introduce them as the true Church into the land of Canaan. In his intercession for the people he said:
If Thy faces go not, cause us not to go up from hence.
And wherein shall it be made known at any time that I have found favor in Thine eyes, I, and Thy people: is it not in Thy going with us? And that we may be rendered excellent, I and Thy people, above every people which is on the faces of the ground? Ex. xxxiii. 15, 16.
From his education in the house of Pharaoh, Moses was learned in the lore of the loyal and the sacerdotal functions. He was a man of most extraordinary abilities and attainments, providentially prepared to be the ruler of the Israelitish nation, and doubtless in that function was in the delight of his life: consequently we may imagine his indignation when it was made known to him that as the ruler of that people he could never enter into the land of Canaan.
Moses therefore was indignant because the Israelites could not be made more excellent than all in the universal globe, and that JEHOVAH would not introduce them into the land of Canaan, and thus make them a Church. Of such men it is written:
They my indeed represent the Church, but they cannot be the Church. To represent the Church, and not to be the Church, is to worship things external and call them holy and Divine, but not by faith and love from heaven to acknowledge and perceive them.A. C. 10,560.
In becoming the representative of the spiritual Church Israel was called into a life of implicit obedience.
In the Most Ancient Church, as we have seen, the conflict was between Good and evil: the LORD with his Divine Sphere of love and wisdom, on the one hand, and on the other, mans self-will with the wish to live from himself, and to become wise from the researches of His own intelligence.
In the Ancient Church the conflict was between Truth and falsity: on the one hand, the Truth standing forth revealed from the Divine in the correspondences given in the Ancient Word, and on the other, the fabrications of expositors, the fatuous light of an imaginary conscience, and the willful dicta of magicians and spiritualists.
In the Israelitish Church the conflict was on the lowest natural plane, and wax simply a question of obedience to the high behests of heaven expressed in the representative externals of worship and of civil order. The alternative presented to them was obedience or disobedience. As the reward of obedience they were to be delivered from bondage in Egypt, and from all other external enemies, and by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm they were to be established as a people in the land of Canaan.
The Sacred Scripture represents the conflicts of the Spiritual Church is all ages by the conduct and condition of the Israelites,--their bondage in Egypt, their deliverance, their journeys and encampments, their wars and battles, their victories and defeats, their prosperity and adversity: in fact the Pestilences, famines, and captivities that devastated them, were so many representations of the conduct and condition of the Church. Before Israel came to Sinai there were several of these conflicts which may be mentioned.
The first of these was at the Sea of Sedge,* where they were overtaken by Pharaoh and his host, and were miraculously delivered by being led through the sea. In this the sons of Israel represented the spiritual Church; the Egyptians, those who are in faith separate from charity; the murmurings of the Israelites when they saw the army of Pharaoh, described the first temptation; the Sea of Sedge represented hell, through which Israel was led in safety, and by which the Egyptians were overwhelmed: the waters which covered them signified the falsities of evils. (See A. C. 8125.)
* Sea of Sedge instead of Red Sea is regarded as the true rendering of the original Hebrew [scanner unable to insert symbols]; rendered in Latin, Mare Suph.
The sons of Israel were here encompassed by the most formidable foes and they despaired of deliverance, and cried to JEHOVAH and said to Moses: Were there no sepulchres in Egypt, that thou hast taken as to die in the wilderness?...
But Moses said: Fear not; stand still and see the salvation of JEHOVAH. This despairing cry of Israel is the type of many a conflict in the man of the spiritual Church when he despairs of getting onward, or of deliverance, or of escape, when he even despairs of the LORDS interposition and help. All that then remains to be done is to stand still and wait, as Israel was commanded to do. Indeed this state with all its: darkness and despair is the most profound acknowledgment of the LORD as the only defence against the, belie, the only refuge of the soul. We are told in the Arcana:
The LORD alone sustains the combats of temptations and conquers, because the Divine alone can conquer the hells: unless the Divine acted against them, the hells would rush in like the greatest ocean, one hell after another, to resist which men has no power at all; and the less so, since man, as to his own proprium is nothing else but evil, that is hell, from which the LORD then draws him out, and afterward withholds him.--A. C. 8115. See also A. C. 8119.
Israel being delivered from the Sea, of Sedge which represents the hell in which are the falsities derived from evil of those who have been of the Church (A. C. 8099), glorified the LORD in the memorable song of Moses, and they were confirmed in their faith in JEHOVAH and in His servant Moses. Then their journeys in the wilderness began. For it is written: And Moses made Israel to journey from the sea, and they went forth to the wilderness of Shur; and they west three days into the wilderness, and did not find waters. And they came to Marah, and they could not drink the waters ... because they were bitter. And they murmured against Moses, saying: What shall we drink? These things represent in the man of the spiritual Church progress toward better states of life, and consequently instruction in truth not known before. But when man instructed it is then to be determined whether the truth when unfolded, in laws and ordinances, or in the stern facts of the Divine Providence, will be received with gladness, or be repelled in aversion.
The fact that Israel could not drink of the waters because they were bitter, as we learn, signifies that truths appear undelightful, when received without the affection of good. The love of truth is from good. For what is truth without its use, and its use is to lead to the good of life. The waters were healed by casting the wood into them. The wood represents good, and the waters, truths; therefore the miracle of healing the waters by casting into them a piece of wood, represented the conjunction of good and truth, and the consequent delight in the truth as a means of good,--the truth itself thenceforth becoming delightful. (See A. C. 8356.)
But this state is followed by a conflict from the seeming want of the good of life expected from obedience to the truth: this was represented in Israel by the want of bread and meat, and this means a defect of delight and of good. The Israelites, in this instance, had their craving for flesh satiated by the miraculous supply of quails. It is thus that one temptation combat follows another, as the work of regeneration goes on; as when one enemy is vanquished, another rises up.
In the Arcana it is written:
Some suppose that man can be regenerated without temptation, and others that when he has endured one temptation he is regenerated. But let it be known, that without temptation no one is regenerated; and that many temptations follow, one after another. The reason of this is, that regeneration is for the end that the old life of man may die, and that the new life which is celestial may be insinuated. Hence it is manifest that, at all events, there must be combat: for the life of the old man resists, nor is it willing to be extinguished, and the life of the new man can no where enter unless the life of the old man is extinct: hence it is evident that there is combat on both sides, and that it is ardent, because for life.A. C. 8403.
Again, a fourth temptation of the man of the Church has respect to the want of truth.
This was represented by the sons of Israel, when they journeyed from the wilderness of Sin, and encamped in Rephidim, where there was no water for the people to drink; and when the people chided with Moses, and said: Give us water and let us drink.... And the people thirsted there for waters, and the people murmured against Moses, and said wherefore this: Thou hast made us come up out of Egypt to make me die with thirst. Ex. Xvii. 1, 2, 3. These things were spoken against the Divine of whose aid they despaired. In the Arcana we are told that
To complain against the Divine is to despair of His aid, because complaints in temptations involve such despair: for temptations are continual despairings concerning salvation, in the beginning slight, but in process of time, grievous, till at last there is doubt, almost denial, concerning the presence of the Divine and His aid. The spiritual life is generally brought to this extreme in temptations, for then the natural life is extinguished, so that the inmost, in the midst of the despair, may be held by the LORD in combat against the false: wherefore also this despair is presently dissipated by solaces which are then insinuated by the LORD: for after every spiritual temptation there is consolation, and, as it were, a new principle of life.--A. C. 8567.
So far these trials of the sons of Israel as they journeyed toward Canaan. As we have seen, the first was at the Sea of Sedge, when overtaken by Pharaoh and his host.
The second was after three days journey into the wilderness, when they were famishing for water and could not drink the waters of Marah.
The third was their want of food in the wilderness, when they longed to return to the flesh-pots of Egypt.
The fourth was again the cry for water, when they came to the rock of Horeb.
These experiences of that people represent the spiritual conflicts of the Spiritual Church in all ages. They begin in doubting the Divine power of the LORD to lead into any thing superior to the life of sense.
The proprium clings to sensual and scientific things, preferring a faith separate from charity to a living faith conjoined with charity. When this combat is over, and the LORD is acknowledged, and His power to deliver from hell somewhat understood, then there follows the want of truth as the guide of life; and when it is found, the regenerating soul loathes it, because it confronts, searches out, and condemns the evils of life. This is the second temptation, and is represented by the bitterness of the waters. Then, in the progress of regeneration, when the life is brought up into an obedience to the truths which are known, a third temptation is endured in the want of new forms of good that may take the place of the seeming goods of life enjoyed in former states, and which were rejected in obedience to the truth. But this want of spiritual food in the progress of the life is presently supplied, and the soul is filled with consolation and delight. Finally, in this higher and better state, there again arises a longing for more exalted forms of truth to lead into more exalted forms of good into experiences of delight and blessedness still unknown, and attainable only through the truth. The deliverance of the man of the Church from this temptation, in which again the Divine presence of the LORD is despaired of, was represented, as we have seen, by the abundance of waters that were caused to flow from the rock in Horeb when struck by the rod of Moses. In this the rock represents the LORD as to faith; and the waters the truths of faith.
The coming of Israel before Mount Sinai to receive the Law, to enter into covenant with the LORD to be His people, and to be instituted as a nation is described in Moses as follows:
And JEHOVAH said to Moses: Come up to me into the mountain, and be then there, and I will give thee tables of stone, and a law, and a precept, which I will write to teach them. And Moses arose and Joshua his minister, and Moses went up into the mountain of God....
And the aspect of the glory of JEHOVAH was like devouring fire on the head of the mountain, to the eyes of the sons of Israel. And Moses entered into the midst of the cloud, and went up into the mountain, and Moses was in the mountain forty days and forty nights. Ex. xxiv. 12-15.
The array in external nature of conditions that so powerfully impressed the senses was in accordance with the character of that people. There were darkness, earthquake, fire, thunder and lightning. The people trembled, it is said. The fact is that there was revelation of Divine Truth from the LORD out of heaven, and this revelation was accommodated to the state of the people, and it was seen and received according to their state. The LORD appears to every one according to his state. Mount Sinai was enveloped in smoke rising up as the smoke of a furnace, and this represented the obscurity in which Israel was enveloped, before whom the revelation was made.
The words which God spake were Truths Divine for those in the heavens and those in the earths, because the ten commandments, and the subsequent statutes promulgated and commanded from Mount Sinai, are such truths as are not only for those who are in the earths, but also for those who are is the heavens. (See A. C. 8819.)
The Law was thus given to Israel. The work was then, at once, began of forming and arranging the representatives of the Church, according to the patterns showed to Moses in the Mount. The first thing was to construct the Tabernacle and the things belonging to it, and these things represented the celestial and spiritual things which are of the LORD in the heavens. For the Church was now instituted with the Islaelitish people, in which in an external form were to be presented representatively celestial things which are of the good of love, and spiritual things which are of the good and truth of faith, such as are in heaven, and such as ought to be in the Church. (A. C. 9457.)
After setting up the tabernacle, the journeyings of Israel continued during the lifetime of Moses, and until they crossed the Jordan under the command of Joshua and entered into their allotted inheritance in Canaan. Their combats and wars with the nations of the land also began, and the strength of their hosts was severely tried. Yet their conquests were rapid, and wonderful. On the eastern side of the Jordan and the Dead Sea they encountered the most deadly opposition: but in battle they were generally victorious, and they utterly destroyed Arad and the Canaanites in the south, then likewise Sihon and the Amorites, and Og, king of Bashan, with his people.
Joshuas crossing the Jordan and his conquest of the native tribes was marvelous and even miraculous from first to last. At first Jericho fell, then the other walled cities, one after another with great rapidity till the work was done. These conquests represent the reduction in the man of the Church of the evils and the falses signified by the tribes of the laud of Canaan which Israel was commanded to exterminate.
The command of the LORD in respect to those nations is most explicit, and we shall see in the sequel how far they were obedient to this command. In Moses it is written:
When mine angel shall go before thee, and shall bring thee to the Amorite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Canaanite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite, and I shall cut him off: thou shalt not bow down thyself to their gods, and shalt not serve them, and shalt not do according to their works; because destroying thou shalt destroy them, and breaking in pieces thou shalt break in pieces their statues. And ye shall serve JEHOVAH your God, and he will bless thy bread and thy waters, and I will remove disease from the midst of thee. Ex. xxiii. 23-25.
In this enumeration six nations are named, and the evils and falsities infesting the man of the Church which they represent are the following. The Canaanite represented the evil from the false of evil: the Perizzite, the persuasions of the false: the Hittite, the false from which evil is:
the Amorite, evil and the false thence: the Hivite, idolatry in which there is something of good: the Jebusite, idolatry in which there is something of truth. (See A. C. 8054, 1867.)
There was to be no compromise with these nations, for they represented the evils and falsities infesting the Church, and therefore were to be utterly destroyed; for when the sons of Israel were introduced into the land of Canaan, then a representative of the Church was instituted among them; and then also was instituted among the nations a representative of the evils and falsities infesting the Church. (See A. C. 9316.) The command to destroy these nations is explained in the Arcana as follows:
Those who are in good and truth never destroy those who are in evil and the false, but only remove them, because they act from good and not from evil, and good is from the LORD who never destroys any one. But those who are in evil and thence in the false, since they act from evil, endeavor to destroy, and as far as possible they do destroy those who are in good. But inasmuch as they then rush against the good which is from the LORD, thus against the Divine, they destroy themselves, that is, they precipitate themselves into damnation and into hell: such is the law of order.
The Israelites and Jews destroyed the nations of the land of Canaan, because they represented spiritual and celestial things, and the nations, infernal and diabolical things, and as these are opposite, they can never remain together. And inasmuch as there was no Church with the Israelites and Jews, but only a representative of the Church, and thus as the LORD was present with them only representatively, they were permitted to destroy these nations.A. C. 9320,
The ordering of the Divine Providence in this case is the more wonderful from the fact that the Israelites were in reality worse than these nations. Even the representative of the Church could not be instituted among them until they were altogether vastated as to interior truths, that is until they knew nothing of them. But in respect to the nations whom they were to destroy, the remains of a true Church from ancient times were still existing among them, especially among the Hittites and Hivites. (See A. C. 4429, 4447.)
In this representative of a Church, influx from the Divine was turned aside, or the communication with heaven was broken off in either of two ways, or by the union of both,--namely:
The Representatives were disregarded or violated wholly or in part:
Or, Israel was disobedient to the command of the LORD, as promulgated by the appointed leader of the people.
The law that governed all their movements was one and the same. Going forward according to their representative forms, and in obedience to the command of the LORD, was the price of victory in war, and prosperity in peace. In the movements of Joshua in Canaan, and in after times under the Judges, and under the Kings the law was the same. In every event of the Divine Providence touching this people, the one end was displayed of holding them firmly to the work of representing the Church, and of keeping the communication with heaven open until the coming of the LORD. When they filtered and fell back they were urged forward by every motive that could influence such people; when they rebelled they were punished, and by these punishments either reclaimed or destroyed, (See A. C. 4208.)
The Israelites often rebelled against the LORD, they fell away into idolatry, and mingled themselves with the nations they were commanded to destroy. This no doubt was owing principally to the following things:
1. They were in externals without anything internal, and consequently they had no genuine internal love for the work they had undertaken. They were not looking for blessedness in heaven, but for prosperity in the world: they were not looking to the LORD, but to themselves.
2. Then for the implicit obedience required of them in respect to their forms of worship, and their various movements is war, and other matters, they saw so good reason.
For example: They did not see why the spoils of the cities they captured and of the nations they conquered might not always be saved; nor could they see why they might not mingle somewhat with the nations of Canaan in the seemingly small matter of joining them in worship, in their consecrated groves and before the altars of their time-honored gods.
3. Then no doubt alley often longed for the gross corporeal and sensual excitements and gratifications of idolatrous worship which were denied them in their representative worship.
4. Finally, in the idolatry of these nations there was freedom in emotion, thought, and action; neither were they restrained by a ritual revealed from heaven, and in its statutes and ordinances, inflexible and infallible.
Is the mind of an Israelite, therefore, the conflict was in the alternative: obedience to the representatives of the Church, in which all things were given to them by Divine revelation and which were immutably fixed:, requiring of them the acknowledgment of JEHOVAH as their God, on the one hand: or, on the other hand, the rejection of JEHOVAH as their God, and an idolatrous worship in which their own preferences, conceits, and unwisdom could have full scope and free play. Therefore Joshua in his charge to the people said:
Choose you this day whom you will serve. Joshua xxiv. 15.
And the same we have in the words of Elijah:
How long halt ye between two opinions? If JEHOVAH be God, follow Him: but if Baal, then follow him. 1 Kings xviii. 21.
And yet, the sons of Israel continually lapsed into idolatry in its: various forms, and thee continually mingled in marriage with the nations of the land.
Their idolatry in many cases amounted to open revolt against the laws and ordinances of Israel: Thus Jeroboam the son of Nebat to confirm the revolt of the ten tribes, actually made two calves of gold, and set up one in Bethel and the other in Dan, and proclaimed to the people:
It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem: Behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. 1 Kings xii. 25.
Then also there were instances in which they sacrificed their own children to Moloch and other idols, and in many ways the Israelites were seduced to do more evil than did the nations whom the LORD destroyed before them. 2 Kings xxi. 9.
At the death of Joshua the general war against the nations in the land of Canaan was discontinued. Judah and Simeon did indeed combine their forces and drive out from the mountains the nations of the land allotted to them, but even they could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley because they had chariots of iron. The house of Joseph destroyed the inhabitants of Bethel, for the LORD was with them. Bat the native inhabitants of their inheritance were not driven out either by the tribe of Manasseh, or Ephraim, or Asher, or Naphtali. Here then there was manifest disobedience to the LORD owing either to indifference to the representatives of the Church, or to a spirit of actual rebellion. When Manasseh and Ephraim were strong they made the Canaanites which dwelt among them, tributary. The Amorites forced the children of Dan into the mountain, and it was only when the hand of Joseph was heavy upon them, that they became tributary. It is written:
And also all that generation were gathered unto their fathers, and there arose another generation after them who knew not JEHOVAH, nor yet the deeds which He had done for Israel. And the sons of Israel did evil in the eyes of JEHOVAH and served the Baalim.
And they forsook JEHOVAH, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt and they went alter other gods, of the gods of the peoples that were round about them, and they bowed down themselves unto them, and provoked JEHOVAH. And they forsook JEHOVAH, and served Baal and Ashtaroth. And the anger of JEHOVAH burned against Israel, and He gave them into the hands of the spoilers who spoiled them, and He sold them into the hands of their enemies round about, and they were not able any longer to stand before their enemies. Whithersoever they went out, the hand of JEHOVAH was against them for evil as JEHOVAH had spoken, and as JEHOVAH had sworn unto them: and they were greatly distressed. Judges ii. 10-16.
This then tells the whole tale. History can only repeat the fact over and over again, that the people did evil in the eyes of the LORD. And their conduct was substantially the same under the Judges and the Kings, in the commonwealth under Saul, David, and Solomon, and, after the revolt of the ten tribes, under the Kings of Judah, and the Kings of Israel: the common record in the Sacred Scripture is still in the same telling form: The people did evil in the eyes of the LORD. And of the forty odd kings, beginning with Saul and ending with Zedekiah, it is declared of more than three-fourths of them, that they did evil in the eyes of the LORD. And the evils committed whether by the kings or the people generally consisted either in idolatry, magic, witchcraft, adultery, robbery, or murder; or in the combination of several of these.
The dissensions and wars between the two kingdoms, Judah and Israel, led to the national ruin of both kingdoms. In one memorable war between them during the reign of Ahaz and Pekah, Judah lost in battle one hundred and twenty thousand men, and two hundred thousand of the people were carried away captive from Judaea into Samaria. Afterward, Israel, moved at the sorrows of their Jewish brethren, mercifully returned these captives to Jericho, the city of Palm-trees.
Still the overthrow of the tell tribes was hastening on.
Soon they were to be swept away by the Assyrians into captivity. And why not? They had abandoned the conflict. From the revolt of Jeroboam, they had mingled more and more with the nations pound about. The lines of demarcation were to a great extent abolished. There was a remnant who protested against the open idolatry of the kingdom, and who continued the ancient custom of going up to Jerusalem
at the stated festivals there to worship JEHOVAH. But the nation generally had lapsed into open idolatry, and instead of going up to Jerusalem to worship according to the Mosaic law, they worshiped one golden calf in Dan, and another in Bethel, and they joined in worship with the Moabites, and Ammonites, and Edomites, and Zidonians, and with the sons of Heth. As therefore Israel had thus turned away from the distinctive worship of JEHOVAH, and from the representatives of the Church, they were dropped out of the course of history and lost. Samaria fell, and the captivity of Israel followed in the year B. C. 719. Milman says:
Now the end of that kingdom drew on; the unprincipled Pekah was assassinated; another period of anarchy lasted for several years, till at length the scepter fell into the feeble hands of Hoshea, who had instigated the murder of Pekah. A new and still more ambitious monarch, Shalmaneser, now wielded the power of Assyria.... The Assyrian advanced into the kingdom, besieged Samaria, which after an obstinate resistance of three years surrendered, and thus terminated forever the independent kingdom of Israel.
It was the policy of the Assyrian monarchs to transplant the inhabitants of conquered provinces on their borders, to inland districts of their empire. Pul and Tiglath Pileser had swept away a great part of the population, from Syria and the trans-Jordanic tribes: and Shalmaneser, after the capture of Samaria, carried off vast numbers of the remaining tribes to a mountainous region between Assyria and Media, who were afterward replaced there by colonies of a race called Cuthaeans. From this time history loses sight of the ten tribes as a distinct people.Milmans History of the Jews, vol. i. pp. 420, 421.
The kingdom of Judah remained for about one hundred and thirty years, when Jerusalem was taken and the Jews carried away into Babylon.
Ahaz, whose reign began B. C. 741 and continued sixteen years, became an open idolater, and his shameful administration of the kingdom hastened its downfall. Milman says:
Ahaz revolted entirely from the national faith, although throughout his whole reign the prophet Isaiah (and with him the prophet Micah) had warned, threatened, and poured forth his noble and terrible strains of rebuke and menace. He offered public worship to the gods of Syria, in desperate hopes of their aid against his enemies: he built a new altar on the model of the one he saw at Damascus, where he went to pay homage to the Assyrian: and he robbed the treasury to pay his tribute. He defaced many of the vessels and buildings of the temple. No superstition was too cruel for Ahaz: he offered incense in the Valley of Hinnom and made his children pass through the fire. The bloody sacrifice of Moloch, the human sacrifice of their own children by idolatrous parents, might cast its lurid fires on the front of the Temple of JEHOVAH. In every street of Jerusalem, in every city of Judah, incense was smoking to idols, amid the wildest and most licentious rites. Every hill-top, every high place, every grove, was defiled. Not only were wizards and necromancers consulted, but the heavenly bodies were worshiped, and horses were dedicated to the Sun, and altars were raised on the house-tops to observe and to worship the stars.History of the Jews, p. 419.
In the reign of Zedekiah, B.C. 587, we come to the final overthrow of the kingdom of Judah. The historian tells the tale as follows:
Nebuchadnezzar having retaken Carchemish passed the Euphrates and rapidly overran the whole of Syria and Palestine. Jerusalem made little resistance. The king was put in chains to be carried as a prisoner to Babylon. On his submission he was reinstated on the throne: but the Temple was plundered of many of its treasures, and a number of well-born youths, among whom were Daniel and three others best known by their Persian names, Shadrach, Meshech, and Abednego, were carried away.
From this date commence the seventy years of captivity. Jehoiakim had learned neither wisdom nor moderation from his misfortunes. Three years after he attempted to throw off the yoke of Chaldea.
Nebuchadnezzar left the subjugation of Palestine to the neighboring tribes, who for three years longer ravaged the whole country, shut up Jehoiakim in Jerusalem; and at length this weak king was slain.... Jehoiachin, his son, had scarcely mounted the throne, when Nebuchadnezzar himself appeared at the grates of Jerusalem. The city surrendered at discretion. The king and the royal family, the remaining treasures of the temple, the strength of the army and the nobility, and all the more useful artisans were carried away to Babylon. Over this wreck of kingdom, Zedekiah, the younger son of Josiah, was permitted to enjoy a precarious and inglorious sovereignty of eleven years. He then attempted to assert his independence and Jerusalem, though besieged by Nebuchadnezzar in person, now made some resistance. At length famine reduced the fatal obstinacy of despair. Jerusalem opened its gates to the irresistible conqueror. The king in an attempt to break through the besieging forces or meditating flight toward his ally, the King of Ammon, was seized on the plain of Jericho. His children were slain before his face, his eyes put out, and thus the last king of the royal house of David, blind and childless, was led away into a foreign prison. The capture of Jerusalem took place on the ninth day of the fourth month: on the seventh day of the fifth month, the relentless Nabuzaradon executed the orders of his master by leveling the city, the palaces, and the Temple in one common ruin. The few remaining treasures, particularly the two brazen pillars which stood before the temple, were sent to Babylon; the chief priests were put to death and the rest carried away into captivity.Milmans Hist. of the Jews, vol. i. pp. 442-446.
In Judah and Benjamin there was a remnant that even in the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple was no t lost. After the captivity many returned in accordance to the proclamation of Cyrus, and they restored the city and rebuilt the Temple. But their national greatness and glory were never restored. They were but a remnant even of Judah: Israel was no more. Still they had a certain integrality. They restored the representative worship according to the Law of Moses; and, by means of the external holiness of their worship they continued the communication with heaven until the Coming of the Lone; for it is written:
The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a Lawgiver from between his feet, until SHILOH come, and unto Him shall be the gathering of the people. Gen. xlix. 10.
THE INCARNATION.
In the Conflict of the Ages the work of Redemption stands central and supreme. It comprehends every combat with evil, not only in the Churches preceding the Incarnation, but also in the Churches following the Incarnation. We must therefore before describing the conflicts in the Christian Church, and in the New Church, set forth, briefly, the work of redemption accomplished by the LORD during His abode in the world.
View it in whatever light we may the Incarnation of JEHOVAH God is the most wonderful fact in the history of the universe. The Infinite and Eternal clothed Himself with our nature, and assumed the Human as His own. Prophecy and History culminate in the event, describing this Divine Presence as IMMANUEL: GOD WITH US. Before the Incarnation every movement in the Divine Providence looked forward to it; since the Incarnation all movements of the Divine Providence are derived from it and moulded by it, as the very Divine Life in the humanity. History, in fact, numbers the years from this momentous event,--forward, to the present time, and backward, toward the beginning as far as chronology can reach.
From the beginning, as we have seen, the Churches in their order, were the Most Ancient, the Ancient, and the Israelitish and Jewish, at the consummation of which, the LORD made His Advent, and established the Christian Church. The corresponding Ages in their order were the Golden Age, the Silver Age, the Brazen Age, and the Age of Iron.
From the Most Ancient Church, to the Incarnation, the course of history marks a continual descent,--the ascent, beginning with the Advent of the LORD, who assumed our nature at the point of its farthest possible departure from Him, and when men was the most hopelessly involved in affections, thoughts, and actions, that were merely sensual and corporeal, and therefore infernal. Into humanity in this state the LORD, as Divine Truth, came down; and the
Divine Truth which is the Word was made flesh, and we beheld His glory, the glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. John i. 14. Then the reclamation of man began anew, and the Church was founded anew in the ultimates of order, upon the Divine Truth itself. Thus, from the most ancient times, to the Coming of the LORD, there was a succession of Churches which were, in fact, a series of involutions, or as a writer has called them, envelopments in which the Church became more and more external.
This process of envelopment of the spiritual within the natural, until the spiritual had gradually disappeared from the consciousness of the human mind, continued down to the end of the Mosaic dispensation, when it reached its utmost limit; so that tale Law, with the Temple and its services, was one continued envelopment; the Gospel being enveloped in the Law, the New Testament in the Old, or the spiritual in the natural. Hence the saying of Augustine: In the Old Testament, the New is enfolded; in the New Testament the Old is unfolded. The Old Testament therefore is an envelopment of the New, and the New is the development of the Old.Clissolds Transition, p. 76.
The representatives of the Ancient Church, and of the Jewish, were these very enfolding envelopments and involutions, which, the LORD, entering into, at His Coming, unfolded, developed, and evolved. Consequently His work from the beginning was incisive and pronounced to a degree that astonished all who heard Him.
For He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. Matt. vii. 29.
The principles of spiritual life hitherto involved in the representatives of the Scripture the LORD evolved, in calling the people to repentance and reformation, and in showing them the nature of regeneration, and is telling them what they must do to be saved.
Thus the LORD established with His disciples the Spiritual Church, founding it, not as with Israel, in the representatives of the Divine Truth, but upon the Divine Truth Itself received into the understanding, and brought down practically into the heart and life of the disciples. And this, in other phrase, was the acknowledgment of the LORD as the Way, and the Truth, and the Life; the Rock upon which the Church was to be built.
In assuming the Human in its abject condition, inundated in evils and falsities, and beleaguered by the legions of hell, the LORD, at once, came into conflict with the Devil and Satan, or what is the same, with hell in the aggregate. The hells at first assaulted Him is the domain of His own Humanity; consequently his work of Redemption involved a series of combats represented by his forty days temptation in the wilderness, of which it is said that He was tempted by the devil and satan, and was with the wild beasts. Matt. iv. 1-11; Mark i. 13. The forty days represent a full state, all His conflicts, in fact, from beginning to end. In the Writings these are unfolded at great length. We have space only for the merest summary:
It is well known that the LORD endured and sustained the most grievous temptations, so grievous indeed that He fought singly, and from His own power, against all hell.--A. C. 1444.
The LORD was born as another man, and had infirmities as another man. That He derived hereditary evil from the mother, is manifest from this, that He endured temptations; for one who has no evil cannot be tempted: for in man it is evil which tempts, and by which he is tempted.
And it is manifest that the LORD was tempted, and that He endured temptations, a thousand times more grievous than any man can possibly sustain, and that He endured them alone, and by His own proper power overcame evil, or the devil and all hell.
The Divine Nature is not susceptible of evil: wherefore that He might overcome evil by His own proper strength, which no man could, or ever can do, and that thus He alone might become Justice, He willed to be born as another man. Otherwise there was no need that He should be born: for He might have assumed the Human Essence without birth, as formerly He had occasionally done, when He appeared to those of the Most Ancient Church, and likewise to the prophets. But in order that He might put on evil, to fight against it and to conquer it, and that He might thus, at the same time join together in Himself, the Divine Essence and the Human Essence, He came into the world.A. C. 7513
The LORDS whole life in the world, from His earliest childhood, was a continual temptation and a continual victory; the last was when He prayed on the cross for his enemies: thus, for all on the face of the whole earth.... Out of love toward the whole human race, the LORD fought against the loves of self and of the world, with which the hells were replete. All temptation is made against the love, in which man is, and the degree of the temptation is according to the degree of the love. If it is not against the love, there is no temptation. To destroy any ones love is to destroy his very life: for love is life.
The life of the LORD was love toward the whole human race, which was so great, and of such a nature, as to be nothing but pure love. Against this, His life, continual temptations were admitted from His earliest childhood to His last hour in the world.... The LORD was assaulted by all the hells, which He continually overcame, subjugated, and conquered: and this, solely out of love toward the whole human race. And because the love was not human, but Divine, and all temptation is great in proportion as the love is great, it may be seen how grievous were His combats, and how pent the ferocity with which the hells assaulted Him.A. C. 1600. (Sec also A. C. 1820.)
It is an arcanum which has never before been discovered, that the LORD in His temptations, at length, fought with the angels themselves, yea, with the whole angelic heaven. Heaven is not pure id the eyes of God. Job xv. 15. Inasmuch as this is so, the LORD, that He might bring the universal heaven into heavenly order, admitted into Himself temptations even from the angels, who, so far as they were in proprium, were not in good and truth. These temptations are the inmost of all, for they act only upon ends, and with such subtlety as to escape all observation; but so far as the angels are not in proprium, so far they are in good and truth, and so far they cannot tempt.A. C. 4205.
In the True Christian Religion it is written:
The LORD from eternity, who is JEHOVAH, came into the world, that He might subjugate the hells, and glorify His Human; and without this, no mortal could have been saved; and those are saved who believe in Him.T. C. R. 2.
JEHOVAH GOD is Love itself and Wisdom itself, or He is Good itself and Truth itself: and He as to the Divine Truth, which is the Word, and which was God with God, descended and assumed the Human, to the end that He might reduce to order all things which were in heaven, and all things which were in hell, and all things which were in the Church: since at that time the power of hell prevailed over the power of heaven, and, upon earth, the power of evil over the power of good, and thence a total damnation stood before the door and threatened. This impending damnation JEHOVAH GOD removed by means of His Human, which was the Divine Truth, and thus He redeemed angels and men: and afterward He united, in His Human, Divine Truth with Divine Good, or Divine Wisdom with Divine Love, and thus, together with and in the glorified Human, returned into His Divine, in which He was from eternity.T. C. R. 3.
In His work of redemption the LORD removed and east down all infernal and disorderly things, all things in heaven and on earth, that resisted, perverted, or marred the fullness of the Divine influx, and the realization of the Divine ideal of human life on the earth; and then also He subjugated the hells, and brought them into forms of order, and under obedience to the Divine government.
In the True Christian Religion it is written:
That the LORD, while He was in the world, fought against the hells, and conquered and subjugated them, and thus brought them under obedience to Him, is evident from many passages in the Word, of which I shall select these few: In Isaiah:
Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah, this that is glorious in His apparel, traveling in the greatness of His strength? I that speak is justice, mighty to save. Wherefore art Thou red in Thine apparel, and Thy garments as of Him that trendeth in the wine-fat? I have trodden the wine-press alone, and of the people not a man with me;
for I have trodden them in mine anger, and trampled them in my fury; thence their victory is sprinkled upon my garments; for the day of vengeance is in my heart, and the year of my redeemed is come; my arm brought salvation to me; I made their victory descend to the earth. He said: Behold my people, they are sons; so He became their Saviour; from His love and from His pity He redeemed them.
These things are concerning the LORDS combat against the hells; the garment in which He was glorious, and which was red, means the Word, to which the Jewish people offered violence. The battle itself against the hells, and the victory over them, is described by this, that He trod them in His anger, and trampled them in His fury. That He fought alone and from His own power, is described by these words: Of the people not a man with me; my arm brought salvation to me; I made their victory descend to the earth. That thus He saved and redeemed, by these words: Therefore he became their Saviour; from His love and from His pity He redeemed them. That this was the cause of His coming is meant by these words: the day of vengeance is in my heart, and the year of my redeemed is come....
Since the LORD alone conquered the hells, without help from any angel, therefore He is called a HERO, AND A MAN OF WARS (Isa. xlii. 13; ix. 6); THE KING OF GLORY, JEHOVAH THE MIGHTY, THE HERO IN WAR (Ps. xxiv. 8, 10); THE MIGHTY ONE OF JACOB (cxxxii. 2); and in many places, JEHOVAH ZEBAOTH, that is, JEHOVAH OF HOSTS. And also His Advent is called the day of JEHOVAH, terrible, cruel, of indignation, of wrath, of anger, of vengeance, of ruin, of war, of a trumpet, of a loud noise, of tumult, etc.
In the Evangelists these things are read: Now is the judgment of this world; the prince of this world shall be cast out (John xii. 31). The prince of this world is judged (xvi. 11). Be of good cheer: I have overcome the world (xvi. 33). I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven (Luke x. 18). Hell is meant by the world, the prince of the world, Satan, and the Devil.--T. C. R. 116.
Both men and angels were redeemed and saved by the LORD when He came, and dwelt in the world: and without His coming no one could have been saved. The Writings say:
Without this redemption, no man could have been saved, nor could the angels have continued to exist in a state of integrity.... To redeem signifies to liberate from damnation, to deliver from eternal death, to rescue from hell, and take away captives and prisoners out of the hand of the devil.
This was done by the LORD, in that He subjugated the bells, and formed a new heaven. Man could not otherwise have been saved, because the spiritual world has such a connection with the natural world that they cannot be separated. This connection is principally with the interiors of men, which are called their souls and minds: those of the good are connected with the souls and minds of angels, and those of the evil, with the souls and minds of infernal spirits.--T. C. R. 118.
The angels could not have stood in their state of integrity, had not redemption been effected by the LORD, because the whole angelic heaven, together with the Church on earth, is before the LORD as one man, whose internal is constituted by the angelic heaven, and its external by the Church: or, to be more particular, the highest heaven constitutes the head; the second and the lowest heaven constitutes the breast and middle region of the body; the Church on earth constitutes the loins and feet; and the LORD himself is the Soul and Life of the whole man. Therefore, unless the LORD had effected redemption, this man must have been destroyed; the feet and loins must have perished by the defection of the Church on earth; the region of the stomach and intestines, by the defection of the lowest heaven; the region of the breast, by the defection of the second heaven; and then the head, left without correspondence with the body, must fall into a swoon.--T. C. R. 119.
To the reasons just given why the LORD redeemed not only men but also angels, and why the angels could not have continued to exist without this redemption by the LORD, in the Writings two other reasons are added:
I. At the time of the first Coming of the LORD the hells had grown up to such a height that they filled all the world of spirits, which is in the midst between heaven and hell, and thus had not only thrown into confusion the heaven which is called the ultimate, but they had 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. The hells had grown up to such a height because at the time when the LORD came into the world, the whole world had entirely alienated itself from God by idolatries and magic; and the Church which had been among the sons of Israel, and afterward among the Jews, was utterly destroyed by falsification and adulteration of the Word; and these two classes after death all flocked into the world of spirits, where at length they so increased and multiplied that they could not be expelled thence but by the descent of God Himself, and then by the strength of His Divine Arm.
II. The LORD also redeemed angels because not only every man, but also every angel, is withheld from evil and held in good by the LORD; for no one, whether he be angel or man, is in good of himself but all good is from the LORD. When therefore the footstool of the angels, which is in the world of spirits, was taken away from them, it was then with them as with one sitting on a throne when its pedestals are taken away. That the angels are not pure in the sight of God, is evident from the prophetical parts of the Word, and also from Job, iv. 18: and likewise from this, that there is no angel who was not once a man.--T. C. R. 121.
Redemption was a work purely Divine. He who knows what hell is, and what was its height and inundation over all the world of spirits at the time of the LORDS Coming, and also with what power the LORD cast down and dispersed hell, and afterward reduced it together with heaven into order, cannot but be amazed, and exclaim that all these things were a work purely Divine.--T. C. R. 123.
This Redemption itself could not have been effected, but by God Incarnate. Inasmuch as redemption was a work purely Divine, it could not have been performed but by the omnipotent God. It could not have been performed but by God Incarnate, that is, made Man, because JEHOVAH GOD, such as He is in His infinite essence, cannot draw near to hell, much less enter into it; for He is in purest and first things. Wherefore JEHOVAH GOD, being in Himself such, if He should only breathe upon those who are in hell, would kill them in a moment; for He said to Moses, when he wished to see Him: Thou canst not see My face, for there shall no man see Me and live. Ex. Xxxiii. 20. As, therefore, Moses could not, still less could those who are in hell, where all are in the last and grossest things, and so in those most remote; for they are the lowest natural. Wherefore, unless JEHOVAH GOD had assumed the Human, and thus clothed Himself with a body which is in ultimates, He might have undertaken any redemption in rain.
The battle of the omnipotent God was with the hells, upon which battle He could not have entered, unless He had before put on the Human. But it must be known that the battle of the LORD with the hells was not an oral battle, as between reasoners and wranglers; such a battle effects nothing at all there: but it was a spiritual battle, which is of Divine truth From Divine good, which was the very vital principle of the LORD: the influx of this through the medium of sight, no one in hell can resist. There is in it such power that the infernal genii flee away at the mere perception of it, cast themselves down into the deep, and creep into caverns that they may hide themselves.
This is the same that is described in Isaiah: They shall enter into the caverns of the rocks, and into the fissures of the dust, for fear of JEHOVAH, when He shall arise to terrify the earth (ii. 19); and in the Apocalypse: They shall all hide themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains, and shall say to the mountains and rocks: Fall upon us, and hide us from the face of Him that sitteth upon the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb (vi. 15, 16, 17).--T. C. R. 121.
The Evangelists reveal to us the LORDS life in the world as a series of wonderful works. The prophecies were fulfilled which said:
Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened:
And the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped
Then shall the lame leap as a hind:
And the tongue of the dumb shall sing. Is xxxv. 5, 6.
The work which the LORD commanded His disciples to do, He also, in a supereminent degree, did Himself. To the disciples He said:
Preach saying the kingdom of the heaven is at hand. Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons. Matt. x. 7, 8.
Thus the work began. The LORD taught His disciples, and then the people, and as He was JEHOVAH GOD incarnate, wherever He came the Divine Sphere of Love and Wisdom penetrated all things. Those who could receive Him at His coming, were lifted up into His Divine Sphere, and were saved from the inundating hells. Unclean spirits and demons were driven out and the obsessed people were set free. The people received Him gladly, for they were waiting for Him. In Luke it is written:
And He came down with them, and stood in the plain, and the company of His disciples, and a great multitude of the people out of all Judea and Jerusalem, and from the sea coast of Tyre and Sidon, which came to hear Him, and to be healed of their diseases; and those that were vexed with unclean spirits; and they were healed. And the whole multitude sought to touch Him: for there went virtue out of Him and healed them all Luke vi. 17-19.
And when He entered upon His public ministry His words and works proclaimed Him the Messiah. All things obeyed His Word. At His word the winds and the waves were still, the dead were dead, lepers were cleansed, the sick were made well, and legions of demons were cast out. And of His Divine Wisdom, they said: Never man spake as this man.
And many of the people believed on Him and said: When the MESSIAH cometh will He do greater miracles than these that this man hath done? John vii. 31.
There is a remarkable case of demoniacal obsession related in the gospels (which doubtless represents other cases), in which a legion of demons were cast out of one man. The man dwelt among the tombs, and no one could bind him; for he broke asunder the chains and fetters. There was a seeming knowledge of the LORD by this legion of demons, and a fear of the judgment that was coming upon them.
When the man saw Jesus afar off he ran and worshiped Him; and cried with a loud voice, and said: What have I to do with Thee, JESUS, son of the Most High God? I adjure Thee by God, that Thou torment me not. For He had said unto him: Come out of the man, thou unclean spirit. And He asked him: What is thy name? And he answered saying: My name is Legion, for we are many. Mark v. 6-9.
The appearance is that these demons knew about the Advent of the LORD, and His work of judgment,--for in Matthew it is written that they said: Art Thou come hither to torment us before the time? Matt. viii. 29. The word rendered to torment signifies also to try or to judge.
The Evangelists abound in relations of the LORDS works of casting out demons.
Thus day unto day during His abode in the world He accomplished His work, which in the beginning He described when He said:
The Spirit of the LORD is upon me, because He hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor:
He hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and the recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the LORD. Luke iv. 18, 19.
In His conflict with the hells the warfare continued during His abode in the world, and it was finished in the passion of the cross when the LORD brought down the Divine Sphere of His Love and Wisdom upon the insurgent hells. In this final struggle the hells rose up in their might to destroy the LORD and His heavenly kingdom; but the direful insurrection was quelled by the Divine Sphere of the LORD from His Human, as: He said: Father forgive them, they know not what they do (Luke xxiii. 34).
Thus the work of Redemption was finished. The hells were subjugated, the LORDS Human was perfected and glorified, and thus became the Divine Natural, in which the LORD is in the fullness of His redeeming and saving power.
After His resurrection the LORD often met His disciples, and opened their understanding and confirmed their faith in Him as their Redeemer and Savior, their LORD and GOD. In Luke it is written of His final manifestation to them:
JESUS Himself stood in the midst of them, and saith unto them: Peace be unto you.... And He said unto them: These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses, and in the Prophets, and in the Psalms concerning me. Then opened He their understanding, that they might understand the Scriptures, and said unto them: Thus it is written, and thus it behoved the Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead on the third day: and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And ye are witnesses of these things. And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the City of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high. Luke xxiv. 44-49.
Of the ascension of the LORD it is written:
And He led them out as far as Bethany, and lifting up His hands He blessed them.
And it came to pass that while He blessed them, He was parted from them, and carried up into heaven. And they worshiped Him, and returned to Jerusalem with joy: and were continually in the temple praising and blessing God. Luke xxiv. 50-53.
Such was the closing scene of the LORDS life in the world. The Divine work of redemption was finished. The total damnation which, before the Incarnation, stood at the door and threatened both angels and men, JEHOVAH GOD removed by means of His Human, which was Divine Truth, and thus He redeemed angels and men; and afterward He united, in His Human, Divine Truth with Divine Good, or Divine Wisdom with Divine Love, and thus, together with and in the glorified. Human, returned into His Divine, in which He was from eternity. These things are meant by this, in John: The Word was with God, and the Word was God: and the Word became flesh (i. 1, 14); and in the same: I came forth from the Father, and have come into the world: again I leave the world, and go to the Father (xvi. 28).... From these things it is manifest that, without the Coming of the LORD into the world, no one could have been saved. It is similar at this day: wherefore, unless the LORD comes again into the world, in Divine Truth, which is the Word, no one call be saved.T. C. R. 3.
[Our space does not suffice in the present issue to set forth the Conflicts in the CHRISTIAN CHURCH and in the NEW CHURCH; these will appear in the next Number of WORDS FOR THE NEW CHURCH.]
NOTES AND REVIEWS.
The American Conference.
THE American Conference of New Church Ministers met this year in Philadelphia, in the house of worship of the New Jerusalem Society of the Advent. The meeting was not so large as the last two, but the number present was something over the average, there being twenty-four New Church Ministers present, four Divinity students, and two visiting clergymen.
The meeting was presided over by the Rev. J. R. Hibbard, of Detroit, President of the Conference. A number of well-considered and deeply-interesting papers were read, and several of them elicited long and profitable discussions.
The first paper was by the Rev. J. E. Bowers, on the question, How should we view the scientific teachings found in the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg? Mr. Bowers held that all scientific teachings found in the Theological Writings of Swedenborg are equally binding with the teachings which are properly theological, and that they are, therefore, of Divine authority; he also strongly urged that in the scientific works of Swedenborg we have the true principles of science, uniting the creation with its Creator. Similar views were advanced by the Revs. G. N. Smith, L. H. Tafel, A. Bartels, J. J. Lehnen, and Dr. N. C. Burnham. But the reservation was made that the facts and figures in some of the scientific works are not found always to with the more accurate scientific data of the present time; nevertheless, it was held that the more exact data of today furnish even a better basis for his scientific principles than did the more inexact of a century and a half ago
The next paper was by the Rev. C. N. Smith, and was on the question, When Swedenborg mentions facts of observation or memorabilia on which to found the spiritual sense and doctrine thence, are not those memorabilia as authoritative and Divine as the spiritual sense itself? Does not the LORD reveal the one as much as the other? Mr. Smith maintained the affirmative of this question in an exhaustive argument.
The next paper read was by the Rev. Edwin Gould, on the subject of The Chronicles. This disquisition was full of information and scholarly research, and gave rise to an animated discussion, which extended also to the more general questions of the use and quality of the uninspired books of the Bible, and to the consideration of the nature of the Word itself.
The annual address was delivered by the Rev. G. N. Smith, his subject being Loyalty to Truth. In very impressive terms he appealed to his brother ministers to keep the doctrines pure and undefiled, nor to allow themselves to mix the products of self-intelligence with the truths revealed to us by the LORD. As to the relations with the old and consummated Church, he said, If New Churchmen imagine that they see anything in the onward march of progress in the old that has brought something worth accepting, their only true course is straightway to bethink themselves, that if it agrees with the doctrines, they have it already taught there in its utmost clearness and saving power, and it is, therefore, to be thence taken in preference. If it does not agree, then it is simply false and evil, and is only to be shunned and held in aversion. A. R. 923.
The address was especially decisive with regard to our proper attitude toward the doctrines of the New Church, maintaining that they are not to be presented as something simply to be talked about or thought of, and, perhaps, held in doubt, but as the truth of the LORDS revealing in this His Second Coming, which is to be entirely received and cherished and done, because it is from the LORD alone for the salvation of man.
On the day following, while the Conference was considering the address, the Rev. B. F. Barrett (formerly an ordaining minister of the General Convention, but, having resigned his membership, not now connected with any general body of the New Church), by common consent, read a paper in answer to the address, in which he took the position that the New Church is not essentially distinct from the old, but a homogeneous continuation of it, and that the New Church consists of all who are in good and truth in whatever church they lay be. Mr. Barrett supported his position by a number of quotations from the Writings.
This position was controverted by the Revs. Benade, Burnham, Bartels, Pendleton, Frost, Tafel, Whittlesey, Whitehead, and Campbell, and it was shown that the position of Mr. Barrett is diametrically opposed to the teachings of the Writings concerning the Consummation of the Age, the Last Judgment, and the Second Coming of the LORD. Rev. J. C. Ager alone supported the views of Mr. Barrett.
A paper was then read, written by the Rev. T. P. Wright, on the Sabbath as a day of love to the neighbor. T. C. R. 301. Mr. Wright held that this involves a hearty care for the children such visiting the sick and afflicted.
Various other views were presented in the Conference, a notable one being that the good of social life and love ought to be cultivated on the Sabbath day, when the primary use of Divine Worship has been attended to.
A report from Dr. S. H. Worcester was received, showing that the Latin of the Coronis would shortly be reprinted, and asking the opinion and advice of the Conference as to what additional matter should be printed with it, and giving a list of subjects, chiefly from volume vii. of the Spiritual Diary. The view presented by the Class In the text of Swedenborg was concurred in by the Conference,--namely, that only so much as was manifestly intended by Swedenborg to make a part of it ought to be added.
An elaborate paper on Ordination, its uses and significance, was read by the Rev. E. C. Bostock.
Another paper was read by the Rev. J. A. Lamb, on The Power and Virtue of Baptism and the Holy Supper in the New Church. A general discussion followed as to the importance of these holy sacraments as conjoining the New Church with the New Heavens, and through them with the LORD.
The Rev. W. P. Pendleton read a paper on Infant and Orphan Homes in the New Church, showing that the great field therein open to us promises a richer harvest in proportion to the work and money expended than the general missionary work of the Church, because children furnish a better and more hopeful material to work upon than the average of the consummated Church.
A paper was read by the Rev. J. Whitehead on the lukewarm church of the Laodiceans, showing that A. E. 233 does not treat of the question whether there are few or many saved out of the consummated Church, but only shows from what class those who are saved are derived.
The question was also discussed, What can the New Church as a general organized body do to assist ministers of the Old Church who receive the New Church doctrines in becoming useful priests of the New Church? The prevailing sentiment expressed was, that it would be useful for the general organized body of the Church to raise a fund to enable such persons to study the doctrines in a good theological seminary, before preaching in New Church societies. But the Rev. Messrs. Bartels and Lehnen thought that the growth of the Church would thereby be checked, and we ought to put nothing in the may of such persons, but rather encourage them in preaching the Doctrines of the New Church as soon as they acknowledge and receive them. It was maintained by others that their studying systematically before preaching would be more useful both for the Church and for the men themselves.
A paper was read from the Rev. Gustav Reiche on the question, How does a minister lend to the good of life? and it was shown that it is done by means of the truth found in the Writings, wherefore an earnest and systematic study of the heavenly doctrines was insisted on.
A statistical statement was read by the Rev. J. P. Stuart, showing that the Conference had, without counting the present session, held eighteen meetings: four in Massachusetts, the average attendance being thirty-six-four in New York, averaging thirty-one; three in Pennsylvania, averaging twenty-seven; two in Illinois, averaging twenty-three; three in Ohio, ever-aging twenty-two; two in Maine, averaging twenty-one; making the general average a. fraction over twenty-six.
The same offers were re-elected for the ensuing year.
The Conference adjourned on Monday afternoon, June 14th.
The General Convention.
THE General Convention met this year in Portland, Maine, June 18th to the 22d. Owing no doubt to the fact that the Convention was held in the extreme northeast of the Union, the attendance, especially from outside of New England, was very small,--much smaller, no doubt, than it would hare been had the meeting been in Philadelphia, the place next in the usual order. The member of the Executive Committee representing the Pennsylvania Association proposed Philadelphia as the place of meeting, but the Chairman did not lay the proposition before that Committee, and it could not in consequence be acted upon. Owing to the inconvenient location and time of the meeting, five out of the eleven Associations were not represented; three were represented by only one delegate each; none of the seven societies belonging to Convention was represented; the bulk of the delegates, forty-nine out of fifty-two, were from New England and New York. Of the ministers there were twenty-five present, eighteen from New England and New York, six from the other eight associations, and one independent. The average attendance at the last ten meetings of Convention is a fraction over thirty-eight ministers and ninety-nine delegates.
Another reason which may have contributed to the small attendance is that it is the policy of the present leaders of Convention to withdraw the business of that body as much as possible from the immediate direction and control of the Convention itself, and to delegate it to committees. Whether earnest New Churchmen will leave pressing duties or even their summer recreations elsewhere to travel hundreds or, as the case may require, thousands of miles to attend, not to the business and general uses of the Church, but what seems more like the reunion or the holiday of a literary society, seems more than doubtful.
It is rather peculiar also that the members of committees and the speakers appointed by Convention are not as a rule from the various parties in the Convention, but with hardly an exception they are selected from the adherents of the one party which at the time is in the majority.
The Convention in the recent meeting, for lack of more serious employment, again engaged in amending its Constitution. Not that we object very seriously to this performance, which of late is quite frequent, as we are forced to admit that this instrument is eminently susceptible of improvement. But we think that the amendments ought to be more radical and thorough. For, in the first place, there ought to be in the Preamble or Confession of Faith an acknowledgment of the LORD in His Second Advent, with a declaration of the nature of this Advent, and an acknowledgment of the dependence of the Church on the Divine Truth now revealed to us, in which the LORD makes His Second Coming. Secondly, there ought to be an acknowledgment of this Divine Truth as the law in the Church. Thirdly, there ought to be a total remodeling of the Constitution on the basis of an acknowledgment of the priesthood and its office as set forth in the Writings, and notably in the words: Governors appointed over those things among men which relate to heaven or ecclesiastical affairs are called priests, and their office is called priesthood. Priests are appointed to administer those things which belong to the Divine law and worship.N. J. 311 to 319, and Coronis 17. The amendments recently made in the Constitution are of no great moment, and, but for the time wasted over such work, these amendments might be repeated annually with suitable variations, without perceptibly forwarding or retarding the progress of the Church.
A proceeding of a somewhat peculiar character was the presentation of a memorial supposed to be the production of a minister formerly in connection with the Convention, and signed by ninety-four New Churchmen. This extraordinary document begins with a very patronizing commendation of the Heavenly Doctrines, for the memorialists state that they believe these doctrines to be among the mightiest Providential agencies of our time for enlightening mankind on spiritual subjects. As we treat elsewhere of this curious document, we would only state here that the treatment accorded to this memorial was of the most appreciative character, as the President of the Convention and three other ministers were solemnly appointed a committee to report on the subject at our next meeting.
Quite different was the treatment given to what was intended to be an Address to the English Conference by the President of Urbana University. This was the most able address presented of late for the Conventions indorsement; rising above the common perfunctory way in which these documents are too often conceived and expressed, it treated of living issues in a living manner.
The key-note of the address may be found in the words: The unity of the Church can, therefore, be built again only on 3. common recognition of a Divine authority and of the revealed truth as the law of the Church. (Messenger, July 21st.) While carefully guarding against any abuse of this authority, the address develops and maintains this important truth with great earnestness and power. The Convention had evidently expected quite a different document, and seemed in a quandary to know what to do with this address; it was referred first to one Committee and then to another to would it into the common form and standard. But one Committee after another seem to have despaired of satisfactorily performing this task, and it was at last sent back to the author in order that he himself might amend his work. But it seems that the author could neither see the use nor the propriety of doing so, and therefore as his best justification sent it to the Messenger to be given to the public.
There is no evidence from the record that the President of Convention was conscious that he was responsible for the treatment of this address (see By-laws, Section 12), nor that he in any may endeavored to shield it from the indignities heaped upon it. One of our New York ministers, in commenting on the rejection of this address, very appropriately remarks: Its rejection by the Convention is one of those strange things in the transactions of this body which are permitted, I suppose, to teach us how little of heavenly wisdom or love to the neighbor the Church has yet attained to. (Messenger, Aug. 4th, 1880.) The minister of the Boston Society endeavor indeed to explain away the discourtesy of the action by stating that it was read to a small audience, which, as is often the case at such a time, was weary and inattentive. Most of those who generally take the lead in Convention matters were, like J. C. A. himself, unfortunately absent. One gentleman, who appeared to have listened closely, thought he discovered objectionable matter in the address, in that it seemed to make faith, and not charity, the basis of unity in the Church. In the prevailing lack of clear knowledge or recollection of the contents of the paper, etc. (Messenger, Aug. 18th.) We must confess that there seems to be some reason in the excuse brought forward. Not much more could be expected from a few weary and listless men, who on Monday morning--for that was the time--seem to have been worn out by the hard labor of the preceding Sabbath! Still, if there was one occasion more than another when our legislators should have roused themselves, it was when one general body of the New Church was arranging its annual address to another general body of the Church. We have indeed an account of one gentleman who appeared to have listened closely, but, from the blunder into which he dragged the Convention, it seems almost a pity that he was not involved like the others in the prevailing lack of clear knowledge or recollection of the contents of the paper.
We may well say that this labored apology is adding insult to injury, and the Convention has much reason to join in a certain poor mans cry: Save me from my friends!
Still, the treatment of the address to Conference is not so strange and inexplicable as our brother from New York seems to find it, for after voting to indorse the Presidents address and ordering the printing of two thousand extra copies, it could hardly indorse views which were in a great measure the direct opposite. The views set forth in the rejected address were, that unity is to be found in the LORD,--that is, the unity of the Church can be built again only on a common recognition of a Divine authority, and of the revealed truth as the law of the Church. The opinion of the President cannot so easily be seen from his address, but his views are evidently much broader: he does not condescend to speak of the unity of this small Church; he wishes to include in his unity all men, good, bad, and indifferent. He is most Universalistic in his views. According to the address, The whole of humanity appears before the LORD as one man, and He is in the constant effort to remove all discords, to harmonize all forms and forces, and to effect that unity in the whole body of crested intelligences which exists in his own Divine nature. (Journal of Convention, p. 17.) These terms are certainly wide enough to suit even the most pronounced Universalist, for from the whole body of created intelligences not even the worst devils of hell can well be excluded, and we are told in this address there is a Divine endeavor to make them all one with the heavens and with the LORD! But we hope the President did not mean all that he says, but includes only what he names in a preceding sentence,--namely, the whole of humanity on the earth and in the heavens. (Journal of Convention, p. 17.) But even this goes fur beyond the Heavenly Doctrines and the Divine Truth now revealed. In the doctrines it is distinctly stated that the heavens form a greatest man, and that all men as to their soul or spirit have their position either in the greatest man--that is, in heaven--or outside of it in hell. (See A. C. 3644, 3591, 4225, and, more elaborated, in Divine Love 7, and Coronis 15, 16.) That there is a continual endeavor of the LORD to save all men and to incorporate them into the grand Man is undoubted, but that there is an endeavor to harmonize them in their present state and thus to unitize Hell and Heaven is a most serious error.
It would not have seemed necessary to notice this mistake were it not a. fundamental error, and one that underlies the whole position of certain teachers in the New Church, and thence, more or less, infests the whole Church. To strive to remove all discords, to harmonize all forms and forces, and to effect that unity in the whole body of created intelligences which exists in the Divine Nature, means, as we see above, the same as to endeavor to harmonize hell and heaven, and yet this seems to be the continual endeavor of no small part of the present Church.
It seems to be overlooked that in the True Christian Religion it is stated to be inexpressibly wicked to conjoin the LORD and the devil, or heaven and hell.--T. C. R. 651.
In view of such gross mistakes we are inclined to pass over more lightly such errors as the following: All good, even the lowest, comes to us from the LORD as its fountain and primary source; but it comes in material forms and through material things; through our brethren and through the angels. (p. 19, Journal.) The part we have italicized seems to us entirely new: whether it is as true as it is new we leave for the reader to decide. There are some New Church truths not new but true well set forth in the Address, but they are all tinged by the great underlying effort to join good and evil, the truth and the false, heaven and hell, and the whole address moves forward with a supreme indifference to the fact that there are men-devils as well as men-angels on earth (A. C. 3513, 6872), and that there are strong indications from every day experience as well as from doctrine (see, e.g., T. C. R. 23; D. P. 250) that men-devils are in this selfish and worldly age far more numerous than men-angels.
We need hardly think it strange that the Convention, in reaching out for an impossible unity with all men, good, bad, and indifferent, should reject the only policy which can secure unity in the Church and conjoin it more fully with heaven and with the LORD.
The Memorial.
AMONG the remarkable things which came before the General Convention at its last meeting was a Memorial presented by Mr. Otis Clapp of Boston, and signed by this gentleman and ninety-three others.
The Memorial is evidently not the work of the ninety-odd memorialists in convention, or conclave assembled, or any considerable part of them,--for then its numerous statements would have been better considered and qualified; nor does the paper seem like the work of M. Capp, but it is more like the production of some adroit diplomatist accustomed to writing in this way about the New Church and its external organizations,--some one who favors the non-separation of New Churchmen from the organizations of the Old Church, and who would even be glad to see our smaller societies disbanded and our members thrown back into connection with the churches round about, that they might thus endeavor to infuse the spirit of the New Church into the congregations of the old.
At the memorial itself is before us, published in extenso in the Journal of the Convention, and in it the memorialists set forth:
1. Their creed on the subject of the New Church, and its organizations and uses; and
2. They tell us what they want the Convention to do.
The memorialists believe that the Heavenly Doctrines revealed through Swedenborg are among the mightiest Providential agencies of our times for enlightening mankind on spiritual subjects, etc.
They believe that at any one time there can be but one Church, although it may consist of a great variety of parts.
They believe that since the Last Judgment in 1757, the New Church signified by the New Jerusalem has been and continues to be the only Church on the earth.
They believe that this Church is much larger and more inclusive than any sect; and that it is distinguished less by its beliefs or doctrines than by righteousness of life; love to the LORD and the neighbor being its fundamental.
They believe that New Churchmen are to be found in all religious bodies, and outside of all.
They believe that since the Last Judgment there is a freer, more interior, and more universal influx into all truth-seeking minds than at any previous time; and that the several churches or sects in their internal quality are very different on account of the Last Judgment.
They believe much in the falsities of doctrine which the LORD in His Providence turns to a good account in saving ignorant and simple-minded people.
They believe that by far the largest part of the New Church is distributed throughout all religions sects; and that although their minds are imbued with many falsities their hearts are right. And thus that there are multitudes of New Churchmen in all religions and religious sects.
So far the creed of the memorialists; parts of which are abundantly true and have never been doubted in the New Church. Other things shade away most adroitly into generalities that have no practical bearing hero or there until defined in the positive teachings of the Doctrines, the Doctrines leading us in one direction, while the manifest trend of the memorialists is in the opposite direction.
How, then, can we understand the memorialists, if it be not by considering what they pray for? Let us, then, consider this second count in the memorial:
They pray that every hindrance to the candid consideration and wide-spread reception of the Heavenly Doctrines may be removed as speedily as possible.
But who can do this? Can the General Convention? What are the principal hindrances other than these, that our fellowmen do not want the New Doctrines, and when offered to them they will not receive them?
As a Convention we have done all that we found it possible to do. We have given books, periodicals, sermons, and lectures, and in many ways we have proclaimed the LORDS Second Advent. But the answering willingness to meet the LORD in his Second Coming we have not found to any considerable extent either in the organized bodies of the Old Church or out of them.
The memorialists pray that the attitude of the organized New Church of seeming antagonism or conscious superiority to other religious bodies be no longer continued.
But organized New Church bodies are nothing apart from those who constitute them. If these New Churchmen are good men, if they are seeking, to enter into the LORDS Heavenly Kingdom by learning the Heavenly Doctrines and living according to them, they will of course oppose and resist whatever is evil and false in themselves and others. The persons who are in thing evil and false they will endeavor to reclaim; but their principles they must disavow and resist.
The conscious superiority of true New Churchmen cannot be taken away from them, for it depends on their knowledge and acknowledgment of the Heavenly Doctrines of the New Jerusalem;--a system of Doctrines incomparably transcending all other systems of Divine Revelation since time began, and revealed for those who are to be of the New Church--the Crown of all the Churches. How, then, can rational New Churchmen give up the consciousness of, at least, endeavoring to meet the LORD at His Second Coming, that they may receive from Him the superlatively glorious truths of the New Jerusalem? Is it possible for a true New Churchman so far to blaspheme the Truth as to say that in the Heavenly Doctrines, this feast of fat things there is nothing better than the falsifications of truth that prevail in the Old Church?
Then also the memorialists pray that the Convention would assume a more fraternal attitude toward other religious bodies.
The other religious bodies are of course the various Christian denominations or churches. But how can our Convention assume any sort of an attitude to them, whether fraternal, more fraternal, or otherwise? Where can we begin, and how? Shall we send messengers to them, and messages? Would they receive our messengers and hear our messages?
What could we say other than this: That the LORD has made His Second Advent, and has revealed the internal sense of the Word and the Heavenly Doctrines of the New Jerusalem; that upon His Word as thus unfolded He is founding His New Church; that we accept these Doctrines as the guide of our lives; that we acknowledge the LORD as the only God; that we rejoice and give thanks unto Him for the glorious Doctrines vouchsafed to us, and for the establishment of His New Church, in which there will be blessedness, tranquillity, and peace. What else could we say to the other religious bodies? And how otherwise would they receive us than simply to reject us?--giving to our messengers neither a hearing nor even seats in their assemblies?
Do our memorialists expect that the General Convention will pull down its flag, and send in a flag of truce to the conventions, conferences, assemblies, synods, and presbyteries of those to whom we are to assume a more fraternal attitude? Even should this be done, what would be the result? Where is the synod, assembly, conference, or convention in Christendom that would receive us, even should we stand at its gates in sackcloth and ashes, in bare feet, and with bare heads, and with ropes around our necks? Going to them would be an open renunciation of our own faith. What could they do with us? Should we deny our faith, we should be considered traitors, and therefore no decent religious body could trust us; how then could they receive us? On the other hand, should we stand firm to our faith, and not renounce it, then our very presence in these religious bodies would break up their forms, dissolve their esprit de corps, and disintegrate their organizations. For how can two walk together except they be agreed? Amos iii. 3. And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? 5 Cor. vi. 15.
The memorialists pray the General Convention to plant itself on the broad platform laid down for us so distinctly in the Heavenly Doctrines.
Well, after all, what is this platform? The memorialists say it is briefly hinted at in this Memorial. But when we come to business something more than brief hints is needed; what then is this broad platform? Can the memorialists devise a broader platform as to faith and charity than the one which the Convention has already planted itself upon and proclaimed at the head of its constitution, namely, the three essentials of the Church:--
1. The acknowledgment of the Lords Divinity;
2. The acknowledgment of the Holiness of the Word;
3. The life which is called Charity.
And can the Convention say less than it has said, namely, that the members of the New Church in America receive and acknowledge the Heavenly Doctrines of the New Jerusalem, of which the above are the essentials?
Let the memorialists give us a broader platform than this if they can!
The memorialists offer to the General Convention, as we think, a most singular affront, and in fact the same to all the organized bodies of the New Church by praying them to vacate their special office, and forever go out of their special use.
For what else can be the significance of these words:
We desire especially that the Convention cease to claim for itself any especial prerogatives--any special right to the Christian name or ordinances, or any special efficacy in the latter when administered by its own officials; that it frankly admit (and have its admission promptly recorded) that these ordinances are equally valid, efficacious, and significant when reverently administered by Christians of whatever name or creed.
This then is evidently the principal thing in the memorial, and for aught that appears the memorialists might have begun and ended with this sentence without any especial loss to their Memorial. What then is the import of this petition, and how can the Convention answer it? Plainly the prayer amounts to this:
Let the Convention sink down to the dead level of the various denominations of Christians whether Catholic or Protestant:
Let the Convention declare that these numerous denominations are but the various parts of the one true Church, namely, the New Church, signified by the New Jerusalem:
Let the Convention proclaim its disbelief in the Writings so far as they set forth the miserable state hereafter of Christians who deny the Divinity of the LORD, the sanctity of the Word, and the life called Charity:
Let the Convention repudiate every doctrine in the Writings that would stand in the way of a more fraternal attitude to other religious bodies:
Let the Convention disclaim all belief in the New Dispensation, and the New Church established by the LORD at His Second Advent:
Let the Convention disclaim all belief in the especial sanctity of the Revelations made in the Writings, beyond the writings of other religious teachers:
Let the Convention disclaim the use of the name New Church, and call themselves Swedenborgians:
Let the Convention declare (as our memorialists hold) that immediately after the Last Judgment in 1757, the New Church in Christian lands consisted not simply of the few who received the LORD at His Second Coming, but also of all denominations of Christians, both Catholic and Protestant, whether holding true doctrines or false doctrines, whether believing in the LORD or denying Him, whether holding that the New Church is from heaven, or blaspheming it and saying that it is from hell.
In all this we submit that our memorialists quite misapprehend the uses of the Church in the earth, and that they altogether confound the distinction made in the Heavenly Doctrines between the Church on the one hand, in which the LORD is known, acknowledged, and worshiped, and true doctrines from the Word are made the rule of a good life and the means of regeneration;
and, on the other hand, the Divine operation of the LORD outside of the Church, in saving if possible, those who have no religion, or even a false religion. In all lands and in all religions wherever it is possible men are saved. But these universal operations of the Divine Providence for the salvation of men, are possible only when the Church where the Word is, where there are truths from the Word and where the LORD is loved, and worshiped, is maintained in a state of integrity and purity, unmixed and uncontaminated with falsities and evils. For the Church is as the heart and lungs in man. While these are sound the man has health and strength, but if they are diseased, their true functions impeded, or their structure broken down, the man sickens and dies.
Analogous are the functions of the true Church in the LORDS work of saving that great multitude which no man can number out of every kindred and tongue and people. (See A. C. 637, 931, 2054.) We must not therefore be drawn away from our work of maintaining the Church as a distinct and positive institution. By the Divine Providence of the LORD we are called into this New Church, and its Heavenly Doctrines have been given to us. And from the analogy of the heart and lungs, and their size compared with the whole body, the seeming smallness of the New Church is not against it. For when in the world, our LORD said: Fear not, little flock, for it is your Fathers good pleasure to give you the Kingdom.
The General Conference in England.
THE Seventy-third Session of the General Conference of the New Church, held in Liverpool, from the 9th to the 14th of August, deserves more than a passing notice. An account of its proceedings is published in the Morning Light for August 21st. We hope that our readers have carefully perused it, and that while doing so they have compared it with the account of the proceedings of the General Convention published in the N. J. Messenger for June 30th. Such comparisons are useful. We may learn much from contrasts. In this case there are striking contrasts.
The attendance upon the English Conference was large. The interest in all the transactions was evidently great and sustained. The time of the meeting was devoted to the business of the Church. Reports of the work done in the year just ended were read, and freely and fully discussed. New work for the year to come, and not a little, was presented and allotted to Committees composed of members whose tried ability and experience gave assurance that it would be faithfully done.
Evidently, our English brethren have a capacity for work, and are not likely to be wearied into inattention then matters of importance to the Church are to be decided. The discussions of this meeting, so far as reported, display a spirit of fairness, an absence of the appearance of domination; a recognition of what is due to others, and a disposition to accommodate in action while firmly maintaining principle, which we may well observe and emulate.
From the proceedings of the meeting we note that the question of entertaining ministers and delegates by the Society inviting the Conference is beginning to receive as much attention in England as it has received in this country. With the increase of our number there will be an increasing difficulty in making provision for the entertainment of attendants upon our general meetings. In all probability the solution of this question will be found in what would appear to be of common sense and of common justice, that the societies of the Church make provision to defray ail the expenses of their own ministers and delegates. The adoption of such a practice would relieve inviting societies from a heavy burden, and enlarge the freedom of the members in attendance upon the meetings.
The report of the Committee on the Hymn-Book seems to have brought the proposed new book into very decided view before the Conference, and to have evolved a very thorough discussion of its merits and demerits,a discussion, we may be permitted to add, as wholesome and refreshing from the liberty of its criticisms, as from the earnestness of its defense, of the results attained. We cannot doubt that the Church in England will have a greatly improved Hymn-Book. The ability, zeal, and hard work which have been given to the preparation of the new book fully warrant such a conclusion, even without examination of what has been done. What may be questioned, however, is whether a little less of accommodation to everybodys wishes, and a little firmer holding to the doctrine that the provision of things Divine among men is of the office of the clergy, would not have added vastly to the duality and character of the Book. The attachments of the members of the Church to particular Hymns ought to be tenderly dealt with; but they ought ever to be subordinated to spiritual use, as seen in the light of the Truth revealed by the LORD for His Church. Besides, as a matter of external convenience and usefulness, care should be had not to introduce too large a number of Hymns into books that are to be held in the hand Sunday after Sunday, especially if among them there are many for the presence of which there are not good and substantial reasons. Some of us on this side of the meters feel a great interest in this work of our English brethren. We are not satisfied with our own collections of Hymns, and are hoping to derive much aid from the labors of the Conference Committee.
The warm reception accorded to the Messenger of the General Convention, was an evidence of such hearty good-will toward this body, that we must confess to a feeling stronger than that of regret, at the apathy, or weariness, or whatever other term may be employed to excuse the want of courtesy manifested by the Convention in respect to the excellent address to the English Conference, submitted for adoption to the meeting at Portland. In sending a Messenger, without a Message, we have certainly shown our brethren in England, that we know how not to do it. This, to say the least, is hardly a creditable knowledge. To speak the truth, it was a discourtesy that we should not seek to palliate by excuses which only aggravate the wrong, and for which an apology is due.
A distinct message, setting forth some idea or view, some common object or use, which it is desirable to lay before our brethren, is a good and sufficient reason for sending a Messenger. In such a Message he will bear with him the substantial credentials of his office; the credentials of his position as a public official, representing the entire body that sends him, and reminding him ever, that a public office ought not to be made subservient to private ends and feelings.
The education of the Conference Students, involving the question of the relations between the Conference and the New Church College, was made the subject of a report from a special Committee appointed to consider the matter. The Morning Light has given us but a brief abstract of this report, yet enough to enable us to judge that the questions at issue were treated in a just and manly way, and so presented to the Conference as to lead to the adoption of measures that cannot fail to adjust all differences, and to advance greatly the interests of the students, as well as those of the College. The strenuous effort made by the Committee to keep these questions free from the embarrassment of personal considerations, was evidently seconded by the Conference itself, on the ground of a principle universally admitted, that the introduction of personalities into deliberative or other public bodies is always against decency and order. Conducted in a spirit so fair and just, and, therefore, so conciliatory, and having the support and good wishes of both parties to the questions at issue, we cannot doubt but that the future deliberations of those members of the Conference to whom the whole matter has been committed, will be fruitful of happy and beneficial results. We wish also to express our sincere hope, that as one of the chief results of these deliberations, the present year may witness the establishment in the New Church College, or elsewhere, of a Theological School, altogether worthy of the New Church in England; a School well equipped and fully prepared to give to the Conference Students such an education within the sphere of the Church itself, as shall fit them to do their work of Teachers in the Church.
We have no doubt that our brethren in England will reach this result sooner or later; we say the sooner the better. And, if the controversy concerning the Academy shell have helped to increase, even in a very small degree, the general interest in this subject, we shall the more gladly overlook some of the manifestations of a spirit, not altogether heavenly, which have marred the printed utterances of a few of our opponents.
Just here, we may be pardoned for introducing a geographical suggestion are present seat of the Academy is in Philadelphia, in the State of Pennsylvania. It is not usual, in this country, to speak of Philadelphia as a Yankee city, or, of ideas or views proceeding from this part of the land, as Yankee Notions. In point of fact, Boston is regarded by the citizens of this large and unenclosed country, as the chief city of that portion of the United States, in which Yankee notions are supposed to originate. We offer this bit of geographical information gratuitously; but add, that possibly Boston may not be intensely pleased at being accredited with those very peculiar Yankee Notions recently imported into England. (See M. L. for Aug. 21, p. 332.) Of course, we could wish that it were otherwise; but since it is not, we have felt a desire to tell our friend, who presented the report containing the words quoted, that he has had his little joke at the expense of the wrong parties, who will not at all like being credited with teaching the inspiration of Swedenborg, and the immediate revelation made through him by the LORD at the present day, etc. Had the said little joke been indulged in at our cost, we should have enjoyed our friends pleasure,--but as things are, it is--well,--it is a geographical mistake.
That the Academy and its degrees were not made a subject of open discussion in Conference, in accordance with a notice of a motion from Manchester, was well and wisely provided against by those who could be trusted to know what was becoming and proper to do, and to leave undone, in such a case. It is especially incumbent upon bodies of the New Church to observe toward each other the rules of comity, which are the rules of propriety and decorum flowing from charity, and constituting its ultimate basis in social life. We need not enlarge upon this point, especially since it has been so practically recognized by out brethren of the English Conference.
But let us not be misunderstood. We offer not the slightest objection to a free and full discussion of the principles on which the Academy is rounded; indeed, we invite such a discussion if it be carried on in a right spirit, and fur the sake of the Truth. These principles are the common gift of the LORD to all who will be of His New Church, and as they are His Truth, they will also ultimately prevail.
But our body is neither national nor local in its aims, purposes, and working;
it is ecclesiastical and universal; and although, in submission to the civil conditions of this country, it has its charter from the State of Pennsylvania, in which the majority of the corporators reside, this does not affect its general character and use, any more than the charter granted to the General Convention by the State of Illinois, affects the general character of that body. And, it is a little curious that some of our fiends abroad have never discovered this defect in the Constitution of the General Convention. Whether the European system is better than ours, is another question,--a question, indeed, which we may well leave to the decision of civilians. Probably, our charter would never have been commented on, had we not received and responded to an application from England, for the degree of Bachelor of Theology (not Bachelor of Divinity as supposed). In this matter we have exercised our own judgment, and shall continue to do so.
Our English brethren may have feelings on the subject, as Englishmen,--which we desire to respect; but if all of them have not these feelings, what are we to do about it? No doubt, there is a solution of the difficulty. Good sense and a right spirit will find it--they seem already to have found it--in the proposition to make provision for the granting of degrees, or their equivalents, by the Conference itself. We rejoice in this, as we do in the spirit manifested in the discussion of the whole question; in spite of our sympathy with the solitary opponent of the resolution in regard to foreign diplomas. Our sympathy has its ground in that love of freedom, which is an essential characteristic of the New Church, and which is always hurt when we put our own liberty of speaking and acting into a form designed to curtail the liberty of others to speak and act according to their own convictions of right.
There are two things that we all need to bear constantly in mind, when called upon to set in respect to our brethren, whether abroad or at home; the one, that there are no foreign lands in the LORDS New Church; and the other, that the true and heavenly love of freedom, is a love of our neighbors freedom more than of our own. Faithfulness to convictions of truth, without respect to the persons, opinions, notions, or majorities of men, is of indefinitely more value than the harmony and apparent unity resulting from conformity to the wishes and feelings of others. We have a law, given to us of the LORD, and by that law alone are all things to be judged and determined. And the judgment formed by that law, is not according to appearance, but is a just judgment. Before that law, and in the eyes of the LORD from whom it proceeds, we are all Brethren, just in the degree in which we receive Him in His Second Coming into the World. Let us see to it, that we have those true and right knowledges formed in us by His revelations, which will enable us to ascend up and meet Him at His Coming.
Swedenborg and the New Church.
SWEDENBORG AND THE NEW CHURCH, BY JAMES REED, PASTOR OF THE BOSTON SOCIETY OF THE NEW JERUSALEM.
IN the short preface to this work the author tells us that his aim in its preparation was to meet a growing desire on the part of intelligent persons in the community for a brief and clear statement of the principal teachings of Swedenborg. The aim is a good one, and in many respects it has been well accomplished. The book contains many clear statements and admirable illustrations of the teachings of Swedenborg. Had these been presented throughout as the teachings of Swedenborg, we should have been more hopeful of their real and permanent usefulness. As it is, the author, whilst admitting that these teachings are the doctrines of the New Church, by his method of presenting them, impresses the reader with the idea that they can be evolved out of Scripture by the exercise of human reason alone. He is right in holding that all really well-disposed persons can obtain the doctrine of genuine truth from the literal sense of the Word (see S. S. 55 and 56; T. C. R. 229, etc.), and be thereby prepared to see the doctrine of the spiritual sense, which is the doctrine of the New Church, as contained in the theological works of Swedenborg; but he is wrong in holding that in the same way, by further research, they can obtain a knowledge of the spiritual truths of the internal sense of the Word. To suppose that men may attain a knowledge of the spiritual truths of the internal sense of the Word in precisely the same may in which they gather genuine doctrines from the naked truths of its literal sense is to confound the teachings of Swedenborg, and not to present a clear statement of them.
If this method of presentation is a practical illustration of the authors understanding of the proposition, that the only genuine source of Divine truth to men is the written Word of God, we must say that his understanding on this point cannot have been formed by the teachings which he essays to explain.
These teachings are doctrines,--the doctrines of the New Church; the Holy City New Jerusalem now descending from God out of heaven (A. R. 819, etc.), and whilst it is true beyond all controversy that they are all contained in the written Word of God, it is as incontestably true that the LORD his now revealed them by a new instrumentality, by which He has drawn them out of the Written Word, and presented them in another form of writing, to the end that men might with their understandings enter into the mysteries of faith which have heretofore lain hidden in the true, internal sense of the Sacred Scriptures.
It is thus that He comes again, and now, to the understandings of men, giving to them knowledges, so that by knowledges they may ascend up to meet Him at His Coming, (T. C. R. 24.) Whilst, therefore, the Written Word of God is the only genuine source of Divine truth to men, it is not the only genuine source of a knowledge of that Divine truth. The LORD, who is the Word, came into the World once to fulfill His Word; He comes again to open and reveal His fulfilled Word, that is, to give knowledges concerning its true meaning, in which, as in a mirror, men may see God, who is the Word. (T. C. R. 11.) And, as Swedenborg was the human instrumentality by which He made His Second Advent, it is this that makes the case of Swedenborg an exceptional one, as the author of this book admits (see p. 17), for he goes on to say:
The peculiar work which he had to do was to teach from Him (the LORD) the doctrines of the New Church by means of the Word. (T. C. R. 779.) To the end that the LORD might be constantly present with men in the Word and by the Word, He revealed by Swedenborg its spiritual sense, in which sense Divine truth is in its light, and in this light He is continually present (T. C. R. 780); and the presence of the LORD in this Light is His Advent. (A. R. 820.)
Now, we nowhere find, as the author of the book before us affirms, that Swedenborg claims to be a truly enlightened expositor of Scripture, but that he says concerning himself and his peculiar work as follows:
As the LORD cannot manifest Himself in person, and yet foretold that He would come again and establish a New Church, which is the New Jerusalem, it follows that He would do this by a man who could not only receive the doctrines of this Church by His understanding, but also publish them by the press. [And this man] before whom He has manifested Himself in person, He filled with His Spirit, to teach from Him the doctrines of the New Church by the Word. (T. C. R. 770.)
In the same number of the True Christian Religion Swedenborg says:
I testify in truth, that from the first day of (my) call I have not received anything that pertains to the doctrines of the (New) Church from any angel, but from the LORD alone, while I was reading the Word.
In the presence of this teaching of Swedenborg (of which teaching the author proposes to give to his readers a clear statement), and immediately after writing down these incisive words (p. 15), how could he reach the conclusion: That Swedenborg was not inspired! Pope says somewhere: What a blessed thing it is that man is a reasoning animal; but if this be reasoning, may we be saved from the blessing. The prophets were inspired (ibid);--yes,--they were inspirited, for they wrote from dictation, or actual speech, by the medium of Spirits (A. C. 4652, 5121, 7055; H. H. 254),
--but Swedenborg, whom the LORD filled with His Spirit, whom the LORD Himself taught, and mile received nothing pertaining to the doctrines of the Church, from any angel or spirit, was not inspired! The Word dictated to certain men by the LORD through the medium of Spirits, and written by them in the very words of the dictation, is Divine,--but the spiritual sense of that same Word internally or spiritually dictated, or taught by the LORD Himself, who filed the understanding of Swedenborg with His Spirit, which is the Divine Truth, so that he might teach that spiritual sense from Him,--is not Divine! Such is the marvelous teaching of the book before us.
Whether we say the spiritual sense of the Word, or the Doctrines of the New Church, it is the same thing; for the doctrines of the New Church are the spiritual sense of the Word. And this, strange to say, our author admits, when he says that the system of doctrine which the New Church believes in is what the higher or spiritual sense of the Word discloses (p. 24), although in a previous portion of his first Lecture, he speaks of them as letting in a flood of light upon the Scriptures. (p. 9.) If the doctrines of the New Church are disclosed by the revelation of the Spiritual sense contained within the literal sense of the Word, and if these doctrines bring to human understandings that light in which it sees light (Ps. xxxvi. 9), the light, namely, that is in the Word, can it be said that they throw a flood of light upon the Scriptures? Is it not rather that in consequence of this revelation, a flood of light shines forth out of the Scriptures, in which the LORD now appears, and by which He renders the stones of the letter translucent, and makes them the precious stones of the foundation man of the New Jerusalem?
We must confess that the more closely we examine the statements of our author in this First Lecture, the more striking do their inconsistencies appear. On p. 14, he seems to accept the face that the lending object of Swedenborgs mission was to unfold the Scriptures, and to reveal the Divinity within them. If this was the leading object of his mission, it must have been the leading object of Him who sent him on the mission, and who but the LORD Himself can unfold the Scriptures, or the Word, which is Himself, and reveal their Divinity, which is His Divinity? How then can our author ask the question, Ought they (the teachings) to be accepted on the bare authority of Swedenborg, or any other man? (p. 8.)
We would ask: Why will those who deny the Divine authority of the works written by the LORD through Swedenborg, persist in speaking about the bare authority of Swedenborg, and in suggesting the idea of personal authority? (p. 9.)
Who has ever claimed any authority for Swedenborg? The writer of this work admits that Swedenborg had a mission, and a peculiar work to do. But who commissioned him? Did not the LORD, who manifested Himself to Him in person, and sent him on this office? What was his peculiar work? To teach from the LORD the Doctrines of the New Church by the Word, and thus to be the human instrumentality of the Second Coming of the LORD. Whose authority then, is in Swedenborgs mission, in his teaching, in the doctrines taught? Is it not the authority of the LORD alone, now appearing in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory? He alone has authority in the heavens and on the Earth, and no man has, or can have perfect freedom of thought (p. 9) who does not know and acknowledge this authority, who does not see rationally that the LORD alone is the truth, and that no doctrine is, or can be, true which does not come from Him.
It is out of the power of human reason to see a doctrine or principle to be true in itself, no matter whence it comes, or with what name it is associated. (p. 9.) And this also, with a strange inconsistency of statement, the writer of this work partially admits when he says: We shall adopt it (a doctrine or principle) for its own intrinsic worth, and say nothing about authority. It seems to us to be of God. (p. 9.) God alone is Truth, and from Him alone comes Truth. If a doctrine or principle only seems to us to be of God, then it can only seem to us to be true, and the faith an life formed by it are but a faith and life of seeming truth and good. We may thus, according to this writer, be convinced of the intrinsic worth of a doctrine, and adopt it, without being entirely convinced that it is of God, and that He is in it. Such doctrine does not come to us with His authority; and because the Truth in it does not speak to us with Divine authority, we say nothing about authority! And when we teach and preach this doctrine, we do not utter it with authority from Him, but we proclaim it with the uncertain sound of the fallible human rationality which has enabled us to see in it an intrinsic worth; and which causes it to seem to us to be of God. How does this comport with the teaching of Swedenborg, in the Arcana:
It is impossible for more than one fountain of life to exist, from which may proceed the life of all things, or for any life to be communicated which is truly such, except it be attained by faith in Him who is life itself; nor indeed can a living faith exist, except from Him, consequently unless he be in it.--A. C. 200; cf. A. C. 186.
Is it a living faith, if it only seems to us to be of God? Again in the Arcana:
The true order is, that man be wise with a wisdom derived from the LORD, that is, from His Word, in which case all things succeed in their right course, when also he becomes enlightened as to his rational faculty and by science.A. C. 129.
How can we read and understand the Word, except from doctrine revealed by the LORD Himself? A truth may seem to be such to a man, because it satisfies his reason; but it is only a truth without Him, and not a truth within him and to him, until he sees it to be of God, and until he sees God, the Divine Truth, in it. In the former case it is a truth unconnected with its source, and such truths with man are but temporary and not eternal,--they are but perishable and not living.
For these reasons, and for many others, which our limited space does not permit us to enumerate, do we most distinctly and unequivocally repudiate the conclusion of the writer before us, that on these grounds, and on no others, the doctrines of the New Church, as contained in the theological works of Swedenborg, are valued by those who receive them. And we must be allowed to remark, that a writer so thoroughly conversant with the history of the New Church, as is the author of this book, seems to have laid aside, or covered up his knowledge of facts, when he wrote this statement. He must have known, that there are those who receive the doctrines of the New Church, and who do value them on other grounds than those set forth, as the ground of his valuation of them. Perhaps he did not think of this fact: we are willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. But he ought to be more careful in regard to his statements. We had marked for comment other matters in this book, and may possibly take them up at some future time. What we have said will be sufficient to show to our readers that we do not accept this work as an entirely true interpretation of Swedenborg and the New Church.
An Editorial in the Repository.
THE AMERICAN CONVENTION AND ITS THEOLOGICAL SCHOOL, THE URBANA UNIVERSITY, AND THE ACADEMY.
THIS is the title of an editorial in the August number of the Intellectual Repository, published in London. The editorial is worthy of being added as a chapter to the Curiosities of Literature. At this distance from London, it is difficult to interpret the phenomenon. The appearance is that the Editor is a victim of misplaced confidence; that on the eve of his annual departure to his country-seat, or to some watering place, he had transferred the editorial pen and toga to an appointee; who, out of sheer fun and mischief, had run not with his newly-acquired advantage.
This Journal has reached its CCCXX. issue; and has clearly earned the title of venerable. The contributors to its pages during the years of its publication have been acknowledged as shining lights in the Church.
The qualifications demanded of the Editor of such a Journal are of a high order; and these have willingly been accorded to the present incumbent. Obviously, some of these are: integrity, manliness, charitableness, scholarship, intelligence, doctrinal lore, truthfulness, common sense, astuteness, and a catholic spirit.
Now if it be made to appear that this editorial was written in violation of all or most of these qualifications, then will it not be evident that the well-known Editor of the Repository could never have written it?
Let us then examine this editorial somewhat in detail.
1. With just a bit of a flourish, the writer proposes to ventilate three or four institutions of the New Church,--namely: the American Convention, its Theological School, and the Urbana University; then, last, THE ACADEMY OF THE NEW CHURCH. The plain animus of the article is hostility to the Academy. Prompted by this hostility, the writer consistently spends all his force upon this institution; disposing of the three others very briefly indeed. This is clearly neither manly, astute, nor scholarly; nor could the real Editor ever have been guilty of it.
2. This writer says:
We do not see in the proceedings of the Convention any report of or from the Academy, nor any notice taken of it, although its Chancellor, the Rev. W. H. Benade, was present as well as one or more of its other members.
It is difficult to tell whether there be three or four untruths in this quotation. The writer leaves it to be inferred that he had read the proceedings. But had he read them? He says the Rev. W. H. Benade was present at the Convention. If he had read the proceedings he would have known better. He also says that one or more of its other members were there. If he means one, then there are only three untruths, another violation of truthfulness and of proper intelligence.
3. This appointee leaves it to be inferred that the failure of the Academy to report to the Convention was exceptional. But the real Editor knew that it has never thus reported. And if it had been he who was writing the article, and who had supposed the reason to be that the Academy is not recognized by the Convention, his manliness would have prompted him also to suppose that neither has the Academy, as a body, recognized the Convention!
4. On the strength of this groundless supposition he presumes a reason why the Convention, whose Theological School, which has been in operation fifteen years, and was never in a more prosperous condition than now (having rolled up the number of its students to four, and this after having gotten rid of a fond of $30,000), does not send its students to the Academy. This presumed reason is that the Academy is not in favor with it. This statement shows pre-eminently the want of common sense in the writer, and violates nearly all the other proper qualifications of an Editor. Indeed, no one can suppose that the Editor could for a moment believe that his friends of the Convention would seriously think of sending its students to any Theological School but their own.
5. Again the writer of this editorial shows that he cannot be the veritable Editor of the Repository, for when he states the conditions upon which alone the Academy will confer its degrees, he says that the candidate must subscribe to the distinguishing article of the Academys creed, and bind himself to obey the Academys behests.
Now, it is well known that one who is understood to represent the Academy had publicly affirmed within the Editors circle that which renders such In assertion, if coming from the Editor, a falsehood, of which he could in no wise be guilty.
6. In the next sentence the appointee is very damaging to the real Editor, who is made to complain of us because we are in a minority.
The gravity of this charge can be estimated only by considering that the same has been preferred against the whole New Church by the Dragonists and Babylonians; also against the Christians by Mohammedans and Pagans, and most emphatically against the LORD and His twelve disciples. Of course the Editor is too astute to be caught in such a ludicrous pose.
7. Then he makes the Editor speak as if he did not really and implicitly believe that Swedenborg was Divinely inspired and that he wrote from dictation, that his writings are consequently Divine, and, therefore, of equal authority with the Word itself. If this were really true of the Editor, then his lack of doctrinal lore would unfit him for the office of which he is the incumbent.
8. Again, this writer says, that
The Academy has been chartered as a University in a country where charters are easily obtained; and where they are not national but State institutions. Such an institution is only entitled to our confidence when it represents the Church, or when its teachings are in accordance with its views.
At which of the points here exhibited are we to be most amazed? The superiority to truthfulness, contempt of logic, absence of rhetoric, or obliviousness of grammar? To mention some particulars:
That the Academy was chartered as a University is news to its members, for which they must be grateful. Then also, that the worthiness of an institution is to be measured by the difficulty encountered in obtaining its charter. Again, the Editor, if indeed he has the intelligence requisite in his office, must know that all institutions in this country derive their charters from the State governments, and none from the national government; and he must know that diplomas from State-chartered institutions are of national recognition and validity. The writer says, Such an institution is only entitled to our confidence when it represents the Church, or when its teachings are in accordance with its views. What the writer here means by the Church he fails to say, and, therefore, we pass it on as a conundrum. But who can believe that the Editor of The Intellectual Repository and New Jerusalem Magazine could have written such a mass of inanity as is contained in this paragraph?
9. This appointee, in a most singular sort of a protest, says that
For the members of the Academy personally, so far as we know them, we have the highest regard and esteem; and of the sincerity of their convictions and the purity of their motives we have not the slightest suspicion.
Our opinion of this declaration we gladly withhold, and give the opinion of one who is much nearer the editorial sanctum than we, premising that he probably entertains the same view of the authorship of the editorial in question as ourselves; for he could hardly, under his own name, as he has done, hold such language concerning the real Editor of the Repository, for he breaks forth, as though filled with indignation, saying:
Purity of motive! What baser motive could he imputed to any educational body than that of bartering its degrees from love of dominion?
Sincerity of conviction! What respect is shown for this when statements such as those above quoted are made in spite of our solemn assertions?
10. The writer, as he proceeds, manifests a warm zeal for defending the interests of the whole Church, and even of the cause itself, of which we are to some extent the exponents and the guardians, and which he considers to be so alarmingly antagonized by the Academy, notwithstanding it is in so insignificant a minority.
How does he manifest His skill in exposing the dangerous falsity of Academical views and principles? Not by bringing forth His armaments from the arsenal of all truths--both defensive and protective,as obviously the Editor would have done, but by quoting the opinions of three men.
Here the ungrateful appointee is especially damaging to the well known character of his unsuspecting chief. He quotes with unction and manifest satisfaction the views of Rev. James Reed as a full refutation of the Academys heresy.
And why? Evidently because, Mr. Reed is the minister of the Boston Society, the largest, and certainly one of the most intelligent, either in America or in England. Truly A Daniel has come to judgment!
To make assurance doubly sure, he also quotes the opinion of the Rev. Thomas Worcester, D.D. And why? Because, forsooth, he was for about fifty years the minister of that same largest Society, and certainly one of the most intelligent in America or in England. O wicked appointee! to make thy confiding chief so stultify himself!
We cannot but admire the writers boldness for putting such sentiments into the mouth of another. But could even he, subaltern though he be, fail to know that the opinions of any number of men, of whatever standing and erudition, upon a matter of vital doctrine has not a feathers weight as against the clear teachings of The Writings?
In passing, we may say of the Rev. Thomas Worcester, it is well known that he put forth his best directed efforts to prove the absurdity of the idea that everything which Swedenborg wrote was dictated by the LORD, and that he signally failed. The compliment which he pays the Rev. W. Bruce for having succeeded, where he had failed, is rather equivocal; for he says in almost the same breath: It would have been easy at any time to show the absurdity.
Of course it would have been superfluous to add anything to the above arguments. But to encourage those who at this day maintain the finite, and therefore fallible character of Swedenborgs Writings, he tells them that they only follow eminent witnesses. He then quotes Dr. Immanuel Tafel, where in his celebrated reply to Dr. Moehler, he says: Dr. Moehler has entirely misrepresented Swedenborgs standpoint, or His true position, in respect to the source of knowledge in the Church; inasmuch as he has falsely alleged that Swedenborg received immediate revelation from the LORD.
But what has all this to do with the facts of the case, as we have them presented in the Heavenly Doctrines? For on the supposition that the Rev. Thomas Worcester, D.D., Dr. Immanuel Tafel,* and others, reject the doctrine that the LORD, in His Second Advent, has given through Swedenborg an immediate revelation, then what is the result?
Evidently this, and nothing more: The doctrine is not abolished, when these eminent men do not receive it, but, simply, they are found in conflict with it. The following from Heaven and Hell, No. 1, will sufficiently show this: Such an immediate revelation exists at this day because this is what is understood by the Coming of the LORD. [Quod hodie immediata talis Revelatio existat, est quia illa est quae per Adventum Domini intelligitur.]
* But still it is due to this venerable champion of the Church to say that he published a great part of the Writings under the general title: Goettliche Offenbarungen (Divine Revelations). Then also, that in all his voluminous writings we have never found any allusion to errors or mistakes in Swedenborg, and be would surely have been the last man to congratulate a minister of the New Church on his supposed discoveries and demonstration of such errors.
This Editorial in the Repository closes thus: It is a curious circumstance that what Swedenborg was formerly accused of by one of his adversaries should now be claimed for him by some of his friends; and that the same vindication should be an answer to both. (The last clause contains a piece of refreshing complacency.)
The real Editor would have known that, on the contrary, the accusation of so adversary of the Writings is presumptive evidence of their truthfulness. The first accusation of an adversary to the Writings would be that they teach that there is only one Person in the Trinity; his second, that the life of charity is essential to salvation; his third, that there is no vicarious atonement; his fourth, that Swedenborg claimed that the LORD had made an immediate Divine revelation through him; his conclusion, therefore, would be that they are all false.
In all the above reasoning, this writer whoever he may be and all those who may be blinded by him, appear to be in the predicament of the modern scientists. They could prove the origin of all things, themselves included, were it not for the contumacious absence of the missing link.
We have now produced ten strong circumstantial witnesses,--which in law would be adjudged more conclusive then a single eye witness,--that the Editor of the Intellectual Repository could not have written the editorial now under notice.
Lay Lecturing and Re-Baptism.
A LETTER TO THE REV. GEORGE FIELD ON THE SUBJECT OF LAY LECTURING AND RE-BAPTISM BY JOHN ELLIS, M. D. PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR. Pp. 24.
THIS waif has strayed into our domain: and as it is clad in garments that might give against it were its intrinsic quality known, we feel constrained to examine the warp and woof of its garments, and if possible to show what it is in itself.
This brochure is divided into two parts; eight pages of which are devoted to the subject of Lay Lecturing, and sixteen to Re-Baptism.
The articles although in themselves distinct, were written as strictures upon some parts of a volume of 368 pages, by Rev. Geo. Field, entitled:
Memoirs, Incidents and Reminiscences of the early history of the New Church in Michigan, Indiana, Illinois and adjacent States; and Canada.
In these two articles, and in another tract by the same author on the subject of mine drinking, he assumes to be a New Churchman; and he avails himself of the freedom which is supposed to be the rightful boon of all New Churchmen, to oppose or ignore the teachings of the Writings whenever they appear to stand in the way of his arguments.
He seems to have fallen into the same error with many other would-be expounders of New Church doctrines, of feeling himself competent to evolve from his own consciousness, more or less enlightened by cognitions,--legitimate Doctrines, worthy of all acceptation.
It is profoundly curious that this author disposes of this whole subject of the propriety, use, or safety of lay lecturing--and lay preaching as well--without calling upon a single sentence from the Writings to support his positions.
Let us examine some of his positions:
If the New Church as a separate organization is to make any very rapid progress in the immediate future, ... it must depend upon utilizing its intelligent laymen as missionaries and ministers. (p. 3.)
The writer obviously implies that the New Church is to make very rapid progress in the immediate future. But it was revealed to Swedenborg that exactly the opposite is true. What then is to be said of the quality of the means used to attain an impossible end?
Again, the writer of this letter says:
If the most competent laymen were encouraged to lecture and preach ... we would soon have developed a host of efficient ministers, similar to those who thus entered the field in the early days of Michigan. (pp. 3, 4.)
With the last and qualifying phrase, perhaps the statement is not open to criticisms.
Again, he says:
But it is disorderly for laymen to lecture and preach, has been the cry of late years. (p. 4.)
Now the author either knows that this is the LORDS teaching to those who will be of His New Church, or he does not. If he does not, what is to be said of his fitness to teach even children and servants? If he does know it, how shall we characterize his act of leaving it to be inferred that it is a fanatical cry of a class of men, to say that it is disorderly for laymen to lecture and preach?
In De Charitate we read:
The externals of the body which are matters of worship are ... with priests to preach, and also to teach privately. And with any one, to instruct children and servants in such things.--Doct. Charity, 101.
Elsewhere the Writings say:
Good may be insinuated into another by every one in the country; but not truth, except by those who are teaching ministers; if others insinuate truth, it gives birth to heresies, and the Church is disturbed and rent asunder.A. C. 6822.
The author attempts to fortify his argument in favor of lay preaching by allusions to practices connected with his own profession. He says that many [medical] laymen have a very good knowledge of the laws of health, in fact understand them as thoroughly as some physicians ... [which we cannot doubt]. Then he proceeds:
Now I will ask you, ... would it he orderly, when a regular physician is not at hand,... for [the layman] to stand aside from a wounded man and see his health seriously imperiled, and perhaps his life lost, when he understands where to place the end of his thumb or finger to stop the flow of blood from an artery?...(p. 6.)
We fail to see the analogy between such an act and one peculiar to the office of the priesthood. For in stanching the flow of blood from a recent wound, a man is not acting as a physician at all. Indeed, an uneducated boor could many times act as efficiently as the intelligent layman: and of course it would not be disorderly for the latter to emulate the former.
It is not our purpose to discuss the subjects stated on the title page of the brochure. Mr. Field is fully competent to deal with such critics. We simply wish to express our opinion of the questionable taste,--if not the pitiable blunder exhibited in such performances. Even if Mr. Field is wrong in his views upon those subjects, we doubt whether the author of this letter has the first requisite for setting him right. Indeed, were we seeking arguments against lay preaching and teaching, we should not need to look further than this very effort, which we are now noticing.
Mr. Field and the author of the letter agree that there has been a great decline of the Church in the West,--even to the winding up of the Michigan Association; but they do not agree as to the cause of the decline. Upon a cursory reading of the Early History it appears to us evident that the state of the Church there, in the aggregate, exhibited the quality of the Church in the individuals. (See Proceedings of Michigan and Northern Indiana Association, 1853; at which time the case of Rev. H. Weller was disposed of.)
And we hazard the opinion:--That had the Heavenly Doctrines been disseminated in that part of the country through other and more orderly means than by Lay Preaching and Lay Lecturing, the Church would not have come to such grief
It is difficult properly to characterize the movement in favor of lay preaching. It appears to be devoid of the element of genuine charity, as charity is defined in the Heavenly Doctrines:
It is Christian charity, with every one, to do faithfully what belongs to his calling.... No other works are properly the works of charity; but they are its signs, or its benefactions, or what is due to others.--Doct. of Life, 114.
Our observation inclines us to the opinion that the advocates of Lay Preaching are found among clergymen who, from some mental idiosyncrasy or other cause, fail to have confidence in their own ability in their vocation; and such laymen as are supposed to be subjects of that mild distemper called cacoethes docendi et loquendi!
An exception to these two classes are a few who are zealous for the prosperity of the LORDS cause, and impatient at the slowness of its movement. They cannot attribute this slowness,so much to be deplored,--to the LORDS remissness; and therefore they think that it must be because re do not properly second His efforts. Now, as it is presumable that the regular ministers are doing their best, how can the LORDS cause be made to more with commendable celerity except by encouraging laymen who are well read in the doctrines to serve as missionaries in any unoccupied field, such to occupy pulpits which are unavoidably temporarily vacant? This, then, is the remedy offered by the writer of this letter. Put it may not be relief to those anxious ones to know that the LORD needs none of their help? This is expressly stated in the Writings:
All mankind are evil, and of himself everyone would rush into hell; wherefore it is a mercy that he is delivered thence; nor is it anything but mercy, inasmuch as He has NEED OF NO MAN.--A. C. 687.
Not only so, but He does not need the help even of the angels.
The LORD acts all and singular things, from Himself immediately, and mediately through the heavens. He acts mediately through heaven,not because he needs their aid, but that the angels there may have functions and offices, and hence life and happiness according to offices and uses.A. C. 8719.
State of the Christian World.
THE NEW JERUSALEM MAGAZINE takes issue with us in respect to the State of the Christian World. Our MONOGRAPH on this subject published in WORDS FOR THE NEW CHURCH, NO. II., was reviewed by the Magazine for May, 1878, and the soundness of our views was called in question. We replied to the Magazines article in our Notes in WORDS FOR THE NEW CHURCH, NO. IV., and to this reply the Magazine published a rejoinder extending through two numbers, namely, December, 1870, and January, 1850.
It seems necessary, even at the expense of some repetition, to state the doctrine which we have maintained, and as per contra, the doctrine of the Magazine. As we differ, we cannot both be right, and one or the other must, be wrong. In our earnest desire that the truth in respect to the State of the Christian World may be known and understood in the New Church, again enter into a consideration of the subject. In our first MONOGRAPH, page 78, we said:
The interior states of men can be known only from Divine Revelation. Opinions formed from observation alone are of no value: and this for the reason that mans true spiritual state during his abode in the world is often, if not generally, concealed from open view, and known only to the LORD, and through the Revelations which He is pleased to give. Our absolute dependence upon Divine Revelation for all true knowledge of mans spiritual state, and consequently of the state of the Church, is portrayed in the Writings as follows:
The quality of the LORDS Church in the countries of the earth cannot be seen by any man so long as he lives in the world; still less, how the Church, in the process of time, has turned away from good to evil. The reason is, that man, while living in the world, is in externals, and sees only those things which lie upon before his internal man: but the quality of the Church as to the spiritual things which are its internals does not appear in the world; yet it does appear in heaven as in clear day; for the angels are in spiritual thought, and also in spiritual sight, and hence they see none other than spiritual things.L. J. 41.
What we set forth from the Writings of Swedenborg as to the state of Christendom we may briefly recapitulate as follows:
The Writings show that the First Christian Church came to an end and was consummated more than a century ago: this is admitted by all New Churchmen. What then is involved in the consummation and end of the Church? What is the prevailing state of Christian nations? What, in general, will their state continue to be? and What are the exceptions to the general state?
Whence will the New Church in Christian lands derive its numerical increase?
Concerning the Consummation of the Age, or End of the Church, we read:
The State of the Church in general is this: In process of time it departs from the true faith, till it ends, at length, in no faith. When there is no faith, it is said to be vastated. This was the case with the Most Ancient Church, among those who were culled Cainites: so likewise it was with the Ancient Church, which was after the flood: so likewise it was with the Jewish Church, which was so vastated at the time of the Coming of the LORD that they knew nothing of the LORD, that He was about to come to save them; much less did they know anything of faith in Him: so likewise it was with the Primitive Church, which was after the Coming of the LORD, which, at this day, is so vastated that there is not any faith in it. Nevertheless, there always remains some nucleus of the Church, which those who are vastated as to faith do not acknowledge; even as a residuum remained from the Most Ancient Church until the flood, and was continued after the flood, which residuum was called Noah.--A. C. 401.
In many places in the Word the Consummation of the Age is spoken of, and by it, in the general sense, is meant the End of the Church, when there is no longer either charity or faith; because the Church then turns itself altogether away from the LORD, and is no longer in any good, but in evil.A. C. 10,622
We quote again from the Arcana Coelestia:
It does not appear to those in the Church that the Church is such: Namely, that they contemn all things which are of good and truth, and that they are averse to them, and hear enmities against them, and especially against the LORD Himself: for they frequent temples, they hear preachings, they are in something of holiness while there; they go to the Sacred Supper, and occasionally converse becomingly among themselves about these things. The bad do this as well as the good. They also live among themselves in civil charity and friendship; hence it is that in the sight of men no contempt is visible, much less aversion, and least of all, enmity against the goods and truths of faith, nor thus against the LORD. But these things are only external forms by which one seduces another; whereas the internal forms of the men of the Church are altogether unlike their external forms, and even altogether contrary to them. The internal forms are here described, and such they are.
If, while they lived in the world, external restraints had been removed, that is, had the not then feared for life and feared the laws, and especially had they not feared for reputation with a view to the honors which they sought and affected, and to the wealth which they coveted and desired, they would have rushed one upon another, from intestine hatred according to efforts and thoughts, and without any conscience, would have seized the goods of others, and, also, without conscience, would have murdered, most especially the innocent. Such are Christians at this day as to their interiors, except a few whom they do not know: whence it may be evident what is the quality of the Church.--A. C. 3489.
Religion with man consists in life according to the Divine precepts which are summarily contained in the Decalogue. With him who does not live according to these precepts there cannot be any religion, because he does not fear God, still less does he love Him; nor does he fear man, still less does he love him. Can he who steals, commits adultery, kills, hears false witness, fear either God or man?
Most nations know these precepts, and also make them part of their religion, and live according to them because God so wills and commands. By this they have communication with heaven and conjunction with God, wherefore also they are saved.
But most in the Christian World at this day, do not make them part of their religion, but of their civil and moral life. They do not indeed, in the external form, so as to appear, act fraudulently, gain unlawfully, commit adulteries, manifestly persecute others from deadly hatred and revenge, nor bear false witness. But they do not refrain from these things because they are sins, and against God; but because they are afraid for their life, for their fame, for their function for their business, for their possession, for their honor and gain, and for their pleasure. Wherefore if these bonds did not restrain them, they would do these things. Such therefore inasmuch as they have formed for themselves no communication with heaven, or conjunction with the LORD, but only with the world and with themselves, cannot be saved.A. E. 948.
There were spirits present from the Christian World, and they were remitted into that state in which they were in the world. In this state they were not only affected with sadness at the thought of spiritual good and truth, but were also seized with such loathing arising from aversion, that they said they had a feeling in themselves, like that which in the world excites vomiting. But it was given me to tell them, that it comes from this, that their affections were only in terrestrial, corporeal and worldly things. For when man is in these alone he must needs nauseate the things which are of heaven. They also had frequented temples where the Word was preached, not from any desire of knowing the things which are in heaven, but from another cupidity imbibed from the time of infancy. Hence was shown me the quality of the Christian world at this day.--A. C. 5006.
The idea of God as a Man is engrafted from heaven in every nation on the globe; but what I lament, it is destroyed in Christendom.--A. E. 1097; Athanasian Creed 6.
The idea of the Divine Human of the LORD is altogether destroyed in the Christian Churches; especially with the learned there; only something of it remaining with the simple. So that when they think of the LORD, they do not think of Him as Divine, but as a man like themselves. With this idea of Divinity no one can enter heaven, but is repelled as he first touches the threshold of the way loading thither.A. E. 808.
The Spiritual Diary has a remarkable article concerning the LORD, that He is almost rejected in the Christian World, where it is written:
I heard spirits making tumults, in which were those who in the world had frequented Temples, and had heard preachings every Sabbath, so that I could scarcely believe that such things could be. I inquired what the tumult was, and I perceived that with fury they were inquiring where the LORD was, and wherever it was thought He was thither they rushed. And any spirit whom they believed to be the LORD they dragged out thence, endeavoring to handle him miserably, and wishing with all their might to murder him. This they did with fury, and for a long time. Afterward they inquired where any one was who acknowledged the LORD, and whoever said that he did so, him they wished to murder. So they went on from one place to another. Thus it was proved that the Christians at this day are worse than the Jews were.--S. D. 5978.
From the above it appears that there is always in the vastated Church a scattered remnant of the good. Where these are, the LORD alone knows. Of these we do not speak. Neither do we speak of those who have embraced the Heavenly Doctrines of the New Jerusalem; nor of those who are endeavoring to come into these Doctrines, and into a life according to them. But beyond these, there are the great bodies of the old Church, and of these we speak.
To understand the state of the people of the Christian world we must know the laws of hereditary descent, for then we shall see that the growth of evil is inevitable, so long as their posterity continues, unless arrested and broken up by regeneration. What then do the Doctrines teach concerning the Laws of Hereditary Descent?
In the Arcana it is written:
When once the good and truth of the Church are extinguished, falses and evils are super-added; for falses and evils have a continual growth in the Church once perverted and extinct.A. C. 4503.
Parents accumulate evils, and from frequent use, and at length, from habit, implant them in their nature, and so transcribe them hereditarily into their offspring. For that which parents from actual life imbibe by frequent use, becomes inrooted in their nature, and is transferred hereditarily into their offspring, which, unless they are reformed and regenerated is continued into successive generations, and then always increases. Hence the will becomes more prone to evils and falsities. But when the Church is consummated and perishes then the LORD always raises up a new Church somewhere, but, rarely, if ever, from the men of the former Church, but from the Gentiles who were in ignorance.--A. C. 2910.
In the True Christian Religion, when treating of the state of the Jews in respect to hereditary descent, it is written:
The inclination and proclivity to evils that have been mentioned, transmitted from parents to their children and posterity, are broken only by the new birth from the LORD, which is called regeneration.
Without this, that inclination not only remains uninterrupted, but also increases from parents that succeed each other, and becomes more prone to evils, and at length to evils of every kind. It is from this that the Jews are still images of their father Judah, who begat three branches of them, having taken a Canaanitish woman to wife, and committing adultery with Tamar his daughter-in-law. Wherefore this hereditary disposition, in process of time, has increased in them even so that they are not able to embrace the Christian religion from faith at heart. It is said that they are not able to do so, because the interior will of their mind is adverse thereto, and this will causes the inability.--T. C. R. 521.
We now turn to the teachings of the Writings concerning the Future of the Consummated Church.
In the Arcana we have the following:
The interior contents of the Word are now opened, because the Church at this day is vastated to such a degree, that is, is so void of faith and love, that although men know and understand, still they do not acknowledge, and still less believe, except the few, who are in the life of good, and are called the elect, who now may be instructed, and among whom a New Church is about to be established; but where these are the LORD alone knows; there will be few within the Church; the New Churches established in former times were established among Gentiles.--A. C. 3898.
After this a new heaven and a new earth were created, that is, a New Church, which is to be called the primitive (Christian) Church, established by the LORD, and afterward successively concerned, which at first was principled in charity and faith; the destruction of this Church is foretold by the LORD in the Evangelists, and by John in the Apocalypse, which destruction is called the last judgment; not that heaven and earth were then to perish, but that a New Church will be raised up in some region of the earth, while the present Church abides in its external worship, as the Jews do in theirs, in whose worship it is well known there is nothing of charity and faith, that is, nothing of a Church.--A. C. 1860.
The Church when vastated, that is, when it is no longer in any good of faith, perishes principally as to the states of its interiors, thus as to states in the other life; heaven then removes itself from them, and consequently the LORD, and it transfers itself to others, who are adopted in their place; for without a Church somewhere in the earth, there is no communication of heaven with man, for the Church is like the heart and lungs of the grand man in the earth.--A. C. 4423.
In our first MONOGRAPH we established these five principles:
I. The doctrines of a New Church are never revealed until the men of the former Church reach a state in which they will not acknowledge them.
II. When a former Church is consummated, the Church is then transferred to the Gentiles.
III. Only a few of the former Church then remain in the life of good.
IV. The posterity of a vastated Church, by accumulation of hereditary evil, becomes more confirmed in evil than their ancestry.
V. The men of a vastated Church acknowledge no truth and good by which they may be regenerated, and by which the increasing force of ancestral evil may be broken.
We also demonstrated from the Writings
That the Interiors of Christians are, as it were, inundated in a black cloud of direful falsities from evil, separating them from heaven. A. C. 4423.
That Christians abominate the genuine goods and truths of the Church and of the Word, A. C. 5702.
That in the Church once perverted, there is a continued growth of evils and falsities. A. C. 4503.
That the evils of the consummated Church are inherited and confirmed by posterity. A. C. 2910.
That the disposition to acknowledge GOD as Man and the LORD as GOD, is destroyed among Christians, except among the few who are in simple good. A. E. 1097, 808, De Domino 47, S. D. 4772.
Further, we showed that the disposition to acknowledge the LORD cannot be re-engrafted in the posterity of the Christian World, either by influx from heaven, for that is instantly perverted:
Nor by religious instruction from the Word; for the LORD not being interiorly acknowledged this instruction is internally and externally falsified and destroyed:
Nor by children being taught the Decalogue; for this they repudiate on becoming adult: Doc. Life 64.
Nor by remains implanted in childhood; for these, in manhood, are first enfeebled, then vitiated, and at length consumed.
We further demonstrated that although the New Church will slowly and surely increase in Christian lands, still it is even nom mainly transferred to Gentiles, into Africa, mostly, and somewhat into Asia.
As we have said the Magazine took issue with us in respect to this view of Christendom, and our MONOGRAPH was reviewed at some length in the number for May, 1878. This review maintained that in the Christian World there will be a gradually increasing ratio of the good, from age to age, among whom the New Church will be established; and that in this respect the consummated Christian Church differs from all former consummated Churches.
The review admits that the Writings do indeed declare the state of the men of the Christian World at the time of the judgment in the year 1757, but that they give no definite information on the future state of the Christian World. The review declares that Swedenborg in the phrase: rarely if ever, A. C. 409, expressed doubt as to whether the New Church would be transferred to Gentiles as other Churches have been.
Further that the Writings in A. E. 764, and A. R. 547, afford reason to believe that there will be an increase in the ratio of the good in the Christian World, and that this may be inferred from other teaching. The review also suggests the occurrence of a certain gentilization among men of the consummated Church, by which they are rendered fit to receive the New, supporting these views by the changing phases of Society.
In our reply, we demonstrated the fallacy of each of these positions. We showed that the Writings do teach the present and future state of the Christian World, and that there cannot possibly be an increase of the ratio of the good. We showed that the teaching of the Writings is most positive in that very phrase Rarely if ever, which the Magazine regards as expressive of doubt. We showed that the passages in A. E. and A. R., concerning the Church in the wilderness, treat exclusively of the increase, slow at first, of the membership of the New Church, by means of an extension of the knowledge of its doctrines, and that those passages do not even allude to an increasing ratio of good men in the consummated Church. And we demonstrated from the Writings that the New Church will be transferred to Gentiles as other Churches have been, being built up with only a few from the Christian World.
To this our reply in WORDS FOR THE NEW CHURCH, NO, IV., the Magazine has given an extended rejoinder in the numbers for last December and January.
How now shall we characterize in general the nature and substance of this critique?
It substantially denies or questions all the doctrines and deductions put forth by us from the Writings, except that of the state of the Christian World at the time of the Last Judgment; and yields none of its former opinions.
In particular, it reasserts its belief in an increasing ratio of good men in the consummated Church.
It adheres tenaciously to the idea of doubt ascribed to the phrase Rarely if ever; and this even so far as to charge our treatment of it with violence to Swedenborgs language.
It sets forth more fully the reviewers idea concerning Gentiles, and maintains that there will arise in Christendom, by vastation of the posterity of the consummated Church, an increasing number of such good Gentiles as will be able and willing to receive in heart and life the heavenly doctrines of the New Jerusalem,--Gentiles to whom the New Church can be transferred.
The entire drift of this and the preceding paper of the Magazine, in our judgment, is in conflict with the true doctrine of the Church, and with the full acknowledgment of the Divine authority of the Writings; and destructive of the true idea of the complete consummation of all the internals and all the externals of the former Church, and therefore adverse to the chief ground for the separate organization of the New Church.
We observe that in this second review the Magazine adopts a different heading,The Establishment of a New Church, but for the change assigns no reason. Why is this?
Evidently, the state of the Christian World is the question at issue, and not the establishment of a New Church. The subject has respect strictly to the spiritual quality of the posterity of the consummated Church, whose ancestors, with the exception of the few, have, in heart, utterly rejected the LORD; and have become entirely invaded by the hells.
When we said the chief argument of the review is based on the uncertainty of the phrase Rarely if ever, we did not mean that the Magazine regarded this as its chief argument, but that we deemed it the argument of greatest force with the general reader--that misconception--which is most likely to entangle the mind.
By some inadvertence, our paraphrase of the Magazines remark (p. 404) was marked as a quotation. We regret the lapsus calami, but still we think it could hardly lead to any misapprehension of the position of the review.
The Magazine, on page 73, May, 1878, says: The state of the Christian world at the time of the Judgment was revealed. But that was exceptional, and for exceptional reasons. There do not appear to be the same reasons for a continuance of such knowledge, and the fact that it is not given confirms this view.
But is it a fact that such knowledge is not given? Have we not shown from the Word and the Writings that such knowledge is given? And from this fact must we not conclude that it was needed?
Is not this knowledge equally important to the Church with the knowledge of its state at the time of the Last Judgment, of which, indeed, it is but a continuation and extension? Can we deny the revelation of this knowledge without rejecting those statements and principles of the Word and Writings directly involved, and hence misapprehending and misapplying every related topic? But concerning this knowledge and its necessity the following for the present must suffice:
Suppose the Last Judgment still to be going on, and suppose the reasons for such a protraction of this Judgment to be identical with those which rendered it necessary that the LORD should come to Judgment, would it not follow that the exceptional condition upon which the review lays such stress is the condition of the world at this time?
And if it can be shown that this exceptional condition still exists, then must it not be admitted that the same reasons also exist, for a continuance of a knowledge concerning the state of the world and that this knowledge is given in what we are taught of the state of the world at the time of the Last Judgment?
In the Apocalypse Explained we read:
And he said unto me, Thou must prophesy again. That this signifies Divine command that the Word is still to be taught appears from the signification of to say, when by an angel, by whom in this Chapter the LORD is represented as to the Word, that it is a command, for whatever the LORD says is a command; and from the signification of to prophesy, that it is to teach the Word, concerning which in what follows.
It is said that the Word is still to be taught, because the quality of the understanding of the Word as yet remaining in the Church was explored, and it was found that the Word was delightful as to the sense of the letter, for this is signified by the little book being in the mouth sweet as honey, for the little book signifies the Word. It was commanded that the Word should still be taught in the Church, because its end was not yet; the end (of the Church) is described by the sounding of the seventh angel; but here the state of the Church proximately before the end is described by the sounding of the sixth angel, and this state of the Church is now treated of....Why the Word is still to be taught, although the interior truths thereof are undelightful, and that the Last Judgment does not take place before there is a consummation, that is, when there is no longer any good and any truth remaining with the men of the Church, is altogether unknown in the world, but is known in heaven, and the reason is this:
There are two kinds of men upon whom judgment takes place; the one kind consists of the upright, and the other of the non-upright the upright are angels in the ultimate heaven, the greater part of whom are simple, because of their not having cultivated the understanding by interior truths, but only by exterior truths, from the literal sense of the Word, according to which they have lived; ... but the non-upright are those who have lived outwardly as Christians, but inwardly have admitted evils of every kind into the thought and into the will, so that in the external form they appeared as angels: although in the internal form they were devils. These, when they come into the other life, are, for the most part, associated with the upright, that is, with the simple good who are in the ultimate heaven, for the exteriors consociate, and the simple good are such that they believe everything to be good which appears good in the external form, their thoughts not penetrating further. But the non-upright are to be separated from the upright or simple good before the coming of the judgment and after it, and this separation can only be effected successively.
For this reason the time is protracted after the Last Judgment before the New Church is fully established; but this is an arcanum from heaven which at this day can only enter the understanding of a few, and yet this is what the LORD teaches in Matthew xiii. 27-30, 37-40.--A. E. 624.
According to this teaching the separation of the upright from the non-upright, which is the Judgment, goes on after the Last Judgment, and will go on until the Word ceases to he delightful, even as to its literal sense, to those who do not receive its interior truths.
In order, then, that our reviewer may maintain his affirmation that what is revealed concerning the state of men at the time of the Last Judgment does not refer to the State of the World at this time, it is incumbent upon him to demonstrate:
1. That the Judgment, or separation of the upright from the non-upright who enter the Spiritual World from the Christian World on Earth, has ceased, because these distinct classes of men no longer exist in the Church on Earth.
2. That the period has been reached in the history of the consummated Church at which the Word is no longer delightful as to the sense of the letter, and when it is no longer to be preached for that reason. And
3. That the time of protraction, after the Last Judgment, divinely given for the effecting of such a separation, in order to the full establishment of the New Church, has been completed.
If these three points cannot be demonstrated, the position of our reviewer, that what is revealed in the Writings concerning the time of the Last Judgment does not refer to the State of the World at this time, together with the inference from this position, that no knowledge of the present states of men in the Christian World has been given us of the LORD, falls to the ground. The time of the Judgment is protracted, because the states of the men of the Church that are to be judged still exists, and what these states are the LORD in His infinite mercy to us and to all men has made known.
From the observations of the Magazine we conclude that it has still failed to comprehend our argument on the phrase Rarely if ever; for it says: It will not be denied that by their grammatical meaning the words if ever are expressive of doubt. (Mag. p. 406.) But this very point is denied by us, especially as applying to the Latin: Raro si usquam. The Magazine continues: Now unless it can be shown that by common habit of speech or writing, these terms, in some connections, had acquired a meaning so entirely at variance with their proper sense,--at least in Swedenborgs own practice--then this is an entirely groundless assumption.... It is certainly incumbent upon him who claims that a questioned phrase is such an idiom, to show that it is by authority or example. (Mag. pp. 406-7.)
The Magazine from some cause or other seems not to have observed that this is exactly what we have done: we have examined Swedenborgs usage of this phrase in the three places where he uses it while treating of this subject. Besides these three instances we recollect only two others in the Writings where the words if ever occur. First:
I have heard from the angels that a wife becomes more and more a wife, as the husband becomes more and more a husband, but not so reservedly; because it rarely, if ever, is wanting that a chaste wife loves the husband, but there is wanting a loving in return by the husband.--C. L. 200.
We may ask: Were the angels uncertain, and did they mean the same as if they had said: We doubt whether it is ever wanting that a chaste wife loves the husband, etc.?
The second place where the expression occurs is the following:
They who are born in any heresy, and have confirmed themselves in its falsities, so as to be altogether persuaded of their truth, can with difficulty, if ever, be brought to receive truths which are contrary to their falsities.A. C. 1366.
Here again it is evident that Swedenborg does not mean the same as if he had written: I doubt whether they who are born in any heresy, and have confirmed themselves in its falsities ... can be brought to receive truths which are contrary to their falsities; for some who were thus born and confirmed in heretical opinions have been brought out of them by instruction, and have been brought into the truths and saved. Swedenborg could not possibly here intend to express doubt, because it is a point on which he has given the fullest information.
While giving these additional passages where the phrase if ever occurs, we believe that the three passages before adduced and which more nearly concern the subject are quite sufficient to determine the force of the phrase. They occur in the Arcana in Nos. 409, 2910, and 2956. While in the two former cases there is nothing in the immediate context to unquestionably fix the exact force of the expression, it is different with No. 2956, and this number therefore according to the universally received maxim of exegesis serves as the key to the other passages.
In order to bring the point at issue clearly before the render, we will present, in juxtaposition, the two views. The Magazine affirms: It will not be denied that by their grammatical meaning the words if ever are expressive of doubt. (Mag. p. 406.) Our view as expressed in WORDS FOR THE NEW CHURCH (Vol. I., p. 353) is that Rarely if ever is a manner of speech employed for the forcible expression of the truth that but few of the men of the Old Church will ever vitally receive the New. Or in other words, it is rare to find among the Old those who will receive the New.
Let us now consider the test-passage:
When any Church becomes no Church, that is when charity perishes and a New Church is established by the LORD, rarely, if ever, does this take place among those with whom the Old Church existed, but among those with whom there was no church before, that is among Gentiles.
This was done when the Most Ancient Church perished, then a New Church which was called Noah, or the Ancient Church after the flood, was established among Gentiles, that is, among those with whom there was no Church before. In like manner when this Church perished, then the image of a Church was established among the posterity of Abraham by Jacob, thus also among Gentiles; for Abraham, when be was called was a Gentile: the posterity of Jacob in Egypt became still more Gentile, even to the degree that they had no knowledge at all of JEHOVAH, nor therefore, of any Divine worship. After this image of a Church was consummated, then the Primitive (Christian) Church was established from the Gentiles, the Jews being rejected: so will it be with this Church which is called Christian.A. C. 2986.
The Magazine indeed endeavors to show that rarely if ever which it claims to be expressive of doubt can refer only to the transfer of the Church from the present (so-called) Christian world. It says: It had always been so before; the doubt then must have been only with respect to what was about to be. (Mag. 1878, p. 75.) But the phrase rarely if ever in this passage applies to one Church as much as to another, and as the doubt according to the Magazine can refer only to the last of the Churches the expression rarely if ever cannot be one of doubt.
That the expression rarely if ever is applied to one Church as much to another is evident, for we read:
When any Church becomes no Church, that is, when charity perishes, and a New Church is established by the LORD this rarely if ever takes place among those with whom the Old Church existed, but with those among whom there was no Church before, that is among the Gentiles. It was done so (ita factum) when the Most Ancient Church perished, then a New one which is called Noah, or the Ancient Church which was after the flood was established, among the Gentiles, that is with those among whom there existed no Church before.
That was done so according to this passage? Why that rarely if ever the New Church (here the Ancient Church) was established with those among whom the Old Church (here the Most Ancient Church) existed, but with those, among whom there was heretofore no Church, that is among the Gentiles.
Rarely if ever therefore as this passage shows, plainly applies to the Most Ancient Church and to all the others mentioned; and as there can be no doubt as to any of these Churches, rarely if ever cannot in this passage nor in the other two to which this is the key, be expressive of any doubt, but is evidently nothing but a forcible affirmation.
Having shown from Swedenborgs own usage that rarely if ever is not expressive of doubt or uncertainty, all that the Magazine makes to depend on this doubt, falls to the ground.
As the Magazine applies this doubt only to the New Church, let us examine more particularly what this passage teaches concerning this Church. We read:
The same will be the case with this Church, which is called Christian.
Does this manifest any doubt? Does it speak in any other may than the most positive of what will take place with the prevent Christian Church?
The Magazine is therefore totally without authority in declaring that the three passages where rarely if ever is used, express any doubt as to the case of the Christian; and it is evident that the explanation of this passage which we have given is the only logical and allowable one, and is derived from the only correct principle of exegesis, namely that, of allowing every author to explain himself.
The Magazine as we have seen holds that when Swedenborg wrote 409 A. C., he was in darkness sad doubt as to whether the New Church would be transferred to Gentiles, as other churches were. Even were it so (the reverse of which we have demonstrated), cannot the Magazine see the weakness, not to say folly, of holding that this doubt was not absolutely dispersed when he wrote, in after years, such things as the following:
When any New Church is established by the LORD, it is not established among those who are within the Church, but among those who are without, that is among Gentiles.--A. C. 4747.
And again:
A New Church is always established among the nations which are out of the Church.A. C. 9256.
Consider how irrational thus to destroy the sense of these explicit utterances--as positive as language can make them, and reduce them to the level of those made in a state of supposed ignorance. The unreasonableness of such a course may be seen thus:
Suppose the Magazine had misunderstood some phrase of Swedenborg written in the year 1752, to mean that the New Church would be transferred to some one of the Gentile nations, but to which one he knew not; and suppose that in after years he had explicitly declared it would be transferred to the inhabitants of Central Africa, and that it could not be built up in any other nation, how vain to deny or reduce this later direct statement by casting over it the shadow of the former doubt, arising from supposed ignorance of the case! It is equally vain to deny, in a similar manner the proper and only conceivable sense of the explicit affirmation in the year 1755 that a New Church is always transferred to Gentiles who are out of the Church;
and The Church at this day (the New Jerusalem) is now being transferred to Gentiles. ... Neither can a New Church be established among others.A. C. 9256.
Hence the doubt ascribed by the Magazine amounts to nothing; no use whatever can logically be made of it; it is simply a doubt founded in supposed ignorance. But the doubt itself teaches no truth or doctrine concerning the future state of the Church; and all the other subsequent and positive teachings on the subject have precisely and fully the same force that they would have had, had no doubt, been supposed, by the Magazine.
The Magazine again misconceives our position in intimating that we bold that a New Church can never be established among gentilized descendants of a former Church, and that the Arcana No, 2986 is quite conclusive against us. This number in the Arcana, on the contrary is in full harmony with our position. We hold that a genuine internal Church can never be established among the gentilized descendants of a consummated Church. From the people of such a consummated Church no good Gentiles ever arose or ever can arise among whom to establish a true and living Church.
We have never denied that a were representative of a Church, as the Jewish Church was, could be established among evil Gentiles, however descended: by constraint of miracle and promise of worldly gain, their interiors remaining the while infernal, but we do deny that the LORD according to his laws of order can establish among such a people a real Church.
This the Magazine might easily see from the dicta of the Church concerning the Jews, of which we adduce only the following:
The remainder of the worship of that nation [the Jewish] will come to an end with the end of the Church at this day in Europe.--A. C. 10,497.
It is evident how much they mistake, who believe that that nation (the Jewish) will be again chosen, or that the Church of the LORD will again pass to them, the rest being rejected; when yet it would be an easier matter to convert stones to faith in the LORD than them.A. C. 8301.
Since the Last Judgment their outward circumstances have indeed changed, but their internal character is unimproved, for we read: Hereditary evil has so increased with them that they cannot with a faith of the heart embrace the Christian Religion. We say cannot because their interior will is averse to it: and this will causes the inability.--T. C. R. 621; see also A. C. 10,492.
We read also the following in the Arcana:
The common principles of faith and charity ... become evils and falsities when once! the good and truth of the Church are extinguished; and then falsities and evils are superadded, for falsities and evils grow continually in the Church once perverted and extinct.A. C. 4503.
That is, there is a continued growth of evil and falsity in the natural mind of the men of a consummated Church; and this could not be otherwise with a people whose external man is described as follows:
When good comes by influx from the LORD through the internal man to the external or natural, it is met by the evil and false, whereby the good is torn in pieces in various ways, us by wild beasts, and is extinguished; hence the influx of good through the internal man is checked and stopped, consequently the interior mind through which the influx passes, is closed, and only so much of the spiritual is admitted through it, as may enable the natural man to reason and to speak, but then only from terrestrial, corporeal, and worldly things, and indeed against good and truth, or in their favor merely from pretence or craft.--A. C. 6828.
The LORD says of them in the Word:
Ye are of your father, the devil, and the wishes of your father ye will do; he was a murderer from the beginning, and stood not in the truth; because there is no truth in Him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own; for he is a liar, and the father of it. John viii. 44.
Woe unto you Scribes, and Pharisees, hypocrites I because ye build the tombs of the prophets, wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves that ye are the sons of them that kill the prophets. Matt. xxiii. 29-31.
It might almost seem as if the Magazine was ignorant of these passages and of the many more that might be added to the same import; as it asks:
Who knows that there has not arisen among the Jews an increasing ratio of good men?
And again
Is the writer quite sure that even the posterity of the Jews will not ultimately and gradually become receptive of genuine truth? (Magazine, pp. 6 and 7.)
Evidently the teaching of the Writings concerning the hereditary character of the Jewish people can have no place in the theory of the Magazine. And as to the consummated Christian Church and its posterity, the passages adduced apply with equal force, though, as this Church was measurably an internal Church, we may hope for a somewhat greater ratio of good men, and of remains, among them.
To hold or believe that a consummated Church, a people of whom such things are Divinely revealed, can, in the presence of the known laws of Providence, produce an increasing ratio of good men, and especially that such men should become by some fancied vastation New Churchmen, is without revealed premises, and in fact, as it seems to us, without any conceivable premises;
indeed the Magazine itself admits it has no explicitly revealed authority for its opinion.
Equally baseless, we think, is the Magazines idea of the passages A. R. 517 and A. E. 764, The Woman in the wilderness, nevertheless it designates our interpretation of these numbers as forced and dogmatic. But the Magazine has not shown by a true and supported analysis that our interpretation is forced; and if, as we think we have plainly shown, our interpretation is true, why should the Magazine call it dogmatic? Besides, our view is quite consistent with the Letters of Swedenborg quoted by the Magazine, showing that the New Church is to extend throughout Christendom. For we hold that from the few good and their posterity a universal New Church will be raised up in all Christendom.
In answer to our declaration that a vastate Church can no more recover than a vastate man, the Magazine observes that we manifest a difficulty in understanding its position, and then avers that it has never said or held that a vastate Church can ever recover, and asks: Is it a partial recovery of a vastate Church if a few leave its faith and life and organization, or in other words, are saved from out of it? If not, then it is no more a recovery if there are many. (Mag., p. 5.) The writer might, with as much reason have carried this same argument one step further and affirmed: If not, then it is no more a recovery if all are saved out of it.
To this argument we would reply: The question is not one of separation or non-separation of the good from the organizations of the Old Church, but primarily a question of the present and prospective states of the men of Christendom, that is of the increase or non-increase of the ratio of good men among them, whether they leave the old communities or remain in them. Neither is it strictly a question of whether the good leave the life and faith of the old, for they are not vitally in its life and faith, and never were, but are vitally in a principle of saving good. Whether the survival of a few good with non-increase involves recovery of the Old Church, as the Magazines idea of increase does, can be tested by supposing all the good to remain in the old organizations and to have never come out of them, then give time for the increasing ratio to change the whole mass (as is substantially admitted page 411), then would not the case look like recovery? If not recovery, what is it? Whereas the condition resultant on our idea of a decreasing ratio and final cessation of the production of good would be the final death of the Old Church.
The doctrine of increase or non-increase of good in the Old Church and thence in the Christian World is absolutely fundamental in the question of separation or non-separation from the Old Church, and the separate and distinctive existence of the New Church.
If the Old Church is capable of so receiving heavenly influx as to produce within its borders an increasing ratio of good men, then there is no essential and permanent reason for perpetual, or even prolonged separation, and all arguments for such separation must be virtually fallacious, and the separate New Church organization and Church appointments must be, as indeed many hold, merely provisional. But since it is impossible to build the New in the Old, as we have shewn, the persistent effort to do so, to the exclusion of efforts for upbuilding and perpetuating the New Church as a separate organization, would inevitably result in the extermination of the New Church. And the fallacious doctrine of the relative increase of good in the Old, supporting as it legitimately and inevitably does, the erroneous doctrine of the coming and upbuilding of the New in the Old, must involve the denial of the need of the New Church in a separate form; while our view lays the deepest and broadest basis for the existence of the New Church as a separate organization, and it also stimulates the most untiring effort for its perpetual endurance and continued growth.
The Magazine cannot urge that because the LORD can preserve from age to age a decreasing ratio of the elect, therefore pie can in the same circumstances also increase their ratio. No suggestions concerning Omnipotence, or the inscrutable ways of Providence will here avail.
Against our argument that the Divine Power which was unable to prevent the decline and consummation of the Old Church, is alike unable to increase the number of the good, or elect, among its posterity, the Magazine objects, that this argument is not new, and is the same as this: If the Divine Power could not prevent the fall of men, how could it effect his restoration? We reply: That Omnipotence restores the race, and rebuilds the Church after its complete decline, in precisely the same manner. For the fall of the race was but the decline of the Church; and the LORD rebuilds the Church, not by producing an increasing ratio of good men in the great mass of the consummated Church which is completely confirmed in the loves of self and the world, and in the evils and falsities springing from them; for this would be impossible; impossible from the inverted nature, destitute condition and unfavorable circumstances of a fallen Church; impossible from inheritance and confirmation of evils, evils which first lessen the implantation of remains--and then, extinguish remains; and impossible because not within the reformatory scope of the Divine Providence.
The LORD rebuilds the Church by the spiritual culture of its few good and of their posterity, by the gathering of them into a New Church, and still more by raising up a New Church among the Gentiles; and this may of restoring the race and rebuilding the Church is not only within the range of Omnipotence because within the limits of order, but is also clearly apprehensible by man.
We come now to consider the Origin and nature of the Gentiles, to whom the former Churches were transferred, and those to whom the New Church is now being transferred.
Concerning the Gentiles among whom the Ancient Church was established the Magazine says:
The Gentiles, among whom the Ancient Church was established, must then have been a vastated remnant of this Most Ancient Church. The Gentiles ... were descended from vastated remnants of the former Churches, which had become so separated and alienated that at the time of the consummation they were not even nominally of the Church. (Mag., pp. 2 and 6.)
Consistently with this view concerning the Gentiles it also holds that in the palmy days of the golden age all men upon the earth belonged to the Most Ancient Church; or, in other words, that all men were Churchmen proper, there being no Gentiles.
For the support of this opinion the Magazine quotes these words from the True Christian Religion:
The primeval revelation pervaded the whole world.T. C. R. 11.
But this supports that opinion only on the supposition that revelation here means simply the Word, exclusive of other revelation among Gentiles. But from the context of these words we learn that revelation here means not only the Word, but both the Word and other revelation, for we read in the same number:--
Knowledge concerning God, and thence an acknowledgment of Him is not attainable without revelation; and knowledge concerning the LORD, and thence an acknowledgment that in Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, is not attainable except from the Word, which is the crown of revelations; for man, by the revelation which is given, is able to approach God and to receive influx, and so from natural to become spiritual. The primeval revelation pervaded the whole world. Those who have recognized from the Word or other revelation that there is n God have differed, and still differ, concerning the quality of God and also concerning His unity.T. C. R. 11.
From the context it is clear that the term revelation in the clause quoted by the Magazine may cover other revelation as well as the Word. Nor is the restriction of the term revelation to mean the Word only in the golden age sustained by the passage cited by the Magazine from A. C. 2595, for this construction would equally prove that there was no other revelation than the Word in subsequent ages, in which ages we know that other revelations existed.
But if there were Gentiles as well as churchmen in the Primeval Age then the term revelation would signify the more general and obscure Divine light given to them, as well as the fuller and clearer light given to the Church proper.
That there were Gentiles in the Primeval Age is apparent from general principles as well as from particular teachings on this subject.
The Church universal, that is, the Church of the LORD throughout the world, is both internal and external, internal, where the Word is, giving light in fullness and in particulars, and external, where other revelation is. We read:
The Church is like the heart and lungs in man, and so long as the heart and lungs continue sound so long man has life; the same holds true of the Church in respect to the Grand Man, which is the universal heaven.A. C. 931.
The LORDS kingdom in the earths consists of all who are principled in good, who, though dispersed throughout the whole globe, are still one, and as members constitute one body; such is the LORDS kingdom in the heavens there; the universal heaven resembles one man who is therefore exiled the Grand Man.... The Church in the earths (where the Word is) is, like the heart and lungs, and they who are out of the Church resemble the parts of the body which are supported and kept alive from the heart and lungs.A. C. 2853.
The Church where the Word is rend, and where the LORD is thereby known, is as the heart and lungs: the LORDS celestial kingdom as the heart, and his spiritual kingdom as the lungs. Now as from these two fountains of life in the human body all the other members, viscera, and organs subsist and live, so also do those people in every part of the earth, who have any religion, who worship One God, lead good lives, and thus make a part of this man subsist and live from the conjunction of the LORD and heaven with the Church, by means of the Word.--T. C. R. 268.
This may be illustrated by comparison with the beat and light flowing from the Sun of this world, which causes vegetation in trees and shrubs, even in such as are not exposed to their direct beams, but are planted in shady places, which, yet, never fail to grow, if the Sun be only risen above the horizon.... It is therefore said of the Word that it was with God, and was God; that it enlighteneth every man that cometh into the world; and that this light also shineth in darkness. (John i. 1, 5, 9.) The Word there means the LORD as to Divine truth.--T. C. R. 260.
The distinction in the above passages between Churchmen and Gentiles is of a nature applicable to men in every age, and there is no reason why it should not hold in the Golden Age.
It is certain now, that the clause, The primeval revelation pervaded the whole world (T. C. R. 11), does by no means exclude the existence of Gentiles in the Golden Age;
and there is the very highest probability Gentiles as well as churchmen existed from the Primeval Age; we have furthermore the specific teaching that Gentiles were already in existence in great abundance waiting to receive the Church on its transference to them as a New People, as appears from the following:
When the last time of vastation comes upon those who know and do not wish to know, or who see and do not wish to see, then a Church arises anew not among them but among those whom they call Gentiles. It was so with the Most Ancient Church which was before the flood, and also with the Ancient Church after the flood, and with the Jewish Church in like manner.A. C. 410.
According to the Magazine:
The Writings give us reason to believe there are no inhabitants of the earth that are not descendants of men, with whom a genuine Church once existed.
But a careful examination of the Writings will show that this opinion is ill founded and in direct opposition to the real doctrine there set forth. We read:
Noah was not the Ancient Church itself, but as it wore the parent or seed of that Church, as was before observed, but Noah with Shem, Ham, and Japheth, constituted the Ancient Church, which immediately succeeded the Most Ancient Church; every man of the Church called Noah was of the posterity of the Most Ancient Church consequently in a state nearly similar as to hereditary evil with the rest of the posterity which perished.... That the men called Noah were few, was evident to me from this circumstance, that the man of that Church is represented in the world of spirits as a tall and slender person, clothed in white in a confined chamber; but nevertheless these were they who preserved and possessed among them the doctrinals of faith.A. C. 788.
This shows that there were only a few left of the Most Ancient Church among whom as remains, or as the few good, the Ancient Church was in small part established; they had the doctrinals preserved from the Most Ancient Church and by these doctrinals propagated among the Gentiles was established the great body of the Ancient Church called Shem, Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah; they were not lineal sons of Noah, there being no such person as Noah, nor any such persons as Shem, Ham, and Japheth; but Shem, Ham, and Japheth represented different qualities of life, doctrine, and worship among the converts from the Gentile nations of that time, which these converts received and embraced from the spread of the doctrine held by that small beginning of the Ancient Church strictly signified by Noah. We see also that all the men of the Most Ancient Church, except these few called Noah, perished.
For we read:
The posterity of the Most Ancient Church were infected with persuasions of what was false, which extinguished all truth and goodness, and at the same time closed up the way against remains, so as to prevent their operations, hence it could not be otherwise, but that they must destroy themselves; for when the way is closed up against remains then man is no longer man. because he can no longer be protected by the angels, but is totally and entirely possessed by evil spirits, who study and desire no other than to extinguish man; hence the death of the antediluvians, which is described by a flood, or a total inundation.--A. C. 660.
By destroying all flesh wherein is the breath of lives from under the heavens, is signified that all the posterity of the Most Ancient Church would destroy themselves.A. C. 661.
It is to be particularly noted that all the posterity (omnis posteritas) would destroy themselves; the word all is omitted in the translation published by the American Swedenborg Printing and Publishing Society, but is important as showing the total destruction of the posterity of the Most Ancient Church; that a remainder called Noah was left is indeed distinctly stated in the passage quoted just before (A. C. 788) but no other exception is made in the Writings. Shem, Ham, and Japheth wore therefore not vastated remnants of the Most Ancient Church but Gentiles from that age. That there were such is again plainly indicated in what follows:
By all which is on the earth expiring, those are signified who being of that Church, had acquired such a nature, for earth does not signify the whole habitable globe, but only those who are of the Church. Consequently there is no particular flood here meant, much less a universal flood, but only the expiration or suffocation of those who were of the Church, when they had separated themselves from remains.A. C. 662.
And they were destroyed from the earth, is the conclusion, the Most Ancient Church having expired, Noah only remained and what was with him in the ark signifies the preservation of those who constituted this New Church. See A. C. 811.
The extinction of the Most Ancient Church is also described in the following:
When the antediluvians arrived at the summit of such persuasion, they became extinct of themselves and were suffocated as with an inundation not unlike a deluge.A. C. 663.
The Last Judgment is described by the flood, in which all the wicked who remained perished.--Coronis 34.
We see therefore that the idea that a branch of the Most Ancient Church became separated and vastated, forming the Gentiles to whom the Ancient Church was transferred, is not only a misconception of the Magazine, but is also in direct opposition to the teaching of the Writings.
There is nothing in the Writings to lead us to think that all the nations is the land of Canaan were descendants of the Most Ancient Church.(Magazine, p. 4.) It is distinctly stated that the Hivites and the Hittites especially were thus descended (4429, 4447, 4454), but it is one of the unwarranted deductions of the Magazine that all the nations in the land of Canaan were so descended. But even if it could be proved that they were, it would only thence follow that they all belonged to the descendants or that small remnant called Noah, while that part of the Ancient Church derived from the Gentiles, and which extended over a great part of Asia and Africa, would still have to be derived from the Gentiles of the most ancient times.
The Magazine brings forward nothing to show that good Gentiles can be derived from the vastated remnants of a consummated Church. Possibly by being misinterpreted and misapplied, the following paragraph from the Arcana might seem at first sight to support its teaching:
The Church cannot arise anew in any nation until it is so vastated that nothing of evil and falsity remains in its internal worship. So long as there is evil in its internal worship those things which are goods and truths that should constitute its internal worship are impeded; for while evils and falsities are present goods and truths cannot be received. This is evident from the fact that they who are born into any heresy, and have so confirmed themselves in its falsities that they are entirely persuaded, can with difficulty, if ever, be brought to receive the truths which are contrary to their falsities.A. C. 1366.
This shows us that the present so-called Christian nations cannot receive the New Church until nothing evil and falsity remains in their internal worship, that is, until the evils of self-love and love of the world, and the falsities of tripersonalty, salvation by faith alone, the vicarious atonement, predestination, instant salvation, and the host of dependent falsities are rejected and forgotten.
That the chance of this is very small we are taught in the same number, where it is written:
They who are born into any heresy, and have so confirmed themselves in its falsities that they are entirely persuaded, can with difficulty, if ever, be brought to receive the truths which are contrary to their falsities.
With difficulty, if ever, that is, rarely, if ever, will such vastation take place in the Christian Church, that is only in the comparatively few instances where there are remains of saving good. Only from such a ground or good can evils and falses that impede the goods and truths be removed, and these may become operative and saving in its internal worship.
The Magazine thinks that its view, that there are no other Gentiles than the vastated posterity of a consummated Church, is supported by a thoughtful study of idolatry.
We maintain that a thoughtful study of idolatry will not lead to any such conclusion. That idolatries arose from correspondences and representatives is indeed well known in the Church, but it is equally true that these were known not only among Churchmen but also among the Gentiles in ancient times, for we read in the Arcana:
In the olden time men were principled in the doctrine of representatives, and the Writings of the Ancient Church were according to such doctrine; and hence the writings of many among the Gentiles were according to the same doctrine; rind from this ground the style of those writings became venerable, and was esteemed holy in the Church, and learned among the heathen.A. C. 2688.
And again we read:
They (some of the Gentiles who lived in ancient times) approached me, and when I read to them some passages from the Word they were most highly delighted; it was given me to perceive their delight and satisfaction, which arose principally from this consideration, that all and each of the things which they heard from the Word were representative and significative of things celestial and spiritual; they said that in their time, whitst they lived in the world, their manner of thinking and speaking and also of writing was of this sort, and that herein consisted their wisdom and the study of it.--A. C. 2593.
So the prevalence of idolatries arising from an abuse of objects representing celestial and spiritual things, does not by any means point to an ancestry of Churchmen, but may just as well point to a Gentile ancestry fallen away from their pristine wisdom. So we see that the opinion of the Magazine concerning Gentiles has no foundation in the Writings.
In respect to the barren fig-tree and the dead carcass which have been mentioned in this discussion, as will appear in what follows, we are not at all vulnerable to the charge of the Magazine, pp. 8 and 9, that to comfort with our view, it ought to be written: Let but little fruit grow on thee henceforth, forever; nor to the reasoning concerning the disintegration of the carcass.
An increasing ratio of good men in the consummated Church is what the Magazine looks for, and believes in. A decreasing ratio of good men as time advances, is what we expect. In the discussion mention has been made of the barren fig-tree which the LORD cursed, saying: Let no fruit grow on thee henceforth, forever: also the dead carcass, of which He said: Wheresoever the carcass is, there will the eagles be gathered together. (See Matt. xxi. 19, and xxiv. 28.)*
* But the truth must be told. When a belief in three Gods was introduced into the Christian Churches, which was done at the time of the Nicene Council they banished all the good of charity and all the truth of faith, for these two are wholly inconsistent with the mental worship of three Gods and the oral worship at the same time of one God; for the mind denies what the mouth says, and the mouth denies what the mind thinks; the result is that there is no belief either in three Gods or in one. From this it is manifest that from that time the Christian temple has not only cracked open, but has fallen to ruins; and that from that time the pit of the abyss has been open, from which has ascended smoke like that of a great furnace, and the sun and the air have been darkened thereby, and from it locusts have gone forth upon the earth (Apoc. ix. 2, 3). Yes, from that time the desolation foretold by Daniel has begun and has increased (Matt. xxiv. 16), and to that faith and the imputation thereof the eagles have gathered together. Eagles there mean the lynx-eyed leaders of the Church.--T. C. R. 634.
These symbols in the Word are, in their bearings, without qualification or limitation. We must not therefore break down and spoil the representation: the one having respect primarily to the consummated Jewish Church, and then also as well to the Christian Church; and the other, to the consummated Christian Church. No exceptions, not even of the Elect, are here made, for the fig-tree is doomed to be forever fruitless; and the dead carcass is of course dead, without promise of resurrection into life.
These representatives do not even bring into view the few remaining good known as the Elect. Nor can these utterances of the Word be amended. No fruit forever is not a a little fruit: and the dead carcass is no longer a dead carcass, when it gradually disintegrates and disappears (Magazine, p. 9). And however full of leaves the tree may remain, and however abounding in aromatic flavors the carcass may remain,--we have to do with none of these, but only with the barren tree set before us by the LORD, and the dead carcass.
But these representative symbols, as we have said, do not bring into view the few remaining good spoken of as the Elect; these are represented by the two or three berries on the head of the uppermost bough of the olive-tree, described in Isaiah, where it is written: There shall be left gleanings in it, as in the shaking of the olive-tree; two or three berries on the head of the uppermost bough; four or five on the fruitful branches, saith JEHOVAH, the God of Israel. 6. xvii. 6. A. E. 332.
Here the two things in respect to the consummated Church are set before us in bold contrast, the barren fig-tree and the dead carcass on the one hand, representing the consummation and the death of the Old Church, excepting always the few good remaining; and on the other hand the two or three and the four or five berries in the olive-tree, representing these few good remaining, and which are spoken of as the Elect.
To the question: How can there remain in the consummated Church any, even the elect, yet without relative increase? we reply:
The Church, though a complex body, is nevertheless really one man; when it declines, the decline occurs more with some individuals than with others. In the individual who in adult life gradually destroys the remains implanted in childhood, adopting and confirming evils and falsities, there is a perversion and destruction of some goods and truths more than others, and sooner than others, with a decreasing number of goods and truths, till their destruction is complete. The same is true of the Church: when it declines, some individuals become perverted and spiritually destroyed more fully, and sooner, than others, until no good men, or scarcely any, are left,a state not reached till long ages after the Judgment. As in the declining individual no new good and truth can be introduced and stored, so in the declining Church, there can be no increase of genuine good either before or after the Judgment. Still there lingers on for ages a lessening number of the elect, from an ancestry who were receptive of good and truth before the General Judgment. These elect can arise only from the propagation of former good, any time, is according to the quality of that state as constituted of all that has preceded in that man, and there can be no new extension of good and truth. As with the declining individual new evils and falsities are successively added, but not new goods and truths, so it is in the declining Church, that is, no new good men, not lineally descended from good ancestry, except when the Church is extended to a new nation. This is owing to the well settled principle that the good of a former period must be transmitted to posterity in its initial form by successive generation. The good men in the Church are the units of whatever good may exist in the complex body, as the particular goods and truths are the units of the individual state; and the good men of any subsequent period in a Church are lineal descendants of the good of a former period,--as goods and truths in the later age of an individual are the spiritual offspring of the goods and truths of his earlier age. This parallelism between the individual and the complex man is so well known as not to require citation from the Writings. Of course, in these remarks we are treating of those born and brought up within the limits of the consummated Church, and not of those who are transferred to the New Church, or removed in childhood to heaven.
The words of the LORD: Except those days should be shortened no flesh could be saved, but for the elects sake those days shall be shortened, Matt. xx. 22, interpreted under the light of the doctrines, do not imply that this shortening was for a relative increase of the elect, but for their preservation, till a New Church could be commenced in Christendom, and somewhat increased by means of them.
Were the states and disabilities of the elect in all respects as they are with the mass, then indeed no flesh could be saved; the elect, being but the few berries lingering on the outmost branches of the almost dead and dying olive-tree. Is. xvii. 6.
The Magazine does not understand our position in reference to the transfer of the Church out of Christendom. We think it is for all time that the Church is transferred, in the sense of the Writings, that is, it is transferred mostly to the Gentiles, and yet will be rebuilt among the few good from the Old Church, and then continued to its fullness (A. E. 732) by their posterity.
It is misleading to speak, as the Magazine does, of the transference of the Church to Gentiles in Christendom. The Writings never speak so. They always speak of the transference of the Church to Gentiles out of Christendom. Thus in the Diary it is written:--The Church which is now perishing in Europe may be re-established in Africa.... by the LORD alone through Revelation and not by missionaries from the Christians.--S. D. 4777. See also WORDS FOR THE NEW CHURCH, Vol. I. p. 111.
The common natural fact that as the morning advances into day the darkness vanishes, and the night finally disappears, is misapplied by the Magazine (p. 11); for the truth is that the New Church has light, while as the Writings teach, the Old Church has darkness,The morning cometh and also the night, signifies that although they have illumination who are of the New Church, yet they have night who are of the Old.A. C. 10,134. This shows that on the coming of morning and the presence of day, the night and the darkness do not pass away; they endure in the communities of the Christian world so long as these exist in the earth, and then after death, to eternity. The Old Church as a complex man, had its morning in the first age of Christianity, and its full day some centuries after, and then passed down during many centuries, through evening into deep enduring night. The night of ignorance and of unconfirmed falsity, in which the elect are, does, indeed, pass away as their morning advances; but this is involved in the expression, The morning cometh.
Reasonings from natural facts must sustain the spiritual truths of the Writings, and must not conflict with them. The doctrine concerning the perpetual night of former Churches, whose sun has set in their consummation, may be clearly seen in The True Christian Religion, Chap, XIV.
The one feature causing us the most regret in the papers of the Magazine is the assumption that Swedenborg was in doubt on a subject concerning which he was teaching, and especially the use made of passages claimed to be doubtful, in construing other passages direct and positive in their nature.
This involves nothing less than a denial of the Divine Authority of the Writings, which is equivalent to a denial that they are a Divine Revelation.
That this denial is contained in the Magazines position is evident from the following extract:
It cannot well be doubted that the Writings also indicate, if they do not so certainly teach, that the New Church which is now being established will first prevail somewhere outside the bounds of Christendom. At first this seems to be involved rather than expressed;--and not very certainly,--in an analogy drawn by Swedenborg from other Churches. In A. C. 400, he says, as if a little doubt, Rarely, if ever, does the Church remain with those who have truths among them while they are being vastated. It is as if he did not then, at least, feel quite sure that, because it had been so with all preceding Churches, therefore it would he so with the New Church, then about to be established, and well he might not be certain, if this future thing was not revealed; for the nature and circumstances of the dispensation consequent upon the LORDS Second Advent wore to be very different from those of any preceding dispensation. So, again, in A. C. 2910, he says:--When a Church is consummated and perishes, the LORD always raises up a new Church somewhere; yet rarely, if ever, from the men of the former Church, but from Gentiles who were in ignorance. It had always been so before; the doubt, then, mast have been only with respect to what was about to be. Again, 3898, he says:--The LORD alone knows where the elect are among whom the Church is to be established. The Angels, too (L. J. 74), took a similar view, but were equally uncertain. They had small hope of the men of the Christian Church, but much of some nation remote from the Christian World, and therefore away from infestors; yet they confessed that they know not things to come; for the knowledge of things to come belongs to the LORD alone. But farther on in the Arcana Coelestia, Swedenborg appears to speak more positively.
In 4747 he says:--When any new Church is established by the LORD, it is not established among those who ore within the Church, but among those that are without, that is, among Gentiles. And again, still more positively, in 8256, he says, that for reasons he had given, a New Church is always established among Gentiles who are out of the Church; and that, for the same reasons, the Church was transferred from the Jewish people to Gentiles, and the Church at this day is now being transferred to Gentiles. And yet, it must be considered,--in view of the somewhat doubtful manner in which he had before spoken on the subject, and of the doubtful manner in which the angels also spoke, even after the Judgment, several years later than the time when the last of the above cited passages was written, that there is some ground for question, even as to the passage in 9250, where he says always, and alludes to what was then taking place in respect to the Christian Church, whether this reference is not to what always had been, as a ground of inference, rather than intended positive teaching, as to the extent and completeness of the transfer that was taking place. In other words,although the passage taken by itself would be quite unequivocal,--is there not reason to doubt whether, considered, as it ought to be, in connection with what he says elsewhere on the same subject, the author really intended here to teach dogmatically what the case would he in respect to the transfer of the New Christian Church?Magazine, May, 1878, pp. 74, 75.
The Magazine thus casts a doubt over the doctrine that a New Church is always established among the nations which are out of the Church, and also that The Church of this day is now being transferred to Gentiles, Neither can a New Church be established among others, A. C. 9266; and this doubt must be grounded in the supposed ignorance of Swedenborg, and it must imply the belief that this doctrine was the teaching of Swedenborg and not of the LORD, for what the LORD teaches can in no wise be restricted or limited by the ignorance of any man or angel. Hence the procedure of the Magazine impugns the Divine Authority of the Writings. For the idea that Swedenborg was teaching in a state of doubt or ignorance does not at all comport with the fact that the LORD was teaching through him.
Every doctrine of the New Church is Divine Truth revealed from the LORD out of heaven as we read: I, John saw the Holy City, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven. Now if the teaching that a New Church is always raised up among the nations who are out of the Church, neither can a New Church be raised up among others (than Gentiles) is such doctrine, the attempt to abate or construe it in the least, by a doubt arising from the supposed ignorance of Swedenborg must, in essence, necessarily deny its Divinity. For nothing short of what is divinely true from heaven can interpret what is Divine. This is self-evident. A doubt of Swedenborgs, arising from ignorance of the subject in question cannot be a Divine Truth. The utterance of a doubt might, indeed, be divinely commanded, but the doubt is not from the LORD any more than is the ignorance out of which it arises.
This implied denial must have been unobserved by the writer, for he says:--
We do not, for a moment, doubt or question the truth and accuracy of any of the quotations in the article, or that might be cited from the Writings, but accept them implicitly, and with a desire to give to each and all of them their fail force and proper significance. (p. 72 Mag.)
Nevertheless, the extract objected to, involves a disparagement of the Writings which too well agrees with the opinion of those who openly deny their authority, and hold that Swedenborg wrote in his own liability to error, and with the limitations of his own intellect, and that however well suited (he was) to his work, it was his own work; and his books are only human books (see Deus Homo);
and who declare that we must not bind our rationality to his assertions, but wait to see what science teaches. (N. J. Magazine.)
Although we cannot here enter upon the considerations of the Divine Authority of the Writings, we must yet emphasize the fact that the above views conflict with the truth that the New Church books were written by the LORD through Swedenborg (see Sketch Ecc. History No, 3); and with his statement that these are not my works but the LORDS works, S. D. Part III. vol. ii. p. 204; and with the following statement in the True Christian Religion:
This Second Coming of the LORD takes place 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.
Since the LORD cannot manifest Himself in Person, as just shown above, and nevertheless has foretold that He will come and found a New Church which is the New Jerusalem, it follows that He will do this by means of a man who can not only receive the doctrines of this Church with the understanding but can also publish them by the press. I testify in truth, that the LORD manifested Himself before me His servant, and sent me on this office, and that He afterward opened the sight of my spirit, and so has intromitted me into the spiritual world, and has granted me to see the heavens and the hells, also to converse with angels and spirits, and this now uninterruptedly for many years, likewise, that from the first day of this call I have not received any thing which pertains to the doctrines of this Church from day angel, but from the LORD alone while I have read the Word.--T. C. R. 779. See also Continuation of the Coronis lvi.-lxii.
Alcohol.
IN TEMPERANCE is so direful in its effects that all available means for its eradication ought to be used. But the men who are at present in the temperance organizations make two mistakes, and therefore they defeat their object. They set out first with the false principle that alcohol in any form is a poison; and then secondly they seek by external means to remove an evil which is deeply seated internally in mans nature.
Strange, indeed, is it thee New Churchmen should be beguiled into such movements, but that they are is evident from the occasional display of temperance badges and still more from the character of contributions made to our various periodicals. Beyond these, books and pamphlets occasionally appear from professed New Churchmen filled with the most egregious falsities on the subject of alcoholic stimulants, their use and their abuse.
Among these is a pamphlet by John Ellis, M. D., entitled, Pure Wine, Fermented Wine, such other Alcoholic Drinks in the Light of the New Dispensation.
Written under such an illumination, the reader would expect a clear and complete exposition of the whole subject of intemperance, both as so its prevention and removal. But instead, he is introduced to partisan selections from physiological experimenters, and, what is more lamentable, to such perverted interpretations of Swedenborgs teachings that he finds himself groping in hopeless darkness.
Beginning with the title-page, he reads a selection from the Documents, which is so quoted that it holds Swedenborg responsible for what he never taught, and it even makes him dispute the plain dicta of the Church Writings. The passage referred to, when read as it is in the Documents, shows that Swedenborg had reference to a people who were dissolute in the extreme. They were consuming the distillation of a grain which was badly needed as an article of food. Foreseeing the ruin of his own people, he urged that the authorities forbid, or at least limit, the sale of what was indeed, under the circumstances, a pernicious drink.
The next effort of Dr. Ellis is to so interpret the passages in the Writings which teach the correspondence of wine that they shall refer to unfermented, non-alcoholic wine. But that Swedenborg means fermented wine is a clear inference from a careful and unprejudiced reading of the numerous passages upon the subject. We need but quote from one. In the True Christian Religion, 404, we read that new wine, unfermented, is pleasant to the taste but prejudicial to the stomach. But Dr, Ellis says, pure, unfermented wine cheers and warms the heart of man,... and to the use of the social cup filled with this life-giving fluid--the real unadulterated wine from the fruit of the vine--there is no objection. We are at a loss to understand how that can cheer a mans heart which grieves his stomach and bowels.
In the Divine Providence we read:
A mans understanding is receptive of good as well as of evil, and of truth as and as of falsity, bat not his will, which must be either in evil or in good; it cannot be in both, for the will is the man himself, and therein is his lifes love. But good and evil in the understanding are separated, like internal and external; hence a man may be interiorly in evil and exteriorly in good. Still, however, when a man is reformed, good and evil enter into combat, and there then exists a conflict or battle, which, if grievous, is called temptation, but if not, is like the fermentation of wine or wort. In such a case, if good overcomes, evil with its falsities is removed to the sides, as the lees fall to the bottom of a vessel, and good becomes like generous wine after fermentation, or clear liquor; but if evil overcomes, good with its truth is removed to the sides, and it becomes turned foul like unfermented wine or unfermented liquor. This comparison of fermentation is used because leaven in the Word signifies the falsity of evil, as in Hosea vii.; Luke xii. 1; and other places.--D. P. 284.
In this beautiful extract evil with its falsities is compared with leaven and with the lees; and good is compared with generous wine.
One would naturally infer that these respective comparisons indicate resemblances between the objects compared; and hence that good and mine were both genuine. And this conclusion would seem to be the more evident from the adjective which Swedenborg uses; for generous, when applied to wine, means noble, vigorous, pure, good. And yet Dr. Ellis says:
As a comparison this is appropriate, but if attempt to justify ourselves by such comparisons, in the use of the pernicious products of fermentation, such a use is wholly wrong.
Pernicious he puts into quotation marks, but as Swedenborg never applied this word to mine, the employment of the term in this connection is as misleading as it is unwarranted. If we may use the good, why may we not use that with which it is compared, since the latter must necessarily be good, also? How could Swedenborg in illustrating the truths of the Word, employ that in comparison, which is intrinsically false or pernicious? Would this not nullify the comparison? The Writings of the Church contain the correspondences of the Word elucidated. And since comparisons in the Word are always correspondences, comparisons in the explication of the Word must also be true according to correspondences. We read in the Arcana:
In the Word no metaphorical speech, or comparison is used, but real correspondences; even the comparisons are there made by such things as correspond.--A. C. 8989.
In bold contrast with the pamphlet of Dr. Ellis, is an article from Rep. Warren Goddard, which appeared in the New Jerusalem Magazine for March, 1880.
Viewing the subject impartially, and accepting the teachings of the Church without striving to distort them to favor preconceived ideas, the writer deduces a clear statement of the true uses of mines and liquors.
As an illustration of this antithesis, we quote the following:
Wine was used in the Holy Supper and the LORD tells His disciples to drink ye all of it; for, He says, This is my blood of the New Covenant which is shed for many. This use of wine in the Most Holy Sacrament is perfectly conclusive of its having a good signification. If it were not in itself good, if it were poisonous or injurious to the body it could not correspond to the Divine Blood or Truth, nor would it be used with bread, the other nutritious element. The LORD could not have drunk wine if it were a bad thing in itself, or pernicious, as Dr. Ellis styles it.
But there are some statements, which we think Dr. Goddard would not have made if he had first examined the Writings.
He asserts for example that intemperance in drinking is a deeper evil than intemperance in eating.
Most evidently the abuse of good is more damaging than the abuse of truth, and so may we not conclude that gluttony, or intemperance in eating is more damaging and brutalizing than intemperance in drinking?
In the Arcana it is written:
It would be well for man to prepare his food chiefly with reference to use: for by so doing he would have for his object a sound mind in a sound body: whereas, then the taste is the chief thing attended to, the body thence becomes diseased at heart, inwardly languishes, and consequently also the mind, inasmuch as its state depends on the state of the recipient bodily parts, as seeing depends on the state of the eye: hence the madness of supposing that all the delight of life, and that is commonly called the summum bonum, consists in luxury and pleasurable indulgences: hence also come dullness and stupidity in things which require thought and judgment whilst the mind is disposed only for the exertions of cunning, respecting bodily and worldly things: hereby man acquires a similitude to a brute animal, and therefore such persons are not improperly compared with brutes.A. C. 8378.
A more serious error is the statement, that the imbibing of more truths than we are ready to apply to the various uses of life, makes us spiritual drunkards. This view muse have crept into the New Church from the Old, for there is nothing in the Writings which sustains such an opinion. Spiritual drunkenness is something quite different from this, as we learn from the Writings. We read in the Arcana:
Those are culled drunkards, who believe nothing but what they comprehend, and therefore investigate the mysteries of faith; in consequence of which they necessarily fall into errors.... The error and insanity hence derived are called in the Word drunkenness; and souls or spirits in another life who argue about the truths of faith and against them, become like drunkards, conducting themselves similarly.A. C. 1072.
To be intoxicated from the cup is to be insane from falses.A. C. 5120, 9960.
So in the Apocalypse Revealed:
To be made drunk with the wine of whoredom signifies to become insane in spiritual things from the falsification of the truths of the Word; here from the adulteration of them.A. R. 721; see also A. E. 1036, 376.
But nowhere do we find a statement that if we imbibe more truths than we are ready to apply to the various uses of life we are spiritual drunkards.
Surely he cannot be called intemperate, who stores his memory with more truths than he is ready to apply, else all school-children would be spiritual drunkards.
Man becomes a spiritual drunkard only when from self-intelligence he argues about truths, and especially if against them.
The more truths a man acquires the better, that his rational principle may thence be formed and that these truths my serve in his memory as vessels to receive faith and charity.
For we read:
That faith is perfected in proportion to the number and coherence of truths. Now since faith in its essence is truth, it follows that faith becomes more and more perfectly spiritual in proportion to the number and coherence of truths, and consequently less and less sensual-natural; for it is thus exalted into a higher region of the mind, from whence it views below it in the natural world numberless circumstances and proofs that tend to confirm it. True faith, by means of such a number of truths cohering, as in a fascicle or bundle, becomes also more illustrated, more perceptible, more evident, and more clear; it acquires also a greater capacity of being conjoined with the goods of charity, and hence of being in a state of greater alienation from evils; and it becomes by degrees more and more removed from the allurements of the eye and the lusts of the flesh, and consequently is rendered happier in itself: it becomes particularly more powerful against evils and falses, and thence more and more a living and a saving faith.--T. C. R. 562.
To deal fairly and effectively with the subject of intemperance we must view it from its spiritual aspect. It is useless to drag into the argument the researches of scientists unless we first understand the interior truths by which they are to be judged; then the latter serve as confirmations.
According to the Doctrines of the Now Church intemperance is a manifold evil, derived from the spiritual falsification of truth. when such perversion descends and becomes a part of life, on the natural plane it becomes intemperance. In one form, it appears in reasoning from appearances; in another, as abuse of appetite; in still another, as the pursuit of pleasure to the overtaxing of normal endurance; and so on.
The remedy for such states does not consist in the entire removal of the food or the exercise, but in the correction of the falsity which prompts abuse. And so it is with alcohol.
If, by external restraint, we prohibit the sale and consumption of liquors--the internal causes being still at work,--the evil is but diverted ; and, as in some districts where the sale of liquor is forbidden, it seeks ultimation in the taking of opium, haschish, and other violent poisons. Hence, even if we were to grant that alcohol is injurious, the evil of intemperance could not be cured by its proscription.
But we have shown above that wine is not a poison, and the same truth was manifested also in previous issues of the SERIAL.
That alcohol in other forms is not a poison is evident from C. L. 145, there it is written that spiritual purification may be compared with the purification of natural spirits which is done by chemists, and is called defecation, rectification, castigation, cohobation, acution, decantation, and sublimation; and wisdom purified may be compared with alcohol, which is spirit most highly rectified.
We have already seen that comparisons when employed by Swedenborg are correspondences; hence, alcohol corresponds with wisdom purified.
And, further, we read S. D., vol. iv., p. 88, that punch is allowed to those in the spiritual London who are sincere and industrious. And these are among the good who are preparing for heaven.
With these facts from the Writings as our guide we are prepared to scan the field of scientific exploration in the search for confirmatory evidence.
Of one thing we feel assured, that the class of selections from which Dr. Ellis has seen fit to choose cannot be genuine, because they dispute revealed truth.
Many accredited authors acknowledge that alcohol, so far from being a poison, is a food. The organism may for a variable period subsist exclusively upon even absolute alcohol, 1 oz. to 1-1/2 oz. daily, and actually gain in weight. In moderate quantities, for instance, if not more than twenty-five grammes of brandy be taken with two hundred of meat, digestion is powerfully assisted. (Boston Journal of Chemistry, July, 1880.) The gastric glands, from which come the juices necessary for the digestion of food, are stimulated by small quantities of alcohol, greatly to the advantage of the consumer. As it is quickly absorbed by the coats of the stomach and thus enters the circulation, the liver is soon affected, and its important functions of blood-rejuvenation and of glycogenesis are greatly aided.
As an additional proof that alcohol is not essentially a poison, the experiments of Dr. Ford show that it. exists in minute quantities in the tissues of even the most rigid teetotaler. It is formed from the hepatic sugar, and may be readily detected by chromic acid and other chemical means. The discoveries of Durp, published in The Doctor, Feb. 1, 1873, corroborate those of Ford.
By the use of alcohol the hearts action is increased, and with it the circulation of the entire volume of the blood. The kidneys operate more energetically and eliminate their excreta with wholesome effect. Alcoholic preparations, varying with the kind, speedily reach the brains and impress the wonderful little glands, whose functions are the production of emotions and thoughts. Ideas flow more freely, the senses are more acute. As the ambrosial odor of wine greets the nostrils, the affections are vivified, and thus is formed a social sphere which transforms a listless company into a chatty, brilliant, and entertaining party.
Redness and incivility give place to aesthetic refinement, and charity finds one of its most delightful recreations. (See A. C.1517.)
Intemperance, then, as an evil which may exist without the use of alcohol, demands for its eradication a moral and social reform, attainable only from the internal restraint of falsity and evil. And this internal restraint respects mans freedom, without which reformation is impossible. To imprison mans passions and appetites in the chaos of forced obedience is but to let his evils smolder, which will burst forth in more irrepressible and direful forms when opportunity is afforded.
In view of the fact that many wine merchants and distillers, participating in the greedy desire for gain, adulterate their productions, it becomes necessary to be careful in selecting liquors for consumption as well as for experimentation.
Much of the whiskey which is sold, pure contains amylic alcohol, the fusel oil, which is acrid, offensive, and highly injurious to the system.
This oil is not an essential result of distillation, since it only appears in any quantity when the process is greatly prolonged, to satisfy the greed of the manufacturer.
The most successful experiments have been made with ethylic or vinous alochol. And even when taken to excess it injures far less seriously than the amylic alcohol, to which latter belong almost all the pernicious symptoms of alcoholism. (See Boston Journal of Chemistry, July, 1880.)
Of the various articles now in the market, we may make a judicious selection, depending not only upon our taste, but also upon the respective liquors.
Whiskey and brandy contain about 48 to 56 per cent. of alcohol. When good, the former contains no amylic alcohol, and yields no smell except that of its native ethereal odor. When burned it should leave no visible ashes. Brandy contains an ether peculiar to wines, nanthic ether. Its color is pale when kept in a cask and dark when doctored with caramel.
Wines are a solution of alcohol in water, mixed with various constituents of the grape. They also contain tartaric acid. The odor of wine is due to the nanthic acid and the nanthic ether, which results from the reaction of the acid on the alcohol.
To be good, noble, as it is termed, wine must have an absolute unity or taste as one whole; must contain a certain amount of alcohol; be slightly acid, and free from any trace of mawkishness. The wine must satisfy, that is make the imbiber feel consoled and sustained. Poor wine often leaves one craving, empty, and hungry; good wine, never. An indifferent article has no body, and its bouquet fails to salute the nostrils. (Flaggs Vineyards of Europe.)
Spirits are useful when there is muscular fatigue, or when digestion is habitually weak, with lagging circulation; and a tendency to emaciation.
Many animal poisons, especially snake-bites, require large doses of some alcoholic preparation.
It may not be amiss to state here that brandy, very much diluted, may save life when the parturient woman is exhausted and the uterus fails in its expulsive efforts. See article by Dr. Burdick.*
* Concerning the various hinds of wine and other liquors and their proper use, the following remarks may be added:
Sparkling wines are often effective in irritable conditions of the stomach, which make all foods, even the simplest, unbearable. They should, however, be avoided by those with whom sugar disagrees; for they contain considerable unappropriated sugar, which will lead to acid fermentation in the stomach.
The dry, acid wines, Rhine, Moselle, Claret, Catawba (Ohio), etc., stimulate and are useful before or during, never after, a meal. They prevent acidity. See Ringers Therapeutics.
Sweet Wines, Muscstel, Burgundy, Still Champagne, Madeira, etc., are apt to produce headache.
Red Wines, Claret, red Rhine wines, Concord, PORT (California), etc., are astringent, and should be selected by those suffering from diabetes, or even from frequent and copious urination. The tannin which they contain is apt to cause constipation, feverishness, and stomach-troubles. When there is much nervousness, a wine rich in ethers is desirable.
Malt liquors aggravate acid dyspepsia. They must be avoided by all who suffer from liver-troubles if there is any tendency to corpulency.
A very grateful and useful addition has lately been made in what is termed Koomiss. This drink, which has long been employed on the plains of Tartary and was there made of mares milk, is now made from the fermentation of cows milk. In addition to lactic acid, developed in the acid fermentation, there is about 4 per cent. of alcohol and as in soda water a large volume of carbonic acid gas. To make it palatable, add to a glass of the Koomiss a teaspoonful or two of sugar. It is very serviceable as a summer beverage, to mitigate the debilitating effects of the heat, and also in conditions of great debility.
For further particulars on the use of alcohol, consult especially the following well-known works: Materia Medica and Therapuetics, by Bartholow; Therapeutics, Materia Medica and Toxicology, by H. C. Wood; The National Dispensatory, by Still and Maisch; New York Med. Journal, Jan. 1872; experiments of Dr. Hammond, etc.
In the Spiritual Diary is the following, which shows conclusively that the Writings do not condemn the use of generous wine:
A Christian lives in external form as another. He can grow rich, but not with emit and artifice. He can cat and drink well, but must not place his very life in these (et), or take delight in superfluity, and also not, in drunkenness. That is he must not live in a luxurious manner. He can dwell comfortably (bene) and according to his condition magnificently.
He can talk with others as others talk; he can have sport (ludere) with others: he can converse concerning the affairs of the world and concerning various things of the household: in a word there is no difference in externals. There does not even appear a distinction. He need not appear devout, as if with a sad face, and hewed head, and groaning, but joyful and hilarious. He need not give his goods to the poor except so far as his affection for his neighbor may lead him.--S. D. 6794.
BOOKS RECEIVED.
For the want of space we must defer to the next Number of the SERIAL a further notice of the following Books:
A COMPENDIUM OF THE THEOLOGICAL WRITINGS OF EMANUEL SWEDENBORG, by Samuel M. Warren. With a Biographical Introduction by Hon. John Bigelow. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co. Royal octave, pp. 764.
FOUR DOCTRINES OF THE NEW JERUSALEM. I. Concerning the LORD. II. Concerning the Sacred Scripture. III. Concerning a life according to the precepts of the Decalogue. IV. Concerning Faith, From the Latin of EMANUEL SWEDENBORG. Rotch Edition. New Church Board of Publication, New York. New Church Union, Boston, Mass. J. B. Lippincott & Co., Philadelphia. 12mo. pp.320.
THE LOST TRUTHS OF CHRISTIANITY. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co. London: 16 Southampton St., Covent Garden. 12mo. pp. 284.
THE BIBLE FOR LEARNERS. By Dr. H. Oort, Prof. of Oriental Languages, etc., at Amsterdam, and Dr. I. Hooykaas, Pastor at Rotterdam, with the assistance of Dr. A. Kuenen, Prof. of Theology at Leiden. Boston: Roberts Brothers. Three volumes 12mo.
ANGLO-AMERICAN BIBLE REVISION by members of the American Revision Committee. Philadelphia: American Sunday-School Union. 12mo. pp. 192.
THE PROBLEM OF HUMAN LIFE, embracing the Evolution of Sound, and Evolution evolved: with a review of the six great modern scientists, Darwin, Huxley, Tyndall, Hckel, Helmholtz, and Mayer. Second Edition By A. Wilford Hall. New York: Hail & Co.
WORDS
FOR
THE NEW CHURCH
A SERIAL
CONTROLLED BY THE ACADEMY OF THE NEW CHURCH
VOLUME VIII.
THE CONFLICT OF THE AGES
PHILADELPHIA
PUBLISHED FOR THE ACADEMY OF THE NEW CHURCH
BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO.
1881
Copyright, 1881, by J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO., for the ACADEMY OF THE NEW CHURCH
CONTENTS
THE CONFLICT OF THE AGES.
IV.CONFLICT IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 141
THE BAPTISM OF JOHN 144
MINISTRY OF THE LORD 149
COMMISSION OF THE APOSTLES 151
DAY OF PENTECOST 153
WORK OF THE APOSTLES 155
CONFLICT WITH THE JEWS 158
CONFLICT WITH THE EMPIRE 159
SCHISMS IN THE PRIMITIVE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 163
THE APOSTLES 169
THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS 173
THE CHRISTIAN FATHERS 176
JUDAIZING CHRISTIANS 183
OTHER PRIMITIVE HERESIARCHS 187
PRIMITIVE COUNCILS 190
THE COUNCIL OF NICE 192
ARIANISM 199
CONSTANTINE THE GREAT 203
THE CHURCH AND STATE 209
REFORMERS 220
RSUM 225
NOTES AND REVIEWS.THE GENERAL CONFERENCE IN ENGLAND 228
THE GENERAL CONVENTION 232
AN ERROR TO BE AVOIDED 236
THE INFINITE AND THE FINITE 245
SWEDENBORG LIBRARY 251
APOCALYPSIS REVELATA 254
LITURGIE DER NEUEN KIRCHE 256
The Church.
THE periodical changes in the fourth, or Christian Church, are described in the Word of both the Old and New Testament; in particular, its rise or morning is described in the Evangelists, in the Acts, and in the Writings of the Apostles; its progression toward mid-day, in the ecclesiastical history of the first three centuries; its declension or evening, in the history of the following ages; and its vastation, and final consummation, or night, in the Apocalypse.
After these four Churches, a New Church will arise, which will be the true Christian Church, foretold in Daniel and in the Apocalypse, and by the LORD Himself in the Evangelists; which Church was expected by the Apostles.--SWEDENBORG.
THE CONFLICT OF THE AGES.
IV.
CONFLICT IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH.
Preliminary.
IN the foregoing parts of this MONOGRAPH,* we followed the descending series of the Churches down to the Incarnation of the LORD. The descending series terminated with the Jewish Church, and the ascending movement in the humanity began with the Incarnation of the LORD and His Divine work of Redemption. For in His Incarnation the LORD penetrated with His Divine Sphere and Life-giving Presence the lowest depths of departure from the life of heaven in man; and in founding the Christian Church on the lowest plane of orderly human life, arrested the further downward trend of the human race, and inaugurated a heavenward movement resting in the LORDS glorified Divine Natural. Coming down as the Divine Truth which is the Word, the LORD opened the influence of His heavenly kingdom in the heart of His Disciples, and led them to know their evils, to combat against them, and in their conflict to seek conjunction with Him as the Redeemer.
* WORDS FOR THE NEW CHURCH, NO. VII.
The Israelitish people were non-receptive of the spiritual and Divine things which the LORD offered them at His coming; they were immersed in things sensual and corporeal, their spiritual life was closed, their consciousness of evil dormant, consequently they never looked to the Divine Truths of the Word as the means of exploring the intentions and endeavors of their inner life. Therefore, while playing the part of representing a Church, they could not be a Church. For their worship was external, with nothing internal in it. The Writings say:
They could indeed represent the Church, but they could not be the Church. To represent the Church, and not to be the Church, is to worship things external and call them holy and Divine, but not by faith and love from heaven to acknowledge and perceive them.A. C. 10,560.
When, therefore, the Jewish people became false even to the external sanctities of their representative worship, and as an adulterous generation of vipers and hypocrites, were led captive by satan at his will, then the LORD came down as the Redeemer and Saviour; and in His Humanity entered into the conflict with hell. Is the True Christian Religion it is written:
When also the Word with the Jewish nation was wholly falsified and adulterated, and, as it were, made of no effect, then it pleased the LORD to descend from heaven, and to come as the Word, and to fulfill it, and thereby to restore and re-establish it, and again to give light to the inhabitants of the earth, according to the words of the LORD: The people which sat in darkness saw great light; and to them which set in the region and shadow of death, light is sprung up. Isa. ix. 2; and Matt. iv. 16.T. C. R. 270.
The LORD in His Incarnation, as we have shown in our last Paper, combated and cast out from His own Human the evils and falsities which were ensconced in it, and thus opened the natural plane of life to the influx of the Divine: and then from one degree of life to another combated and subdued the hells and glorified His Human until His work of redemption was finished.
In establishing the Church in the world, the Disciples of the LORD were led into a conflict with evil analogous to the LORDS combat with hell in His own Humanity. These conflicts involved the transition from the Jewish to the Christian state; from a state of unconsciousness and obliviousness to spiritual good and evil, to a certain recognition and consciousness of these things. These struggles were, in other phrase, the temptation combats in the Disciples by which they were inserted in the LORDS spiritual kingdom, and to a certain extent regenerated. The Word also was restored and re-established with them; and began to be understood as treating of the LORD and of His work of redemption
The call to repentance involved a new beginning. The wrong course of life, in the man of the Church, was to be changed, and a search made for the evils of life, whether visible or hidden, evils to be put away when found. This, again, involved a certain intromission into things internal and, to the external senses, invisible, and this work was to the Jewish mind new and startling. Therefore when the MESSIAH came to them preaching repentance, and proclaiming a kingdom of the heavens at hand, His word must have been a, stone of stumbling and a rock of offense.
Previous to the Incarnation mans freedom in spiritual things was overwhelmed in the inundation of evil and falsity from hell, and was almost lost. The consciousness of evil therefore in the man of the Church would have been vain and useless, and no flesh could have bees saved, had not the LORD in His work of Redemption removed the hells from man, and given him the power and the inclination to resist his evils. In mans consciousness of evil, and in his voluntary struggles against it, the LORD began anew the establishment of His Church and His kingdom on the earth.
The LORDS dwelling-place in man is in his freedom. Through his freedom in spiritual things, in it, and with it, the LORD is present with man; and without ceasing He urges the reception of Himself. When therefore mans spiritual freedom was overborne by the hells, the very dwelling-place of the Divine in man was broken up, and salvation was impossible until the LORD came down, and drove back, expelled, and subjugated the hells, and established anew in man His dwelling-place, by restoring to him spiritual freedom, and then leading him into the consciousness of his evils and into a voluntary conflict with them.
The Baptism of John.
IN the Disciples of the LORD, the transition from the Jewish to the Christian state of mind and of life was slow and arduous. The Jews were even unconscious of disobedience to the law either ill the letter or the spirit, nor did they see the necessity of the genuine obedience of the heart. But by the Baptism of John and his preaching of repentance for the remission of sins, means were provided for the transition from the Jewish to the Christian state, from a state of utter indifference and ignorance it may be, in respect to the evils of self-love and the love of the world, to a knowledge and acknowledgment of these evils as sins against God: the disciples of John were thus led to repentance and reformation.
By the Baptism of John those who were to follow the LORD at His coming were led from the external sanctities of their ritual, into the internal sanctities of life which the ritual represented; indeed from being the representative of a Church, they were called upon to be a Church.
Now that the axe was laid at the root of the trees, they must no longer be content to cleanse the outside of the cup and platter, but must also cleanse the inside.
The Writings unfold the law in respect to the coming of angels as messengers of heaven, showing that spirits are sent to prepare the way for them, as John the Baptist was sent to prepare the way for the Coming of the LORD. In the Spiritual Diary we are told how it is in the universal heaven, and in the whole orb of the earth, namely:
That before the approach of angels, a spirit is dispatched to prepare the way, to inspire fear; and to admonish that the angelic visitants be courteously received;... he is continually present, and is continually preparing the mind, and endeavoring to avert whatever may be unkind or unbecoming. Hence it may appear that in the universal heaven, and in the whole world: the custom obtains of a forerunner being employed, and that John the Baptist acted in this capacity as the announcer of the LORDS Advent; and that the case was the same with John in respect to the LORD, as it was with the spirit in respect to the angels, namely, that John was in doubt from not understanding what the LORD declared, is we read, and that afterward, being better instructed, his mind was opened to receive it, as was the case with the spirit who was in contact with my car.--S. D. 1656.
The Writings show us clearly how Johns Baptism prepared the way for the Advent of the LORD.
That Repentance is the beginning of the Church is very manifest from the Word.
John the Baptist, who was sent before, to prepare men for the Church which the LORD was about to establish, when he baptized, at the same time preached repentance; therefore his baptism was called the Baptism of Repentance, because baptism signifies spiritual washing, which is a cleansing from sins. John did this in the Jordan, because the Jordan signified introduction into the Church, for it was the first boundary of the land of Canaan where the Church was.
The LORD Himself also preached repentance for the remission of sins; by which He taught that repentance is the beginning of the Church, that so far as man repents, sins with him are removed, and that so far as they are removed they are remitted. And furthermore, the LORD commanded the twelve Apostles, and also the Seventy whom He sent forth, to preach repentance.
From which it is plain that the beginning of the Church is repentance.T. C. R. 610.
Johns Baptism was therefore an essential means of preparing the way for the Advent of the LORD, and consequently it holds a most vital place in the inauguration of the Christian Church, and in the Conflict of the Ages.
John, like the Prophets in the olden time, dwelt in the wilderness. And, in his wild and startling appearance, clad in raiment of camels hair, and his loins girded about with a leathern girdle; eating only locusts and wild honey, he came forth from the wilderness day unto day, crying:
Repent ye, for the kingdom of the heavens is at hand.
The whole country was moved; and the hanks of the Jordan where he preached were thronged with the multitudes who came to his Baptism.
There went out to him Jerusalem and all Juda and all the region round about the Jordan, and were baptized by him in the Jordan, confessing their sins. Matt. iii. 5.
Thus the Baptism of John prepared the way so that JEHOVAH the LORD could descend into the world and accomplish redemption.
In Malachi it is written:
Behold, I send Mine angel, and he shall prepare the may before Me, and the LORD whom ye seek shall suddenly come to His temple, and the Angel of the covenant whom ye desire. Who will abide the day of His coming, and who shall stand when He appeareth? Mal. iii. 1, 2. And again: Behold I will send you Elijah the prophet, before the coming of the great and dreadful day of JEHOVAH; lest I come and smite the earth with a curse. Mal. iv. 5, 6.
And Zacharias the father, prophesying of John his son, says: Thou, child, shalt be called the prophet of the Most High; thou shalt go before the face of the LORD, to prepare His ways. Luke i. 76.
And the LORD Himself says concerning the same John: This is he of whom it is written: Behold I send Mine angel before Thy face, who shall prepare Thy may before Thee. Luke vii. 21.
From these Scriptures it is evident that this John was the prophet sent to prepare the way for JEHOVAH GOD, that He might descend into the world and accomplish redemption, and that he prepared that way by Baptism, and by then announcing the Coming of the LORD; and that without this preparation all therein would have been smitten with a curse and would have perished.--T. C. R. 688.
In the Apocalypse Explained the wonderful influence of Johns Baptism is unfolded as follows:
By baptism John the Baptist was to prepare the people for the reception of the LORD, for baptism represented and signified purification from evils and falsities, and also regeneration by the LORD through the Word. And unless this representation had preceded, it would not have been possible for the LORD to manifest Himself, to teach, and to abide in Judea and Jerusalem, inasmuch as the LORD is the God of heaven and the God of earth under a Human Form, who could not possibly be with a nation which was in were falsities as to doctrine, and in were evils as to life: wherefore unless the representative of purification from evils and falsities by baptism had prepared that nation for the reception of the LORD, it would have perished with diseases of every kind at the presence of the Divine Himself. This therefore is signified by the words: Lest I come and smite the earth with a curse. In the spiritual world it is well known that this would have been so, for there those who are in falsities and evils are direfully tormented and spiritually die at the presence of the LORD. Such preparation could he effected by the baptism of John, because the Jewish Church was a representative Church, and conjunction of heaven with them was by representatives, as may appear from the washings commanded there.... The washing and baptism did not indeed purify them from falsities and evils, they only represented and thus signified purification from them; nevertheless this representation was received in heaven, as if they themselves were purified. Thus heaven was conjoined with the people of that Church by the baptism of John, and when heaven was thus conjoined with them, then the LORD, who was the God of heaven, could manifest Himself teach, and abide among them.A. E. 724.
In the True Christian Religion it is written:
The Baptism of John prepared away, because through it men were introduced into the future Church of the LORD, and inserted in heaven among those there who expected and longed for the MESSIAH; and thus they were guarded by angels, lest the devils should break forth from hell and destroy them. Thus it is manifest that all must have perished, unless by means of Baptism the way had been prepared for JEHOVAH when He was descending into the world. The effect of this in heaven was such that the hells were closed, and the Jews guarded against total destruction..... That it is so, is clearly manifest from the words of John to the multitudes going out to be baptized by him: O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Matt. iii. 7.T. C. R. 689.
The Baptism of John represented the cleansing of the external man, but the Baptism which is at this day with Christians represents the cleansing of the internal man, and this is regeneration. We therefore read that John baptized with water, but that the LORD baptizes with the Holy Spirit and with Fire; and the Baptism of John is therefore called the Baptism of repentance. Matt. iii. 11.
The Jews who were baptized were merely external men, and the external men without faith in CHRIST cannot become internal. That those who were baptized with Johns Baptism became internal men when they received faith in CHRIST, and that they were then baptized in the name of JESUS, may be seen in the Acts of the Apostles, xix. 3-6.--T. C. R. 688.
The ministry of John continued until the LORD was openly manifested in Israel as the MESSIAH, and his crowning work was the baptism of the LORD, and his testimony that He was the promised MESSIAH. He concluded his ministry with the announcement that the LORD at His Coming would make the conflict with evil so internal and searching that it could be represented only by the Baptism of the Holy Spirit and of fire. He said:
I indeed baptize you with mater unto repentance; but He that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. Whose fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly purge His floor, and gather His wheat into the garner; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. Matt. iii. 11, 12.
Ministry of the Lord.
THE beginning of the LORDS ministry is set forth in the Word as follows:
Now after that John was put in prison, JESUS came into Galilee, preaching the Gospel of the kingdom of God, and saying: The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: Repent ye, and believe the Gospel. Mark i. 14, 15.
Then in His teaching He unfolded to the people the signification of the Scripture, and restored it to its office as the living Divine Word. The commandments of the Decalogue He proclaimed as the laws of life; whosoever would enter into life, He said, must keep them, not merely according to the letter, but also according to the spirit. The LORD led His disciples to search for the motives of their conduct, to look to their intentions and endeavors, as well as to their words and actions. In His teachings and in His transactions, He determined the essentials of a good life, so defining them that all could see them, and that no one need be left in the dark. He gave as the sum and substance of the whole duty of man, obedience to the two great commandments, the first requiring Love to the LORD, and the second, Love to the Neighbor.
The LORD came down as the Divine Truth, which is the Word; He entered into its forms and filled them with His life, and disclosing their spirit and power, made the Word new. The discourses of the LORD and the transactions of His life were a continual developing of the things enveloped in the rituals of the Jewish religion, and in the representatives of the Ancient Church, and thus of the internal doctrines of life for the true Church in all ages. In the Arcana it is written:
The Ancient Church and the Christian Church it its beginning are altogether the same as to internals, and differ only as to externals. The externals of the Ancient Church were all representative of the LORD and of the celestial and spiritual things of His kingdom, that is, of love and charity and faith thence, consequently of such things as are of the Christian Church: when, therefore, the externals which were of the Ancient Church, and also of the Jewish Church, are unfolded, and as it were unswathed, the Christian Church is revealed. This also is signified by the rending asunder of the veil of the Temple [when the LORD was crucified]. Matt. xxvii. 51.A. C. 4772.
As to internals, the Ancient Church did not differ ill the least from the Christian Church, but only as to externals. And however varied he externals may be, the worship of the LORD, from charity, can never differ.A. C. 1083.
The work of the LORD in the beginning of His ministry is described in the evangelists:
And JESUS went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people. And there followed Him great multitudes of people from Galilee, and from Decapolis, and from Jerusalem, and from beyond the Jordan. Matt. iv. 23-25.
It is also written that great multitudes heard Him gladly. From those who followed Him gladly His Disciples were gathered in and his Apostles chosen. Many followed Him who ran well for a time, but were offended at Him when He disclosed His Divinity and His oneness with the Father. This, they said, is a hard saying: Who can hear it? From that time many of His Disciples went back and walked no more with Him. John vi. 66.
But many others left all and followed the LORD, and were steadfast in their obedience and faith. Drawn by the sphere of His Love, and illuminated by the Divine Truth of His words, who spake as never man spake, they soon began to comprehend in some measure the significance of the new life into which they were introduced, and the conflict with evil involved in leading this life.
They could not but see the ineffable beauty of holiness in the Divine Life of the LORD; and therefore however feeble their effort at first, they nevertheless endeavored to follow the LORD in the regeneration. And as in this beginning of the Church, the Disciples were led into experiences altogether new, so also it was in after-years with others, and so it continues to the present time: for wherever the old and unregenerate state in man is disturbed by the Divine Sphere of the LORD, and man endeavors to be obedient to the LORD, there is conflict and combat, and this continues until either the opposing evil is subdued and put away, the LORD being triumphant, or until the Divine Sphere of the LORD is resisted and repelled.
Commission of the Apostles.
WHEN the LORD called His twelve Disciples and sent them forth as Apostles, He gave them a commission which had a spiritual significance bearing internally upon their own lives; for the gospel which they were commanded to preach was designed to have its highest use internally in themselves, in healing their own spiritual maladies, and cleansing their own spiritual leprosy, as well as raising from the dead their own dormant capacities, and casting out from their own lives the evil demons that were dwelling there.
But this commission to the Twelve, and afterward to the Seventy, signified aggression and war against all forms of evil and falsity of earth and of hell; for not only their own hearts and lives were to be explored, but they were also to be brought face to face in conflict with the men of the world, and with the wickedness in the Church and out of it.
In Matthew it is written:
These twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying:
Go not into the may of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not: but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And as ye go, preach, saying: The kingdom of the heavens is at hand. Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons: freely ye have received, freely give.
Behold I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents and harmless as doves. But beware of men: for they will deliver you up to the councils, and they will scourge you in the synagogues; and ye shall be brought before governors and kings for My sake, for a testimony against them and the Gentiles.... And ye shall be hated by all men for My names sake: but he that endureth to the end shall be saved. Matt. x. 6-22.
In Luke it is written:
I am come to send fire on the earth, and what will I, if it be already kindled? I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how I am straitened till it be accomplished! Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on the earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division. For from henceforth there shall be five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three. Luke xii. 43, 50, 51.
These words of the LORD represent the hostilities that would take place and the combats that would thence arise between good and evil, and between truth and falsity. For before the LORD came into the world, there were nothing but were falsities and evils in the Church, consequently there was no combat between them and truths and goods; but after the LORD opened truths and goods, then combats could first exist; and without such combats there could be no reformation. This therefore is understood by the LORDS willing that the fire may be already kindled.A. E. 504.
The LORD in these words foretold the fiery ordeal awaiting the Christian Church in going forth conquering and to conquer. What could be more direful than this dread away of fire and sword, the sundering of old ties, even the most sacred, the wrath of governors, and kings, and councils, flight from one city to another, persecutions and death? (See A. E. 724.)
How naturally would the Disciples shrink from all this and ask: Why can we not have in the MESSIAHS new Church a way of life that is more easy and popular, and more in harmony with the time-honored institutions of the Ages?
Still, in the end, they began to comprehend the significance of the New Life, in which the LORD is ALL IN ALL, and they began to see that before Him all else is less than nothing and vanity.
Day of Pentecost.
THE miraculous events on the day of Pentecost lifted up the Disciples out of their despondency, in respect to the New Kingdom of Heaven, to be established on the earth; for in the wonderful things seen and heard on that eventful day, they began once more to realize the presence and power of the LORD.
At His final appearance to the Disciples before His ascension, the LORD said to them:
And, behold, I send the promise of My Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high.
And He led them out as far as Bethany, and lifting up His hands He blessed them. And it came to pass while He blessed them, He was parted from them and carried up into heaven. And they worshiped Him, and returned to Jerusalem with joy: and were continually in the temple, praising and blessing GOD. Amen. Luke xxiv. 49-53.
The Disciples accordingly tarried in Jerusalem, waiting for the promise of the Father. The time was one of lingering fear, and of earnest hope. The promise of the Father, and the power from on high, they certainly could not fully comprehend, in advance of the actual experience of these Divine blessings;
but still the expectation was none the less intense and ecstatic.
From the ascension of the LORD till the day of Pentecost the Disciples, therefore, were waiting for the promise of the Father and for the power from on High. The miraculous scenes and transactions on that day broke the spell that had bound them to the ideas of the Jewish religion, and opened their minds into a fuller comprehension of the glories of the kingdom of heaven, and of the New Dispensation. In the Book of Acts it is written:
And when the day of Pentecost was fully come they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house there they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.
And there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven. Now when this was noised abroad the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language. And they were amazed and marveled, saying one to another: Behold, are not all these who speak Galilans? And how hear we every man in his own tongue, wherein he was born? ... And they were all amazed and were in doubt, saying: What meaneth this? Others mocking said: These men are full of new wine. Acts ii. 1-13.
Peters defense of the Disciples, and his interpretation of the Prophets in their predictions of the last days of the Jewish state, the Coming of the LORD, and the beginning of a new Church, convinced multitudes of those who heard him. It is written:
They were pricked in the heart, and said unto Peter and the rest of the apostles: Men and brethren, what shall we do? Then Peter said unto them: Repent, and be baptized every one of yet, in the name of JESUS CHRIST, for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit....
Then they gladly received his word and were baptized: and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls, and they continued steadfastly in the doctrine and fellowship of the Apostles, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers. And fear came upon every soul; and many wonders and signs were done by the Apostles. Acts ii. 371-43.
While the LORD was with His Disciples in the world, in every movement, He was their leader, their LORD and Master. But after His Ascension, and before the day of Pentecost, they were waiting, and there was no visible movement toward the further establishment of the Church. On the day of Pentecost the Apostles realized that they had then received the promise of the Father, and that they were then endued with power from on high. They were therefore inspired to take the responsibility as leaders and teachers, and to move onward in the work of inaugurating the Church.
The day of Pentecost, therefore, marks, in history, the dawn of the Christian Church in its external visible form as the Church Militant, and the beginning of its conflicts with both Jews and Gentiles.
Work of the Apostles.
FROM the day of Pentecost onward, the Apostles and Disciples came into open conflict with the world, and the distinction between those who were of the Church and those who were not of the Church soon became most manifest. And as the Apostles and Disciples entered into the work of propagating the faith and establishing the Church among Jews and Gentiles, the struggle was also intensified in the interiors of their own lives. The commission given them by the LORD before His Ascension was plain and absolute. In Matthew it is written as follows:
And JESUS came and spake unto them, saying:
All authority is given unto me in heaven and on earth. Go ye therefore and make disciples of all nations; baptizing them into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to keep all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you all the days, until the consummation of the age. Amen. Matt. xxviii. 18-20.
Peters memorable sermon on the day of Pentecost was the beginning of their aggressive movement. This first Christian sermon brought on the conflict, first with the Jews, and then with the Gentiles.
From this auspicious beginning to the Council of Nice, A. D. 326, the Church was propagated with a rapidity and force so stupendous that the movement seems altogether miraculous. The statistics given tell the wonderful tale.
Before the day of Pentecost the Disciples assembling day unto day, and waiting for the promise, of the Father were about one hundred and twenty. Acts i. 15.
On the day of Pentecost we are told that three thousand were added to the Church: Acts ii. 41; and afterward, according to the Acts, iv. 4, about five thousand believed; and again it is said that there were many added to the Church of such as should be saved. Acts xi. 21, 24.
At the Council of Nice, that is, in less than three hundred years, there were three hundred and eighteen Bishops, for none but Bishops were called to the council. These were assembled from Europe, Asia, and Africa. History does not tell us the number of the other clergy, nor the number of the other Disciples and members of the Church; but from the facts given we may infer that the Church members throughout the Roman Empire were very numerous, and probably more than a thousand to every one of the Bishops.
But during these three centuries the struggles of the Church were most direful. The world was already occupied with organized forces that confronted the Church and that were ready to destroy it.
They had crucified the LORD, hoping thus to end the unwelcome intrusion: and now the Disciples of the LORD, propagating His doctrines and moving onward in the establishment of the Church as His Kingdom, were obnoxious to the same remorseless hatred. The Christians therefore as they came into conflict with the Jewish Religion, and the Greek Philosophy, and the ever vigilant and jealous authorities of the vast Roman Empire, found the fulfillment of the LORDS words, that they would be hated and persecuted by all men, and that some of them would be put to death.
In the experience of the Church the words of Paul were also verified:
For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Eph. vi. 12.
As the new doctrines were proclaimed, first among the Jews, and then among the Gentiles where there were the Greek Philosophers, the Platonists, the Gnostics, and others, there arose, from the very beginning, controversies and discussions is the Church on points of faith, some of which were more or less external, as with the Jewish converts, respecting the continued observance of the Mosaic Ritual; while other points were more internal and vital, as with the Gentile converts, and especially the Greeks, respecting the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Resurrection, and the world to come.
Conflict with the Jews.
THE Jews were the first to oppose the Disciples with Theological arguments, and when confronted by the Disciples and silenced by reasons drawn from the Scriptures, they were the first to take up arms and to endeavor to silence by force what they could not silence by reason. Indeed, many of the persecutions under the Emperors were instigated either openly or secretly by the Jews. We may therefore briefly recount their conduct:
From the day of Pentecost the Jews began their persecutions of the Christians, and continued them for many years. The Jewish authorities seemed determined to destroy the Christians and blot out their very name. With violence they seemed ready to kill and to destroy. Stephen was the first martyr. In the most direful rage they stoned him to death, after hearing his plea for the Christian faith, and his demonstration from history, that the Israelites were a, people stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart,--traitors and murderers. From this time onward with violence the Jews continued their persecutions. The struggle was long, and the Christians met their antagonists with forbearance, argument, persuasion, miracles, and with the Divine Truth.
The breach widened between the principles at issue as the conflict continued, until at length the issue was simply this: The Church as the LORDS kingdom on the earth struggling with the organized forms of the hells. The Jews became more and more insane in their opposition to the Christians, until Jerusalem was destroyed, and the Jewish nationality trampled under foot and swept away by the victorious cohorts of Titus.
But although scattered abroad and their nationality nominally extinct, still the hostility of the Jews to the Christians continued.
In A. D. 115 their hatred against the Roman government burst into a flame, and they led an insurrection which beginning in Cyrenaica spread into Lybia and Egypt, then to Cyprus, Palestine, and even into Mesopotamia. Whole provinces were nearly depopulated. Most remorseless atrocities were committed upon the people generally, but the wrath of the Jewish fomenters of the rebellion fell especially upon the provinces where the Christians were numerous, and upon the Christians themselves. In Cyrenaica alone two hundred and twenty thousand of the people were put to death: Lybia was almost depopulated, and great havoc was committed in Egypt. In all this, the temper of the Jews toward the Christians may be inferred from the anathema then in use in their synagogues, composed by Rabbi Samuel, the Little:
May there be no hope for these apostates; and may these heretics perish, in a moment, and may this kingdom of pride be speedily in bur days, rooted up and broken in pieces. Blessed be God! See Basil H. Cooper, pp. 144, 145.
Conflict with the Empire.
THE persecutions of the Christians by the Roman Emperors were far wider in their range than the Jewish persecutions, and more desolating and direful. These persecutions tell a memorable tale; for they show us that by physical force the Church could not be destroyed. Imperial Rome had all possible appliances for repressing opinions and forcing convictions upon the people. Rome could summon to the work cohorts and legions, chains and fetters, dungeons and racks without number. If the Church could be destroyed, or the faith of Christians turned back into Paganism, or into Judaism, by the combined powers of an imperial government, imperial Rome was the power to do it.
Rome made the trial and most signally failed.
And still the conflict was so formidable, that without an insight into the condition of the Roman Empire at that time, we call have but a faint conception of it.
Although some of the Ten Persecutions were local, and those who wished could escape the danger, still there were times when great multitudes of Christians were doomed to a sort of wholesale slaughter. And while some saved themselves by denying the LORD, or by sacrificing to the gods, or by bribing the magistrates to certify that they hail sacrificed, or by giving up their sacred books, there were multitudes who went joyfully to the stake, preferring death to the disgrace of apostasy, and longing for the glory of the martyrs crown. These persecutions confirmed and intensified the faith and devotion of many who were so conjoined with the LORD that, it was the delight of their lives to follow Him even unto death; and through Him they felt that the Church was invincible.
The last of the ten persecutions began with the destruction of the Church of Nicomedia, February 23, A. D. 303. Previous to this the Christians had enjoyed an almost uninterrupted peace for a period of forty years. Diocletian had for the twenty years of his successful reign witnessed the growing power of the Christian Church, and at the same time the gradual unmasking, by the spiritual influence of the Christian Religion, of the true character of Paganism. He saw that if Christianity continued to multiply its converts and to augment its influence, Paganism must crumble and fall; and he feared that his Empire would go with it. He was ambitious to restore the Empire to its former greatness and glory, and to this end he determined to restore the old Pagan religion to its former ascendancy as the established religion.
But without the subversion and destruction of Christianity, Paganism could not be reinstated in its former rank and power. He therefore began another struggle with the Christian Church upon the issue of which was staked its life or death. Diocletian, it is said, shrunk from the contest, for he well knew that, it would be terrible.
After destroying the Church of Nicomedia, Diocletian issued an imperial edict commanding that all Christian temples should be destroyed, and the books belonging to Christians burned; that all civil officers processing the Christian Religion should forfeit their dignities; that Christian citizens should be deprived of their civil privileges; and that even slaves who avowed their faith in CHRIST should forfeit their prospect of freedom. The indignation provoked against the Emperor by this edict, and the perils, real or imaginary which then threatened him, required that the whole power of the Empire should be arrayed against the Christians.
Diocletian issued two other edicts, each more rigorous than that which preceded it, and then a fourth commanding that, all Christians should be compelled to sacrifice to the gods. To enforce these edicts, persecutions raged in nearly every part of the Empire, and the spirit and power of the Church were tried; the results showing the most heroic courage with some, and with others, cowardice and desertion.
So sweeping and destructive were these persecutions that the word went out throughout the Empire that Diocletian had utterly abolished the name of Christian; and monuments signifying this were built in honor of the Emperor. But still the Christian name was not abolished; nor the progress of the Church much hindered.
In Gaul, Spain, and Great Britain, the sufferings of the Christians were much mitigated by the conduct of Csar Constantius Chlorus. His son Constantine inherited his fathers spirit in a still higher degree. When Constantine had overthrown Maxentius, he in conjunction with Licinius, the Augustus of Eastern Europe, was induced by his regard for Christians to proclaim a universal toleration for all religions.Dr. Hases His. Chris. Church, p. 55.
By the edict of Milan, A. D. 313, all religions were placed on an equal footing. The Christians were also reinstated in their property which the persecuting Emperors had confiscated.
Constantine at length went further and embraced the cause of the Christian Church, and formed an alliance with it. The persecutions had made manifest the character of those who were Christians in fact, and not in name only. The genuine Christians were truthful and sincere, obedient to law and faithful in the duties of life. They were resolute and inflexible, not to be deterred by fear or favor from doing what they deemed right. Then, notwithstanding all the persecutions, the Church was formidable in the Empire, and a continually augmenting power. Constantine striving for supreme power recognized this fact, and employed it for his ends, and therefore espoused the cause of the Church, and led it in an alliance with the State. Of this more will appear presently when we come to treat of the Council of Nice.
The Doctrinal Controversies that arose in the first three Centuries, must now be considered.
Schisms in the Primitive Church.
IN the True Christian Religion it is written:
The Christian Church began from the cradle to be infested and divided by schisms and heresies, and in the course of time to be torn and mutilated almost as we read of the man who went down from Jerusalem to Jericho; he was surrounded by robbers, who stripped him and bent him and then left him half dead. Luke x. 30.
That the Christian Church from its infancy was so vexed and torn is evident from ecclesiastical history, which shows that this was done even in the time of the Apostles by Simon who was a Samaritan by birth, and in practice a magician, of whom in the Acts of the Apostles, viii. 9-20; and also by Hymeneus and Philetus, who are mentioned by Paul in the Epistle to Timothy; also by Nicholas, from whose name the Nicolaitans were called, who are mentioned in the Apocalypse, ii. 6, and in the Acts, vi. 5; and also by Cerinthus. After the times of the Apostles, many others arose....
The causes of so many divisions and separations in the Church are principally three: First, The Divine Trinity was not understood; Second, There was no just recognition of the LORD; Third, The Passion of the cross was taken for redemption itself. While there is ignorance concerning these three things, which yet are the very essentials of faith from which the Church has its being and is called the Church, it cannot be otherwise than that all things of the Church should be drawn aside into a wrong and at length into the opposite course, and when there, should still believe that it is in the true faith in God and in the faith of all the truths of God.--T. C. R. 378.
The Apostolic College and the organized Churches under their instruction and in harmony with them fought against these mischievous heresiarchs, and endeavored to reduce their influence and to put down their heresies. But, as time advanced, other heresies arose which mingled their influence with the old heresies and augmented their force, so that the Church was more and more infested and rent asunder, until one stone was not left upon another, that was not thrown down.
Three hundred years did the work; and in the Council of Nice the Primitive Church was brought to its end, and the false dogmas of a Tritheistic theology substituted instead of the integral faith in the LORD GOD the Redeemer and Saviour.
Between the infancy of the Church as established by the LORD, and its downfall in the calamitous transactions of this great cumenical Council, there is no break. An unbroken chain runs from John the beloved Apostle to Athanasius and Arius. Yet in the beginning of the series we have a true Church, and in the end, the Church corrupted, violated, and ruined.
Men do not change their minds in a moment; and communities of men, where there are thousands and millions, move much slower than individuals. The Primitive Church represented by the Apostolic College in the first century, with its firm and undivided faith in the LORD as the Redeemer and Saviour, its life of brotherly love and charity, and its quiet waiting for the LORD in His Second Coming, could not be transformed into the Church represented in the Council at the beginning of the fourth century, without many changes of thought, struggles of conviction, and conflicts with conscience.
As we follow the line of history from the Apostles downward, we shall find a full confirmation of what the Doctrines say in respect to these three sources of the heresies which infested the Primitive Church. Even the Apostolic Epistles show us that while the Apostles acknowledged the Trinity they did not fully understand it, and while they believed in the LORD, they had no just recognition of Him; and that they were inclined, even from the first, to make the Passion of the cross the whole of redemption.
The LORD revealed Himself as one with the Father, and in fact as the Incarnation of the Father when He said:
I and the Father are one. John x. 30. He that seeth Me, seeth the Father. xiv. 9. If ye had known Me ye should have known My Father also. viii. 19. He that receiveth Me receiveth Him that sent Me. xiii. 21. He saith unto Philip: Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? Believe Me that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me. xiv. 10, 11. That ye may know and believe that the Father is in Me, and I in the Father. x. 38. That they all may be one, as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee. xvii. 21. Father, all Mine art Thine, and Thine are Mine. xvii. 10. If ye believe not that I AM, ye shall die in your sins. viii. 24.
The LORDS words when speaking of the Father and of the Holy Spirit were plain and direct in declaring His oneness with the Father and the Holy Spirit. For while the Father was in Him so that He was the presence, embodiment, and manifestation of the Father, the Holy Spirit proceeded from Him as His own Spirit. He promised the Comforter as the Spirit of Truth, and He had declared Himself to be the Way and the Truth and the Life. John xiv. 5. Then the personal unity of the LORD with the Father and the Holy Spirit He revealed when He paid:
I will not leave you comfortless, I will come to you. John xiv. 18. When the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of Truth, which proceedeth from the Father, He shall testify of Me. xv. 26. And when He is come, He will reprove the world of sin and of justice, and of judgment; of sin because they believe not in ME. xvi. 8, 9.
The Faith by which the Disciples of the LORD were to be inserted in His Kingdom and conjoined with Him was a faith in Him in whom was the Father, and from whom was the Holy Spirit. The Writings say:
Saving faith is in God the Saviour, because He is God and Man, and He is in the Father and the Father in Him, and thus They are one; wherefore they who go to Him, go at the same time to the Father, and thus to the one and only God, and there: is no saving faith in any other.
That belief or faith must be in the Son of God, the Redeemer and Saviour, conceived from JEHOVAH and born of the Virgin Mary, named JESUS CHRIST, is evident from the commands frequently repeated by Him, and afterward by the Apostles. That faith in Him was commanded by Himself is very manifest from these passages: JESUS said: This is the will of the Father that sent Me, that every one who seeth the Son and believeth in Him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. John vi. 40. He that believeth in the Son hath eternal life; but he that believeth not the Son shall not sec life, but the wrath of God abideth on him. iii. 36.-- T. C. R. 337.
And still the Disciples of the LORD always seemed to fall short of a full understanding of the LORD as one with the Father. They never spoke of Him altogether as He spoke of Himself, namely, that He was the I AM: that the Father was in Him, and He in the Father: that to see and know Him was to see and know the Father: and that coming to Him was coming to the Father.
To the LORDS question to the Disciples: Whom say ye that I am? the full extent of their faith was expressed when Simon Peter answering said:
Thou art the CHRIST, the Son of the living God.
Subsequently, as we find in the acts and in the Epistles, this was their common confession of faith. Thus, when Philip baptized the Ethiopian Eunuch, his confession was: I believe that JESUS CHRIST is the Son of God. Also, when Paul was baptized and began to preach, he preached CHRIST, that He is the Son of God. And often in his Epistles, Paul calls the LORD the Son of God. John also in his Epistles does the same.
The confession that JESUS CHRIST is the Son of God is indeed according to the letter of the Word, and, when understood according to trite doctrine, serves to confirm the believer in the doctrine that the LORD is the only God. But standing alone and apart from the true doctrine of the Trinity, this confession might degenerate into the belief in JESUS CHRIST as a Being separate from the Father and subordinate to Him:
and as a matter of fact this heresy actually infested the Primitive Church even from the days of the Apostles: many acknowledging that JESUS CHRIST was the Son of the living God, without acknowledging that He was JEHOVAH GOD Incarnate.
The doctrine that the work of redemption consisted in the Passion of the cross is in no way founded in the teachings of the LORD in the Gospels. Even the appearance of the fallacy is hardly discernible in the literal sense of the Evangelists. The believers in the vicarious atonement, and in the substitution of the merits of atoning blood. for the demerits of the sinner, are confounded when they find nothing of these things in the Gospels.
The LORDS words are direct and simple. He said:
If thou wilt enter into the life keep the commandments. Matt. xix. 17. He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth Me: and he that loveth Me shall be loved of My Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself unto him.... If a man love Me he will keep My words; and My Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make Our abode with him. John xiv. 21, 23. If ye keep My commandments, ye shall abide in My love. xv. 10. And the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books according to their
The Passion of the cross was the last and the most direful of the LORDS combats with the hells, and in it His work of redemption was finished: the LORDS Human was glorified, the hells were subjugated, and angels and men were redeemed. And still we can hardly imagine how the Passion of the cross came to be taken for the whole of redemption; yet such is the fact.
In the Gospels the word atonement does not occur, nor any word like it.
Nor is any thing like the transfer or imputation of Adams guilt, or of CHRISTS righteousness, so much as mentioned.
While the LORD was with the Disciples, He kept them from falling into the heresies that afterward infested the Church. Consequently, although they did not fully understand the Divine Trinity, they nevertheless were kept in a certain devout acknowledgment of it; and although they had no just knowledge of the LORD, they were held in a living faith in Him as the Redeemer and Saviour, and as in some way, one with the Father. And although not comprehending in rational light the work of redemption, they realized that the LORD was delivering them from the bondage of evil, giving them spiritual life, and fitting them for the kingdom of heaven. They were taught to become new creatures and to be transformed in the spirit and temper of their minds, to die unto sin, and to live unto holiness. And this subjective change in themselves and others, resulting in the death of the old man and in the development of the new life in the LORD, they acknowledged as the LORDS work of Redemption which He accomplished during His Life in the world.
After the Ascension of the LORD, the Disciples were thrown upon their own resources in the work committed to them. They had the Scriptures of the Old Testament, and fresh in their memories were the words of the LORD, and the Spirit of Truth, the Comforter was with them as the continual presence of the LORD; and still it is most evident that they did not fully comprehend the profound mysteries of the Christian system,--the Incarnation of the Divine, the Trinity, the work of redemption, and, indeed, mans reformation and regeneration. Their Epistles are a sufficient indication of this.
There were two reasons why they were slow of heart to believe, and slow of understanding to comprehend the whole Truth:
One is, that they were simple-minded men and uncultivated in science and literature, so that the correspondences of the Word could not be revealed to them. The other is, that they were stiff-necked and unwilling often to yield to the force of Truth. But still as the LORDS chosen representatives in founding His Church, they entered into the work, and through them and their writings the Doctrines of Christianity were propagated throughout the world; and the Church was established.
The Apostles.
THE Disciples of the LORD were beset with difficulties, in comprehending the nature of the Church to be established, that we may never fully understand. They were Jews. Their minds were Jewish minds. Their hereditary proclivities were Jewish; and their hopes were centered in a MESSIAH exclusively Jewish. To redeem them and through them to establish His Church the LORD, therefore, brought the Word clown to their condition, and He influenced and led them by truths adapted to their comprehension. The Arcana unfolds this subject as follows:
Exterior truths are the first truths which man learns; and the LORD provides that by them he may be introduced into interior truths.... These things may be evident from the Churches which were of ancient time, and from their doctrinals, because their doctrinals were formed from external truths.
Thus the doctrinals of the Ancient Church which was after the flood were, for the most part, external representatives and significatives, in which internal truths were stored up. The greatest part of this Church were in bury worship when in externals; and in the beginning, if any one had told them, that these representatives and significatives were not the essentials of Divine Worship, but that the essentials were the spiritual and celestial things which were represented and signified they would have rejected these things, and then no Church would have been established.
And still more with respect to the Jewish Church. If any one had told them that their rituals had their sanctity from the Divine of the LORD, which was in them, they would not have acknowledged it at all.
Such also was man when the LORD came into the world; and, among those who were of the Church, man was much more corporeal. This is manifest from the Disciples themselves, who were continually with the LORD, and heard so many things about His kingdom; and yet they could not perceive interior truths, nor indeed could they have any other notion of the LORD, than the Jews at this day have of the MESSIAH Whom they expect, namely, that He would exalt them to dominion and glory above all the nations in the universe. And even after they had heard so many things from the LORD about the heavenly kingdom, still they could not think otherwise than that the heavenly kingdom would be like an earthly kingdom; and that in it God the Father would be Supreme, and after Him the Son, and afterward, they Twelve; and thus that they were to reign in order; wherefore, even James and John prayed Him that they might sit, the one on His right and the other on His left. Mark x. 35. The rest of the Disciples were indignant, because these wished to be greater than the rest. Therefore, afterward, the LORD taught them what it is to be greatest in heaven, and yet He spoke according to their apprehension, namely, that they should sit on twelve thrones and judge the twelve Tribes of Israel. Luke xxii. 24, 30.
If they had been told that the Disciples did not mean themselves, but all those who are in the good of love and faith; also that in the LORDS kingdom there are neither thrones, nor principalities, nor governments, as in the world, and that they could not judge even the very smallest thing in a single man, they would have rejected the Word, and leaving the LORD, every one would have returned to his own business. The LORD spoke in this may that they might receive external truths, and by these be introduced into internal truths; for in these external truths which the LORD spoke, internal truths were concealed which in time would appear, and when these appear, then the external truths are dissipated, and serve only as objects or means of thinking about internal truths.--A. C. 3867. See, also, A. C. 4489.
The Disciples acknowledged the LORD JESUS CHRIST as the Redeemer, in Whom was the Father, and they worshiped Him. But they did not, as already observed, rationally understand the Divine Trinity.
In their Epistles they said of the LORD JESUS CHRIST:
This is the true God and eternal life. 1 John v. 20.
He is the Image of invisible God. Col. i. 15.
In Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. Col. ii. 9.
God was in CHRIST reconciling the world unto Himself. 2 Cor. v. 19.
To the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen. Jude 25. See, also, 1 Tim. vi. 14, 15, 16.
But notwithstanding these explicit statements, the Epistles in some places seem to favor the doctrine of a Tri-personal Trinity, and others the Arian doctrine of the subordination of the Son to the Father; but this cannot be their true import, for then would they contradict themselves, as the cases cited above will show, as well also au the plain teachings of the LORD. Besides, the Writings declare that a Tri-personal Trinity was unknown in the days of the Apostles. In the True Christian Religion it is written:
A Trinity of Persons was unknown in the Apostolic Church; but was first broached by the Nicene Council, and from that was introduced into the Roman Catholic Church, and from this into the Churches that were separated from it.
The Apostolic Church is not only the Church which existed in various places in the time of the Apostles, but also in the two or three centuries after their day. But at length they began to wrest from its hinges the door of the temple, and like thieves to break into its shrine.--T. C. R. 174.
In that primitive time, all that was then the Christian world acknowledged that the LORD JESUS CHRIST was God, to whom was given all power in haven and earth, and power over all flesh, according to His own express words in Matt. xxviii. 18; and John xvii. 2.T. C. R. 637.
That the Apostolic Church knew nothing whatever of a Trinity of Persons, or of three Divine Persons from eternity, is very evident from the Creed of that Church, which is called the Apostles Creed, in which are these words:
I believe in God the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth; and in JESUS CHRIST His only Son our LORD, Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary; also in the Holy Spirit.
There no mention is made of any Son from eternity, but of the Son conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary; they knowing from the Apostles that JESUS CHRIST was the true God, 1 John v. 20; and that in Him dwelt all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, Col. ii. 91 that the Apostles preached faith in Him, Acts xx. 21; and that He had: all power in heaven and in earth, Matt. xxviii. 15.-- T. C. R. 175.
The Apostles set forth their doctrine in respect to the work of redemption only in the most general way, nor does it appear that in their state of enlightenment they could rationally enter into the particulars of this doctrine, and comprehend them. Still it is evident that in their writings they do not teach the doctrine of the Nicene Council, on this subject, nor the popular doctrines of the present day. The Atonement, as believed in, would require two separate Divine Persons to make it; for it is believed to be a propitiatory sacrifice offered by God the Son to God the Father; but neither in the Epistles, nor in the Gospels, is anything of the kind so much as mentioned. Indeed, the word atonement occurs but once in the New Testament, Rom. v. 11, where it is a wrong translation of the Greek word katallag, elsewhere rendered reconciliation. In respect to the work of redemption the Apostles in their Epistles say:
We joy in God through our LORD JESUS CHRIST, by Whom we have received the atonement (Greek, [scanner unable to insert word]). Rom. v. 11.
God was in CHRIST reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them, and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. 2 Cor. x. 19. See, also, Col. i. 20.
And ye know that He was manifested to take away our sins; and in Him is no sin. He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested; that He might destroy the works of the devil. 1 John iii. 5, 8.
Forasmuch as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself took part of the same; that through death He might destroy him that hath the power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. Hebrews ii. 14, 15.
As we have said, the prevalent doctrine of a vicarious atonement is by no means taught in these Apostolic deliverances, and yet they lack the fullness and clearness of the doctrine of redemption as we have it in the Writings: as for example, in these two canons:
The Faith of the New Heaven and the New Church, in the universal Form, is this: That the LORD from eternity, Who is JEHOVAH, came into the world, that He might subjugate the hells and glorify His Human; and that, without this, no mortal could have been saved; and that those are saved who believe in Him.--T. C. R. 2.
Redemption itself was a subjugation of the hells, and an establishment of order in the heavens, and thereby a preparation for a New Spiritual Church.--T. C. R. 114.
The Apostolic fathers.
THE Apostolic Fathers most noted in the Church are the following: Barnabas the companion of Paul, Clement disciple of Peter, and afterward Bishop of Rome, Hermas, Ignatius Bishop of Antioch, and Polycarp disciple of John, and afterward Bishop of Smyrna. As these men flourished from about the middle of the first century to the middle of the second, and had many opportunities of seeing and hearing the Apostles, we naturally turn to their writings for a further unfolding of the Christian doctrines.
These Fathers, in their writings display a fullness and fervor of devout religious sentiment, hardly surpassed in the best parts of the Epistles.
Everywhere also they in their books enjoin genuine charity, consisting in good behavior from right motives and controlled by faith.
With few exceptions they followed closely the doctrines of the Apostles, consequently we find in their writings the reappearance of the Apostolic doctrines as they understood them and taught them. We have space only for a few brief extracts. But these will show that neither had they a very clear understanding of the Trinity nor of the work of redemption.
Clement, a disciple of Peter and afterward Bishop of Rome, in the opening of his first Epistle to the Corinthians, says:
The Church of God which is in Rome to the Church of God which is in Corinth, elect, sanctified by the will of God, through JESUS CHRIST our LORD; grace and peace from the Almighty God, by JESUS CHRIST, be multiplied unto you. 1 Clement i. 1.
Again he says:
The Apostles have preached to us from the LORD JESUS CHRIST: JESUS CHRIST from God. CHRIST therefore was gent by God, the Apostles by CHRIST; so that both were sent in an orderly way, according to the will of God. 1 Clement xix. 1, 2.
Touching the work of redemption and the Passion of the cross, he says:
Let us look steadfastly to the blood of CHRIST, and see how precious His blood is in the sight of God: which being shed for our salvation, has obtained the grace of repentance for all the world. 1 Clement iv. 5.
On the subject of the resurrection, he says:
Let us consider, Beloved, how the LORD does continually show us, that there will be a future resurrection, of which He has made our LORD JESUS CHRIST, the first fruits, raising Him from the dead. 1 Clement xi. 16.
Polycarp, a disciple of John and Bishop of Smyrna, is equally forcible and pronounced in his teachings. He says:
Now the God and Father of our LORD JESUS CHRIST: and He Himself, who is our eternal High Priest, the Son of God, even JESUS CHRIST, build you up in faith and in truth, and in all meekness and lenity; in patience and long suffering, in forbearance and chastity, and grant unto you a lot and portion among His saints; and us with you, and to all that are under the heavens, who shall believe in our LORD JESUS CHRIST, and in His Father who raised Him from the dead.Epistle of Polycarp, iv. 10, 11.
Polycarp was burnt at the stake, and from Eusebius, we quote the beginning and the end of the prayer that he then offered up.
Father of My beloved and blessed Son JESUS CHRIST, by Whom we have received our knowledge of Thee, the God of angels and power, and of the whole creation, and of the whole family of the just, who live before Thee:--I bless Thee because Thou hast deemed me worthy of this day and this hour to receive my portion among the number of martyrs in the cup of CHRIST.... For this I bless Thee, I glorify Thee through the eternal High Priest, JESUS CHRIST Thy beloved Son, through Whom with Thee, with Him in the Holy Spirit, be glory both now and for future ages. Amen.
The doctrines of the other Apostolic Fathers were similar to these, we seed not therefore dwell. upon them. In respect to the LORD and His work of redemption they had the same general truth that the Apostles had; but like the Apostles, they were without that fullness of light which arises from a knowledge and apprehension of such particulars as are now revealed for the use of the New Church.
The Christian fathers.
THE Christian Fathers that followed the Apostolic Fathers, entered also with great zeal into the work of propagating of the Gospel. Their writings were numerous and powerful, showing great research and culture. The second and third centuries were the noonday and glory of the Primitive Church; and the universal sway of the Roman Empire, then the mistress of the world, gave to the Church a most marvelous opportunity to go forth conquering and to conquer.
After the death of Domitian, A. D. 96, Nerva abolished the persecutions against the Christians, and gave to the Empire good laws. Trajan followed him, and decreed that the Christians should be fairly dealt with. Still the Church was in a continual conflict with Polytheism, for Rome was still Polytheistic. The struggle therefore of the Church with Paganism was not simply a conflict of Good with evil, and Truth with falsity, but it was the Church of the LORD warring with the organized principalities and powers of the hells.
Of the Fathers who flourished from A. D. 160 to A. D. 300, the most noted were Justin Martyr, Athenagoras, Clement Alexandrinus, Irenus, Tertullian, Hippolytus, Noetus, Callistus, Cyprian, Origen, Sabellius and Praxeas. Their writings were similar to the writings of the Apostolic Fathers, and their doctrines followed the same general form, only that the controversies in the Church took a wider range, as time advanced, and new issues were opened. Still the practical influence of the Christian Faith over the lives of the people became more manifest; and the Church began to be acknowledged by the great philosophers of the time as a most extraordinary force in the reformation and regeneration of men.
Bad men were caused to break off their wicked practices, and by a new life of love to God and love to man, they were transformed into new creatures.
During the second and third centuries Christianity moved onward in triumph; and though opposed, assaulted, and persecuted, its influence became so commanding that in many places the temples of the gods were well-nigh deserted, and in the great literary and commercial cities, Alexandra, Carthage, Antioch, and Rome, the Church had become a well-pronounced power; and some of the most learned Philosophers of the time were engrossed in the study of its doctrines; some as expounders and apologists, others as opponents. Platonism, Gnosticism, and Neoplatonism, were at the door of the Christian Church, or had already entered. And as Christianity was presently attacked by Philosophers, the defense offered was also Philosophical; and in these discussions the doctrines of Plato were always conspicuous. And still the theories of Plato were necessarily modified well brought face to face with the facts of the Incarnation; and still more was this with the many-sided Gnosticism of the East, and the Neoplatonism of Alexandria.
Neoplatonism originated in the discourses of Ammonius Saccas of Alexandria, near the beginning of the third century. It was an attempt to combine in one system all the sources of truth. Its most attractive form was presented in the Enneades of Plotinus, A. D. 203 to 270. The system was further unfolded by Iamblichus, in the fourth century, and by Proclus in the fifth century. The masters of this school were regarded as saints and seers, who had broken the bonds of sense, and even on earth were honored with an immediate intuition of the Deity. What Philo had undertaken in behalf of Paganism, they now completed, though in a wider sense.
Neoplatonism in the beginning of its course was neither hostile to Christianity nor to the Greek Philosophy. It claimed to be a new revelation, and to come with further unfoldings of Platos Philosophy and of Christianity. And while, during the third century, Neoplatonism was struggling with Christianity, for the empire of the world, it was profoundly influenced by parts of the Christian system, and was incorporating them into its heterogeneous structure. (See Dr. Hases Chris. Hist., p. 48.)
Porphyry about A. D. 300 was identified it with the Neoplatonists, and was one of the most formidable foes of the Christian Church. Like Celsus about A. D. 150, and Hierocles in his own time, his chief objections to Christianity were the following:
Christianity, he said, was irreligious and unethical, because it was founded upon an anthropopathic idea of God, especially in the Old Testament were representations of God unfavorable to religion; as in the account of the creation and fall of man, and many other things. The New Testament was equally obnoxious to his displeasure, especially the history of the birth of the MESSIAH, His miracles, His death, and His resurrection. These things Porphyry and Celsus compared to the relations in the old mythologies, and while they acknowledged in general the truth of the Gospel records,--there miraculous things they considered as the fabrications of after-times.
Then also they held that supernatural revelation is irrational and impossible.
The Christian Scholars and Ministers of the time met these objections, and reduced them to their lowest terms. In this conflict, the leading defenders of the faith, were Justin Martyr, Tatian, Athenagoras, and Origen.
And although on many points of doctrine there was great diversity of belief, yet still as a propaganda of the new faith the Church was strong in the LORD and in the power of His might. The Historian recounts the spread of Christianity at this time as follows:
Near the middle of the second century the Gospel had, in the East, passed beyond the limits of the Roman Empire. In Edessa it had possession of the throne; and Churches were established in Parthia, Persia, and India; also in Carthage and in Western Africa. The Church also pressed onward to Spain and gained possessions in Britain. And by colonization, Churches were planted in Lyons, Vienna, and Paris. Near the close of the third century, Churches were established in Armenia, and there were Dioceses with Bishops on the Rhine and in Britain.... In the commencement of the fourth century, while the Christians were far from being a majority of the population, their intimate fellowship and zeal gave them a predominant influence in society.See Dr. Hases Ch. Hist., pp. 53, 54.
Prominent among the causes of this unprecedented spread of the Christian Religion was its universal proclamation of liberty to the enslaved, consolation to the broken-hearted, and good tidings to the poor. In the Roman Empire at the time of the Incarnation, there were millions of slaves; and slavery prevailed largely throughout the world. The nations and peoples were longing for deliverance from their cruel oppressors. When therefore the kingdom of the MESSIAH was announced, in which all men were to stand free and equal as the subjects of the KING of Kings and LORD of Lords, thousands on thousands lifted up their heads with joy, inspired with the belief that their redemption had come. Their earthly wants and bondage they could endure for a time, waiting for the full fruition of their hopes, at the great day of the LORD, which they believed to be at hand.
The LORD during His abode in the world, confirmed the Disciples in the faith that before Him bondage could not continue. Call no man master, He said. All ye are brethren.
They were commanded to love one another, and to serve one another. In the beginning of His Ministry We said:
The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, because He hath anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor: Re hath sent Me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and the recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the LORD. Luke iv. 18, 19.
To the disciples of John who were sent to inquire of Him: Art Thou He that should come, or do we look for another? He said:
Go and show John again those things which ye do hear and see: The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf heal, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the Gospel preached to them. Matt. xi. 4, 5.
In all ages therefore the Gospel has come with its Divine blessings to the poor, the enslaved, the diseased, and the broken-hearted; it has freed the slave from his master, and humbled both master and slave at the same altar before the LORD.
As we return to the doctrinal conflicts of this period we find more or less confusion is the views of even the best men, although they made many close approximations to the truth.
Athenagoras says:
For Him and through Him, is every thing made, since the Father and the Son are one. And since the Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father, through the unity and power of the Holy Spirit, so is the Son Gods Intelligence and the Logos of the Father.
Clement of Alexandria says:
The Son is the revealed truth in Person. He is Supreme, and always whole light, of the Father, all-seeing, and all-knowing....
Irenus says:
God is wholly Logos, and the Son is this Logos. He is not a creature, and CHRIST is not to be called God in the sense in which other men are called gods, for truly nothing can be called God. But the Son of God manifested in CHRIST is actually God, because God is to be known, only through God, and because He has power to forgive sins....The Word made Himself visible and tangible by being born of Mary.
Tertullian, who wrote between A. D. 220 and 240, was noted for his defenses of Christianity, his hostility to the heresy of the Patripassians, to the Greek Philosophy, and in fact to all Philosophy. Concerning the Trinity he says:
Through the appearance of CHRIST the name of God is now perfectly revealed. The difference between the worshipers of one God and many divinities is fixed by Christianity. For if when we teach that there are Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we really mean that there are three Gods and three Lords, then we, the sons of light, extinguish the torches which light us to the martyrs death.... God becomes the Son of God as soon as He has positive reality in the actual world.... Prior to His Coming, all religion was shadowy and symbolical; for in the flesh the Son became visible.... The Son is derived from God as the branch from the root, the stream from the fountain, the ray from the sun.... God is spirit, and from spirit is produced spirit, from God is produced God, from light is produced light: and so forth. CHRIST is Most High because exalted by the right hand of God, LORD of Hosts.
These sturdy Greek Philosophers in their strugglings for something more definite and exact, labored earnestly to understand the Trinity; but the most of them fell short of any thing like a rational analysis of this Divine Mystery. Still some of them approached very near to the truth as now known in the New Church. Thus Callistus, Bishop of Rome, about A. D. 220, seems clear and outspoken in respect to the Supreme Divinity of the LORD. He says:
The Father is not one being, the Son another, but one and the same, and all is full of the Divine Spirit. And the Spirit that became flesh in the virgin, is not different from the Father, but one and the same. For what is seen, which is man, is the Son, but the Spirit which dwells in the Son is the Father. I will not say that there are two Gods, the Father and the Son, but one. The Father who was in the Son, took flesh and made it God, and uniting it to Himself made it one. The Father and Son was therefore the name of one God, and this one Person cannot be two.
Similar was the doctrine of Noetus, A. D. 200, who says:
When the Father was not yet generated, He was justly called the Father; but when He was pleased to suffer birth He Himself became the Son. He was called the Father and Son according to the difference of times; but He is one. He who appeared and endured to be born of a virgin, and then conversed among men as a man, confessing Himself to those who saw Him to be the Son by reason of His birth, did not, nevertheless, conceal from those who could understand it, that He was the Father.
Hippolytus more at length unfolds the same doctrine. Cyprian A. D. 250 and Origen A. D. 254 still later are more guarded in their statements, but do not seem so clear in respect to the Supreme Divinity of the LORD.
It is not a little remarkable that both Noetus and Callistus were considered heretical, as they were supposed to favor the Patripassian views of PRAXEAS.
Other authors of great learning and research arose in these eventful times, striving to harmonize the Divine Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, with the supreme and sole Divinity of the LORD JESUS CHRIST. But they failed, because they could not comprehend the distinction in the three Divine Essentials in the LORD. In these conflicts the Patripassians arose and the Sabellians; and Praxeas and Sabellius became renowned leaders in the Church.
Praxeas, a man of great genius and learning, denied any real distinction between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and maintained that the Father, sole creator of all things, had united to Himself the Human nature of CHRIST.
The followers of PRAXEAS denied the plurality of persons in the Deity, and hence they were called Monarchians; they were also called Patripassians because they held that the Father was so intimately united with the man CHRIST JESUS, His Son, that He suffered with Him the anguish of an afflicted life, and the torments of an ignominious death.--See Hooks Dict.
Sabellius also taught the absolute unity of God, and yet in other respects, he differed widely from Praxeas. He taught that there is but one person in the Godhead, and that as man, though consisting of body and soul, is one person; so God, though He is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is but one person. He taught that the Father is really this one Person, and that the Word and Holy Spirit were emanations, or virtues, or functions of the Deity, and that the Son born of the virgin after accomplishing the mystery of our redemption, was finally diffused upon the Apostles in tongues of fire, and was then denominated the Holy Spirit.
Thus the Patripassians failing to grasp the idea of the substantial and Divine Human of the LORD, and the true distinction in the Three Divine Essentials of the Deity; and the Sabellians even denying the continued existence of the LORDS Human, the Church was only divided more and more by the influence of Praxeas and Sabellius, and at last was precipitated into the interminable controversies which culminated in the ever memorable Council of Nice.
Judaizing Christians.
WE must beg the indulgence of the reader, while we return upon the track of history even to the beginning. Our purpose is to bring together, in a series, the various Councils in the Primitive Church, beginning with the apostolic Council in Jerusalem, and the others convoked before the Nicene Council in the third and fourth centuries:
and also to make brief mention of certain other schisms and heresies, not yet recounted, that infested the Church during the second and third centuries, and the beginning of the fourth.
Upon the martyrdom of Stephen, as we are told in the Acts, there was a great persecution against the church which was in Jerusalem, and, except the Apostles, they were scattered abroad throughout all the regions of Judea and Samaria. viii. 1. Elsewhere we are told that they traveled as far as Phenice, and Cyprus, and Antioch, preaching the Word to none but the Jews only. And some of them were men of Cyprus and Cyrene, who, when they came to Antioch, spake unto the Grecians, preaching the LORD JESUS. And the hand of the LORD was with them: and a great number believed and turned to the LORD. xi. 19-21
In this very beginning of the work of propagating the Gospel we are struck with the absence of the writings which later in the same century became the guide of the Church. The people had the Old Testament; and the oral instruction of the Apostles, and those who had seen the LORD and had heard His discoveries had in their memory something of the Word which He had spoken; but the New Testament was not then written, and therefore, the Disciples, thus widely scattered abroad, and without any written guide, were left to struggle on as best they could with their difficulties, about the Church and its doctrines.
In the Law of Moses a ritual of worship is given most full and minute,--regulating the representative worship of the Israelitish Church in every particular,--beginning with the Priesthood of Aaron and his sons and the Levites, their consecration, their garments, and their duties;
then the Ark of the Covenant, and its contents; then the Tabernacle, and its contents and uses; then the statutes and ordinances relating to the conduct and life of the people, their annual feasts, their sacrifices and offerings, and their behavior in war and in peace, and so on,all these things were given is the Jewish ritual, and the worshiper in all things whatever was bound to the most implicit obedience.
But in establishing the Christian Church the LORD gave to His Disciples no new ritual of worship, excepting the two sacraments of Baptism and the Holy Supper. The forms of worship were left where He found them; and the Disciples at first followed, in their worship, the forms prevalent in the synagogues.
The utter overthrow and destruction of the Temple, and of Jerusalem, and thus of the Jewish Church, the LORD predicted in terms most emphatic. He also told His Disciples plainly that the scribes and Pharisees, and the other rulers of the people, were hypocrites, liars, thieves, adulterers, murderers, and children of the devil;--that their proselytes, for the making of whom they would compass sea and land, were more the children of hell than themselves. He charged them with turning the House of prayer, the Temple, into a den of thieves; and He said to them: How can ye escape the damnation of hell? And yet it does not appear that He ever counseled His Disciples to abandon the regular worship is the Temple or in the Synagogues, or to separate themselves from the Jewish congregations.
The Disciples were left in freedom to associate with the congregations of this fallen and consummated Church as long as they were so disposed; and to continue their efforts to infuse into the obdurate hearts of these people the principles of the Gospel.
The facts show how fruitless were the attempts. The most of the conversions to Christianity took place on the day of Pentecost, and soon after that day. Thenceforward the conversions diminished in a rapid ratio; and the historians say that before the end of the twelve years during which the Apostles remained in Jerusalem the conversions of Jews to Christianity had ceased.
During this period the Hebrew Christians became more and more averse to receiving Gentiles into the Church unless, first, they should be initiated into the Jewish Church by circumcision. They had kept the Law of Moses in every jot and tittle, they said, they had received the LORD as the promised MESSIAH of the Jewish Church, consequently they asked: Why not require the Gentile converts to enter the Christian Church through the Jewish Church, by submission to the ordinances of the Mosaic ritual, by circumcision, by keeping the Sabbath, by offering sacrifices at the great festivals, and so forth? These questions were widely considered, and there was much bitterness of feeling and much misdirected zeal in many of the discussions, with no well-defined result. At length the questions were referred to the Apostles in Jerusalem, and they decided that the Mosaic ritual should not be binding on the Gentile proselytes. This decision of the Apostles, and Elders and Brethren is given in Acts xv. 23-29, and is the first decree of which we have any knowledge in the Church, determining by an ecclesiastical body a matter of order and discipline; and it is remarkable that this Apostolic Canon was in favor of the largest freedom in the Church consistent with Divine order, and against the contracted views of those who would force the Gentile converts through the ceremonies of the Mosaic ritual before entering the Christian Church.
But the decree and the advice of the Apostolic College, and the Presbyters, and the Brethren was not universally heeded. The issue was still kept open, many insisting upon it that the Law of Moses should be kept, and that the Gentile converts before being enrolled in the Christian Church, should be introduced into the Congregation of Israel by circumcision. Others thought otherwise. And here arose the first Schism in the Primitive Church; leading, as we have seen, to the First Ecclesiastical Council.
The question underlying all others in this conflict was the actual distinction between the two dispensations, the Jewish and the Christian. These Israelitish Christians did not see it. They seemed to understand the Jewish Religion better than the Christian. Their early life had been moulded by its powerful influences. They had also felt the transcendent spiritual good and truth of the Christian Religion; for they had come near to the LORD, and the ineffable Divine Sphere of His Infinite Love and Wisdom had enveloped their lives and penetrated their heart. But still they knew not that the Israelitish Church was dead, that being immersed in evils and falsities, and having utterly rejected the LORD, its doom was sealed, that it was judged such rejected, and that the only salvation of man must be in the establishment by the LORD of a new Church.
Other primitive Heresiarchs.
ASSOCIATED with the Judaizing Christians in the beginning of their course, and more or less springing from them, were several other notable heretical sects. Among these the Cerinthians and Ebionites were prominent. We have space for only a brief mention of these heresies.
The Cerinthians had a singular system of faith in which they endeavored to combine the doctrines of Christianity With some of the fallacious opinions of the Jews and of the Gnostics. Cerinthus, the author of the sect, by birth was a Jew; and he seemed ambitious to build up a new system of doctrine; he denied the Divinity of the LORD, and held various absurd notions in respect to the origin and destiny of the LORD JESUS CHRIST, the distinction between JESUS and CHRIST, and similar things.
The Ebionites like the Cerinthians united the ceremonies of the Law with some of the principles of Christianity; they considered the LORD JESUS CHRIST a mere man, and still, like the Arians in all ages, they disagreed among themselves as to the nature of the LORD, some saying that He was born of a virgin, but that He was not the Logos; others that He differed from other men only on account of His greater holiness and goodness;--but they all denied His Divinity.
The Ebionites rejected parts of the Pentateuch, and when too closely pressed by this book, they abandoned the whole of it. Of the New Testament they acknowledged only the Gospel of Matthew, and this they mutilated by cutting away the first two chapters, and also other parts of the Book. As to their manner of life, they imitated the Carpocratians, the most infamous of all heretics, denying the sanctity of marriage, and encouraging obscenities and immoralities of every kind.
The Simonians were the followers of Simon Magus mentioned in the Acts. With his sorceries and heresies Simon infested the Church, especially in Samaria, where Philip encountered him. The Simonians held that angels created the world, that the bonds of marriage ought to be dissolved, and the promiscuous intercourse of the sexes substituted for marriage.
The Nicolaitans, followers of Nicholas; deacon of Antioch, like the Simonians repudiated marriage and held to the promiscuous intercourse of the sexes. The Nicolaitans are mentioned in the Apocalypse ii. 15.
Then in the second century there were the followers of Basilides, who, besides the heresies of Simon Magus, denied the reality of the LORDS crucifixion.
The followers of Carpocrates were not only Simonians, but they also rejected the Old Testament, and held that the LORD was but a mere man.
The followers of Valentinus corrupted the Christian doctrine by mingling with it Pythagorean and Platonic ideas.
The Millenarians, who expected to reign with the LORD a thousand years, were numerous and powerful in the Church toward the middle of the second century. They were waiting for the Second Advent, much as the Millerites about the middle of the present century. They held that the LORD was about to return to the earth and make Jerusalem the metropolis of His kingdom, that He would then wise from the dead all who had believed in Him, and that with them, and the saints still living, He would constitute His kingdom, and reign with them a thousand years, in magnificent glory. This heresy gave great trouble to the Church; and to reduce it was the work of a protracted struggle.
The Alogians denied the Divinity of the Word, and rejected the Gospel of John, which so especially asserts this doctrine.
There was also in the second century a sect called Angelics, because they worshiped Angels.
In the third century a sect arose called the Arabici, consisting of those who held that the soul dies, or sleeps, till the day of judgment, and then rises with the body.
A sect of Christians at the present day called Soul Sleepers believe in the same absurdity.
Then in this century there were those called the Aquarians, who used water instead of wine in the Holy Supper.
There were also the followers of Origren, who, among other things, held that the devil and all the damned will at last be saved.
The followers of Manes held that two opposite principles reigned in the universe, the one good, and the other bad: two gods, in fact, the one the author of evil, and the other the author of good. This heresy was one of the most formidable that infested the Church in the third and fourth centuries. It was a compound of the Pythagorean, Gnostic, and Marcionite heresies, summing up in itself, according to Leo the Great, all that was profane in Paganism, unlawful in Magic, and sacrilegious and blasphemous in all other heresies.
It was next to impossible to recount all the impious and damnable tenets of Manes. Leo said of him, that the devil reigned in all other heresies, but that in the heresy of the Manicheans, he had built a fortress, and raised his throne. Indeed, this heresy embraced all the errors and impieties that the spirit of man was capable of.Hooks Dictionary.
Primitive Councils.
FROM the facts thus far recounted it will appear that the Primitive Church from the first came also into conflict with the Greek Philosophers,--the Gnostics, the Platonists, and others, as well as with the unbelieving Jews. And the struggles with men of the highest culture, within the Church and outside of it, in answering their questions, and solving their difficulties, were often a full match for the wisest men in the Church. The consultations and councils held during the first and the second centuries and the controversial works that were written sufficiently manifest these conflicts.
We need only refer in this brief mention to the controversial writings of Justin Martyr in the second century: and to the struggle with Montanus and his followers: and to the controversy with Praxeas, Celsus, Sabellis, Paul of Samosata, Manes, and Porphyry, in the third century, in which Origen and Tertulian became famous in their defenses of Christianity. This century was also celebrated for its three Councils; the first in Rome, A. D. 251, against the Novatians; the second in Carthage, A. D. 256, by Cyprian on Baptism by heretics; the third in Antioch, A. D. 269, against Paul of Samosata.
In the beginning of the fourth century, and before the Council of Nice, there were first, the Council of Cirta, A. D. 305; second, the Council of Alexandria, A. D. 306; third, the Council of Elvira, A. D. 306, in which eighty-one Canons were adopted relating to the doctrines, order, and life of the Church,marriage, adultery, divorce, and similar things.
In A. D. 312 and A. D. 313 several Councils were held to deal with the schism of the Donatists, who held that baptism administered by heretics was null, that the Church was not infallible, that it had erred in their time, and that they were to restore it.
The Council of Arles in Gaul was convened in A. D. 314 by Constantine to settle the question of the validity of baptism by heretics, and other disputes between the Donatists their opponents. There were said to be no fewer than six hundred Bishops in the Council. They promulgated twenty-two Canons, the first of which fixed the time for celebrating the feast of Easter.
The Council of Ancyra was held about A. D. 314, or at the latest, previous to A. D. 319.
It decreed twenty-five Canons covering the whole ground of Church order and discipline,--the order of the Priesthood and similar things.
The Council of Neocsarea was held somewhere between A. D. 314 and A. D. 325. Fifteen of its Canons are preserved, and they relate to the subject of marriage, the functions of the priesthood, order and subordination in the Church, and similar things.
These various Councils, held previous to the great cumenical Council in A. D. 325, will show us that the Church was in a state of turmoil, and that even before the Arian Controversy it was lent by heresies such schisms.
The Council of Nice.
THE Council of Nice holds a most conspicuous place in the history of the Christian Church, and in the Conflict of the Ages. In fact, we may consider this memorable Synod a spiritual battle-field, and its momentous transaction a spiritual battle; but it was a battle in which the Church lost the day, and Christianity came off not the victor, but the vanquished.
This Council marks all Epoch in Ecclesiastical history. In it the Christian Church was revolutionized, and its doctrines remodeled and formulated anew. Indeed, the purpose of the Council was so to formulate the doctrine of the Divine Trinity as to arrest the heresy of Arius, who denied the Divinity of the LORD JESUS CHRIST.
The Writings therefore treat of this Council as the beginning of a new epoch in the Church.
Of this Church there have been two epochs, one extending from the time of the LORD to the Council of Nice and the other form that Council to the present day. But this Church in its progress has been divided into three, the Greek, the Roman Catholic, and the Reformed; but still, all these have been called Christian.
Moreover, within each general Church there have been many particular ones, which although they have seceded have still retained the name from the general one, as the heresies in the Christian Church.T. C. R. 760.
At the time, it did not appear that the Nicene Council was destined to be disastrous to the Church. Indeed, the appearance was quite otherwise. The cause of Christianity seemed everywhere in the ascendant. The Primitive Church had struggled on to that decisive day, and although infested from the beginning with heresies, and persecuted often to the death of its noble martyrs, yet nevertheless, led by the Spirit of the LORD, and trusting in Him as the Redeemer and Saviour, it had triumphed over its foes; and it now looked with the most sanguine hopes to this cumenical Council of more than three hundred Bishops.
The Council was held in the interest of the Church and was called by the Emperor himself. The Emperor had already espoused the cause of Christianity, freed it from persecutions, and strengthened it by an alliance with the throne. How natural then the expectation that by the new arrangement of doctrine, and other matters, in the Nicene Council, the Church would soon be able to sway with imperial power all hearts, and control the conduct of all men, and become the acknowledged kingdom of God over all the earth. If indeed these were the hopes of the Church, hopes were never doomed to more deplorable disappointment. For from the violence done to the Church in that Council, and the false doctrines promulgated, the Church soon began its downward career, which in varied forms of evil and falsity continued, one heresy following another, until its light went out, and the Church was overwhelmed in the ages of darkness.
The transactions of the Nicene Council as they appeared before the world are abundantly described in many of the works on Ecclesiastical history.
But in the Writings of the New Church we have the transactions of this Council not only as they appeared before the world, but also as they appeared before the LORD in the light of heaven. In the True Christian Religion, the Council is described at great length and with great minuteness of detail. We have space only for the following quotations:
The Nicene Council was convoked by the Emperor Constantine the Great, by the advice of Alexander, Bishop of Alexandria. All the Bishops in Asia, Africa, and Europe were called to it. The Council was held at the Emperors palace in Nice, a city in Bithynin. Its object was to overthrow and condemn, from the sacred writings, the heresy of Arius, a presbyter of Alexandria, who denied the Divinity of JESUS CHRIST. This took place in the year of Christ 325.
The members of that Council decided that there were from eternity three Divine Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; as is evident especially from the two creeds called the Nicene and the Athanasian.
In the Nicene Creed are the words: I believe in one God the Father, omnipotent, Maker of heaven and earth; and in one LORD, JESUS CHRIST, the Son of God, the Only-begotten of the Father, born before all ages, God from God, consubstantial with the Father, Who descended from the heavens and was incarnated by the Holy Spirit from the virgin Mary; and in the Holy Spirit, Lord and Vivifier, Who proceeds from the Father and the Son, and Who together with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified.
In the Athanasian Creed is the following: The Catholic faith is this, that we worship one God in a Trinity, and the Trinity in Unity, neither confounding the person nor separating the substance.T. C. R. 632.
A Trinity of Persons from eternity is equivalent to a Trinity of Gods; the Athanasian Creed, therefore, in declaring Three Divine Persons from eternity, declares a Trinity of Gods. Its words are as follows:
There is one Person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Spirit. The Father is God and Lord, the Son is God and Lord, and the Holy Spirit is God and Lord; nevertheless there are not three Gods and Lords, but one God and Lord; for, as we are compelled by Christian verity to confess each person singly to be God and Lord, so are we forbidden by the Catholic religion to say three Gods or three Lords.
This Creed is received as cumenical or universal by the whole Christian Church; and all that is at this day known and acknowledged concerning God, is from it. That no other Trinity than a Trinity of Gods was understood by those who were in the Nicene Council, from which what is called the Athanasian Creed came forth like a posthumous birth, any one may see who but reads it with open eyes.--T. C. R. 172.
The Nicene Council was convoked by Constantine the Great, and in order to case out the damnable heresy of Arius, it was devised, concluded, and ratified, by those who were there convened, that there were three Divine Persons from eternity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, each of whom had personality, existence, and subsistence by himself and in himself; and also that the second Person, or the Son, descended and assumed the Human, and wrought redemption; and that thence there was Divinity to His Human by hypostatic union, and that by this union He had close relationship with God the Father. From that time, heaps of abominable heresies, concerning God and concerning the person of CHRIST, began to spring out of the earth, and Antichrists began to lift their head, and to divide God into three, and the LORD the Saviour into two, and so to destroy the temple built by the LORD through the Apostles, and this even till not one stone was left upon another which was not thrown down, according to His own words in Matt. xxiv. 2.--T. C. R. 176.
It is said in heaven that, when the Nicene Council was closed, these things were at the same time accomplished which the LORD foretold to the Disciples: The sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken. Mattt. xxiv. 29.--T. C. R. 176.
The discordant, ludicrous, and frivolous ideas, which have sprung from the doctrine of three Divine Persons from eternity, are these: That God the Father sits on high above the head, the Son at His right hand, and the Holy Spirit before them, listening, and instantly running throughout all the world; and, according to their decision, He dispenses the gifts of justification and inscribes them, and makes men from children of wrath to be children of grace, and from being damned to be elect.... This ideal view flows in spontaneously from the doctrine itself.-- T. C. R. 183.
But the truth must be told. When a belief in three Gods was introduced into the Christian Churches, which was done at the time of the Nicene Council, they banished all the good of charity and all the truth of faith, for these two are wholly inconsistent with the mental worship of three Gods and the oral worship at the same time of one God:
for the mind denies what the mouth says, and the mouth denies what the mind thinks; the result is that there is no belief either in three Gods or in one.
From this it is manifest that from that time the Christian temple not only cracked open, but has fallen to ruins; and that from that time the pit of the abyss has been open, from which has ascended smoke like that of a great furnace, and that the sun and the air are darkened thereby, and from it locusts have gone forth upon the earth. Apoc. ix. 2, 3. Yes, from that time the desolation foretold by Daniel began and increased, Matt. xxiv. 15, and to that faith and the imputation thereof the eagles have Fathered together; eagles mean the lynx-eyed leaders of the Church.--T. C. R. 634.
And yet, however lamentable were the deliverances of the Nicene Council, there was preserved by this Council a certain acknowledgment of the Divinity of the LORD, an acknowledgment that could be secured in no other way. The Writings say that
This was done of the LORDS Divine Providence, since if the Divinity is denied, the Christian Church is left without life, and becomes like a sepulchre adorned with the epitaph, Here it lies.--T. C. R. 636.
The Apostolic Church which worshiped the LORD GOD JESUS CHRIST, and at the same time God the Father in Him, may be likened to the garden of God, and Arius who then arose to the serpent sent from hell, and the Nicene Council to Adams wife who offered the fruit to her husband and persuaded him to eat it, and after eating it they appeared to themselves to be naked, and covered their nakedness with fig-leaves....
The Primitive or Apostolic Church never could have divined that a Church was to follow which would worship more Gods than one in heart, and one with the lips; which would separate charity from faith, the remission of sins from repentance and the pursuit of a new life; which would introduce [the dogma of mans] utter importance in spiritual things; and, least of all, that an Arius would life up his head, and when dead would rise again, and secretly rule even to the end.--T. C. R. 638.
Faith is spurious and at the same time adulterous with those who regard the LORD not as God, but only as a man. This is very manifest from He two abominable heresies, the Arian and the Socinian, which have been anathematized in the Christian Church, and excommunicated from it; because they deny the LORDS Divinity, and climb up some other way.
But I fear that these abominations lie concealed at this day in the general spirit of the men of the Church.
It is remarkable that the more any one deems himself superior to others in learning and judgment, the more prone he is to embrace and appropriate to himself the ideas concerning the LORD that He is a man and not God, and that because He is a man He cannot be God; and one who appropriates to himself these ideas, introduces himself into companionship with the Arians and Socinians who in the spiritual world are in hell. Such is the general spirit of the men of the Church at this day....--T. C. R. 380.
Then it must not be forgotten that the Man of sin was already working to destroy the Church, and that Anti-Christ,* by which the Apostles and their successors meant the most formidable heresiarchs in the first ages, had already come. The love of self, for the sake of self; and the love of ruling over others for the sake of self:--these forms of evil are never dormant, and, wherever the Church is pronounced as the LORDS presence among men for their redemption and salvation, there more than elsewhere, these evils are brought to light.
* See T. C. R. 177.
Even in the Council of Nice, composed of the three hundred and eighteen chosen Bishops of the Church upon whom the most important duties and responsibilities were incumbent, we find that there was a clandestine conclave with schemes and intrigues for ecclesiastical power and self-aggrandizement. Antichrist entered even into that Council, lifted up his head, swaying its deliberations, and determining its fundamental principles, to the damage and even to the ultimate ruin of the Church. The Writings, as we shall presently see, bring to light this nefarious scheme.
The Papal supremacy could not be established in the Church while the Divinity of the LORDS Human was acknowledged; and this doctrine was acknowledged in the Ancient Church, and also in the Primitive Christian Church.
For previous to the Nicene Council the Disciples worshiped the LORD as One, holding that the Divine and the Human are indissolubly united in Him, as soul and body in man, and that the Divine Human is in fact the Humanity of the Infinite Divine Father.
The transition was easy from the doctrine that God is three, which the Council had openly decreed, to the further heresy that the LORD JESUS CHRIST is two. For if in the Divine Nature itself there could be the distinction of Persons so that there should be one Person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Spirit, how natural would it be to divide the LORD Jesus CHRIST into two, making His Divine Nature one Person and His Human Nature another! And this, in fact, was actually done in the Nicene Council.
By this separation of the Divine and the Human in the LORD, the Church was led into the doctrine of the vicarship of the Pope, as the human representative and substitute of the LORDS Human, which had left the earth and ascended to heaven, and which could therefore remain perpetually in the Church on earth only by means of an appointed successor or vicar,--the Pope, for example.
If, on the other hand, the Divinity of the LORDS Human had been acknowledged, and the unity in one-Person of the Divine and the Human in the LORD, then the idea of a Personal successor of the LORD on the earth would have been impossible; and consequently the Papacy could never have been established in the Church.
In the Arcana it is written:
It was given me to speak with certain ones who were in the Council when it was decreed concerning the LORDS two natures, the Divine and the Human.... They said that those who had the greatest influence in that Council, and who in dignity and authority prevailed over the rest, met in a dark vault, and then concluded that both a Divine and a Human must be attributed to the LORD;
principally because that otherwise the Papal throne would not stand. For if they should acknowledge the LORD to be one with the Father, as He Himself says, no vicar of Him could be acknowledged on the earth: for unless they should so distinguish there were even at that time schisms extant, by which the Papal power could be broken down and dissipated. To corroborate this they sought confirmations from the Word and persuaded the others. They added, that so they could rule in heaven and in earth; because they had it from the Word that all power in the heaven and in the earth was given to the LORD, and they knew that if His Human should be acknowledged to be Divine, this power could not be attributed to any vicar, that no one was allowed to make himself equal with God, and that the Divine had that power or itself but not the Human, unless it was given to it, as also afterward to Peter. They said that the schismatics at that time were men of which discernment; that in this way they could keep them quiet: and that thus also the Papal power could be confirmed. Consequently it is evidence that the distinction [between the Divine and the Human of the LORD] was invented alone for the sake of dominion.A. C. 4738.
In the Spiritual Diary 4551 this secret conclave is still more minutely described: and in the work De Domino, we are told that this direful heresy was decreed in the Nicene Council. We extract the following:
The Divine Truth is CHRIST. The Divine Good proceeding is JESUS: and the Divine Human is the Son of God. The Divine Truth proceeding, which is the Word, is the Son of Man. The Human of the LORD was separated from His Divinity at the Council of Nice, on account of the Pope lest he should be called God upon the earth.De Domino, p. 36.
Arianism.
THE Arian schism continued. The Trinitarians and Arians in the Empire were nearly equally balanced in influence and power, and the imperial court was dominated by the Arians at one time, and by the Trinitarians at another. Indeed, from that day to this, these two heresies have continued to divide the Christian Church;
and they are about as equally balanced now, and as wide apart in doctrine as when Athanasius and Arius stood before Constantine the Great.
The Nicene Council checked for a time the Arian heresy but did not destroy it. Constantine after banishing Arius, and condemning to the flames his books, and those who should persist in reading them, revoked his decree and recalled Arius. Then at the death of Constantine, when the Empire was divided into East and West, Constantius, the Emperor of the East, at once favored and patronized the Arians, and finally as the whole Empire fell into his hand, the influence of the court throughout was decidedly Arian.
The instability of the times and the folly of attempting to settle the Doctrines of the Church by Councils and by the civil power, are demonstrated by the conduct of Athanasius and of the Councils that had the management of Arianism. Athanasius was for forty-six years the champion of the doctrines of the Nicene Creed. In A. D. 326, he became Bishop of Alexandria: and was fierce in his enmity against Arius and his opinions, boldly protesting against his recall from banishment by Constantine. But the Asiatic Bishops, many of whom were Arian, held a Syand is Tyre in the year A. D. 335, and pronounced sentence of degradation and exile against Athanasius, which sentence was enforced by the Emperor. Soon after the death of Constantine and in less than three years Athanasius was restored: but in A. D. 341, under the influence of Constantius, and by the Syand of Antioch, he was again exiled. In A. D. 349, he was again restored to his episcopal throne in Alexandria. In A. D. 356, Constantius summoned a Council of Western Bishops, whom he threatened, caressed, and corrupted, until at length he succeeded in deposing Athanasius for the third time. The bad behavior of the Emperor in this transaction was the beginning of a rapid and hopeless demoralization is the Imperial Court:
and the Church throughout was soon involved in the intrigues of Constantius. Similar intrigues followed, and presently the distinction between the Divine principles of life proper to the Church, and the selfish schemes and intrigues of the State seemed to be lost; and the corruptions of an ambitious court spread their deadly contagion in the assemblies of the Church; things growing worse as time went on.
The Arian schism as we have seen was neither healed, nor was the heresy rooted out, by the Nicene Council or by the Councils that followed; or by Constantine the Great, or by his successors. The Writings quoted shove, tell us that this heresy is most insidious and damaging, and that it; will reign in the Christian Church even to the end of that Church. Stanley says:
The fundamental principle of the old Arianism au separate from the logical form and the political organization which it assumed, has hardly ever departed from the Church. It has penetrated where we should least expect to find it. The theological opinions of many who have thought themselves, and have been thought by others, most orthodox, have been deeply colored by the most conspicuous tendencies of the doctrines of Arius.--Stanleys Eastern Church, p. 154.
How could it be otherwise? The Arians dealt in logical definitions. They asked puzzling questions, and put; their opponents to shame because of the, absurdity of their doctrine of One God in Three Persons, each one of whom was held to be God and Lord, while yet there is only one God. The actual unity of the Three was a stumbling-block, when one was begotten of another, and the third proceeded from the two.
But the differences between the Trinitarians and the Arians in respect; to doctrine of the Eternal Sonship of the LORD JESUS CHRIS were altogether irreconcilable.
In the controversies on this doctrine, the strongest points of Arianism were continually brought face to face with the weakest points of Trinitarianism. For the question which the Arians asked thousands of times, and which was never answered, was simply this:
How call you predicate the relation of Father and Son where there is neither priority in being, or in substance. When the Arians urged this question upon the Trinitarians they were neither to be silenced, nor put off.
They said: If there are these three Divine Persons in God,--namely: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, then the Father must be prior to the Son, in time, if not also superior to him, in substance. Then further, the Father must have had being before He beget the Son, and consequently the being of the Son is not Eternal, and still further, that while he may be the Son of the Eternal God, he cannot be the Eternal Son of God.
The Arians pressed these difficult points, and in the Councils they sometimes triumphed, but at other times they were vanquished by imperial force rather than by logical arguments.
Nevertheless the Athanasian Creed which became the Symbol of Faith for the Christian world, as before observed, has in it the saving article that in the LORD JESUS CHRIST God is Man, and Man is God, in One Divine Person, and therefore in simplicity of faith many held this integral form of the truth, and, living according to it, were saved. But the Orthodox Church, which under various administrations, descended with the high prerogatives of Christianity, was vastated and its saving influence lost by the all-pervading doctrine of a God in three Persons, and salvation by faith in the Passion of the cross, and is the imputed righteousness of CHRIST. During the centuries following, while the Arians continued firm in their belief that the Son is subordinate to the Father, they differed widely among themselves, many of them believing altogether as much is His Divinity as the majority of the Trinitarians.
Constantine the Great.
THE reign of Constantine the Great closed the first epoch of the Christian Church and opened the second. In the beginning of his reign, the Church was a unit; and however infested by heresies there was no visible bleach in its external form and order. Even the transactions of the Nicene Council demonstrated that the Church was a stupendous power in the world, and that notwithstanding its schisms, its general unity and universality continued. This made the alliance with it a prize of most incomparable value to Constantine. Nevertheless in taking the Church into the embrace of the State he was entering into a business which he evidently but little understood. Paganism was then the old religion of Rome, and the State had but little concern about it. The Empire was content with any religion that would help it to keep its hold on the people and to gather in the required revenue; and Paganism, in its palmy days, did all this. But Paganism in itself had no principle either of cohesion, organization, or discipline. The great festivals were in the interest of the State, and were more or less controlled by the State. Organized congregations, societies, or councils answering in any way to the organized bodies of the Church, were unknown in Pagan lands. Spread abroad everywhere, inorganic and at loose ends, Paganism could not as an organized body, either essentially help or hinder the movements of the Empire.
But how different the Church! From centre to circumference the Church was organic, in the twelve Apostles, at first;
then, in the Seventy that supplemented their work; then, in the proselytes, who were baptized and enrolled as Church members; then, as time advanced, in the Churches organized in the cities and towns, and governed according to laws of order by Bishops, Priests, and Deacons.
The Church therefore, from the beginning, being organized, when afterward it was spread abroad throughout the Roman Empire, became an extended congeries of organized bodies bound in one by a common faith, distinctly separated from the world, by initiation into its mysteries and by instruction in its Doctrines. The Church, consequently, formed within the Roman Empire, another Empire, of incomparable unity and strength.
The strength and unity of Imperial Rome was never a match for the strength and unity of the Church. As we have seen, the trial of strength was made during the persecutions under the Emperors, the Church resisting the Empire, and the Empire attempting to crush the Church. The result we have seen: the attempt was abandoned. And we had first, the Edict of universal toleration; second, Constantines espousal of the Church; and third, as time advanced, the triumph of Christianity over Paganism, and finally the abrogation of idolatry.
In dealing with the Church, Constantine found that he was dealing with men of strong convictions, men of purpose, determination, and culture, men with whom adhesion to their filth was more vital than life itself. He found that he was dealing with men who, although in his Empire, were segregated from it, and who were serving the LORD of Lords whose kingdom is not of this world. And still with a knowledge of these facts, Constantine assumed the fearful responsibility of taking the Church into the bosom of his Empire and of the two, endeavoring to make one. Two things resulted:
1. The Empire was somewhat Christianized.
2. The Church was scandalized and somewhat Paganized.
As to the first point, the Empire could not be damaged by the infusion of Christian principles into it; only that a certain confusion of duty and administration resulted, and many things had to be made new. But as to the second point, it is obvious that any Paganization of Christianity, even in the least degree, must have been damaging and disastrous. For what concord hath light with darkness, or CHRIST with Belial, or he that believeth with as infidel?
The Church therefore could have no compromise with Paganism. By the Divine Sphere of the Church descending into it, as the ages rolled on, Paganism was dissolved, disintegrated, and scattered to oblivion. But Paganism had nothing that could be incorporated into the Christian system without Paganizing Christianity, and thus marring its Divine symmetry and perfection. Yet this is precisely that Constantine attempted when he espoused the Church and gave it his own imperial influence and the patronage of the State.
Constantine himself in the Church and over it, and ready in all possible ways to help it--the history of the ages following will describe his movements in its interest as well also as the conduct of his successors.
After the Nicene Council, Constantine was flattered and almost adored by men of the Church. Eusebius glorifies him in the following words:
We do not instruct, thee whom God has made wise. We do not disclose to thee the sacred mysteries which God Himself revealed through our common Saviour, and by the Divine vision of Himself which has often shown upon thee.
Constantine seldom heard the preaching of others, but he often preached, and this for many years before he received Christian Baptism.
On these occasions a general invitation was issued, and thousands of the people flocked to the Palace to hear an Emperor turned preacher! He stood erect, and then with a grave voice, and set countenance, poured forth his address, the audience at times responding with loud cheers of approbation.
His subjects in general were the Christian revelation; the follies of Paganism; the Unity and Providence of God; the Scheme of Redemption; the Judgment; and then he attacked fiercely the avarice and rapacity of the courtiers; &c. One of his sermons is preserved by Eusebius.See Stanley Ch. Hist., p. 296.
The Emperors visit to Rome in July A. D. 326 at the anniversary of the battle of Lake Regulus, disgusted him not only with the hollow pageantry of these Pagan festivals, but also with Rome itself. He could not restrain his sarcastic humor at the sham knights and empty pomp: and this enraged the populace and caused a riot in the streets.
The Emperor from motives of policy and ambition determined to remove the capital to a new place. Rome was idolatrous throughout, joined to its idols, steeped in iniquity: why not then build a New City as the capital of the New Religion?
To the reign of Constantine the Great must be referred the commencement of those dark and dismal times which oppressed Europe for a thousand years. It is the true close of the Roman Empire and the beginning of the Greek. The transition from one to the other is emphatically and abruptly marked by a new metropolis, a new religion, a new code, and above all a new policy. An ambitious man had attained to imperial power, by personating the interests of a rapidly growing power. The unavoidable consequences were a union between the Church and the State, a diverting of the dangerous classes from civil to ecclesiastical paths, and the decay and materialization of religion. This, and not the reign of Leo the Isaurian, is the true beginning of the Byzantine Empire.
After Constantine had murdered his son Crispus, his nephew Licinius, and had suffocated in a steam bath his wife Fausta, with whom he had been married twenty years, and who was the mother of three of his sons, the public abhorrence of his crimes could no longer be concealed.
A pasquinade, comparing his reign to the reign of Nero, was affixed to the palace gate. The guilty Emperor, in the first burst of anger, was on the point of darkening the tragedy, by the massacre of the Roman populace who had thus insulted him. It is said that his brothers were consulted on this measure of vengeance. The result of their counsel was even more deadly, for it was resolved to degrade Rome to a subordinate rank, and build a metropolis elsewhere.
In a double respect the removal of the seat of empire was important to Christianity. It rendered possible the assumption of power by the Bishops of Rome, who were thereby secluded from imperial observation and inspection, and whose position, feeble at first, under such singularly auspicious circumstances, was at last developed into papal supremacy. In Constantinople, there were no pagan recollections and interests to contend with. At first the New City was essentially Roman, and its language Latin; but this was soon changed for Greek, and thus the transference of the seat of government tended to make Latin in the and a sacred tongue.Dr. Draper, pp. 206-208.
Thus the political pressure removed, Latin Christianity emerged as distinguished from Greek.
The course of Constantine in the Nicene Council was so decisive that, no one would have thought a change in his course possible, but the history shows that in less than ten years he is found agreeing with the heresiarch Arius.
A Presbyter in the confidence of Constantina Emperors sister had wrought upon him. Athanasius, now Bishop of Alexandria, the representative of the other party, was deposed and banished. Arius is invited to Constantinople. The Emperor orders Alexander, Bishop of that city, to receive him into communion tomorrow. It is Saturday. Alexander flies to the Church and falling prostrate, prays to God that He will interpose and save His servant from being forced into this sin, even if it should be by death. That same evening Arius was seized with a sudden and violent illness as he passed along the street, and in a few moments he was found dead in a house whither he had hastened.See Stanley, p. 213.
The controversies afflicting the Church so far from being ended by the Council of Nice, were continued with augmented complications.
For many years afterward creed upon creed appeared: and the Arians affirmed that Constantine intended to call a new Council, and have the Nicene Creed amended: but before accomplishing it, he died.
By the Council of Nice the man of the Church was led away from his implicit faith in the LORD, to a certain reliance upon an arm of flesh; and especially in the imperial power of Rome, which was then the mistress of the world. If we may so say, the Church itself was imperialized, and led to rely on imperial power. Wealth, honor, position in society, and influence in courts and kingdoms, were then dreamed of; and springing up from this virus of worldly and selfish love, which then in certain leading minds began to bear rule, was the hope of infusing the spirit of Christianity, and, in fact, the doctrines of the Church, into the various forms of the Pagan religion. The Christians had tried this in the Jewish Synagogues, and they had signally failed, still they wished to try it again on the declining forms of Paganism. Not content with a universal crusade against all forms of evil and falsity, and with the comparatively slow increase of the Church, they lusted for more; for the conversion of nations and peoples in some more rapid way, as by outward pressure, by the influence and authority of emperors, kings, and nobles, rather than by the inward conviction of the heart, and the reformation and renewal of the life. Such was the damaging influence upon the Church of its alliance with the State, and of the work begun by Constantine.
The Church and State.
WE have learned from the Heavenly Doctrines of the New Jerusalem that the Primitive Christian Church infested from its cradle, was brought to a calamitous end, in the transactions of the Nicene Council. The various movements relating to the Church that followed this Council must be considered in their order. For although the Primitive Church established by the LORD with His Apostles was then brought to an end, many things of that Church, and flowing from it, continued, and its vastation extended into the centuries following down to the time of the consummation in the LAST JUDGMENT, A. D. 1757. Like the wreck of a magnificent: vessel in mid-ocean of which the fragments are scattered abroad over the face of the deep, so was the disastrous wreck of the Church in the fourth century. Much of it went down, but the remains of the Church in various forms continued and were scattered abroad.
In this second epoch of Christianity, the Church was no longer a unit, integral and simple; but, on the contrary, it was fragmental and complex, and consequently in following its movements through the centuries, we must take as we find them these various organizations and movements, and consider them in detail. For even the Imperial Church, in which Church and State seemed so firmly united, did not long embrace everything in its communion; much of the State soon stood outside of the Church, and much of the Church outside the State, or out of all sympathy with it. Many of the great movements also included in them only a part of the Church. For example, the monastic orders, the hermits, monks, and nuns. Then the Protestants and Reformers of all ages. Then for two centuries the Crusaders. Then the Inquisition; and then the Jesuits.
Then as heresies and schisms multiplied, Councils were called to counteract them. These various movements we must consider in detail. And many of these details must be carried over into our next Paper.
The union of Church and State was fatally disastrous to the Church, and at the same time a source of trouble and division in the State. The Empire just rising out of its ages of Paganism was ill-adapted for alliance with the Church. The sons and successors of Constantine were unfit to rule even a paltry State, to say nothing of an Empire, and the Church universal. The Empire and the Church during the fourth century were continually embroiled in Theological feuds.
The love of dominion in Constantine began to produce its results. Mental activity and ambition found their tree field in Ecclesiastical affairs. Orthodoxy triumphed because it was more in unison with the present necessity of the court.... The heresy of Arius, though it might suit the Monotheistic views of the educated, did not commend itself to that large mass who had been so recently pagan. Already the elements of dissension were obvious enough: on the one side there, was an illiterate, intolerant, unscrupulous, credulous, numerous body: on the other, a refined, better-informed, yet doubting sect.Dr. Draper, pp. 213, 214.
The Emperor Constantius sided with the Arian party but he soon found Antanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, as the head of the Orthodox party, his personal antagonist. The conflict soon began.
The quarrels that followed in the great cities, with their bloodshed and murders, and private life of both high and low degree, clearly showed that Christianity, thus allied with the State, could no longer control the passions of men. The personal history of the sons of Constantine is an awful relation of family murders. Religion had disappeared, and theological dogmas had come in its stead. Even theology had gone mad.Ibid, p. 214.
The Emperors with their limited knowledge of Christian doctrine, and their still more limited experience of Christian life, were hardly fit for the lowest once in the Church, much less for ruling over the whole Church,
--determining its doctrines, and punishing the schisms and heresies that infested it, with anathenas and Divine maledictions, here and hereafter.
We have in this Paper space only for some notable cases showing how the Emperors managed the Church, and prostituted its principles to their own aggrandizement, and their selfish love of dominion. With the instances given we may leave the rest.
We may take the few years from the death of Constantine the Great to the middle of the fifth century, and we have before us a series of pictures of the fallen Church, showing its state and condition, and foreshadowing its unpromising future.
We begin with Julian the Apostate; and Theodosius the Great; and then we shall follow with a brief notice of the manner in which the Imperial Church managed the two great heresies of the fifth century, namely, the Pelagian and the Nestorian heresies.
Julian was in the thirty-second year of his age when by a bold and successful movement at the head of his legions, he obtained the undisputed possession of the Empire.
Julian was educated for the Christian Priesthood amidst the scandals of the Arian controversy. The fierce contests of the Eastern Bishops, the incessant alterations of their creeds, and the profane motives that appeared to actuate their conduct, insensibly strengthened the prejudice of Julian, and his conviction that they neither understood nor believed the religion for which they so fiercely contended. At the age twenty (A. D. 351) Julian secretly renounced Christianity, and embraced a religious system combining a philosophical notion of the Deity with the habits of vulgar superstition.... Julian was first initiated into the Grecian Mysteries at Ephesus, by the hands of Maximus, a bold and skillful master in the Theurgic Science. During his residence in Athens, he was initiated into the mysteries of Eleusis, which, amidst the general decay, still retained some vestiges of their primval sanctity.
In the caverns of Ephesus and Eleusis, the mind of Julian was penetrated with sincere, deep, and unalterable enthusiasm. From that moment he consecrated his life to the service of the gods, and whether occupied in war, or government, or study, stated hours of the night were sacredly reserved for private devotions.... Gibbon, p. 167.
Julian when once fully in power was tolerant and patient with all forms of religion, but he determined to destroy the growing power of Christianity, and to reinstate in full force Paganism as it had been in previous ages, and then to ingraft upon it the excellencies of Christianity.
Julian surprised the world by an Edict proclaiming the benefits of free and equal toleration to all the inhabitants of the Roman Empire. But at the same time he labored to undermine the foundations of Christianity, and to restore the Pagan religion. He celebrated the worship of the gods with great pomp and splendor; he sent magnificent presents to all the celebrated Pagan shrines throughout the Roman world; he gave money to repair and decorate the ancient temples which had suffered the silent decay of time, or the injuries of Christian rapine. Soon the cities and families began to resume the practice of their neglected ceremonies. Every part of the world, said Libanius, displayed the triumph of the Pagan religion, and the grateful prospect of flaming altars, bleeding victims, the smoke of incense, and the solemn processions of priests and prophets, without fear and without danger. The sound of prayer and of music was heard on the tops of the highest mountains; and the same ox afforded a sacrifice for the gods, and a supper for their joyous votaries.--Gibbon condensed.
In his religious views Julian was of the Neoplatonic school, and in his restoration of Paganism he intended to ingraft upon it all the excellencies of Christianity. Nevertheless he removed the Christians from civil offices, condemned them to rebuild the temples which had been destroyed, and excluded them from professorships in the imperial schools. And still there was a certain universal toleration. All banished Bishops were recalled; and the Jews were invited to rebuild their Temple in Jerusalem. Those who had remained Pagans during the reign of Constantine and his sons, now began to lift up their heads, and the ever venal multitude returned to their deserted temples. The ridicule and hatred of the Christians, Julian met with the weapons of a philosopher rather than with those of a universal ruler. The differences between him and his people did not make him a tyrant.
He was a hero and a philosopher on the throne, and a pious and virtuous man in private life. After a busy reign of twenty months as sole Emperor, and after a restless, but fruitless life, he fell while yet a youth in a battle with the Persians (A. D. 363).Dr. Hase, p. 105, abridged.
Still the New Doctrines continually gained strength in the public estimation, by incorporating ideas borrowed from Paganism. Through the reign of Valentinian of the Western Empire, who was a Nicenist; and Valens of the Eastern Empire, who was an Arian, things went on almost as though the episode of Julian had never occurred. The ancient gods were now thoroughly identified with dmons; their worship was stigmatized as the practice of magic. Against this crime a violent persecution arose. The force of this persecution though directed against Paganism struck also at what remained of Philosophy. For by some, Philosophy had come to be identified with magic and the black art practiced by the Pagans.
Constantine had opened a career in the State, through the Church, for men of the lowest rank. Burning zeal, self-will, bigotry, and fanaticism animated them rather than wisdom and learning, and the love of truth for its own sake. Men without the requisite culture or character rushed into office, and, as questions arose requiring for their solution the gravest wisdom of the wisest men, the notions of those who were in power were often declared as the most unimpeachable truth. Whatever was in the way of these men was set aside. In this the hand of the civil power assisted. It was intended to cut off every philosopher. Every manuscript that could be seized was forthwith burned. Throughout the East men in terror destroyed their libraries, for fear that something found in them should involve them and their families in destruction. The universal opinion in the Empire was that it was right to compel men to believe what the majority of society had now accepted as the truth, and, if they refused, that it was right to punish them. No one in the dominating party was heard to raise his voice in behalf of intellectual liberty....
The death-blow to Paganism was given by the Emperor Theodosius, a Spaniard, who, in consequence, was rewarded with the title of The Great. At first he made the practice of magic and the inspection of the entrails of animals capital offenses, and then, in A. D. 391, he prohibited all sacrifices, and even the entering of temples. He alienated the revenues of many temples, confiscated the estates of others, and some he demolished. The vestal virgins he dismissed, and any house profaned by incense he declared forfeited to the imperial exchequer.
Not only did the government thus constitute itself a thorough auxiliary of Christianity, but it also tried to secure the Church from its own dissensions. Apostates were deprived of the right of bequeathing their own property.
Inquisitors of faith were established, who were at once spies and judges, the prototypes of the most fearful tribunal of modern times (the Inquisition.)--See Dr. Draper, p. 230.
Gibbon says of Theodosius that his character might furnish the subject of a sincere and ample panegyric.
The wisdom of his laws and the success of his arms rendered his administration respectable in the eyes both of his subjects and of his enemies. He loved and practiced the virtues of domestic life, which seldom hold their residence in the palaces of kings. He respected the simplicity of the good and virtuous. He rewarded by his judicious liberality, every useful and innocent art and talent; and, except the heretics, whom he persecuted with implacable hatred, his diffusive benevolence was circumscribed only by the limits of the human race. Still there were two essential imperfections in the character of Theodosius: namely, he was often relaxed by indolence; and he was sometimes inflamed by passion.... His reign was polluted by an act of cruelty which would stain the annals of Nero or Domitian. History gives us the facts, and we cannot restrain our inferences.
Thessalonica, the metropolis of all the Illyrian provinces, was protected during the Gothic war by strong fortifications and a numerous garrison Botheric, the general of these troops, had thrown into prison one of the charioteers of the circus, and had sternly resisted the clamors of the multitude for his release. On account of this Botheric and several of his principal officers were inhumanly murdered by the enraged populace, and their mangled bodies were dragged about the streets. The Emperor Theodosius, then living in Milan, was horrified at the news of the audacious and wanton cruelty of the people of Thessalonica, and he determined to punish the authors of the crime in the severest manner, and without the dilatory forms of a judicial inquiry.
The people of Thessalonica were treacherously invited, in the name of their sovereign, to the games of the circus. The numerous spectators came without fear or suspicion.
As soon as the assembly was complete, the soldiers, who had been secretly posted round the circus, received the signal, not of the races, but of a general massacre. The promiscuous carnage continued three hours, without discrimination of strangers or natives, of age or sex, of innocence or guilt. The most moderate accounts state the number of the slain at seven thousand; but some writers affirm that more than fifteen thousand victims were then sacrificed to the of Botheric (A. D. 390).
Ambrose, the Archbishop of Milan, severely rebuked the Emperor and excommunicated him, and imposed upon him the most rigorous conditions of pardon. These were accepted, and the public penance of the Emperor Theodosius is recorded as one of the most honorable events in the annals of the Church. Stripped of the ensigns of royalty, and in the midst of the Church of Milan, the Emperor with sighs and tears, humbly prayed for the pardon of his sins. After a delay of about eight months, Ambrose restored. Theodosius to the communion of the Church. Thus a monarch exalted above the fear of human punishment, was forced to respect the laws and the ministers of a kingdom not of this world, and to acknowledge that while in the Church he is not above the Church. (See Gibbon, pp. 216, 217.)
Then the conduct of the church in respect to the Palagian and Nestorian heresies gives further demonstrations of its fallen state. The time of these transactions is from about A. D. 400 to A. D. 450.
Pelagius, who was a British monk, went through Western Europe and Northern Africa teaching the doctrines that Adam was by nature mortal, and that if he had not sinned, he nevertheless would have died; that the consequences of his sin were confined to himself, and did not affect his posterity; that new-born infants are in the same condition as Adam before his fall; that we are at birth as pure as he was; that we sin by our own free will, and in the same manner may reform, and thereby work out our own salvation; that the grace of God is given according to our merits....
He insisted especially that it is not the mere act of baptizing with water that washes away sin, but that it can be removed only by good works. Infants he said were baptized before they could have sinned. Pelagius was repelled from Africa by the influence of Augustine, and denounced in Palestine from the cell of Jerome.--Dr. Draper, p. 211.
Pelagius was summoned before a Synod in Diopolis and unexpectedly acquitted of heresy. But the decision brought Africa and the East into conflict, and the matter was referred to Rome. Pope Innocent I. concurred with the African Bishops and pronounced the doctrines of Pelagius heretical. Immediately after, the Pope died, and his successor, Zosimus, annulled his judgement and declared the opinions of Pelagius to be orthodox. Carthage resisted. There was danger of a theological war. To escape this the Africans quietly, and by an obscure court-intrigue, procured from the Emperor an edict denouncing Pelagius as a heretic. The heresiarchs and their accomplices were condemned to exile and to the forfeiture of their estates; and the Augustinian doctrine concerning Adam and his posterity was established by law.Ibid., p. 215.
The Pelagian controversy disposed of, a new heresy appeared. Nestorius, at first Bishop of Antioch, but in the year 427 called to the episcopate of Constantinople, held that the Divine and the Human nature of the CHRIST were too much confounded, and that they ought to be distinguished; and that the God ought to he kept separate from the Man; and consequently that the Virgin Mary ought not to be considered the mother of God, but only the mother of the CHRIST,--the God-man. He insisted that what was born of Mary was human, and that the Divine was added afterward.
At this doctrine of Nestorius the monks raised a riot in Constantinople, and Cyril the Bishop of Alexandria espoused their cause; so that Cyril and Nestorius were in open war. The case was referred to Pope Celestine; and he assembled a Synod. This Synod ordered Nestorius to recant, or hold himself under excommunication.
This decision of Celestine, Nestorins resisted, holding that Celestine was simply Bishop of Rome, with no higher authority than himself: and then as a counter-movement Nestorius, as Bishop of Constantinople, excommunicated Cyril.
The Emperor interposed, and summoned a Council to meet in Ephesus. The historian says:
To this Council Nestorius repaired, with sixteen Bishops and some of the city populace. Cyril collected fifty, together with a rabble of sailors, bathmen, and women of the baser sort. The imperial commissioner with his troops with difficulty repressed the tumult in the assembly. The rescript was fraudulently read before the arrival of the Syrian Bishops. In one day the matter was completed; Cyrils party triumphed, and Nestorius was deposed. On the arrival of the Syrian ecclesiastics, they held a meeting of protest. A riot, with much bloodshed, occurred in the Cathedral of St. John. The Emperor was again compelled to interfere; he ordered eight deputies from each party to meet in Chalcedon. In the mean time court intrigues decided the matter.... The Emperors sister was active in these intrigues.... And many pounds of gold were soon after found in the treasury received by the treasurer from Cyril. Nestorius was abandoned by the court, and eventually exiled to an Egyptian oasis.Dr. Draper, p. 219.
In these Theological controversies the only criteria of Truth which the Church had were the teachings of the literal sense of the Sacred Scriptures, the opinions of men, and tradition. Tradition was variable and unreliable; the opinions of men were conflicting and often antagonistic; and the literal sense of the Scriptures, then, as now, could be turned to confirm every doctrine,--the false, as well as the true. Councils were therefore introduced, by which,
in an authoritative manner, theological questions might be settled. But the decisions of the Councils did not agree with one another, and it soon became manifest that there must be a higher law, a higher court, supreme source of Truth, a final Arbiter of judgment, an infallible Authority.
Many therefore were led to protest, either in private or in public, against the decrees of the Councils, to pronounce them fallible and not infallible, human and not Divine. And this conviction, again, led to innumerable counter-movements, plots and counter-plots,Councils, in fact, convoked in the interest of the various conflicting schisms in the Church.
In the Arian controversy which followed the Nicene Council, Amenianus, a contemporary of Constantius, the successor of Constantine the Great, says:
That the highways were covered and the establishments of posts almost exhausted, by the troops of Bishops who were perpetually hurrying from Synod to Synod. These measures animated the dissension, and augmented consequently the evils and the odium.Wad. Hist., p. 97.
Gregory of Nazianzen, who, during a part of its sittings was president of the Council of Constantinople, A. D. 381, refused subsequently to attend any more, saying that he had never known an assemblage of Bishops terminate well; that instead of removing evils they only increased them; and that their strifes and lust of power were not to be described.Dr. Draper, p. 221.
In the four General Councils which endeavored to settle the controversies concerning the Divine Trinity, the Council of Nice, as we have seen, determined that the Son is of the same substance with the Father; the Council of Constantinople determined that the Son and Holy Spirit are equal with the Father; the Council of Ephesus decreed that the two natures of CHRIST make but one Person; and the Council of Chalcedon decreed that these two natures remain two notwithstanding their personal union.
But that they failed in constituting a criterion of truth is demonstrated by the simple facts that in the fourth century alone there were thirteen Councils adverse to Arius, fifteen in his favor, and seventeen for the Semi-Arians, in all forty-five.Ibid., p. 220.
From this confusion in the decisions of the Councils both in the East and in the West, wherever their decisions were to be enforced, the uniform appeal was to civil authority, and military force. Indeed, how could it be otherwise since the Church was allied with the State;
for what could the State do in the Church and for it but to hear its decrees, and to enforce obedience to them with the sword? The Church therefore thus allied with the State began to be the very embodiment of the love of dominion, and swayed by this love, the Church soon began to call to its aid the military force of the State. Nor was this reliance of the Church upon the physical force of the State essentially changed when, in A. D. 410, by the invincible hordes of Alaric and his Goths, Rome was sacked, and the Western Empire blotted out. For when Imperial Rome was no more, other nationalities arose, and the Catholic frenzy for conjunction with secular power, led the Church to appear by its nuncios at the capital of every court in Europe; and thus to continue and consolidate the alliance with the State, as at first established by Constantine the Great.
About fifteen years after the revolt of the Goths, the Huns, under Attila, invaded and conquered a large part of the Eastern Empire, and then turned their arms against the West. Attila with an immense army met; the Romans at Chalons. The armies draws out in battle away were so enormous that the battle was said to be the greatest ever fought in Europe. The Huns lost two hundred thousand left dead on the field. The Romans stood their ground, the Huns were driven back.. Some years later Attila returned with another army, and desolated Italy, Rome being saved by the adroit management of the Pope.
The Vandals, under Genseric, overran Italy in A. D. 455, and then passed into Africa, and having subdued Carthage, passed on conquering all before them. They went without resistance wherever they wished to go; while in Italy, they sacked and pillaged Rome, leveling to the ground what the Goths had spared. For twenty years they waged war with the Romans, until the Empire was broken up, and the name Emperor blotted out. In A. D. 476, Odoacer, a German chieftain, dethroned the last of the Emperors, and was crowned King of Italy.
By the invasions of these barbarians Europe was utterly devastated, its towns and cities were burnt with fire, its inhabitants were killed with the sword or sold into slavery; and the old civilization blotted out; and the confused barbarism that resulted continued for more than two hundred years. The reconstruction of civil government came through the combined influence of Rome and of the scattered remnants of the French nationality.
But soon several of the still existing European nations rose out of the chaos, and begun their career as independent States.
In the mean time the papacy continued its connection with these several States; in all, the union of Church and State was maintained, but in some of these governments the influence and power of the Church was much greater than in others; and in all, the Church by every available means labored to subjugate the civil authority to the dominion of the Church: but this result, as we shall see, was not accomplished until near the end of the eleventh century.
Reformers.
REFORMERS have arisen at various times and places, whenever the Church has fallen into evils of life, and falsities of faith. Soon after the accession of Constantine the changed condition of the Church began to appear, for all men could see the enormous dissimilarity between the Christianity of the first, second, and third centuries, and the Christianity under the Emperors. The Church had fallen from its high estate of dealing with mens hearts and lives as seen in the light of heaven, and by the force of truth laboring to lift them up into conjunction with the LORD, into the work of serving the Empire, in its ambitious movements of marshaling armies, and waging war, and subduing its enemies by the power of embattled hosts.
Against this secular organization of the Church many entered their most earnest protest. Clergymen and laymen cried out against it. Their voice was lifted up against the ambition, avarice, fraud, cruelty, and adultery that prevailed in the Empire, infested the Church, and defiled the garments of the clergy.
Still those protesting against these abuses were often comparatively isolated and alone, and many of them in humble life, and however strong their convictions of truth and duty, their efforts were of little avail in reforming the Church, or reducing the evils prevailing in its formidable organizations. For while these reformers were scattered, having neither centralization nor organization, the Church allied with the State was an organized body, and had its various forms of order in the Priesthood, together with money and power, and consequently they could overpower these single-handed reformers, even though armed with the Divine Truth itself. Still, their labors were not lost; they opened the way for the great Reformation which at last restored the Word to the people.
Of these Minor Reformations we have space only for the brief mention of the following:
About the middle of the fourth century rius protested against the Episcopal order in the Priesthood, holding that there was so essential difference between Bishops and Presbyters. He also taught that fasts ordained by the Church were compulsory forms binding upon no one,--and that prayers and alms for the dead were of no avail. The schism of rius was of short duration and of limited extent.
In the same century Iovinians, a Roman ascetic, proclaimed that there was nothing meritorious either in fasting or in celibacy; that pleasures are not necessarily sins; that temperance is as excellent a virtue as abstinence; and that the chaste enjoyments of marriage are as agreeable to the eye of a benevolent Deity, as the mortifications of unnatural celibacy. Iovinianus, about A. D. 388, was expelled from the Church for these opinions, first, by his Bishop, Siricius, and then, by Ambrose of Milan, to whom he appealed for redress.
Vigilantius, a Presbyter of Barcelona, was another Protestant of the fourth century. He denounced as idolatry the superstition of praying to the deceased; vigils as occasions for licentiousness; and vows of chastity as temptations to unnatural lusts; and he held that the wise use of property was far better than the casting of it away as a burden. His Bishop and several of the neighboring prelates favored his views; but Hieronymus with great asperity denounced them as contrary to the prevailing customs of the Church!
In the same century Priscillian was put to death by the sword for forming a party under Manichan influences, for the purpose of releasing the spirit from its natural life, by unusual self-denials and efforts. Itacius, a Bishop, obtained a decree from the Synod of Csar Augusta A.D. 350, that those of this sect should no longer be tolerated on the earth, and Maximus summoned Priscillian to Treves, where he was put to death. Priscillian was the first heretic, the books say, whose blood was shed by the solemn forms of law. The Church was struck with horror at the act. Roused by the blood of their martyr, the Priscillianists survived the stroke, and the sect continued till in the sixth century. (See Dr. Hase, pp. 158, 159.)
Thus within fifty years after the Nicene Council, the Church had within its bosom evils so enormous that these protests and denunciations were called for, and a martyrs blood was shed, with a countless array of conflicts, persecutions, and wars, for seven or eight hundred years, the work went on, sincere and honest men protesting, persuading, and denouncing.
But still all was not lost in the Church: there was a remnant. The name of the LORD JESUS CHRIST, the Redeemer and Saviour, was retained in the Church, and the historical events of His life in the world were proclaimed by the preachers, and published in the Gospels, and in other books. His teachings also were often given in their simplicity to the simple-minded people, and to children; and His life in the world was held up as an example. For the Church though fallen had the Word, the Ministry, and the Sacraments; and by these means the knowledge of the Divine was preserved. The Creeds also,the Apostles, the Nicene, and the Athanasian, which were universally promulgated, had in them truths which were conducive to salvation.
In the Divine providence of the LORD these saving forms of truth were preserved, and wherever the Church went, they went with it. The simple-minded who were well disposed found these things, and by them were led to the LORD, and to heaven. These things also were the background and the basis of the various reforms that were attempted. Those who were enabled to see the Church in the light of the LORDS life in the world, and of His teachings to His Disciples, would readily have an insight into the affairs of life, to the proper duties of the Priests and of the People, and, in the movements of the Church, they could easily discriminate between the true and the false, the right and the wrong.
But many of the reformations attempted in these ages were only schisms, and were really organized heresies.
Wrong-headed men who were filled with evils and falsities could cry out against the abuses of the Church as vehemently as the best of men. Ecclesiastical History tells us of many of these sects even from the beginning of the Church, and when we open our eyes, we may see that they are still multiplied among us. But the established Catholic Church persecuted indiscriminately those who differed from it, whether they were in truth or in falsity.
Until the time of Luther, the reformers in the Church labored only to re-establish the papal authority: to give Catholicism an orderly form; to correct the false dogmas; and to remove the abuses prevalent in the Church. Even Luther, at first, had no thought of separating from Rome. The historian Dr. Hase says:
When the Minorite, Alvarez Pelagius, about 1330, poured forth his lamentations over the low condition of the Church, the only remedy he sought was the re-establishment of the papal authority. All were agreed that the reformation must begin by limiting the papal power to do mischief.
In the fifteenth century all nations demanded the reformation of the Church: and the Popes and prelates united in the promise that the Church should be reformed; and, in fact, they proclaimed that the reformation was already begun, and in many respects completed: and yet all this was so indefinite that it amounted to nothing. It was to each one, the promise of what he most wished for, and the removal of what he deemed the most unchristian. But inasmuch as the canon law remained untouched, the promised reformations were never confirmed, and the Church was continually lapsing into its old status. Nothing was said of doctrines, and as the doctrines remained the same, the Church was necessarily led into its old evils.
It was much as in our own day.
The various denominations of the same old Church have continued to talk of reformation, and of a return to the faith and life of the Primitive Church. Reformations are promised; and of late it is often said that reformations are begun and to an extent completed; but as the canon law, the standards of doctrine, the confessions of faith, the Prayer Books and the Hymn Books remain untouched, there is no genuine reformation. The promised amendments also are vague and uncertain, to one man they are one thing, to another, another;--to every one that which pleases him most. And while it may be understood, that the old standards no longer express the actual belief of the various denominations that rally around them, still they can not change them. Indeed, it has been well said that there is no Church strong enough to revolutionize its creed. Therefore the impossibility of enduring reformations within the vastated Church.
Rsum.
THE most sorrowful tales in the history of the Ages have respect to the downfall and death of the successive Churches. The Most Ancient Church, the Ancient, the Israelitish, and the Christian Church, had their rise, their progress toward perfection, their full development, their decline, their downfall, and their death. As the Church, in whatever Dispensation, is the LORDS kingdom on the earth; His own chosen means of conserving and revealing His Word, of making known His will, and of saving the human race, the wonder would seem to be the greater that these Churches, one after another, have fallen into ruins and are dead. The Writings of the New Church say:
Every Church, at its commencement, regards the goods of life in the first place, and truths of doctrine in the second; but as the Church declines, it begins to regard the truths of doctrine in the first place, and in the second the goods of life: and at length, in the end, it regards faith alone; and it then not only separates the goods of charity from faith, but also omits them.--A. R. 92.
And in respect to the consummation of the Christian Church it is written:
The falsities which have hitherto desolated the Christian Church, and at length consummated it, are principally the following:--
1. Its members receded from the worship of the LORD, preached by the Apostles, and from faith in Him.
2. They separated the Divine Trinity from the LORD, and transferred it to three Divine and Eternal Persons, and consequently to three Gods.
3. They divided saving faith among these three Persons.
4. They separated charity and good works from this faith, is not being at the same time of a saving nature.
5. They deduced from this faith alone, justification, that is, the remission of sins, regeneration, and salvation, independent of mans co-operation.
6. They denied man free-will in spiritual things, asserting thus, that God alone operates in man, and that on his part man does not operate at all.
7. The necessary consequence of this was Predestination, by which religion is abolished.
8. They made the Passion of the cross to be redemption.
From these tenets falsities burst forth in such abundance, that there was no longer any genuine truth unfalsified, nor any genuine good unadulterated.--Brief Con. Coronis, NOS. XLV.-LIV.
In our Monograph thus far we traced the conflicts in the Christian Church from the Incarnation to the borders of the Dark Ages. The conflicts were innumerable and many of them most direful. The dawn of Christian life, and the transition of Jewish life into it, we passed in review; then the Ministry of the LORD, and the slow accession of His Disciples to a true recognition of His Kingdom. Then we had before us the labors of the Apostles, the Apostolic Fathers, and the Christian Fathers.
The numerous schisms and heresies in the Church, the causes which led to them, and the ante-Nicene Councils called to struggle against them,--we then described, and then the Council of Nice called to counteract the Arian heresy.
We considered the fact that the influence of Arianism was by no means destroyed by the Nicene Council; from that day onward it was a full match for the prevalent Trinitarianism. We also passed in review the infamous conduct of Constantine the Great and his successors; as well also, as the memorable transactions of Theodosius the Great.
Even in these early ages the supremacy of the Papacy began to be openly asserted, although it could not be established even in this rapidly declining Church for centuries.
Our space forbids at present a further advance into these Conflicts. We pause on the borders of the Dark Ages. When, in another Paper, we return to finish our Monograph on this Conflict in the Christian Church, we shall set forth the various forms of Monastic Life: The Reformers and Martyrs before the days of Luther: The memorable struggles for dominion among the Popes and Emperors: The internecine wars within the Church, and among the nations: The rise of the Crusaders, of the Inquisition, and of the Jesuits: And finally the great Reformation in the sixteenth century, and its results down to the final consummation of the Church.
NOTES AND REVIEWS.
The General Conference of the New Church in England.
THE Seventy-fourth Session of the General Conference of the New Church in England was held in the Church, Peter Street, Manchester, during the week beginning with the 8th of August last. The periodical publications of the Church have duly chronicled the proceedings of this meeting. They have also laid before their readers comments on these proceedings in letters and communications, together with papers read at the meeting. From these sources we have derived sufficient material for the conclusion that the past year has witnessed an increased activity in the affairs of the Church among our English brethren, with an increased interest in matters not hearing directly upon the general dissemination of the Doctrines of the Church. In this latter class, we place especially the subject brought before the Conference in a paper read by the Rev. Thomas Child, and prepared in accordance with a resolution of the previous meeting of the body. This paper and its subject-matter were but briefly discussed for want of time. If this able and remarkable paper, published in the Morning Light and N. J. Messenger, presents a fair and correct view of the relations of ministers to the organization of the New Church; yea more, if the view presented be but partially fair and correct, then do account it a cause of no small regret that the Conference could not take time, or did not make time, to consider and discuss it freely and fully. The subject of the relations of ministers to the organization of the New Church, is assuredly one of supremest importance to the Church. In the Morning Light of August 20th, we read that the discussion on this paper was cut short by the resumption of the ordinary business of Conference, and in the brief account of the discussion we find but one vigorous disclaimer from a layman of the charge so vigorously maintained by the writer, that the ministers of the New Church are no integrant, incorporated part of the Churchs organization in the Societies to which they belong, but that from that organization they stand excluded. The writers entire conviction of the truth of this statement of the case cannot be doubted;
nor is it to be doubted that this conviction, to his mind, was clearly based upon face, with which he supposed those who heard him to be more or less familiar, even though they may have been accustomed to regard them in a light different from that in which they were made to appear in the paper. Indeed, it would seem that a body composed of delegates from the various Societies of the Church in Great Britain, need ask but little time to decide, whether it be a fact or nor, that their ministers are no integrant, incorporated part of the Churchs organization in the Societies to which they belong. If it is a fact, we say frankly and in all kindness, that we cannot see how there can be order and genuine progress in that part of the Church in which such a deplorable state of things exists. There ought to be no difficulty in seeing rationally, and settling early, the position of the ministry in the New Church. The Writings of the Church contain an abundance of Divine teaching on the subject. They are our only source of knowledge and intelligence in respect to the order of the Church, and its organization, as well as in respect to all things of the Divine Law and Order given in the Word of the LORD.
As New Churchmen we must acknowledge this; and surely, if we do not prefer the conclusions and decisions of our self-intelligence to the instructions and counsels of Infinite Wisdom, we shall be instantly ready to search the document which the LORD has mercifully put into our hands, in order that we may learn and know His will and His way in the government and ordering of His Church.
The New Church is the LORDS, and not our Church. The good and the truth which constitute this Church are His, and they can be appropriated Church, from its good and its truth, are equally the LORDS, and in like manner are to be received by us from Him. The circumstance that we are free to receive or not, and that we are free to act from reception, or without reception from Him, does not change the LORDS relation to the Church, or the Churchs relation to the LORD. It is something that concerns only our individual relations to the LORD and His Church. We are free to take a place within the Church, or outside of the Church. But we cannot enter and find a place in the Church if we do not go to the LORD in His Word, and in His doctrine from the Word, contained in the Writings of the Church, for instruction and guidance in the way of living and doing. We need to bear in mind that the LORD proceeds according to His own Divine modes in teaching His human creatures, as well us in all the other operations of His Divine Providence. We cannot set these modes aside and provide for Him other ways. If we would know the law of the Church, we must go to the Writings, or the books, in which the LORD has written this law.
This is His will and His way; and true information concerning the Truth, which is the Divine Law of Life, and concerning the order and government of the Church, can come to us by no other means or mediations, than by those which have been Divinely provided for this purpose. If we will go to them, we shall have no difficulty in obtaining the needed information concerning the ministry, and its relation to the organizations of the Church. On this subject the teaching of the Writings are sufficiently plain to enable all who really desire to know the truth, to gain rational view of the Divine laws of order according to which the Church is to be organized, and the relations of ministers and laymen to be determined and governed. In Doctrine, revealed by Himself, the LORD has declared the place of the Priesthood, or the ministry, in the Church. Neither resolutions of Conventions and Conferences, nor acts of Societies can ever remove the ministry out of its Divinely-appointed place. Men may refuse to learn what the LORD has declared on the subject; men may reject or deny His declarations; men may organize themselves into Societies without ministers, or with ministers to whom they refuse their proper position. But in so doing, and in so organizing, they only separate themselves, and their Societies, from that office, which is the LORDS office in the Church, and by this fact they place themselves outside of the true Church of the LORD, which can by no means exist without the representative of His office of saving souls, rationally acknowledged, and established among men in its own proper position, function, and relation.
The Missionary work of the Conference appears to be well organized, and zealously performed. It may be a question whether the very general performance of missionary labor by the ministers of the Church does not almost necessarily lead to some neglect of the requisite instruction of the members of Societies in the more interior things of the Word and Doctrine. Perhaps there is such a neglect; and perhaps the absence of this more interior instruction may, in part, account for the false position, according to the paper of Mr. Child, of the ministers to the organizations of the Church. But on the other hand, it would seem as if the energetic efforts of our English brethren, to supply small Societies with preaching, and with the regular administration of the Sacraments, pointed in an opposite direction. If this be really the case, it will no doubt in time help to correct the tendency to rest in merely elementary teaching; and promote a more general recognition of the necessity of so teaching and presenting the Heavenly Truths of the Church, that there may be a constant increase of spiritual light and intelligence among those who have come into some acknowledgment of the LORD in His Second Advent.
The centres of New Church intelligence on the Earth, which are Societies, and organized bodies of men, need to be continually strengthened by a deeper sinking of the stakes of their tents, so that their lengthened cords may be held well and firmly in their greater extension.
The Conference seems to be giving much attention to the formulation of a creed. Those who are engaged in this effort will certainly be led to a deeper and more exact study of the Doctrines of the Church; but whether they will ever be able to produce a Formula that shall be generally acceptable, may well be doubted. Indeed, we are free to express the belief that they will finally reach the conclusion which others have reached before, that the Creed of the New Church, as formulated in various ways in the Writings, is all that is needed, and that we may not hope to improve upon what has been Divinely done for us.
The one question before Conference which, according to our accounts, called forth most feeling, and held the prominent place in the minds of its members, was the relation of the New Church College to the general body. With this was connected the other question, of the right of the Conference to control and direct the education of its Theological Students. We have taken a deep interest in the discussion and settlement of these questions, because of their importance and bearing upon the order and welfare of the Church. Of course, it is not for us to discuss the merits of these questions in their application to the affairs of the Church in England; but we may be pardoned for expressing the opinion, that a compromise is not a settlement of a question, and that our friends will probably have to come to the conclusion, that in matters which are not of direct Divine teaching, the true way of agreeing to disagree is to leave to differing convictions and judgments the utmost freedom of action and ultimation. This is a conclusion to which the members of the New Church must all come, sooner or later; the sooner the better. We may have unity of end and purpose but we cannot have uniformity in thought, still less in action, and least of all can uniformity he attained and maintained by conformity to the leading ideas of leading minds, or to the votes of majorities.
Let us be thankful to the LORD for His merciful gift of Divine Truth in the revelation of the internal sense of His Word; for His preservation of the rational freedom of the Man of the Church, and for this, that all may come into His kingdom of uses, who will look to Him and live according to His commandments.
The General Convention.
THE Sixty-first Annual Session of the General Convention of the New Jerusalem was held in Washington from the 20th to the 23d of May of this year. This is the first meeting of the Convention in the capital of the United States, and the attendance, though not large (only 29 ministers and 52 delegates), was more than usually representative, although there were four associations and four Societies unrepresented. Owing no doubt in part to the fairly representative character of the meeting the large minority present was more outspoken and more determined to assert its right to a free hearing. It may not be generally known, but there is quite a difference, in the freedom of discussion and debate between the American Convention and the English Conference, and the difference is not, as might perhaps be expected, in favor of the republic. There is far greater frankness and outspokenness in England than in America, far less disposition to take offense at criticism, and much less hesitation in avowing differences of opinion. This is no doubt owing in part to the English love of fair play, but also to the fact that there is less of a spirit of personal domination in England, and therefore less of a desire to repress differences in opinion.
The usual reports from the officers of the Convention and from the Associations and Societies constituting the larger body were received and read, as also the reports of the Ordaining Ministers and some special reports. A perusal of them shows that, while there is no appearance of a marked progress this year, the Church work is being carried on steadily, and meets with the success that may reasonably be executed.
Much of the interest of the Convention centered this year on the efforts of the large minority to obtain its just rights. The majority of the Convention had gradually filled all the important Committees and Boards with their own adherents, dropping the representatives of the minority. Notably has this been the case with the Executive Committee and the New Church Board of Publication, the majority appointing only members of their party, in contravention both to parliamentary usage and to the requirements of justice and charity. Thus the Pennsylvania and Canada Associations, which had generally been represented by three or more members on the Executive Committee between them, have now together one, while the New York Association, the Ohio Association, and the Massachusetts Association have three members each. The evident unfairness of this course was so great that no less than three resolutions respecting this proceeding were submitted, but as the Executive Committee itself is first to consider these propositions, it is by no means certain that anything will be done to remedy the injustice.
Another mode in which the representative character of the Convention contemplated by its present Constitution had been encroached upon is by the election for life of elective members, who, without representing anybody but themselves, have not only the right to take part in all discussions and to be appointed on all Committees and Boards, but they have also the right to vote, the same as the delegates to the Convention, every one of whom represents 20 members of a Society or Association. The institution of elective members was intended to cover Isolated Receivers only, and such was the wording of the Constitution of the Convention until 1879; so that the three members first elected were elected in violation of the Constitution, as they all belonged to a society of the Church, but to give them some legal standing the Constitution was changed at the Portland meeting. AT the last meeting this body of elective members (which has been not inaptly compared by our English brethren to a House of Peers) was reinforced by two new members, not without a strenuous opposition of the minority. A peculiarity of this new body is that all five of these life members belong to a Society that has hitherto stood in opposition of the members belong to a Society that has hitherto stood in opposition to the Convention. The revolutionary spirit of this movement in the Convention is defended by at least one writer, J. P., in the Messenger for August 31st, who, in his defense of these disorders, goes to the extreme of suggesting that the Convention may be a better judge of the persons who are to be the representatives of the inferior bodies which constitute the convention than these bodies themselves.
Quite a discussion sprung up on the consideration of the question of the incorporation of the Boston Theological School. For a number of years this school has been under the almost exclusive control of the Eastern ministers, who have thereby been enabled to train quite a number of the younger ministers according to their peculiar views, and this has greatly contributed to give that section the ascendancy and the control of the working machinery of the Convention. In consequence of this ascendancy, whatever this ruling majority determined to do was deemed the work of the General Convention, which again with them seemed to be considered identical or nearly so with the New Church; but whatever was undertaken outside of its precincts was set down as irregular, to be frowned down, and if possible stamped out. While the Urbana University has frequently had occasion to feel this spirit, it has shown itself more fully since the inauguration of the Theological School in Philadelphia.
The peculiar views set forth at the Eastern school were that Swedenborg owed all his illumination not to any special inspiration belonging to his office, but to his regeneration.
While they may have held that he had some peculiar privileges not granted to others, these were not of such a character but that other men as highly regenerated as he, might occupy if not the same at least quite a similar position, be able to open the internal sense of the Word where he had not done so, and to promulgate doctrines worthy of universal acceptance. The chief aim seemed therefore not so much to be to introduce the students into a systematic study and understanding of the Writings which form the LORD,S new revelation to His Church, but to lead them to be good, when they would come into a perception of the truth from their own state of good. Their goodness being thus the gauge of their perception and intelligence, the efficient minister would not be the one who has the most thorough knowledge and understanding of the Writings and love of his use, but the one who is in the highest state of good, and from this perceives the truth. A consequence of these views was that the Writings of the Church were not considered a final authority; but the opinions and views of those whom they regarded as regenerate were accounted of similar, if not of the same weight, and where these views contradicted the Doctrines, it would be at least an open question: which was right and to be received. A result of this teaching was that great attention was paid to the views of the leading ministers, and a kind of strong personal influence and authority with them took the place of that implicit belief in the authority of the Writings that prevailed in other parts of the Church.
When these two kinds of authority came into conflict in the Convention it was found that the advantages enjoyed by the Eastern ministers in their greater numbers in the control of the Theological School gave them the controlling voice and vote; and those who believed in the sole authority controlling were deprived by the majority of the chief positions of influence in the Convention, and to this open persecution was added more or less private defamation and slander.
The vote to incorporate the Boston Theological School was passed at the Convention in Portland, Maine, in 1880, when few but the Eastern members were present, the time and the place making it inconvenient if not impracticable for others to attend. The minority would have probably offered no objection to the incorporation of the Boston School, nor even to calling it the Conventions School, but this, as it seems, was not sufficient. Totally oblivious to the fact that there was another Theological School of the New Church in Philadelphia and a Theological Department in the Urbana, University, the Boston brethren modestly denominated their school The New Church Theological School. Objection was made to this title by the minority as exclusive, presumptuous, and untrue.
But those lawyers who sided with the majority proved at least to the satisfaction of the majority that The New Church Theological School was not an exclusive title, though they were not able to answer the question, what more exclusive title they could have chosen. The discussion brought out the curious fact that the incorporators, according to their own declaration, never thought of the exclusiveness of the title. The only rational explanation of this mental obscuration that we can think of is that the Eastern brethren have been so long accustomed to look on themselves not only as the essential clement of the Convention but also of the New Church in this country, that anything done by them was deemed by them to be done by the New Church itself. It was at last decided by the majority in Convention that it was not best to change the title of the school, since it would cost some money and some trouble to undo their work. But, we see that at least some of the managers have seen the absurdity of their claim; for they are content to announce their school in the Messenger as The Theological School of the General Convention.
Though the Convention seems to have decided again, that the minority has no rights that the majority need respect, we are not altogether without hopes that the domination of the Eastern wing will in time come to an end. As the Church increases in the Middle, Western, and Southern States, and as ministers will be trained in Philadelphia, and Urbana free from the personal authority and the peculiar views of our Eastern brethren, a freer and more tolerant spirit will no doubt prevail in the Church. The Societies formed by such ministers and under their pastoral care will not so easily come under personal authority and domination, and will naturally acknowledge no dominion and no authority but that of the LORD in the Heavenly Truths of the New Jerusalem. Then there will no more be the desire of making all men pattern after one man or one set of men, but every one will be left free to develop his individuality under the one LORD and Master JESUS CHRIST. Then will the repression by domineering majorities be at an end, and it will be every ones pleasure and delight to give unto all others the honor, power, and influence that justly belong to the uses they perform from the LORD. Then Committees and Boards will represent not the majority only but the whole Church; and when each one will be more careful to guard the freedom of his brethren than his own, Justice and Equity will reign, accompanied as ever by Love, Charity, and Peace.
The progress of large bodies is necessarily slow, yet it seems to us that home advance in the right direction was made at the last Convention. It will be seen at the next meeting whether opposite influences will cause a reaction, or whether the Church is even now ready for a further progress to a larger freedom, charity, and love.
An Error to be avoided.
THE New Jerusalem Magazine, in treating of an error to be avoided, we fear has fallen not only into a worse error than the one it is describing, but into a most damaging heresy. From its editorial for October, 1880, we quote the following: [The Italics are our own.]
We fear we detect a patronizing tone in the utterances of some of our own people, arising from an inclination on their part to underrate the merits of the leaders of the various religious denominations, who under the influence of the LORD, by means of the new heavens, are brought gradually into a clearer light, revealing falsities of doctrines once believed, and who are every year in greater freedom to publish all they learn.
But it is in exceedingly poor taste to speak of such encouraging signs in a patronizing way. We know that divided churches will exist as heretofore, L. J. 73, and we are glad to believe that the noble systems of church organization, such as Congregationalism, Episcopalianism, Presbyterianism, and the like, will continue to be useful.... The Church on earth is one, and they are in the centre of it whose faith and life recognize most fully the facts of the existence of the new age, and the unfolding of the Word, and, especially of the presence of the LORD, in the power and glory of His Second Coming; but if there be a tendency to look down upon any, we are in need of Pauls injunction:If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? and if they were all one member, where were the body? But now are they many members, yet but one body.1 Cor. xii.... Can we not heartily rejoice, as we see the sections of the Church slowly freed by the LORDS influence from falsities, and under their several banners united against what is evil in the world?
Those extracts in so many words declare that the different denominations of the vastated and consummated Church are still noble Church organizations, and will continue to be useful; that they are one with the LORDS New Church established by Him at His Second Coming; that they and the New Church are the many members, yet but one body; and that the are different sections of the Church under their several banners united against what, is evil in the world.
But are these deliverances of the Magazine in accordance with the truths of the New Church as revealed in the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg? If not, then the Magazine is much at fault. For its declared purpose is to set forth in a clear and unequivocal manner these truths. (See the Magazines Propsectus.)
Among the things revealed by the LORD in the Writings of Swedenborg at His Second Coming are these:
That there have been four general Churches previous to the New Church, namely: the Most Ancient Church, the Ancient, the Jewish, and the First Christian.T. C. R. 760.
That each Church has had four successive states or periods, which in the Word are understood by morning, day, evening, and night.Coronis, 6.
That the last time of the First Christian Church is the very night in which former Churches came to an end.T. C. 761.
That the Church is at an end when there are no longer my truths of faith, and hence no goods of charity.B. E. 72.
That in the Church at this day there is no faith because there is no charity.L. J. 37.
That what the LORD said to His disciples respecting the consummation of the age means the consummation of the present Christian Church.--T. C. R. 757, 758.
That the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet, and referred to by the LORD in Matthew xxiv., prevails in the Christian Church.--T. C. R. 758.
That the whole of that chapter treats solely of the successive declensions and corruptions of the Christian Church, down to its destruction, when it is at an end.B. E. 71.
That the Coming of the LORD means His Coming in the Word, and at the same time the establishment of a New Church, instead of the former, which is then consummated.--B. E. 71.
That the consummation of the Church takes place when there remains no Divine truth except what is falsified or rejected; and when there is no genuine truth, genuine good is impossible.T. C. R. 753.
That the great affliction such as was not from the beginning of the world nor ever shall be, spoken of by the LORD in Matthew xxiv., signifies the infestation from falses, and thence the consummation of every truth, or the desolation which is at this day in the Christian Churches.--B. E. 74.
That this [great affliction] has come to pass because the Churches.... have rounded a Church in the mind upon the idea of three Gods, and in the mouth upon the confession of one God, and by this means have separated themselves from the LORD.B. E. 75. See also A. R. 204.
That no one can enter heaven with the faith of the present Church, because it is founded upon the idea of three Gods, and this idea is in all and in every part thereof.B. E 92.
That the predictions of the Old and New Testament concerning the darkening or the sun, moon, and stars, collected into one sense, signify that there would be neither love, nor faith, nor knowledges of good and truth remaining in the Christian Church, at its last time when it draws to an end.B. E. 78.
That in the faith of the present day there is nothing of the Church, and consequently that it is not any thing, but only an idea of something.B. E. 78.
That without putting an end to the Old Church and establishing the New Church, no flesh could he saved.B. E. 91, 92.
That the Last Judgment takes place at the end of the Church, and the Church is at an end when faith is not, because charity is not.--L. J. 33.
That the Last Judgment was commenced in the beginning of the year 1757, and was fully accomplished at the end of that year.--L. J. 46.
This then is the last state of the Church established by the LORD when on earth, as He Himself has revealed it in the Writings; the picture is indeed deplorable and fearful; but as it is not drawn from human imagination or judgment, but is given to us by Divine revelation, how can we as New Churchmen deny its truthfulness?
In the Apocalypse Revealed it is written:
I, JESUS, have sent my angel to testify unto you these things in the Churches, signifies a testification from the LORD, before the whole Christian world, that it is true that the LORD alone disclosed the things which are described in this book [the Apocalypse] and also the things that are now laid open. Testify unto you these things in the Churches, signifies before the whole Christian world, for there the Churches are which are here meant.A. R. 953.
How then can we reject or deny what is so clearly and distinctly revealed by the LORD? If we receive these revelations as Divine and true in regard to the Old Christian Church, how can we regard its denominations or sects as still noble systems of Church organization which will continue to be useful? How can they be one with the LORDS New Church, the Lambs Wife? How can they and the New Church be many members, yet one body? How can they be sections of the Church, united under their several banners against what is evil in the world?
The Writings say:
Every Church, in process of time, decreases, by receding from the good of love and from the truths of faith, until there is nothing of these principles left, this being brought about by the successive increase of evil and falsity; and when there is no longer any good of love and of faith, then there is nothing but evil and falsity; and when this is the case there is an end of the Church.A. R. 658.
Every soul dying signified that every truth of the Word, of the Church, and of faith, was extinguished.A. R. 682.
When there is an end of the Church; when there is nothing but evil and falsity; when every truth of the Word, and consequently of the Church and of faith is extinguished, --what basis can there be for the true acknowledgment of the LORD, and without this, no Church can be any thing of a living and true Christian Church?
The state of the Christian World, as shown by the Writings, we have heretofore considered in our SERIAL; and we have also reviewed the Magazines teachings. In our previous discussions with the Magazine, we considered the proportion of the men of the Old Church that could be expected to receive the Doctrines of the New Church, and other matters.
The question now before us is, the distinctiveness of the New Church, and the complete separation of the New from the Old, a matter only incidentally considered by us heretofore. Our issue with the Magazine is now on this question: Is the New Church, established by the LORD, at His Second Coming, really a New Church, or is it one with the denominations of that Church which He has declared to be the abomination of desolation? If we receive the Writings as Divine revelations made for the New Church, there can be but one answer to this question.
Upon the momentous fact of the Consummation of the Age, and the end of the First Christian Church, the establishment of the LORDS New Church must hinge. If the Old Church is not vastated, consummated, dead, then the LORD cannot have made His Second Coming; and the Holy City, New Jerusalem, cannot yet have begun to descend from the LORD out of heaven. But no teaching in the Writings is more clear than that these events, fraught with such blessings for mankind in the future, could only take place at the end of the former Church. To deny that the Old Church is dead, is to deny that the LORD has made His Second Advent, and revealed the Heavenly Doctrines for His New Church. If the Old Church is dead in general as a Church, it is deed in all its denominations or sections. If the tree is dead, how can the branches be living?
The Magazine quotes from the Last Judgment, 73, the statement that divided Churches will exist as heretofore, and seems to infer from it that the denominations of the Old Church are still to exist as members of the living and true Church. But this inference is in conflict with the other citations which we have already made, and with the whole tenor of the Writings on the subject of the end of the First Christian Church and the establishment of the New Church. Nor is it warranted by the language in the paragraph itself quoted from, nor by that which follows it. We quote more fully from the same paragraph.
But as for the state of the Church, this it is which will not be similar hereafter; it will be similar indeed as to outward appearance, but dissimilar as to the inward. To outward appearance, Churches will be divided as heretofore, their doctrines will be taught as heretofore; and the same religions will exist among the Gentiles. But henceforth the man of the Church will be in a more free state of thinking on matters of faith, that is, on spiritual things, which relate to heaven, because spiritual liberty has been restored.L. J. 73.
To outward appearance, Churches will be divided as heretofore, but the state of the Church, while it will be similar indeed in outward form, will be dissimilar in the inward.
What then will be this inward form or internal character of the Old Church? This subject is presented more fully in other parts of the Writings, as in the following:
The destruction of this Church is foretold by the LORD in the Evangelists, and by John in the Revelation, and is what is called the Last Judgment; not that Heaven and Earth are now to perish, but that a new Church will be raised up in some region of the earth, while the former continues in its external worship, as the Jews do in theirs, in whose worship it is well known there is nothing of charity and faith, that is, nothing of the Church.A. C. 1850.
These words clearly show us how the divided Churches or denominations of the Old Church will continue to exist, not as noble systems of Church organization, not a members of the body of the LORDS New Church on earth, not as sections of the Church slowly freed by the LORDS influence from falsities, and under their several banners united against evil in the world, but as sections of a Church which continues in its external worship as the Jews do in theirs, in whose worship it is well known there is nothing of charity and faith, that is, nothing of a Church.
We are told in the True Christian Religion (761) that the last state of the Christian Church is the very night in which former Churches came to an end; and in the words of the Arcana, above quoted, and elsewhere, we learn specifically that its state after its consummation will be similar to that Jewish Church all New Churchmen accept. Why should there be any doubt or hesitation about receiving, on the same Divine authority, the revelation made as to the state of the Christian Church? Had the Apostles and early Christians, instead of recognizing the distinctiveness of the Gospel dispensation, regarded the Pharisees and Sadducees, and other schools of the Jewish Church, as noble Church organizations, as being different members, yet but one body, and, in fact, sections of the Church, would not their position have been precisely analogous to the Magazines position about the various denominations of the Old Church? The inconsistency of such a view can be readily seen. The Jews rejected the LORD in His First Advent. Do not all denominations of the Old Church now as completely reject Him in His Second Coming? Is there anything in the faith or creed of any one of these denominations which makes even an approach toward an acknowledgment of the LORD JESUS CHRIST, as He has revealed Himself in His Second Coming, as the one only Divine Being, the God of heaven and earth?
The statement in the Last Judgment (73) that, henceforth the man of the Church will be in a more free state of thinking on matters of faith, etc., is sometimes taken to support the view of the Magazine, that the denominations of the Old Church would gradually put away their false doctrines and accept the true;
but from the succeeding paragraph it is clear that the angels, in their wisdom, are not able to find anything to support this view. For in the paragraph which follows it is written:
I have had various converse with the angels concerning the state of the Church hereafter. They said that things to come they know not, for that knowledge of things to come belongs to the LORD alone, but that they do know that the slavery and captivity in which the man of the Church was formerly, is removed, and that now, from restored liberty, he can better perceive interior truths, if he wills to perceive them, and thus become more interior, if he will sit; but that still they have slender hope of the men of the Christian Church, but much of some nation distant from the Christian world, and removed from infesters thence.L. J. 74.
The restored liberty of the man of the Church enables him to perceive interior truths if he wills to perceive them; and when he does perceive them and receive them, will cause him to leave the dead Church, which he then will see to be the abomination of desolation, and to seek to enter the LORDS New Church; but it cannot change the consummated Church into a true and living Church.
Our natural feelings prompt us to hope for, and believe in, a rising of the denominations of the Old Church out of the fearful state of desolation into which they have fallen; but any judgment we may form on this subject from our own observation or from the observation of others, will be a judgment founded upon appearances and fallacies, and therefore erroneous and false. The real state of a Church can only be known from Divine revelation. The state of the Old Church in its consummation or end is shown in the Writing in many places. It is shown to be a state in which there is nothing but evil and falsity, and in which every truth of the Word, of the Church, and of faith, is extinguished. There can be no soil in such a Church in which heavenly truths can be implanted; the every candid mind must see. But in the Arcana we are specifically taught that heaven is removed from it and transferred to others. Thus:
When the Church is vastated, that is, when it is no longer in any good of faith, it principally perishes as to the states of its interiors, thus as to states in another life; then heaven removes itself from them, and consequently the LORD, and it transfers itself to others, who are adopted in their place.A. C. 4423.
Does not this utterly preclude the idea that the Old Church, as a Church, ever can or will, gradually put away its false faith and acknowledge the Heavenly Doctrines of the New Jerusalem?
We are further taught that the faith of the New Church is so utterly different from that of the Old Church that an attempt to commingle them is fraught with the most fearful danger to those who attempt it. In the Brief Exposition we are told:
The faith of the New Church cannot by any means be together with the faith of the former Church, and if they be together, such a collision and conflict ensues that every thing of the Church with man perishes.B. E. 102.
The faith of the former Church and the faith of the New Church cannot be together, because they are heterogeneous; for the faith of the former Church springs from an idea of three Gods (see No. 30 to 38), but the faith of the New Church from the idea of one God, and as there is thence a heterogeneity between them, there must inevitably, supposing them to be together, be such a collision and conflict that everything of the Church would perish; or, in other words, man would either fall into a delirium or into a state of insensibility as to spiritual things, until he would scarcely know what the Church is, or whether there be any Church at all. From what has been said, it follows that they who have confirmed themselves in the faith of the Old Church cannot, without endangering their spiritual life, embrace the faith of the New Church, unless they first have examined and rejected its particulars, and thus extirpated the former faith, together with its young or eggs, that is to say, its dogmas.--B. E. 103.
Thus there can be no commingling of the trio faiths, the false and the true; or of the two Churches, the dead and the living. The relation between the Old Church and the New, is, as already shown, the same as that which existed between the Jewish Church and the First Christian Church. The Jewish Church could never become a Christian Church. Individual members of it could renounce its faith, acknowledge the LORD as the Saviour, and become Christians; but after eighteen centuries of the light of the New Testament, the Jewish Church is no more willing to receive the LORD as the MESSIAH, than it was when the Gospel was first preached. Neither can the faith of the Old Church be merged into that of the New Church, or joined with it.
As we have seen, there is no ground in the faith of the Old Church for the reception of the Doctrines of the New; they are heterogeneous, and an attempt to mingle them together is fraught with the greatest danger to those who make it. When the light of the New Dispensation penetrates the minds of those who are in the denominations of the Old Church, the effect is not to join the Old and the New together as sections of one Church, but to bring those who receive the Heavenly Doctrines out of the Church which has become the abomination of desolation; and to introduce them into the LORDS New Church, which is the Bride, the Lambs Wife, and is to endure forever.
From the Heavenly Doctrines which we have presented (and many others of a similar character might be adduced), is it not manifest that the Magazine, instead of setting forth as it promises in a clear and unequivocal manner the truths of the New Church as revealed in the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg, has overlooked some very important teachings of those Writings, and has fallen into a very serious error,--most decidedly an error to be avoided, by a periodical claiming to be an unequivocal exponent of New Church doctrine?
The confusion of thought in which the Magazine is involved on the subject in question, is further shown in an editorial in its issue for November, 1880, in which we find the following:
We have more than once recently met with the idea that Christianity, by which is meant not only the study of the life of the LORD JESUS, but also the acknowledgment of His Divinity, is reviving. The reviving faith of Protestant Christianity were the first words which recently greeted our eyes on opening one of our exchanges. We are very glad that this fact is manifest to others as well as to New Churchmen.... What will be the end of this we well know. It is a revolution which will not go backward, and which will finally result in a wide-spread understanding of the true plan of redemption, and in a general feeling of nearness to the LORD.... Great encouragement is certainly to be derived from the wide-spread idea that. Christianity is reviving.
We would ask, how can the revival of Protestant Christianity mean the acknowledgment of the LORDS Divinity? Did Protestant Christianity ever acknowledge the LORD as the only God of heaven and earth, or acknowledge His Human to be Divine? How can this revival result in a wide-spread understanding of the true plan of redemption? Did Protestant Christianity ever believe in a true plan of salvation? The faith of Protestant Christianity was a false faith from its beginning. It was founded on a belief in three persons in the Godhead, thus of three Gods. The Reformation took place in the time of the decline of the First Christian Church, as it approached its end, and the Reformers retained the leading false doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church, adding thereto the most grievous error of separating charity, or good works, from faith. We are thus told:
The leading Reformers, Luther, Melanchthon, and Calvin, retained all the dogmas concerning a Trinity of persons in the Godhead, original sin, imputation of the merits of CHRIST, and justification by faith, just as they were and had been among the Roman Catholics; but they separated charity or good works from that faith.B. E. 21.
That violence has been offered to the LORDS Divinity and the Word, appears manifestly from the Roman Catholic religion, and from the religion of the Reformed, concerning justification by faith alone.A. R. 825.
In the former article, the Magazine assumed that the sections of the Church were being slowly freed from falsities. In this, it rejoices over a revival of Protestant Christianity. As the Reformed or Protestant Churches were from their beginning in a faith which divided God into three persons, from which false doctrine all other falsities in the Church have flowed as a stream from its fountain, a. revival of Protestant Christianity can be but a revival of faith in false doctrine. To be freed from falsities would be to put away the doctrines of the Protestant, (as well as the Catholic) Church. A revival of Protestant Christianity is a return to those doctrines, or a strengthening of them. Yet the Magazine holds that the denominations of the Old Church are becoming freed from falsities, and at the same time it rejoices in the idea of a revival of Protestant Christianity. Is not this confusion worse confounded?
The most momentous events in the spiritual history of mankind--the Consummation of the Age, the Last Judgment, the Second Coming of the LORD, and the establishment of the New Church--are so linked together, that the want of a clear idea of the nature of any one of them gives a confused idea of the whole. When the teaching of the Writings in regard to them is received, then the Divine Authority of the Writings in which the LORD has made His Second Coming will be acknowledged, and the distinctiveness of the New Church which He came to establish upon earth will be recognized. There will then be no attempting to put new wine into old bottles; but the new wine will be put into new bottles, and both will be preserved.
If we should regard the growth of the New Church from appearance and observation only, and not from what is revealed to us concerning it, there would be cause for discouragement in the fact that so large a portion of the professed receivers of its Doctrines do not yet fully acknowledge that it is altogether distinct from the consummated Church. The periodicals published under the auspices of general bodies of the Church give forth a confused sound instead of a clear tone on the subject. But we are told that in proportion as the new Heaven grows and increases, the New Jerusalem comes down from Heaven, which cannot be effected in a moment, but in proportion as the falsities of the former Church are removed. (T. C. R. 784.) We of the New Church are all more or less in these falsities from education and natural ties and associations; and what is new cannot gain admission where falsities have before taken possession, unless these are first rooted out; and this extirpation must first take place among the clergy and thus among the laity. The progress of this change in the New Church will be slow, but in time it will come. And for that time we must learn to labor and to wait.
The Infinite and the finite.
THE INFINITE AND THE FINITE. By THEOPHILUS PARSONS. Boston, Roberts Brothers. Carter and Pettee.
THE number of collateral writings which have appeared is large, considering the short time that the New Church has existed. Doubtless these books have had their use, and some a great use.
The majority of New Church readers probably read these collateral works more extensively than the Writings themselves. But many of those who read them cannot yet discriminate between the truly good ones and those which are nearly, or altogether, worthless. With some, the authors name may exercise an undue influence in the selection of a book and in impressing its teachings upon the mind.
It therefore appears eminently proper that some of the more conspicuous of these works should be examined in the light of the Writings of the Church, and, if possible, the value of their teachings determined.
Professor Parsons, author of the work under review, is widely known in the New Church, and has written a number of books which hold a prominent place among our collateral writings. And in respect to the book before us, we may well imagine that an honest searcher after truth might be much delighted with it. Let us suppose such a one properly qualified to investigate philosophical subjects. He is versed in the teachings of scientists, both modern and less modern; has been trained in logical modes of thought and in the investigation of abstract questions; has learned to take at its true value the famous light of pseudo-philosophy; and is disheartened at the result of his efforts in all its realms.
Let such a one be introduced to the little volume before us, and we can easily believe that he would follow the author with much satisfaction. Treated at first to a view of the relation between God and his creation, he would see the truth clearly enunciated that the connection between the Creator and the creation is most intimate and continual without suggesting the doctrine of Pantheism; since the distinction is as real as the connection, for the Creator and the creation are discretely connected.
Next, the seeming paradox which has distracted the minds of theologians for ages is treated of, namely: the utter dependence of man upon the LORD, on the one hand, and on the other, mans freedom and accountability. The Professor then passes succinctly and rapidly under review Man as a recipient of life, the philosophy of the existence of matter, and the question of the belief in God.
Then follow several chapters giving an analysis of the two classes of faculties which constitute the human mind, namely: mans natural faculties and his spiritual faculties.
Here Professor Parsons gracefully takes up the gauntlet thrown down by modern scientists to those who would defend the doctrines of the existence of the spiritual world, a life after death, and of revealed truth. Defining mans natural faculties, he divides them into intellectual and affectional. He considers their feeble state in early life, their possible development, and the means of their growth. He shows conclusively that the objects upon which these faculties are exercised belong to this world; also, that these faculties may be cultivated to the exclusion of a cultivation of the other class, namely, the spiritual faculties. This is the case with modem scientists. Their spiritual faculties being in a germinal, or scarcely developed state, they cannot take cognizance of existences outside of the domain of the natural faculties. Upon this subject the author has left unsaid very little that needed to be said. He assumes that the spiritual faculties form a class distinct from the natural faculties; which, if true, his analysis of them would be quite as felicitous. He attempts to establish an analog between the two classes, by dividing the latter also into intellectual and affectional, portraying their feebleness in early life, their capabilities of development, their means of growth, and the objects upon which they may be exercised: The normal relation of each class to the other, their mutual dependence, and the subordination of the natural to the spiritual faculties, are presented; also the necessity of a recognition and acknowledgment of these truths, to a harmonious and even moderate development of the faculties of the scientist.
The author has thus prepared his render for a consideration of the subject of Revelation. As the natural faculties grow by the appropriation of knowledges and truths belonging to this world, so the spiritual are developed by an appropriation of revealed truths. It may simplify the consideration of this second part of the work if we first look at the authors estimate of the Writings of the Church, as this must qualify his mode of treating the subjects which follow.
He considers the Writings the product of a finite mind; probably more nearly perfect than any other work of the kind yet produced, but possibly inferior to some future work. Professor Parsons says:
This man [Swedenborg] brought to the service assigned him his vigorous powers, highly cultivated, exercised and disciplined; and he received instruction and information by means never employed as to any other man, in anything approaching the same degree. But he was not inspired. Between the Word of God and his Writings there is the infinite distance which separates that Word from all human work.
As well as he could, and we may believe as well as any man could, he understood what he was thus taught, and gives to us. And we may well believe, too, that, strong as he was, cultivated and prepared and taught as he was, and employed as he was, he was guarded against important error. But between all this, and the inspiration and authority which belong to the Word, there is an infinite difference and an infinite distance.--P. 157.
Again, in his work entitled Deus Homo, he says:
But this work [the peculiar work Swedenborg had to do] was, to learn the truth himself and tenth it to others, in his own freedom; therefore, in his own liability to error, and with the limitation of his own intellect: for, however well suited he was to his work, it was his own work; and his books are only human books, infinitely far from the Word of God written by inspiration.Deus Homo, p. 20.
In his work on the Outlines of Philosophy, the author says:
This new revelation is indeed imperfect in many respects.... His [Swedenborgs] words were not GODS words but his own; full as we believe of truth and wisdom, but limited in their scope and liable to error.--P. 31.
It may be well to note that while the Word is full of truth and wisdom, it is no more than full. Is the Word therefore limited in its scope and liable to error? since wisdom and truth are infinite.
These statements of our author are clear, emphatic, and removed from the possibility of misapprehension. Clearly in his estimation the Writings have nothing Divine in them; for if there he the least of the Divine in them, they cannot be infinitely removed from any other Divine work.
The character of the Writings, and the revelations they contain, whether they are Divine or human, is a question discussed at length in former numbers of the SERIAL. The importance of the subject would appear to warrant a repetition of some of the conclusions arrived at and the authority upon which they rest. These conclusions may be thus formulated.
The Doctrines of the New Church as contained in the Writings of Swedenborg are the Divine Truth of the LORD, now revealed to the world out of the literal sense of the Word; and because they are revealed as the spiritual sense of the Word, they are that, wherein the Divinity of the Word resides, and, therefore, infallible; or, in other words, the infallible Word of the LORD. That these Writings are the spiritual sense of the Word is declared at the head of the Explication of each and every chapter of Genesis, Exodus, and the Apocalypse. Swedenborg says:
That the internal sense given in my writings is such as has been expounded, is evident from the particular which have been explained, and especially from this: that that sense was dictated to me from heaven.A. C. 6597.
The Second Coming of the LORD takes place 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.T. C. R. 779.
In the Preface to the Apocalypse Revealed, he says:
Do not believe therefore that I have taken anything herein from myself, nor from any angel, but from the LORD alone.
In the Spiritual Diary, he says.
In the Brief Continuation of the Coronis, Swedenborg says:
That the LORD JEHOVAH derives and produces a New Church on earth from this new heaven, which thing He effects by Revelation of truth from His mouth, or from His Word, and by inspiration.--No. vii.
On one occasion three angels descended to him out of heaven by the LORDS command. He says:
Then I spoke with them from inspiration which was conferred upon me.--T. C. R. 135.
In another place he says:
Inspiration is an insertion into angelic societies.T. C. R. 140.
Surely, if this be inspiration, Swedenborg was inspired more than any other man who ever lived on earth. These positive declarations of the Writing; would seem to be sufficient to settle forever the mooted questions in respect to the inspiration of Swedenborg and the Divinity and consequent infallibility of the Heavenly Doctrines of the New Jerusalem. Nevertheless in the minds of sonic there appears to be an irrational objection to the word Inspiration. They seem to take it for granted that none but the writers of the literal sense of the Word can be inspired. Our author is a fair representative of this class of New Churchmen. He says:
Let me take this opportunity to illustrate what I consider the character and function of Swedenborg, not by comparison, but by contrast with that of the inspired writers of the Word. He would have disclaimed nothing more earnestly than his own inspiration.
But in all this it will be seen that there is a question of veracity between Swedenborg and our author. For Swedenborg expressly asserts that these works are not his, but the LORDS, and that he was filled with the Spirit of the LORD, and had a most perfect inspiration;
while Professor Parsons declares that the works are Swedenborgs, and not the LORDS, and that he would have disclaimed nothing more earnestly than his own inspiration. Our readers must decide, each one for himself, who had the best opportunity of knowing, Swedenborg or Professor Parsons, and whose testimony he will receive.
But, intrinsically, it matters nothing whether the method by which the LORD communicated His own Divine Truths to Swedenborg be termed inspiration, dictation, or be expressed of some other term. The vital question to every man of the Church is: After having made a Divine, and therefore perfect presentation of Himself in each of the several Dispensations previous to the last,--for no one seems to doubt this,--was the LORDS hand shortened, so that He failed to make even as perfect a presentation of Himself to that Church which is to be the Crown of all the Churches? Did He leave this crowning revelation to a finite, erring, and fallible man to work it out for Him? The LORD has come to His New Church in no other way, and by no other instrumentality, than by the things revealed in the Writings of Swedenborg for His Church.
If there be errors in these Writings, then the Divine declaration, His dominion is the dominion of an age, which shall not pass away, and His kingdom that which shall not be destroyed, must fail of its fulfillment.
Professor Parsons estimate of the Writings is further illustrated in the following:
They do not present doctrine in a clear and analytic form, beginning from elementary principles, advancing along a pleasant and easy way, and leading the mind, as by a pleasant journey, to results which cannot but be reached.--P. 171.
Considering the Writings a human composition, and the revelation contained in them an imperfect revelation, certainly in one sense, p. l58, why should not the author expect other and more nearly perfect revelations in the future? True, he does not distinctly affirm this belief; but there is nothing in the way of it, and he clearly leaves it to be inferred. He says:
Like every other [revelation] that has been made, or ever will be made, it is delivered to man, to be made use of by him.-- P. 168.
While admitting that this is a consummating revelation, he also admits that many successive revelations may be needed, and therefore given, to explain and complete this. These statements he thus qualifies:
But there would seem to be a valid reason for believing that no one will ever stand in the same relation to this, which this holds to all by which it has been preceded.
But he fails to state the valid reason. In several places he speaks of this as the latest revelation; but not once as the last. One thing is certain: the Writings themselves do not suggest such a possibility.
Another somewhat peculiar position of our author is, that man possesses his own life absolutely. If this be so, it were possible that a man might comprehends the character of these stupendous Writings can fail to see that the author of them must be more than finite? In respect to mans ownhood, the Professor says:
For this universal selfhood of creation is more than selfhood with man. It is in him ownhood, an ownhood of himself and of his life.--P. 7.
It is given to be perfectly our own, that our freedom in the use of it may be perfect; may be real, and not apparent only.--P. 116.
All our nature, all that in any way belongs to our natural faculties and affections, tell us that our life is our own. In this it does not tell a falsehood.P. 117.
This giving of life from God to become most actually our own is the foundation upon which rests all the work of God, in the creation, preservation, and government of the universe,--natural and spiritual,--and of all things therein.P. 123.
There are many other similar statements in the volume. It may seem unnecessary to say that the Writings do not teach this doctrine. For there is hardly any subject more fully enunciated and exhaustively treated in them than the subject of life. And nowhere, we believe, is there a warrant for the statement that life is given to be absolutely mans own. We read:
Inasmuch as life is from the LORD, it cannot be otherwise appropriated, than that it may appear as [mans] own proper [life]. But they who are in the LORD, perceive manifestly that life flows in, consequently good and truth, for these are life. Life appears as [mans] own proper [life] because the LORD from Divine Love is willing to give and conjoin all His own things with man, and so far as call be, does conjoin.A. C. 8407.
Again:
It was also demonstrated [in the Divine Love and Wisdom] that it is from creation, and thence from the Divine Providence continually, that this life should own life; but this is an appearance, to the end that man may be a receptacle.D. P. 308.
If Professor Parsons teaches what we have inferred from his repeated statements, he teaches very dangerous falses. If he does not, in the expressions quoted, he is very unfortunate in the use of language.
From these considerations, our verdict concerning the value of this volume as a collateral work of the Church is this: That his failure to grasp the true import of the LORDS Second Coming, the nature of the last revelation to men, and the fundamental truths upon which the New Church is to rest, betrays him into making statements which, if they have any influence whatever, will do indefinite mischief. The same is to a greater or less extent true of a majority of the collateral works. Nearly all of them fail to inspire the render with a wish to seek for genuine truths in the Writings of the Church, where alone they may be found in their purity and in never-failing abundance. Of course, this fatal defect must exist in all those collateral works whose authors fail to see anything Divine in the Writings. Should they succeed in imbuing their renders with their blindness, what better off would they he than with their own blindness?
Swedenborg Library.
THE SWEDENBORG LIBRARY. EDITED BY B. F. BARRETT. Philadelphia, E. Claxton & Co.
THE plan of this work is very praiseworthy, as it contemplates giving a brief presentation of the leading doctrines of the Church in the very words of the Writings, and by a faithful and judicious selection to present a correct and well-rounded outline of the subjects treated of. This plan has in most instances been well carried out. The series before us is therefore as a whole superior to any collateral work on the subjects set forth, as the latter so frequently contain subjective views, erroneous conceptions, and faulty presentations.
The twelve books of which eleven are in hand, treat of the following subjects: I. On Death, Resurrection, and the Judgment; II. On Heaven; III. Freedom, Rationality, and Catholicity; IV. Divine Providence and its Laws; V. Charity, Faith, and Works; VI. Free-will, Repentance, Reformation, and Regeneration; VII. Holy Scripture and the Key to its Spiritual Sense; VIII. Creation; Incarnation, Redemption, and the Divine Trinity: IX. Marriage and the Senses in Both Worlds; X. The Authors Memorabilia; XI. The Heavenly Doctrine of the LORD; XII. Swedenborg: with a Compend of his Teachings.
These volumes are very compact and attractive in form, just such little books as a seriously-disposed traveler might wish to slip into his valise or his pocket, in order to while sway a leisure hour or two. In presenting these grave subjects in such a portable and inviting shape Mr. Barrett has performed a good use for the Church and also for lovers of the truth outside of the Church.
Yet we cannot help remarking that some of the doctrines are not as well nor as fully presented as is necessary for their correct comprehension, and that in one case at least the editor makes quotations under a certain heading which do not sustain the doctrine set forth in the heading, and which in fact teach something quite different. The case alluded to is in volume iii., heading the New Church Signified by the Apocalyptic New Jerusalem we find on page 229 the subheading, Not a New Church Organization. There are three passages adduced to prove this point. The first is the well-known passage from The Last Judgment (73, 74) in which we are told that the state of the Church will be freer hereafter; that Churches will exist to outward appearance divided as heretofore; their doctrines will be taught as heretofore; and the same religions as now will exist among the Gentiles. But while this passage speaks of a changed state in the Old Church it nowhere states that the Apocalyptic New Jerusalem will not be a New Church Organization. The same might have been stated of the first Coming of the LORD: because for a long time and even till now the worship of the Jewish Church remains, and also, for a long time the idolatries of the heathens remained apparently unchanged; and yet this in no wise prevented the organization of a new Church, the First Christian Church, by the LORD through the Apostles and their successors.
Still more unfortunate is the Editor in his second citation; this is from The Continuation of the Last Judgment (No. 18), and all that this teaches on the subject, is: that the state of the world and of the Church before the Last Judgment was as evening and night, but after it as morning and day. But it is well known that a similar change occurred at the founding of the Ancient Church, and again at the establishment of the first Christian Church, but no one surely would thence conclude that there were no such Church Organizations as the Ancient Church or as the first Christian Church. So the second passage fails altogether to uphold the Doctrine which the Editor would make it to teach.
Still more irrelevant if possible is the third passage. This is taken from the Apocalypse Revealed (No. 66), and is as follows:
The seven candlesticks do not mean seven Churches, but the Church in the aggregate, which in itself is one but various according to reception.
These varieties may be compared to the various jewels in the crown of a king.... Hence it is, that the entire New Church is described as to its various particulars, by the seven Churches, in what follows.
We grant that this passage might have some relevance if there was any attempt to organize seven New Church organizations, but all the adherents of Church organization of whom we have any knowledge would be very well satisfied with having one New Church organization, or a Church in the aggregate. How the fact that there will be in the New Church a Church in the aggregate proves that the Apocalyptic New Jerusalem is not to be a New Church Organization we leave to the discerning reader.
We see therefore that a doctrine is taught in the heading which is not at all sustained by the extracts, and which, according to the almost universal belief in the New Church, is false and erroneous, and in direct conflict with the whole trend of the Doctrine concerning the New Jerusalem, and is directly contradicted by such passages as the following:
In order that there may be a Church, there must be an Internal and an External Church; for there are those who are in the Internal of the Church and those who are in its External; the former are few, the latter very many; but yet with those with whom there is an Internal Church there must be also an External, for the Internal of the Church cannot he separated from its External.
That a Church organization is one of those external things without which no Church ever yet existed nor can exist it is hardly necessary to state. Again we read:
There is an Internal Church and an External, and the Internal Church makes one with the Church in Heaven, thus with Heaven, and the Internal must be formed before the External, and afterward the External by the Internal. In proportion as this new Heaven, which makes the Internal of the Church with man, increases, so far the New Jerusalem, that is, the New Church, descends from that Heaven.T. C. R. 784.
But in the Apocalypse Revealed we learn that the men of the New Church are to be gathered together, initiated, and instructed in the truths of the Church and thus organized. We need quote only the following:
The words, His wife has made herself ready, signify that those who will he of that New Church of the LORD will be collected, inaugurated, and instructed.--A. R. 813.
The erroneous presentation of this doctrine is, we suppose, a consequence of the peculiar position which the Editor of the Swedenborg Library holds on the subject of the external New Church and in which very few, if any, of the other ministers of the New Church would agree with him;
at least we know of no other minister of the Church who has carried his conviction in this respect so far as to secede from the general body of the Church. This misconception as to the relation between the Old Church and the New tinges indeed, we are sorry to say, the Editors Preface in almost every volume. These prefaces are written, in other respects, with rare ability, but they fail on this point; but it is a consoling fact that prefaces are rarely perused. A greater objection on this score lies against volume xi., where the Doctrine of the LORD, instead of being presented simply from the Writings, is introduced by a long introductory chapter of some forty pages by the Editor. This being of course written from the Editors point of view, will mar the usefulness of this volume with those who do not hold with the Editor on this point. Volume xii. has not, yet come to hand.
We cannot conscientiously recommend volumes iii. and xi. as correct presentations of New Church Doctrine, there is yet so much good contained in the other volumes that we must wish this enterprise all success, and hope for a wide circulation of these pleasant little volumes.
Apocalypsis Revelata.
APOCALYPSIS REVELATA. New York, American Swedenborg Printing & Publishing Society, 20 Cooper Union.
WHEN the A. S. P. & P. Society took up the work of completing the republication of the Latin Writings of Swedenborg, begun many years ago by Dr. Immanuel Tafel, it entered upon a business the value and importance of which were fully appreciated by New Church students and scholars. Copies of the original edition of these Writings are day by day becoming more scarce and more costly. By slow degrees the Tafel edition is being exhausted, and presently our American Publishing Society, having accomplished the particular task which it set out to do, will be found quietly continuing the work of republication, and supplying students with new volumes, provided to take the place left vacant by the running out of the Tübingen edition.
It is of vital importance to the New Church that the Writings of Swedenborg in their original form should be accessible to all who are prepared to make use of them. It is of no less importance that these Writings, when their republication becomes necessary, should be carefully edited, and given to the New Church reader and student in a good and substantial form.
Some years ago, a few New Churchmen in this country and in England were impressed with the necessity of providing the means for a better editing of the Latin works of the Church, by obtaining fac-simile copies of such of the original manuscripts as were known to be in existence. This was done in part, but only in part, and unfortunately, owing to circumstances which could not be controlled by those who were engaged in the work, this part embraced but few of the Theological Writings of Swedenborg. In order to the perfect accomplishment of the business which the A. S. P. & P. Society seems to have taken in hand, the New Church in this country and abroad ought to unite in a determined effort to have all the remaining manuscripts of Swedenborg photolithographed. This work if well done, and without delay, would be done for all time. And New Church scholars now, and hereafter, would have at hand the best means, in fact, the only means of producing for general use, correct editions of the Writings that contain the LORDS Divine Revelations for the Church. The able and faithful editor of the work now before us, the Apocalypsis Revelata, would have performed his labors with a hundred-fold more satisfaction to himself--of this we ark well assured--if he could have had before him an exact fac-simile of the original manuscript text. Unfortunately, the manuscript text of this particular work has disappeared, and so our editor had to content himself with a careful revision of the first edition, and a correction of manifest typographical errors. And with the result of his labors we may well be content. He has done his part well. It was not easy to do. The Church owes him thanks for his pains-taking and intelligent devotion to a work the responsibility and difficulty of which are not quite so appreciable as many other modes of Church usefulness.
We regret that we are not prepared to express equal satisfaction with the typographical execution of the work,--we were disposed to say, the typographical performances of the printers. Perhaps we cling too strongly to old ways; and perhaps, after some use of these volumes, we shall not accustomed to the appearance of their pages. Possibly also there may be so much of convenience in the arrangement of parts and subjects, that we shall not only be content, but even glad to accept the situation; but to our present mind, it does not seem either pleasant or comfortable for the reader to have constantly presented to him an appearance as if the printer, whilst desiring to display his varied stock of type, could not withstand a leaning in favor of thin frees. We confess that, we should have preferred a more steady and sober,--shall we say, a more noble, style of printing, in a work of the character of the Apocalypsis Revelata,---a work which will probably not be reprinted for many years to come, and which, as a precursor of other works of the Church, is likely to transmit its form to them.
As to the paper, press-work, and binding of these volumes, we can but express our commendation. We have given our impressions frankly, because we wish success to this important work of the A. S. P. & P. Society.
Liturgie der Neuen Kirche.
LITURGIE DER NEUEN KIRCHE. Published by the German Missionary Union, 1011 Arch Street, Philadelphia, pp. 570.
THIS volume is the result of the labors of a Committee of Ministers appointed by the German Missionary Union. The work is on the plan of the other liturgies lately published in this country, but follows most closely that of A Liturgy for the New Church, published by J. B. Lippincott &: Co., Philadelphia. The responsive services of this liturgy in fact form the basis of its responsive services, but they have been shortened by the omission of the responsive readings, which we can hardly consider an improvement.
We notice an addition of a Festival Service for Good Friday, which seems appropriate, also full services for Ordination and for the Dedication of Churches.
In the musical part of the work we find a number of Selections with Chants (62), which is quite an innovation in the German New Church. These are succeeded by (14) anthems; they are exceptionally good, but seem too few in number; for we believe that a good part of the progress in our Church music will lie in the direction of a greater development of the anthem. The selection of hymns with tunes (268) is larger than in any similar liturgy in the New Church; probably because until lately hymns alone have been used in the German Societies. Among the hymns we see quite a number (59) written by New Church authors, and among the tunes we see, beside the German choral gems, quite a number of our favorite English tunes.
We think the German New Church has reason to congratulate itself on the great step forward that it has made in this work toward a better development of church music and of the externals of worship generally.
WORDS
FOR
THE NEW CHURCH
A SERIAL
CONTROLLED BY THE ACADEMY OF THE NEW CHURCH
IX.
THE CONFLICT OF THE AGES
PART III.
PHILADELPHIA
PUBLISHED FOR THE ACADEMY OF THE NEW CHURCH
BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO.
1882
Copyright, 1882, by J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO., for the ACADEMY OF THE NEW CHURCH
CONTENTS OF VOLUME II.
THE CONFLICT OF THE AGES.
Page
THE CONFLICT OF THE AGES.
IV.CONFLICT IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH (Continuation): 261
THE DARK AGES 261
MONASTIC LIFE 276
CAUSES OF MONACHISM 276
MONACHISM IN THE EAST 283
SIMEON THE STYLITE 288
MONACHISM IN THE WEST 290
CELIBACY OF THE CLERGY 297
RSUM 325
NOTES AND REVIEWS.SWEDENBORG AND THE NEW AGE 327
THE PROBLEM OF HUMAN LIFE 345
ONTOLOGY 352
AUTORITAT IN DER NEUEN KIRCHE 360
[Blank page]
THE CONFLICT OF THE AGES.
IV.
CONFLICT OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH.
CONTINUATION.
The Dark Ages.
ONE thousand years of darkness in the midst of the nineteen centuries of the Christian Era is profoundly portentous and significant: So far as we can discover the darkness of these Middle ages prevailed only in the Christian nations, and never in the nations outside of Christendom, and it resulted in great measure from the malign influences upon these nations of the fallen and degenerate Church.
The two Epochs in the Christian Church, the first extending from the Incarnation of the LORD to the Nicene Council, A.D. 325; the second, from that Council to the final consummation of the Church at the Lest Judgment, A.D. 1757, we have mentioned in a former Paper.* During the first epoch the Primitive Christian Church prevailed in its greatest purity and perfection; during the second epoch, beginning in the Council of Nice, that Church was utterly devastated, its purity was corrupted and lost, its good adulterated, its truth falsified, and its bright and hopeful day went down into a night dark and starless.
* See WORDS FOR THE NEW CHURCH, No. VIII., D. 192; T. C. R. 76O.
The second epoch includes the period usually called The Dark Ages, and something more. For as the twilight follows the day, night the twilight, and the dawn is the forerunner of the morning, so in these long historic periods there is something analogous to the twilight of evening followed by a darkness increasing to midnight, and then imperceptibly decreasing even to the dawn of morning. For although the sun of the Primitive Church went down during the momentous transactions of the Nicene Council, still there was a lingering of the light of that Church as of twilight descending into the ages following. And so, on the other hand, in the slow approach toward a new and glorious day, a New Dispensation, there was by the discovery of the art of printing, the publication of the Bible and other books, the general Revival of Letters, the Reformation, and the consequent freedom of speech, a certain Providential preparation for the stupendous events of the Last Judgment in A. D. 1757. The Lark Ages, therefore, in a strict sense, consist of the period between the ending of the twilight, as we have called it, of the Primitive Christian Church, and this preparation for the morning dawn of the New Church signified by the New Jerusalem.
The Dark Ages thus fall within the compass of a thousand years. There was a lingering and continuance of the order introduced by Constantine many years after the Council of Nice. The consolidation of Church and State did not at once bear its bitter fruits. The work of the Bishops and Priests went on. The Church was further extended, and succeeding councils were held in which the Nicene canons were considered and many other canons were promulgated. Missionaries were sent into distant province, and multitudes were added to the Church. During all this the controversies that the councils tried in vain to close, went on with augmented asperity.
The conflict between the Arians and Trinitarians often became so intense that the civil authorities were called upon to settle by the sword disputes that the Bishops and Priests had failed to determine in their councils. Things grew worse as time west on. And although soon after the Imperial Court was removed to Constantinople, A.D. 334, Rome began to become more openly pronounced as the chief episcopal see of the Church, still its former glory as the mistress of the world began rapidly to fade away.
For more than a century the northern barbarians had become inconveniently familiar with the affairs of Italy and southern Europe. Gothic wars ravaged the East as early as the middle of the third century. Before the close of the fourth century there was the great barbarian invasion of the West. In the beginning of the fifth century, Alaric, King of the Visigoths, with his armies, was in Italy, and in A.D. 408 he besieged Rome. Stilicho beat him back and delivered Rome. In A.D. 409 he again laid siege to Rome; and for the consideration of a million of dollars he raised the siege and withdrew. But there was the renewal of the quarrel with Alaric, and this barbarian prince returned. By the treachery of slaves the Salarian gate was opened to him, and Rome was sacked by the Goths.
Rome began to recover, and was in part rebuilt, when the Huns, under Attila, from their wilderness homes north of the Danube, burst in upon central and western Europe with the speed and terror of a tempest. Aetius, the Roman general, and Theodoric joined their forces A. D. 451, and in the wild and tremendous battle of Chalons stayed the advance of the Huns into Gaul. But the raging torrent could not be withheld from pouring over Italy. Attilas army advanced toward Rome; but Attila was persuaded by Pope Leo and other Roman Ambassadors to save the city: the conditions and the ransom paid were barely humiliating to Rome;
Attila demanded as one of the conditions a princess of imperial rank whom he might add to his numerous crowd of wives.
In A.D. 455, twelve hundred years from the foundation of the city, Rome was again sacked by Genseric, the Vandal chieftain. The intercessions of Pope Leo which availed with Attila to save the city, availed with Genseric only to prevent the slaughter of the inhabitants. The pillage and havoc were universal. Genseric sailed away with the spoils of Rome, with the Empress: Eudoxia and thousands of captives, with trophies of his victory over all that was venerable in the ancient world; the gilded titles of the Capitol, the golden table, and the golden candlestick brought by Titus from Jerusalem.
Rome was stormed the third time A.D. 472, and this time delivered over to a foreign soldiery nominally in the service of the Empire. Odoacer, the brave and talented Barbarian Chieftain, at the head of the army, terminated the brief period of intrigue, treason, and murder under Ricimer, Gundobald, Orestes, and others, by a bold coup dtat, in which he made Romulus Augustus (called, in derision, by the diminutive name, Augustulus) abdicate the imperial throne of the Western Empire, and caused the Roman Senate officially to declare to Zeno, the Eastern Emperor, their resolution to dissolve the Western Empire and to merge its affairs into the Eastern Empire, making the Emperor in Constantinople supreme in the East and West. Ocloacer taking the title of King, sent to the Emperor in Constantinople the imperial crown and robe of the Western Empire, to be worn no more in Rome. Thus in A.D. 476 the Roman Empire in the West ended, or rather the line of Roman Emperors. The Eternal City passed permanently into the hands of European and Asiatic barbarians; and the Dark Ages of a thousand years followed.
These Middle Ages, as the historians call them, were brought to a close about the middle of the fifteenth century. We had then the invention of printing, the Revival of Letters, and many other things dispelling the darkness that had enshrouded the nations, which we shall consider in the sequel. There is also a coincident event of great significance, namely, the fall of Constantinople and the Eastern Empire, A. D. 1453. After a siege of fifty-three days, on the 29th of May, 1453, Constantinople was subdued by the arms of Mohammend II., and the city and Empire wrested from the control of Christians.
From the fall of Rome and the Western Empire to the fall of Constantinople and the Eastern Empire, we have three historic periods of about equal length. The first period extended from the fall of Rome to the coronation of Charlemagne as Emperor of Rome by Pope Leo III., A.D. 800. The second period extended from the accession of Charlemagne to the pontificate of Hildebrand as Gregory VII.; and the third from the time of Hildebrand to the Revival of Letters in the fifteenth century. During the first of these periods there was a most confused and chaotic condition of both Church and State. This period includes, beside many other wars and conflicts, Justiaians Vandal wars in Africa and in Italy, in which, in his attempts to subdue the Arians, it is estimated that a hundred millions of the human race were destroyed. In this period, also, we have the pontificate of Gregory the Great and the beginning of many of the popish heresies that continued to infest the Catholic Church. Mohammed also began his career, and before the close of the seventh century, by the Mohammedan conquest of Syria, Persia, Egypt, Africa, and Asia Minor more than one-half of Christendom was swept away and swallowed up by the religion of Islam. We must also mention that in the second Nicene Council, A.D. 787, image worship was restored in the Church, thus reviving a dark superstition which had been in many places driven out of the Church.
Charlemagne in his restoration of the Empire made the Church subservient to the State and dependent upon it: but Hildebrand more than three centuries later inverted this order, and compelled whatever remained of Empires and Kingdoms to become obedient and subservient to the autocracy of the Papal Church.
In this summary view of the Dark Ages we have since remaining only for the brief mention of the transactions of Charlemagne and Hildebrand, and the more signal events in Church and State during the three centuries lying between these celebrated men.
Charlemagne was crowned Emperor of Rome on Christmas day, A.D. 799, but for more than thirty years he had been celebrated, first as the Patrician of Rome, the name with which his father Pepin honored him; and, second, as the King of Italy from A.D. 771 onward. Milman says of him:
Charlemagne was the model of a Teutonic chieftain, in his gigantic stature, enormous strength, and indefatigable activity; temperate in diet, and superior to the barbarous vice of drunkenness. Hunting and war were his chief occupations; and his wars were carried on with all the ferocity of encountering savage tribes. But he was likewise a Roman Emperor, not only in his vast and organizing policy, he had that one vice of the old Roman civilization, which the Merovingian kings had indulged. This religious Emperor troubled not himself with the restraints of religion.... He not merely indulged in free license, but treated the sacred rite of marriage as a covenant dissoluble at pleasure.... Charles repudiated his first wife to marry the daughter of Desiderius (King of the Lombards); and after a year he repudiated her to marry Hildegard, a Swabian lady. By Hildegard he had six children. On her death lie married Fastrada, who bore him two; a nameless concubine another. On Fastradas death he married Liutgardis, a German, who died without issue. On her decease he was content with four concubines.Latin Christianity, vol. ii. Bk. v.
The wars of Charlemagne continued for more than thirty years. They were religious wars, and were waged with the Saxons and other northern nations, and with the Lombards, which were finally subjugated and added to the Frankish dominions. Throughout his wars Charlemagne endeavored to subdue the tribes as he went on by the terror of his arms. On one occasion, at Verdun-on-the-Allier, he was massacred in cold blood 4000 veteran warriors who had surrendered. His declared object was the extinction of heathenism. The alternative offered in his invasions, was: subjection to the Christian faith or extermination. As his conquests extended he founded Churches and established bishoprics, endowing them with money and with land.
Charlemagne appreciated the value of knowledge, although he never learned to write. He labored to elevate and enlighten his people; he collected together learned men; ordered his clergy to turn their attention to letters; established schools of religious music; built noble palaces, churches, and bridges; transferred for the adornment of his capital, Aix-ln-Chapelle, statues from Italy; organized the professions and trades of his cities, and gave to his towns a police. Well might he be solicitous that his clergy should not only become more devout, but more learned. Very few of them knew how to read, scarcely any one knew how to write.... The clergy understood much better the use of the sword than the use of the pen.Dr. Drpaer, pp. 276, 271.
The age had no demand for learning, and the Popes and their clergy thought that knowledge did more harm than good, therefore the schools of Charlemagne failed. Nobody wanted them. The Emperor was faithful in keeping his engagement with the papacy, that wherever his influence could reach he would enforce Christianity upon Europe. He therefore remorselessly punished with death those that refused Baptism; those that made false pretense of Baptism; those that relapsed into idolatry; those who murdered a Priest or a Bishop; those who offered human sacrifice; and those who ate meat in Lent.
Charlemagne died A.D. 814.
In the Empire of Charlemagne the Church and State were as indissolubly united as they were under Constantine the Great: and the nature of the union was the same. In both cases the State was supreme, the Church subordinate in Power; the Pope and the clergy held their high functions subject to the imperial supremacy. Nevertheless, Charlemagne in consolidating the civil structure of his Empire held the Church and its various functionaries, from the sovereign Pontiff to the lowest sub-deacon, as of primary importance in establishing his own supremacy, and the stability of his throne. The Church therefore with him, as with Constantine, was primarily a means to the aggrandizement of the State, and not an end in the concerns of eternal life.
During the three centuries extending from the middle of the eighth century to the middle of the eleventh, the history of the nations of Christendom is extremely meagre: these ages were emphatically dark ages. But in respect to the Church we are not so much in the dark. The history of the Popes, and of the Councils, ecclesiastical and secular, associated with them in their controversies and conflicts, is so well preserved that we may know the character and condition of the Church. From a summary of the events of these centuries before us we present a still further condensation of the gloomy picture:
On the death of Paul I., who had become Pope A.D. 757, the Duke of Nepi compelled some Bishops to consecrate, as Pope, Constantine, one of his brothers. But the more legitimate electors subsequently, in A.D. 768, chose Stephen IV., and the usurper and his adherents were severely punished: the eyes of Constantine were put out, and the tongue of Theodorus was amputated, and he was left in a dungeon to die in the agonies of thirst.
In the year 795, the nephews of Pope Adrian seized his successor, Pope Leo III., in the street, forced him into a neighboring church, and attempted to put out his eyes and cut off his tongue. At a later period, as this pontiff was trying to suppress a conspiracy to depose him, Rome became the scene of a rebellion, with murder, and a conflagration.
His successor, Stephen V., A.D. 816, was ignominiously driven from the city; his successor, Paschal I., was accused of blinding and murdering two ecclesiastics in the Lateran Palace: but the Pope exculpated himself by oath before thirty Bishops.
John VIII., A.D. 872, was compelled to pay the Mohammedans tribute: the Bishop of Naples kept up a secret alliance with them, and received his share of the plunder collected. John excommunicated him, nor would he give him absolution unless he would betray the chief Mohammedans, and assassinate others himself. The gate of St. Pancrazia was opened by false keys to admit the Saracens into the city: some of the treasures of the Church were seized, and there was an ecclesiastical conspiracy to murder the Pope. Formosus, who was engaged in these transactions and excommunicated as a conspirator for the murder of John, was in A.D. 891 elected Pope.
Boniface VI. succeeded Formosus, A.D. 896, and he, for his immoralities and lewdness, had been deposed from the diaconate, and again from the priesthood.
Stephen VII. followed. He had the dead body of Formosus taken from the grave, clothed is papal vestments, propped up in a chair and tried before a council; he then had three of the fingers cut off, and the corpse cast into the Tiber. Stephen, who thus exemplified how low the papacy had fallen, was himself thrown into prison and strangled.
During the five years from A.D. 896 to A.D. 900, five Popes were consecrated.
Leo V., who was consecrated in A.D. 904, in less than two months was thrown into prison by Christopher, one of his chaplains, who usurped his place, and who, in his turn, was soon expelled from Rome by Sergius III., who seized the pontificate, A.D. 905, by the aid of a military force. According to the testimony of the times, Sergius lived in criminal intercourse with the celebrated prostitute Theodora, who, with her daughters, Marozia and Theodora, also prostitutes, had an extraordinary control over him.
John X. also shared the love of Theodora. By her intrigues she first made him Archbishop of Ravenna; and then, in A.D. 915, transferred him to Rome and made him Pope. John organized a confederacy, and prevented the capture of Rome by the Saracens. The world was astonished by the appearance of this warlike pontiff at the head of his troops. By the love of Theodora, as was said, John maintained himself in the papacy for fourteen years; but he was overthrown by the intrigues and hatred of her daughter Marozia. She surprised him in the Lateran Palace; killed his brother Peter before his face; threw him into prison, where he soon died, smothered, it was said, with a pillow.
Soon after, Marozia made her own son Pope, as John XI., A.D. 931.
Alberic, another of her sons, jealous of his brother John, cast him and their mother Marozia into prison. Then, after a time, Alberics son was elected Pope, A.D. 956, and assumed the title of John XII. John was only nineteen years old when he thus became the head of Christendom. His reign was characterized by the most shocking immoralities, so that the Emperor, Otho I., was compelled by the German clergy to interfere.
In the Synod summoned for his trial, at the Church of St. Peter, it appeared that John had taken bribes for the consecration of Bishops, that he had ordained one who was only ten years old;
another he had ordained in a stable; he was charged with incest with one of his fathers concubines, and with so many adulteries that the Lateran Palace had become a brother. He put out the eyes of one ecclesiastic and castrated another, both dying from the injuries. He was given to drunkenness, gambling, and the invocation of Jupiter and Venus. When cited to appear before the Council, he sent word that he had gone out hunting! He was deposed, and in A.D. 963, Leo VIII. was elected in his stead; but subsequently getting the upper hand, he seized his antagonists, cut off the hand of one, and of others, the nose, or a finger, or the tongue. The vengeance of a man whose wife he had seduced, eventually brought his life to an end.
These details would seem to admit of nothing further, but still, for fourscore years, history recount similar facts:
John XIII. was strangled in prison.
Boniface VII. imprisoned Benedict VII. and killed him by starvation.
John XIV. was secretly put to death in the dungeons of the Castle of St. Angelo.
The corpse of Boniface was dragged by the populace through the streets.
The clergy of Europe were so shocked at the state of things that they began to favor the Emperor Othos intention of taking from the Italians their privilege of appointing the Pope, and to confine it in his own family. The trial was made, and Gregory V., the kinsman of Otho, was placed on the pontifical throne. But the Romans turned into derision his excommunications and religious thunders, and compelled him to flee for his life. But a terrible punishment awaited the Antipope, John XVI. Otho returned into Italy, seized him, put out his eyes, cut off his nose and tongue, and sent him through the streets mounted on an ass, with his face to file tail, and a wine bladder on his head.
It seemed impossible that things could become worse; yet the abomination that maketh desolate went further:
In A.D. 1033, a boy less than twelve years old was raised to the papal throne as Pope Benedict IX. The life of this pontiff was so shameful and execrable that we shudder to describe it. He ruled, like a captain of banditti rather than a prelate. At last, the people unable any longer to bear his adulteries, homicides, and. abominations, rose against him. In despair of maintaining his position, he put up the papacy to auction. A Presbyter named John bought it, and in A.D. 1045, became Pope Gregory VI.
About the middle of the eleventh century there were several attempts to reform the abuses of the Catholic Church. These began in a movement in the second Lateran Council to vest in the Cardinals the power of electing the Pope. Then the movement went further, and there was an attempt to free the Church from its dependence upon the Emperors of Germany and the Italian and other civil governments.
Hildebrand became the practical manager of the papacy for many years before his accession to the papal throne, and his determination from the first was to maintain the union of Church and State, as Charlemagne had done, but to change the relative position of the two, and to make the Church supreme and independent of the State, and consequently, the State subordinate and dependent upon the Church. The Popes and other ecclesiastics were no more to be chosen and invested by Emperors and Kings; but on the contrary, the Emperors and Kings were to be crowned by the pope, and to hold their crowns subject to his sovereign pleasure.
Upon the death of Alexander II. Hildebrand was made Pope under the title of Gregory VII.
He at once entered with vigor upon the execution of his plans, for which, indeed, he had prepared the way during the pontificates of his predecessors. Gregory found the Church in a chaotic condition, and the State was no longer a consolidated Empire, as Charlemagne had left it, but a congeries of states or kingdoms, some comparatively strong, and others weak. Pervading all parts of the Christian world were the Bishops and Priests, with their cathedrals and churches, the Monks and monasteries, the Mendicant Friars, and the Hermits. But the whole structure from top to bottom was involved in the grossest corruptions and abominations.
To the herculean task, therefore, of reforming the Church, and making it supreme over Empires and Kingdoms, Hildebrand devoted his life, and according to appearances he accomplished it. To say the least, he reduced the clergy into forms of external order, and in all Catholic countries subordinated the civil to the ecclesiastical authority.
The grand object of Hildebrand was the ecclesiastical autocracy of Europe, with the Pope at its head, and the clergy, both in their persons and property, independent of the civil power; and it was plain that the supremacy of Rome in such a system altogether turned on the celibacy of the clergy. If the ecclesiastic was married, nothing could prevent him from handing down to his descendants his wealth and his dignities. To the Church it was to the last degree important that a man should derive his advancement from her, and not from his ancestor.
The celibacy of the clergy, which had often been discussed in the previous ages, some of the councils, as we have seen, pronouncing decrees in favor of it, and others against it, Gregory VII. determined to establish as the law of the Church. In the first year of his reign, in a council held in Rome, he denounced the marriage of the clergy, and declared the sacraments invalid unless administered by hands that in this respect were sinless.
But this subject is presented in detail in our article on Clerical Celibacy.
Hildebrands movements in these matters helped to bring him into conflict with German Emperors respecting investitures, and in this he encountered the full strength of the imperial power in the person of Henry IV. The married clergy were also arrayed against him, and the Italian nobles. There was a conspiracy raised, and he was assaulted in the church on Christmas night, A.D. 1075; while he was administering the communion, a band of soldiers burst into the church, seized him, stripped him, and carried him off to a stronghold, where he was rescued by the populace. Still he pressed with vigor his conflict with Henry, summoning him to appear before him in Rome, and threatening to excommunicate him if he did not appear at the time appointed.
The Emperor was firm. He assembled a Syond, in which the Pope was charged with leading a licentious life, with bribery, necromancy, simony, murder, and atheism,--and, finally, he was by decree of the Synod, deposed!
But Gregory assembled the third Lateran Council, A.D. 1076, placed Henry under interdict, absolved his subjects from allegiance, and deposed him. The new basis of the papal system was also published. It was to the following import:
The Roman pontiff can alone be called universal: He alone has a right to depose Bishops: His legates have a right to preside over all Bishops in a General Council: He can depose absent prelates: He alone has a right to use imperial ornaments: Princes are bound to kiss his feet, and his only: He has a right to depose Emperors: No council can be called general if summoned without his commission: No book can be called canonical without his authority:
His sentence can be annulled by no one, but he can annul the decrees of all: The Roman Church has been, is, and will continue to be infallible: Whosoever dissents from it ceases to be a Catholic Christian: Subjects may be absolved from their allegiance to wicked princes.
The supremacy of the spiritual power over the temporal was here most emphatically asserted; and in his quarrel with Henry, Gregrory carried his point. Henry was compelled to submit, and to seek absolution from the Pope. After crossing the snowy Alps in the dead of winter, in the dreary snow of three winter days, Henry, cold and fasting, stood at the gate of Gregory, seeking pardon and reconciliation. Hildebrand had not only beaten back the Northern attack, but had established the supremacy of the ecclesiastical over the temporal power; and with inflexible resolution he maintained that point, though in its consequences it cost Germany many a civil war.
Henry for the time was humiliated, but not subdued. Gregory pushed his principles to their consequences. A Synod of Bishops condemned him as a partisan of the heretic Berenger, and as a necromancer. On the election of Gilbert of Ravenna as Antipope, Gregory denounced kingship as an infraction of equal rights, and as a wicked and diabolical usurpation. This enraged Henry, and he determined to destroy him or to be destroyed: and descending again into Italy, for three years he laid siege to Rome. The city surrendered to Henry on Christmas, A.D. 1084. He entered it with his Antipope, receiving from his hands the imperial crown. The historian says:--
The Norman allies of Hildebrand at last approached in strength. The Emperor was compelled to retreat. A feeble attempt was made to hold the city. The Normans took it by surprise, and released Gregory from his imprisonment in the castle of St. Angelo. An awful scene ensued. There were conflicts between the citizens and the Normans, then a battle in the streets, and Rome was pillaged, sacked, and fired.
Streets, churches, and palaces were left a heap of smoking ashes. The people by thousands were was sacred. The Saracens, of whom there were multitudes in the Norman army, were at last in the Eternal City, and, horrible to be said, were there as the hired supporters of Hildebrand the Pope. Matrons, nuns, and young women were defiled. Crowds of men, women, and children were carried off and sold into slavery. It was the treatment of a city taken by storm. In consternation the blasted pontiff with his infidel deliverers retired from the ruined capital to Salerno, and there he died, A.D. 1085.--Dr. Draper, pp. 339, 340.
Monachism and the Celibacy of the Clergy, which with their malign influences have infested the Church from the beginning, we shall now proceed to consider.
Monastic Life.
VIEW it as we may, the development of Monachism in the Primitive Church was most marvelous. In the combats of the Primitive Christians, and in their strivings after a more spiritual and heavenly life, the sphere of Monachism was wide-spread and all-pervading, and its influence most mischievous. For by it they were led away from actual conflict with their evils, into a life of worthless pietistic performances, secluded from the practical uses of good works in the world.
Cause of Monachism.
AMONG the causes which led so many of the Primitive Church into the monastic life was no doubt a certain willful misapprehension of the LORDS teaching in respect to the conduct of life.
They seemed unwilling to favor any doctrine that did not redound to their own glory and to their supremacy over others. Thus the LORDS words in answer to Peter, they seemed unwilling to understand in any sense that did not favor their own love of dominion.
Peter said to Him: Behold, we have forsaken all and followed Thee; what shall we have therefore? And Jesus said unto them: Verily I say unto you: That ye who have followed Me, in the regeneration when the Son of Man shall sit in the throne of His glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for My names sake, shall receive a hundredfold, and shall inherit eternal life.Matt. xix. 27-20.
The Disciples seemed to feel that for becoming Disciples they ought to have the most exalted places in the LORDS new kingdom. They said, Behold we have forsakes all and followed Thee: what therefore shall we have?
How loath were they to read the lessons inward which the LORD had gives them, and to find in themselves the things which they must forsake! To do meritorious deeds, to forsake their former business and follow the LORD externally, was for the Disciples an easy task. They could do these things without any consciousness of evil, or of unworthiness, or of actual sinfulness. Of necessity those who were drawn into the Divine Sphere of the LORDS life, who heard His words, and who wished to follow Him in the regeneration, is the end became conscious of evil and ill desert.
But from the first, the most of the Disciples were doubtless infested with the conceit of their own goodness. Like all natural men they could pray the prayer of the Pharisee: God I thank Thee that I am not as other men, far easier than the prayer of the Publican: god be merciful to me a sinner. It was far easier for them to say with the elder son, in the parable: Lo, these many years do I serve thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment: than with the younger son to say: Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son.
The unregenerated natural man is ever ready to ask: Good Master, what good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life? Consequently the men of the Primitive Church, even the Disciples of the LORD, could not easily be led to know and acknowledge the LORD as the Only Good, and at the same time be led into the consciousness and confession that they were evil and only evil. For it is here that the natural man plants himself in what he deems his own, namely, his own goodness, so loath is he to give it up,--it is here that he makes the most formidable resistance, and that the conflict is the most direful; for the issue is life or death.
In the Primitive Christian Church, the Conflict was substantially the same as in the Most Ancient Church; and the transition was analogous, in which the Church fell away from its state of integrity into one of evil and falsity: only there is this difference: in the Most Ancient Church the Conflict was in the celestial plane of life, while in the Primitive Christian Church it was in the natural plane. But in the true Church, in every age, mans relations with the LORD, and the LORDS requirements of man, are plain and simple, with nothing either complex or mysterious. For it is the relation of the Divine with the human, the Infinite with the finite, the Infinite fullness of Divine Good sad Truth glowing with the ineffable radiance of the Spiritual Sun, in its relation with man unworthy, wretched, and helpless.
The ambitious love of dominion over others in the Primitive Church, no doubt led many into Monachism. To become greatest in the kingdom of the heavens, they were ready, in the most literal sense, to forsake all things else and follow the LORD. The life of Piety, either by going into desert places and devoting themselves to meditation, prayer, and praise,--or by doing the same thing at home,
--to the natural man had an attraction and a charm beyond the stern and practical realities of a life of Charity, or a good life in the world. The Writings of the New Church say:
Many believe that spiritual life, or the life which leads to heaven, consists in piety, in external sanctity, and in the renunciation of the world. But Piety without charity, external without internal sanctity, and the renunciation of the world without a life in the world, do not constitute spiritual life. Life truly spiritual consists in piety from charity, in external sanctity from internal sanctity, and in the renunciation of the world while living in the world.
Piety consists in thinking and speaking piously; in devoting much time to prayer; in behaving with becoming humility during that time; in frequenting places of public worship, and attending devoutly to the discourses delivered there; in taking the sacrament of the Holy Supper often every year; and in the due observance of all the other parts of Divine worship, according to the appointments of the Church.
But the life of charity consists in cultivating good-will toward the neighbor, and endeavoring to promote his interest; in being guided in all our actions by justice and equity, good and truth, and in this manner discharging every duty; in one word, the life of charity consists in performing uses.
Divine worship consists primarily in the life of charity, and secondarily in the life of piety. He therefore who separates the one from the other, that is, who lives in the practice of piety, and not at the same time in the exercise of charity, does not worship God. He indeed thinks of God, yet not from God, but from himself; he thinks of himself continually, and not at all of his neighbor; and even if he does think of his neighbor, it is with disesteem, unless he is like himself.
Many think that to renounce the world, and to live in the spirit and not in the flesh, means to reject all worldly concerns, especially riches and honors; to be continually engaged in pious meditation on God, on salvation, and on eternal life; to devote ones whole life to prayer, to reading the Word and the perusal of pious books, and to suffer self-inflicted pain. But this is not what is meant by renouncing the world.
To renounce the world is to love God and to love the neighbor; and a man loves God when he lives according to the commandments; and he loves his neighbor when he performs uses.
In order therefore that a man may receive the life of heaven, he must live in the world and engage in the various offices and businesses of life. A life of abstraction from secular concerns is a life of thought and of faith separate from a life of love and of charity; and in such a life the principle which prompts a man to desire the good of the neighbor, and to promote it, must necessarily perish. For then the spiritual life becomes like a house without foundation, which either gradually sinks to the ground, or becomes full of clefts and chinks, or totters till it falls.H. D., 123-128.
But these plain, practical doctrines of the New Church were not rationally understood at that time; and beyond the ambitious love of dominion, of which we have spoken, falsities prevailed in the minds of many. It was believed that the Passion of the Cross constituted redemption, and strangely blended with this fallacy was the notion that suffering in itself is meritorious and pleasing to the Divine, and a means of subduing evil and sin. In finishing His work of redemption, the LORD suffered on the cross. Many therefore were ready to ask, and many did ask: Did not the Passion of the Cross, or in other phrase, the sufferings of the LORD on the cross, constitute redemption? They asked this question because they knew not that redemption was a Divine work; that it involved the LORDS whole life in the world; that, by its all-pervading sphere, it moved heaven, earth, and hell; that in it the LORD subjugated the hells, and established order in the heavens, and thus prepared the may for a New Spiritual Church. Nevertheless, the suffering incident to this work was incomparably great; but the work itself was redemption, and not the suffering incident to the accomplishment of the work.
When a great army repels an invading foe, drives out the intruder, and frees the land from the threatened rapine and violence, the work done may cause great suffering, and the death, possibly, of many brave men. But the work is the thing of consequence,--the freeing the country of its foes: while the sufferings of the army are incidental only and non-essential.
For had the invasion been repelled without suffering or the loss of life, the work would have been equally valuable. And again, without the actual deliverance sought for, the protracted sufferings of the whole army, and even the death of every man in the army, would have amounted to nothing.
When the LORD finished His work, and ascended above the heavens, His redemption was a fact accomplished, never to be either supplemented or enlarged, as the Catholics teach, by the works or the sufferings either of angels or men. And yet many believing that the LORDS sufferings on the cross constituted redemption, were by this led into the monstrous delusion that sufferings in themselves are meritorious, and that without sufferings sins call not be remitted. They reasoned in this way: How can I hate my own life, and lose it, and give up lands and houses for the sake of heaven, while still living in the very bosom of these worldly things, and delighting myself with them? Must I not actually forsake all these things and follow the LORD?
In the Primitive Church martyrdom was deemed meritorious, and therefore to be coveted rather than shunned. The Disciples were led to this conclusion by following strictly the letter of the Word in which the LORD commanded them to take up the cross and follow Him. He said:
He that taketh not his cross and followeth after Me is not worthy of Me. He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for My sake shall find it.Matt. x. 38, 39.
Thus many fell into the fallacious belief that the suffering of death insures the martyrs crown and conjoins the soul with the LORD, and that to renounce the world, to become destitute of food, clothing, and shelter, and especially to mortify the body by denying it the gratification of its natural appetites and wants, and by self-inflicted tortures, would be meritorious in proportion to the amount of suffering endured!
By a stupendous force, the Monastic spirit penetrated the Church from centre to circumference, and rent it asunder in the midst. For, from the full establishment of the Monastic orders, and the monasteries, the practical question was urged upon every Christian: Which way do you face? Will you remain in the world involved in its vocations, emoluments, luxuries, and pleasures? Or will you give up the world, its wealth and its power, together with the delights of the natural life, and take up the cross and follow the LORD in a life of privation, ignominy, and anguish? The alternative presented in those sorrowful days was this:Heaven, or the world. Or, as we may put it: On the one hand, a life in the world, in the midst of its business, and its snares and temptations, with the possibility of heaven at last, but many chances against it: or, on the other hand, a life withdrawn from the world, while here, the pleasures of sense renounced and cast down, with the certainly of heaven hereafter.
This doctrine, at first but feebly uttered, after a time was boldly proclaimed as the veritable truth of the Gospel, by Bishops, and Abbots, and Priests, and the countless retinue of monks that swarmed in the deserts, and often descended upon the cities. What then was the man of the Church to do? The learned and the unlearned were swept away by this flowing tide. For the persuasive sphere of the heresy concentrated its force in the briefest formulary imaginable, namely: Stay in the world, and, at fearful odds, risk your souls salvation: or, flee to the mountains, and the monasteries, where the way to heaven is plain, and your souls salvation sure! Insidious and fallacious allurements!
Infestations of unclean spirits that corrupted and divided the Christian Church!
Monachism in the East.
MONACHISM prevailed in India and Egypt long before the Incarnation, and even the Ancient Church, originating, no doubt, in the decline and fall of that Church. It did not therefore originate in the Christian Church, but was one of the many forms of evil and falsity which, from the very beginning, infested the Church, and. with which it was called into conflict. The far East was the cradle of the monastic spirit. The books say:
The monastic spirit was alike congenial to the scenery and climate of the East, and to the peculiar character of the people. Vast solitudes of unbounded and unbroken expanse, rock in outline the most grotesque, abounding in natural caves, a dry air and an unclouded sky, afforded facilities, and even temptations to a life at once wild, unsocial, and contemplative. Then the character of the people of Egypt and Asia, their serious enthusiasm, and the strange combination in them of indolence and energy, languid repose and fierce passion, disposed them to embrace with eagerness the tranquil but exciting duties of religious seclusion.Waddington.
Nor is it wonderful that a form of life promising rewards so unbounded here and hereafter should spread from its centres in India and Egypt throughout the world. These hermits, having nothing, wanting nothing, and fearing nothing, could go everywhere,--crossing the great continents, telling their simple story, if only by signs, and performing their wonderful cures. So that from the Indus to the Euphrates, and from the Euphrates to the Nile, these solitary wanderers were ever going and coming. And when drawn together in communities by the fame of some hermit, or by the adaptation to their purposes of some remarkable solitude, the knowledge of them would soon be spread abroad;
and men would travel far to inquire of them how sins are to be expiated, or diseases cured; for it was believed that by their seclusion from the world, their penances and prayers, they were beyond the tumults of passion, and that they approached very near to God, and received direct revelations of His Divine Wisdom.
In the beginning, the anchorets lived in caves, or under the shelter of trees, the branches of which they twisted together. Their furniture was merely the skin of a beast for a bed, a vase to receive alms, a pitcher for water, a basket to hold the berries and roots which they gathered, a hatchet, a staff, a rosary made of lotus seed. Their beard grew unkempt and their nails uncut, and their heir was twisted into knots. In later times they shaved their heads. They wore simply a coarse garment made of the fibres of bark. Their food consisted of wild roots, grain, and fruit; and they ate merely enough to sustain life. They were bound to the most rigid chastity in thought and deed. Some made a vow of continual silence, and to remind them constantly of death kept a skull before them. Their occupations were to gather roots and berries for food and sacrifice; to cut wood for the fire of the sacrifices; to offer up prayers three times a day, morning, noon, and evening, always preceded by ablutions; to repeat sacred sentences; to propitiate the spirits of departed ancestors; to offer sacrifices, morning and evening, and at the new and full moon.
The Essenes were a numerous Jewish sect, widely scattered abroad in Syria and Egypt; they were similar to the Therapeut, who dwelt in desert places, often having only palm-trees for companions, and being celebrated for their power of healing diseases. When the Essenes embraced Christianity, many of them held on to their old notions of Monachism, and they infused the monastic spirit into the communities of Christians where they were living, and in times of peril and persecution they, with others, became voluntary exiles, and, escaping from the turmoils of society, took refuge in the solitudes of the wilderness. Thus the Essenes contributed largely to the spread of Monachism.
Then the persecutions endured by the Christians, together with the confused state of society, and the actual disintegration and dissolution of the old civilizations, led many to drift into the monastic life that they might escape the deluge of evils and falsities. So it was during the second and third centuries. But about A.D. 270, Anthony began movement which firmly established Monachism in the Christian Church.
On a certain occasion, as he entered the temple to worship, Anthony heard from the Gospels the Word of the LORD to the rich young man: Go sell all that thou hast and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven. This, like the voice of God to him personally, decided his future course of life. Doubtless he was imbued also with the selfish love of supereminence, and he at once distributed his goods to the poor, and then betook himself to a tomb, and afterwards to a dilapidated castle in the mountain, there to wage war with himself under the idea of a conflict with Satan. In solitude and from prolonged fastings his hallucinations were often fearfully vivid. The adversary sometimes seemed to assail him in the form of wild beasts and monsters, and at other times in the form of a beautiful roman. His friends, who brought him bread once in six months, heard his wild shrieks, or they found him powerless and prostrate on the ground.
The persecution of the Christians, A.D. 311, allured him from his solitude, and he went to Alexandria, and with ardent zeal encouraged the Christians who were arraigned at the tribunals to be steadfast in confessing the LORD.
The fame of Anthony was soon spread abroad throughout the whole Church, and the desert became peopled with his disciples, whom he directed to engage in prayer, and in manual labor for their own support and. for the relief of the poor. He himself would watch through many nights in succession. Bread and salt were his only food, and this he took only once in three days, ashamed that an immortal spirit should need even that! He was endowed with eminent natural abilities, but was without learning. He was reputed to have miraculous powers, and it was believed that his word healed the sick and cast out devils.
In the evening of his life, Anthony withdrew still further into the desert, only occasionally coming among men, to protect the oppressed and to contend for what he deemed the true faith. Be departed hence at the advanced age of a hundred and five years, childless indeed, but the father of an innumerable family of enthusiasts who followed him into the monastic life.--See Dr. Hase, pp. 64, 65.
As the followers of Anthony became more numerous societies and communities were formed, certain forms of order were established, and monasteries arose. The monasteries and convents were, governed by rules determined by their founders. Unconditional submission to the will of the Superior generally required, and this involved a complete surrender of all private will and personal possessions, the mortification of the sensual nature, and a life wholly devoted to pious performances, with the addition of some easy and necessary work.
A monk could return to the world, but not without the fear of ecclesiastical penances. But after the time of Basil it was generally held that the marriage of a virgin espoused to the LORD was not only adulterous, but void. Some eminent men opposed this view, and some of the monks were married. The Abbots were usually ordained as Priests, and some of them took rank by the side of the Bishops but the congregations of the monasteries were considered laymen.
The monastic orders rapidly increased in numbers and in influence in the Church, so that after a brief resistance on the part of the more rigid class, the monasteries became the ordinary seminaries of the clergy. So rapid was the spread of monasticism, that cities became solitary and the deserts full of people.
Pliny was astonished in finding these solitary people in great numbers dwelling among the palm-trees near the Red Sea. They were without money, a perpetual supply of new associates flocked to them from those who were disgusted with the world, and those who in solitary places would repent of their sins. On the sands of the Libyan desert, on the rocks of Thebais, and even in the cities of the Nile, these Christian hermits and monks rapidly increased. The mountain and adjacent desert south of Alexandria were peopled by five thousand anchorets.
Pachomius, a disciple of Anthony, began to establish monasteries for each sex, on the island of Tabenne, in the Nile. He also founded nine monasteries for men and one convent for women; and during his day fifty thousand monks and nuns were sometimes assembled at the Feast of Easter.
In Egypt it was computed that one-half the people were monks and nuns. Athanasius introduced a school of monks in Rome: and at the very threshold of the Vatican the disciples of Anthony established themselves. Roman Senators and Matrons transformed their palaces and villas into religious houses for the use of monks and nuns. Monasteries were founded in the ruins of the old temples, and even in the Roman Forum.
Amun established monasteries is the desert of Nitra; Hilarion did the same in the desert of Gaza;
and Basil planted colonies of monks in the solitudes of Pontus, and on the shores of the Black Sea. According to Ecclesiastical History:
Hermits generally lived in low, narrow, wooden huts, with a palm-leaf mat on the ground and a bundle of leaves for a pillow. Some constructed cells in such a may that they were compelled to sit doubled up in a most uncomfortable manner. Some exposed themselves, unsheltered, on the tops of mountains, to the fury of storms and sunshine. Some lived in deep caves, where not a ray of light could penetrate; some in clefts of steep inaccessible rocks; some in the most hidden chambers of old tombs; some in the dens of wild beasts; and in iron cages, with weights hung to their arms and feet. Some sought out the places where no rain fell, and where the only water they could get to drink was the dew which they lapped up from the rocks. Some never cut their nails, nor combed their hair or their beard. Some more a coarse garment unwashed, until it dropped off in rags; others were partially covered by a few leaves plaited together; others were entirely naked, except as they were covered with their long flowing hair. Sleep being a refreshment to the body was regarded sinful. One hour of unbroken sleep was deemed sufficient. Often in the night they were awakened by one another to watch and to pray. They lived on roots, berries, and other vegetables, and they drank only water; and sometimes for days together they fasted even from this diet. If by accident they looked. upon a woman, they inflicted upon themselves severe penance for the crime!progress of Religious Ideas, vol. i. pp. 241, 242.
Compared with the life of love to the LORD in the honorable employments in the world,--serving the LORD by loving and serving the neighbor, how idle, useless, and even insane, these hermits appear! A world filled with them would be a most sorrowful picture of a race in the jaws of death, and unworthy of heaven!
Simeon the Stylite.
THE extent to which this fanaticism carried many of its devotees is well illustrated in the life of Simeon, a Syrian shepherd, who was born A.D. 390, and died about A.D. 485.
At the age of thirteen, quitting his useful calling as a shepherd, he retreated into wild and desert places, and adopted the most austere habits of a hermit. At length he became the celebrated Stylite, the leader of a vast number of enthusiasts who imitated his insane mode of life, and began to live, also, on the top of pillars, or on high and almost inaccessible rocks.
After living for nine years on the top of a column nine feet high, and men in circumference, he ascended a column sixty feet high and only three feet in diameter at the top. For twenty-eight years he stood upon it, enduing the scorching sunshine of summer and the cold of winter. He made but one meal a week, and that a very light one. When sleeping he leaned against a sort of balustrade. Till three oclock in the afternoon, he spent the day in prayer; he then preached to the people gathered around his pillar, and answered their requests. On the festival days of the Church, at prayer, he stood with his hands stretched out like a cross, from the setting of the sun to its rising, without sleeping a mink. While praying he continually bowed so low as to touch his toes with his head. It is said that a curious spectator counted these bowings till he came to twelve hundred and forty-four, and then gave up the counting!
The pillar of Simeon was constantly surrounded by crowds of invalid people, who begged for his prayers, and who went away miraculously cured. Devotees from all parts of the world, even from India and Arabia, came to obtain his blessing. Churches sent delegates to ask his advice, which he gave in the form of letters. Theodosius the Younger often consulted him, both in theological and civil affairs. Many were cured by his prayers, and even by his touch. Many were converted to Christianity by his miracles: and, influenced by his fame, many hermits were led to imitate his newly invented style of penance, and to mount pillars, so as with Simeon to be called Stylites.
When Simeon died, the most honorable men in the Church and in the State formed a procession, and in great pomp conveyed his body to Antioch, where it was considered a greater safeguard to the city than walls and armies.--Progress of Religious Ideas, vol. iii, pp. 243-245. Abridged.
Monachism in the West.
SOON after the Nicene Council Monachism began to spread in the West. The advocates of the system were the great men whose influence in the Church was unrivaled, and whose fame has descended through the ages. With eloquence and zed worthy of a better cause they urged the people to renounce the world and its pleasures and take refuge in desert places, in caverns in cloisters, and in monasteries. Monachism was introduced into Gaul by Martin of Tours and Carrian; into Italy by Ambrose and Jerome; into Africa by Augustine. The rules devised for the governance of the hermits, monks, and nuns of the East being found too stringent for the more sober-minded people of Gaul and of Britain and Germany, the monastic orders of the West adopted rules less stringent.
Benedict, A.D. 529, founded, in the wilderness of Mount Cassino, a society of monks, and established the order known as the Benedictines. The Rule of Benedict bound the monks of that order to a useful course of life. Many monasteries arose adopting his Rule, and the Benedictines became immensely numerous and wealthy. And however paradoxical it may appear, with their vows of forsaking the world and its wealth, they gathered into their monasteries unbounded riches, while the world which they had forsaken was often, in comparison with these monks, in a state of squalid poverty. Indeed the Benedictines and the other monastic orders, founding their monasteries and other religious houses in wildernesses and among people in a savage or half-civilized state, became the civilizers of those barbarous tribes, and the instructors of the people, and their convents the seminaries of the clergy. They preserved the literary works of antiquity for a more cultivated age, and made the deserts fertile.
Their convents were placed under the supervision of the Bishops within whose dioceses they were, but these had no power to violate the constitution of the order.
The Benedictines were established in England in A.D. 696, when Gregory the Great sent thither Augustine, Prior of the Monastery of St. Andrew in Rome, with several other Benedictine monks. Augustine became Archbishop of Canterbury; and the Benedictines founded the Metropolitan Church of Canterbury, and also many monasteries in England and Wales.
The Benedictines increased in number and power continually. In the Middle Ages their influence was enormous, and with the various other orders of monks that filled Europe, they largely controlled the movements of the Church.
From statistics taken by Pope John XXII., about A.D. 1350, we learn that up to that time the Benedictines had furnished the Church with twenty-four Popes, two hundred Cardinals, seven thousand Archbishops, fifteen thousand Bishops, fifteen Abbots of renown, and more than thirty thousand monasteries.
They also claimed to have furnished to the State twenty Emperors and ten Empresses; forty-seven Kings, and more than fifty Queens; twenty sons of Emperors, and forty-eight sons of Kings; about one hundred Princesses, daughter of Kings and Emperors; besides Dukes, Marquises, Earls, and Countesses innumerable. The Benedictines produced also a vast number of eminent authors and other learned men. Rabanus established a school in Germany. Alcuinus founded the University of Paris. Guido invented the scale of music, and Sylvester the organ. The celebrated Anselm, Ildephonus, and the Venerable Bede were claimed as Benedictines.
The wealth and strength of the several monastic orders may be known from one or two facts.
Thus in England and Wales alone they had about fifty thousand cathedrals, colleges, abbeys, chapels, hospitals, hermitages, friaries, chanterics, with landed estates, and endowments yielding enormous revenues. One of the most extensive of these monasteries had a fraternity of about five hundred monks, and about as many retainers on the abbey. The hospitality of this monastery was immense. Five hundred travelers with their horses, it is said, were sometimes entertained in it at once. Four hundred children were not only educated in it but also maintained. At the ringing of the bell, the poor from every side flocked to the gate of the abbey to receive alms.
And yet as Britain threw off the papal yoke these monasteries from time to time were suppressed, being considered damaging and pernicious. This work was done from 1323 to 1515.
There were numerous branches of monks that sprang from the Rule of Benedict overshadowing the face of all Europe. Of these the most celebrated in Ecclesiastical History are the Order of Cluni; the Cistertian Order; and the Order of Chartreux. The first of these orders was founded in A.D. 900; the second in 1098; the third in 1080; and their principal purpose was simply to reform the Benedictines and other monks, and to re-establish with the utmost rigor the Rule of Benedict.
The Order of Chartreux became immensely rich. Their convents are beautiful and magnificent. The one in Naples surpasses all the rest in ornaments and riches. Nothing is to be seen in the church and in the house but marble and jasper. The apartments of the prior are rather those of a prince than a poor monk.
About 1180 the Carthusians settled in England, where they became numerous and powerful, and where they founded a number of great monasteries, among others the famous Carter House, in London, so called from the name of the order.
The Carthusians maintain some of their establishments to this day. Their vineyards and their wine are among the most noted in Europe. Their ancient Monachism is now largely transformed into this useful industry.
After the Crusades, and in some sense resulting from them, were established Military Orders devoted to the defense of the Church, and in spite of repeated prohibitions, the clergy were often found in these armed bands. These warlike bodies were often called into service in defending the immense estates of the monasteries against the savage plunderings of feudal chiefs.
Of these orders, the principal were the Knights of Malta, called at first the Knights of the Hospital, or the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, and the Knights Templar, so called from the Temple in Jerusalem, near which the order was founded in 1118, and where for a time they continued to reside. Their duties were exclusively military namely: To extend the boundaries of Christianity with the sword, to preserve the tranquillity of Palestine, to drive out from the public roads robbers and outlaws, and to protect the devout on their pilgrimage to the holy places. These duties they did without fear. Renown was their reward: and abundant opulence followed: then in their train came corruption and wild unbridled license. These evils they carried back into the heart of the Church in Europe, when Jerusalem again fell into hands of the Mohammedans.
There was also the Teutonic Order of Knights, which was established during the siege of Acre, and which had charge of the hospital for the reception of the sick and wounded. After the Crusades the consecrated arms of these Knights were turned into the practical work of converting the obdurate Prussians!
Next to these several Orders of Knighthood, were founded several orders of itinerant preachers. Many of them were called Mendicant Friars, or Brothers, and they came more directly and absolutely under the control of the rope than the orders of monks hitherto mentioned.
First among these were the Dominicans, of whom Dominic was the Founder. Pope Innocent III. commissioned Dominic, with a body of ecclesiastics, to convert the Albigeois. Dominic was the favorite champion of the Roman Church. He was eloquent and powerful as the leader of a new fraternity, and in his campaigns against the heretics of Languedoc, Dominic and his disciples were at first only itinerant preachers, but afterward they vowed entire poverty and mendicity, and Pope Honorius III. confirmed the Order of Dominican Monks about the year 1217.
Next to Dominic in power and influence was his compeer is Ecclesiastical renown, Francis, the founder of a rival order of Mendicant Friars. The Franciscan order began in the renunciation of the world and a life of poverty, as the only safe path to heaven; then after some time they, like the Dominicans, entered also into the business of preaching. The two orders were therefore in the end altogether similar in principle and in practice; and in their obsequious submission to the Pope, but still they were rivals, and were most bitter in their hostility to each other.
The success of the Dominicans and Franciscans encouraged the profession of beggary; and the face of Christendom was suddenly darkened by a swarm of holy mendicants, in such a manner that, about the year 1272, Gregory X. endeavored to arrest the growing evil. To this end he suppressed a great multitude of those authorized vagrant fraternities, and distributed the remainder, still very numerous, into four societies: the Dominicans; the Franciscans, the Carmelites, and the Hermits of St. Augustine. (Waddittgtons Hist., p. 319.)
The Carmelites originated on Mount Carmel, in which is the cavern of Elias, and where once stood a large monastery. A fraternity of tell monks were living among the old ruins in 1185. About the year 1209, Arbert, Satriarch of Jerusalem, confirmed the Order of Carmelites and gave them a rule. In 1226, Honorius III. sanctioned the order and introduced it into the grand monastic family; and twelve years later, they were promoted to the more valuable privileges and profits of mendicity!
The Hermits of St. Augustine were at first hermits scattered abroad throughout the Western Church; they had several independent societies under different rules. To withdraw them from their seclusion, and to ally them more closely with the Church hierarchy, Alexander IV. formed them into a single congregation, under one rule, and one general, giving them still the name of Hermits of St. Augustine.
To these four orders the pontiffs granted the exclusive indulgence of traveling through all countries, as mendicant friars, of conversing with people of all ranks, and instructing the young and the ignorant. Presently they were commissioned to preach in the churches, and to administer the sacraments. (Waddingtons Hist., p. 319.)
In addition to the monastic orders which we have mentioned, another one arose originating in a cause most singular and insignificant, namely, the shape of the monks cowl, or hood. The monk Matthew de Bassi and two others, for wearing a square capuche, or cowl, were driven out of the monastery, and persecuted by the Franciscan monks, until the Pope authorized the use of the new cap.
By their preaching great numbers were added to their ranks, and in various places monasteries were built for them.
They came into universal esteem by the help which they gave to the people during a plague which afflicted Italy in the year 1528.
Matthew de Bassi being chosen their Vicar-general in 1529, gave them a rule differing widely from the rule of the other Franciscans. The Capuchins were commanded to perform Divine Service without singing; they were to say but one mass a day in their convents; the times of silent prayer, morning and evening, were laid down, also the days of self-discipline, and the days of silence. The use of gold, silver, and silk was prohibited; and the severest poverty in the ornaments of their Church was recommended.
The Order soon spread itself all over Italy and Sicily. In 1573 the Capuchins were established in France, and in 1606 Pope Paul V. gave them leave to take an establishment which was offered them in Spain. At present they are divided into more than sixty provinces; they have about sixteen hundred convents, and twenty-five thousand monks; besides the missions of Brazil, Congo, Greece, Syria, and Egypt. (See Hooks Dict.)
So far the external historical development of monasticism, and of the several orders of monks and hermits, which have been the most noted in history, and the most formidable in the Church. Many of the convents and monasteries of these orders continue to the present day; many, in Protestant countries, were abolished by the civil authority about the time of the Reformation, and their revenues absorbed. in the exchequer of the State, or given to colleges, or hospitals, or other uses; many have lapsed into other forms, under the guidance of the monks, or have altogether passed away.
Celibacy of the Clergy.
CELIBACY, with other forms of asceticism, originated in India and Egypt in the times of the Ancient Church, and even in the days of the Apostles began to infest the Primitive Christian Church. The Monachism of these early ages was deeply tinged with the philosophy of the Pythagoreans and the Gnostics, and with the Manichean heresy of two principles from eternity, one good, and the other evil.
As we have shown in our article on Monastic Life, false doctrines in respect to the relation to each other of Spirit and Matter, of the things of heaven and the things of earth, and of a life of charity or good works, and piety or religious formalities, led many thousands of the Christians, both clergymen and laymen, to renounce the world. with its possessions, employments, and pleasures, and to take refuge in deserts, or in mountains and caves, where, in their seclusion from the world, they adopted the life of celibacy, and practiced many other bodily austerities.
But inasmuch as the clergy were bound to the duties of their office in society, having been commissioned to preach the Gospel to every creature, to baptize the convents, and to administer the things of the Divine Law and Worship,--they could not abandon the world, and, as hermits, go into deserts and caves. Therefore, if, in this literal sense, they would deny themselves, and take up the cross daily and follow the LORD, it was necessary for them to find some method of practicing these austerities at home. This could be done by adopting some of the self-inflicted privations and tortures of the hermits.
The heresy of the ascetic was marvelously irrational: the Body, because it is of the earth, was to be put down and kept under, so that the spirit might be set free.
The natural appetites and passions, therefore, were to be stifled. A generous diet, beautiful garments, and comfortable and commodious dwellings, were to be shunned because these things served to drag down the spiritual and heavenly life, and to mingle it with the dust of the earth. The passion for these things, and all other carnal appetites, the hermits subdued but repeated fastings, by living on food that was poor and insufficient, by clothing themselves like wild men in the bark of trees, or in the skins of animals, or in the coarsest cloth; and then by dwelling in deserts and forests, in wretched hovels or huts, or in the mountains and in the caves of the rocks. But the clergy, remaining in society and living in towns and cities, or near them, could adopt these ascetic austerities only in part; and those inclined to Monachism did this. They fasted often; and when eating abstained from the more generous diet in common use, often eating most sparingly of the poorest food. They often dressed in sackcloth and sat in ashes like mourning Jews.
Beyond these self-imposed privations and self-inflicted tortures of the hermits, there was still another one far more self-denying and severe, and held by these devotees as more meritorious in the sight of heaves than any other sacrifice, because it involved the most stupendous self-denial possible to man. This was celibacy, or the plenary separation of the sexes.
The ascetics who abandoned the world and fled to the mountains and deserts, at the same time abandoned the marriage state. Men left their wives, and wives, if smitten with the same insane delusion, left their husbands; the marriage relation, therefore, was no more. The reason given for renouncing marriage was in fact the extreme of unwisdom and folly.
It was this, that marriage has in it the most exquisite delights, not only in the spiritual conjunction of mind with mind, but marriage also has the pleasures and gratifications of the natural appetites and passions, and these latter, they said, must be denied, stifled, and starved out.
The devotees of celibacy were not necessarily anchorites, for they could live is society, and even from the dawn of the Church, certain ones of the clergy imposed upon themselves this extreme austerity. Nor was this self-imposed celibacy confined to the clergy, but, even in the middle of the second century, and from that time onward through the ages, celibacy was more or less prevalent among all classes.
Justin Martyr, in his first Apology, says:
And many, both men and women who, from childhood, have been Disciples of Christ, remain pure (that is, in celibacy) at the age of sixty or seventy; and I boast that I could produce such from every race of men.Ante Nicene Fathers, chap. xv.
Athenagoras, in his Plea for the Christians, addressed to the Emperors M. A. Antoninus and L. A. Commodus, says:
You will find many among us, both men and women, growing old unmarried, in the hope of a closer communion with God. But if the remaining in virginity and in the state of an eunuch brings us nearer to God, while the indulgence of carnal thought and desire leads away from Him, in those cases in which we shun the thoughts, much more do we reject the deeds.Ante Nic. Fath. Athena, xxxiii.
Historical evidence could be indefinitely extended showing that voluntary and self-imposed celibacy prevailed in the Christian Church even from the beginning. Men and women vowed perpetual chastity, as it was called, that is, that they would remain unmarried, and would abstain from all sexual intercourse. And as these vows were taken and fulfilled with the purpose of promoting a purer spiritual life and a closer communion with God, the clergy who aspired to be more holy than others, easily fell into the ensnaring net of celibacy, and many of them, in consequence, began to boast of their superior sanctity, and to treat with contempt those who were married and who continued in the married state.
This was the first movement toward establishing in the Church the celibacy of the clergy. The attempt by combined ministerial influence and the concerted action of Councils to constrain and coerce the clergy into celibacy, which was the second movement, had not yet been made. Nor was the third movement yet made, when celibacy was actually forced upon the clergy, from the Supreme Pontiff himself to the lowest sub-deacon. This work remained for Hildebrand in the eleventh century. The two things, although so essentially different, have existed together side by side in all ages, namely, celibacy that is voluntary and self-imposed, and the celibacy imposed by the influence of leading men and the authority of the Church.
Voluntary celibacy, as already observed, came in with the other forms of asceticism that infested the Church from the beginning, and the fallacies that led to it were the same as those that swept over the East in the first ages, and unsettled the minds of thousands, emptying, as we have seen, the cities and cultivated countries, and filling with these misguided devotees the deserts, mountains, and caves. The spiritual conflicts of these we have considered in our paper on Monastic Life.
As the spiritual life of the Church declined and fell away, the celibacy of the clergy became more prevalent; and as voluntary celibacy increased, and the devotees became more numerous, the tendency to enforce the practice upon all the clergy began to be distinctly manifested. This tendency was increased by the connivance of the people, and the vainglorious beastings of the celibates, that they were more pure and holy than married men.
Near the end of the first century, Ignatius, the second Bishop of Antioch, in an Epistle to Polycarp, incidentally discloses two important historical facts:First, that clerical celibacy was then prevalent in the Church; and, second, that the unmarried clergy were proud of their celibacy, boasting that they were better than others. Ignatius says:
If any one can continue in a state of celibacy, to the honor of the flesh of the LORD, let him so remain without boasting. If he shall boast, he is undone; and if he reckons himself greater than the Bishop, he is ruined.Epis. To Polye., chap. v.
Toward the close of the second century Pinytus, Bishop of Gnosa, determined to enforce celibacy upon the clergy of his diocese, but was dissuaded from the attempt by the timely advice of Dionysius, Bishop of Corinth, who admonished him not to impose upon the brethren without necessity, a burden in regard to celibacy too great to be borne, but to consider the infirmity of the great mass of men.--Euseb. Ec. Wis., Bk. iv. 23.
The first absolute prohibition of marriage to the clergy we have in the beginning of the fourth century at the Council of Elvira. In the thirty-third Canon adopted at that Synod it was decreed that Bishops, Priests, and Deacons, and all the clergy who are placed in the ministry, must separate themselves from their wives, otherwise they must be deposed from the clerical once. (See Hefeles Hist. Counc., vol. i. p. 150.)
In respect to celibacy, the conflicts and controversies of the clergy continued to be bitter and interminable. Three well-defined classes existed among them, namely:
The married clergy;
The unmarried who chose celibacy in freedom, and who held that all others ought to be left in freedom to marry or to remain single;
Those who held that celibacy ought to be enforced upon all the clergy.
For more than a thousand years these three classes continued is the Church. Celibacy was never universal; the Canons of the Councils that ordered it were obeyed only in parts of the Church. After the Council of Trullo, A.D. 692, in which the East and the West practically separated, the Western Church moved more rapidly in its work of enforcing celibacy upon all the clergy. Rod still while Council after Council endeavored to enforce celibacy, others as strenuously opposed it; one Council modifying or annulling the canons of another, and one Bishop the decisions of another. There was no uniformity of practice among the clergy, some were married, others were unmarried; nor could the Catholic Church itself declare the celibacy of the clergy the law of the Church until in the pontificate of Gregory VII.
Through this long and desperate conflict the claim for celibacy uniformly rested on the assumption of the essential purity and Chastity of celibacy, and of the essential impurity and unchastity of marriage.
Not only the celibates themselves, but many others, claimed that celibacy is pure and marriage impure. Indeed the whole Church, even before the Council of Nice, became more or less infested with the heresy. Dionysius in his admonition to Pinytus, as we have seen, pleaded that the infirmities of most men required the dispensation of marriage. Age after age, in the progress of the conflict, this plea was reiterated. Popes, Bishops, Priests, and writers of renown in the Church, apologized for marriage, which they must have known was ordained by the LORD in the beginning,apologized for it as a dispensation, or an indulgence, that must be granted to men and women on account of their carnal infirmities! Into this awful gulf the Church began to be plunged even before the time of the Dark Ages.
Marriage, the very form of heaves, and the seminary of the human race, was held by the Church to be unholy and impure, and celibacy, which is a mere negation and a non-entity, to be pure, holy, and chaste!
The Doctrines of the New Church teach us, on the contrary, that marriage is essentially chaste, and that chastity cannot be predicated of celibacy where marriage is purposely repudiated. In the work on Conjugial Love it is written:
Chastity cannot be predicated of those who believe marriage to be chaste. These neither know what chastity is, nor that it even exists, and they are like those who make chastity to consist in celibacy, concerning whom we shall speak in what follows.
Chastity cannot be predicated of .those who have renounced marriage by rowing perpetual celibacy, unless there be and remain in them the love of a life truly conjugial. Chastity cannot be predicated of these because after the vow of perpetual celibacy, conjugial love is renounced; and yet it is of this love alone that chastity can be predicated; and because also the inclination to the sex from creation and consequently innate, when restrained and subdued must needs turn into heat, and in some cases into violent burning, which, when it rises from the body into the spirit, infests it, and, with some, pollutes it. And there may be cases where the spirit thus polluted, may also pollute the things of religion, and cast them down from their internal abode, where they are in holiness, into things external where they become were matters of talk and of gesture: therefore it was provided by the LORD that celibacy should exist only with those who are in external worship, as in the case with those who neither go to the LORD nor read the Word....
I have inquired of the angels whether those who have devoted themselves to piety, and have given themselves up to Divine worship, and who have thus withdrawn themselves from the snares of the world, and the concupiscences of the flesh, and had therefore vowed perpetual virginity, are received into heaven, and there, according to their faith, whether they become the principal ones among the blessed. But the angels answered: They are indeed received, but when they feel the sphere of conjugial love there, they become sorrowful and anxious, such then, some, of their own record, others by asking leave, and still others by command, depart and are dismissed;
and when they are out of that heaven, a way is opened for them to their associates, who, in the world had been in a similar state of life; and then from being anxious they become merry and rejoice together.--C. L. 155.
From what has thus far been said, it is evident that the state of marriage is to be preferred to the state of celibacy. The state of marriage is to be preferred, because this is from creation; because its origin is the marriage of good and truth; because it corresponds with the marriage of the LORD and the Church; because the Church and conjugial love are constant companions; because its use is more excellent than the uses of all things of creation, for according to order the propagation of the human race is thence, and also the angelic heaven, for this is from the human race. To these things it must be added, that marriage is the completeness of man, for by it man becomes a complete man (plenus homo), as will be demonstrated in the chapter following. In celibacy all these things are wanting.--C. L. 156.
Those who in the world were shut up in monasteries, as well virgins as men, at the conclusion of the monastic life, which continues some time after death, are let loose and discharged, and enjoy the free indulgence of their desires, whether they wish to live in marriage or not; if they wish to live married, they become so, but if not, they are borne to the unmarried at the side of heaven; but those who burned with prohibited lust, are cast down. The unmarried are at the side of heaven, because the sphere of perpetual celibacy infests the sphere of conjugial love, which is the very sphere of heaven; and the sphere of conjugial love is the very sphere of heaven, because it descends from the heavenly marriage of the LORD and the Church.C. L. 54.
In the Apocalypse Explained it is written:
The love of marriage is so holy and celestial because it commences from the LORD Himself, in the inmost principles of man, and descends according to order to the ultimates of the body, and thereby fills the whole man with celestial love, and induces in him a form of the Divine Love, which form is the form of heaven, and is an image of the LORD, as was said above: but the love of adultery commences from the ultimate principles of man, and from an impure lascivious fire there; and thence, contrary to order, penetrates toward the interiors, always into the things of mans proprium, which are nothing but evil, and induces in them a form of hell, which is an image of the devil; wherefore the man who loves adultery and is averse to marriage, is in form a devil.A. E. 985.
How holy in themselves, that is, from creation, marriages are, may be seen from this, that they are the seminaries of the human race, and inasmuch as the angelic heaven is from the human race, they are also the seminaries of heaven; consequently, that by marriages not only the earths but also the heavens are filled with inhabitants: and whereas the end of the whole creation is the human race, and thence heaven, wherein the Divine itself may dwell as in its own, and as it were in itself, and as their procreation according to Divine order is established by marriages, it is manifest, bow holy they are in themselves, thus from creation, and how holy they ought thence to be held.--A. E. 988.
These Divine Doctrines of the Church throw a flood of light upon the conflict in the Church respecting the celibacy of the clergy. They reveal to us the intrinsic quality of celibacy, and show us that in it the clergy must fill into spiritual unchastity and pollution, which, in the end, must break out in various forms of external uncleanness and unchastity. History abundantly confirms this. Indeed, it is most interesting to observe how exactly marriage kept pace with the Church, and the Church with marriage. As marriage was honored and exalted to its Divine and heavenly uses, the spiritual life of the Church was promoted; and as marriage was profaned and rejected, and its sacred uses trodden under foot, the Church fell into confusion and chaos, and its Divine prerogative of saving souls and of being the LORDS kingdom on earth was no more. And yet, strange as it may appear, there prevailed in the Church, even among those living in wedlock, a certain indefinable notion that, in marriage there must be some impurity which is unknown in celibacy. A most insidious and damaging infestation came from this source; the force of all argument in favor of the essential holiness of marriage was invalidated or destroyed. The infestation was so great that an honest Prelate, living with his wife in the chastity of marriage and surrounded with his children, was often constrained to apologize before an unmarried Priest boasting of his celibacy.
Had the Church known the exalted uses of marriage, and its essential chastity and purity, all this would have been otherwise; for then the married clergy would have been held in the highest esteem, and the unmarried would have been esteemed in the degree in which they favored marriage and were looking to it. Marriage would then have been commended to all men, because it is of Divine appointment, and because it is pure and holy; nor would apologies ever have been offered for it, as something impure and unholy.
Dean Milman, treating of the Celibacy of the Clergy from the second century onward, says:
Clement of Alexandria (about A.D. 200) asserts and vindicates the marriage of some of the Apostles. The discreet remonstrance of the old Egyptian Bishop perhaps prevented the Council of Nice from imposing that heavy burden upon the reluctant clergy. The aged Paphnutius, himself unmarried, boldly asserted that the conjugal union was chastity.... It has been asserted, and without refutation, that there was no ecclesiastical law or regulation that compelled the celibacy of the clergy for the first three centuries. Clement of Alexandria, as we see, argues against enforced celibacy from the example of the Apostles. Married Bishops and Presbyters frequently occur in the history of Enscbius. The martyrdom of Numidicus was shared, and not dishonored, by the companionship of his wife, who perished in the same flames.... Highly as they exalt the angelic state of celibacy, neither Basil in the East, nor Augustine in the West, positively prohibits the marriage of the clergy.
But in the fourth century, particularly in the latter half of it, the concurrent influence of the higher honors attributed to virginity by all the great Christian writers; of the hierarchal spirit, which, even at that time, saw how much of its corporate strength depended on this entire detachment from worldly ties; of the monastic system, which worked into the clerical, partly by the frequent selection of monks for ordination and for consecration to ecclesiastical dignities, partly by the emulation of the clergy, who could not safely allow themselves to be outdone in austerities by these rivals for popular estimation; nit these various influences introduced restrictions and regulations on the marriage of the clergy, which darkened at length into the solemn ecclesiastical interdict.Milmans Hist. Chris., Book iv. ch. i.
Ecclesiastical history shows that there was a, long progressive movement in introducing clerical celibacy into the Church. For the present we have space only for a brief outline of this movement.
At first, second marriages were condemned as monstrous acts of incontinence; then followed the restriction of marriage after entering the ministry. In the beginning, married Priests could retain their wives, but, as the spirit of celibacy gained strength, all sexual intercourse was positively interdicted. Abstinence from sexual connection with their wives was imperatively required of the higher orders of the clergy: such intercourse, it was held, rendered them unfit even to offer prayers for the people. Still in the practice of the clergy there was no uniformity; and the Councils made war upon one another. Thus the Council of Gangra, about A.D. 350, condemned the followers of Eustathius because they refused to receive the sacraments from any but unmarried Priests.
Jovinian held that those who lived a true life in the world, amid the temptations and perplexities of social life, had as just a claim to future rewards as those who led similar lives in solitude; that pleasures are not necessarily sins; that temperance is as excellent a virtue as total abstinence; and that the chaste enjoyments of marriage are as pleasing to God as the mortifications of unnatural celibacy. These doctrines of Jovinian were deemed heretical, and Jerome, the monk of the age, who was clamorous for celibacy, assailed him with calumnies, and endeavored to drive him out of the Church. In A.D. 390, Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, in a Council called for the purpose, caused the opinions of Jovinian to be condemned. Pope Siricius, A.D. 385, issued a sort of encyclical letter, positively prohibiting all clergy of the higher orders from any intercourse with their wives. In this letter he ordered that
A man who lived to the age of thirty, the husband of one wife, and that wife when married a virgin, might be an acolyth, or sub-deacon; after five years of strict continence he might be promoted to a Priest; after ten years more of the same severe ordeal, he might be made a Bishop. Any one in holy orders, even of the lowest degree, who married a widow or a second wife, was instantly deprived of his office: no woman was allowed to live in the house of a clerk.Milman, Bk. iv. ch. i.
The Council of Carthage, A.D. 398, commanded the clergy to abstain from all connection with their wives.
At the Council of Toledo, A.D. 400, assembled from all Spain, ecclesiastics who had children were prohibited from further promotion.
The Council of Aries, A.D. 452, prohibited the ordination of a married Priest unless he abjured the married state.
Jerome declares that it was the universal regulation of the East, of Egypt, and of Rome, to ordain only those who were unmarried, or who had ceased to be husbands. But even in the fourth century, and in the beginning of the fifth, the practice rebelled against the theory. Milman says:
Married clergymen, even married Bishops, and with children, occur in the ecclesiastical annals. Athanasius, in his letter to Dracontius, admits and allows the full right of the Bishop to marriage. Gregory of Nazianzum was born after his father was Bishop, and had a younger brother named Csarius. Gregory of Nyssa and Hilary of Poictiers were married. Less distinguished names frequently occur: we may mention Spyridon and Eustathius.
Synesius, whose character enabled him to accept episcopacy on his own terms, positively repudiated these unnatural restrictions on the freedom and holiness of the conjugal state. He said: God and the law and the holy hand of Theophilus, bestowed on me my wife. I therefore solemnly declare, and call you to witness, that I will not be plucked from her, nor lie with her in secret, like an adulterer. But I hope and pray that we may have many and virtuous children.Hist Chris., Bk. iv. ch. i.
The Council of Trullo demanded absolute celibacy of Bishops alone, the inferior clergy were left to their freedom;
but the canons of Toledo and other Western Synods were more stringent. These laws, designed for the control not simply of men in a high state of culture, but for the control of the promiscuous multitude gathered into the priesthood from all classes of society, worked with unequal force, and they produced results the most varied and conflicting. The strife was with nature itself, and as the tendency in every movement was to enforce celibacy upon the clergy, every movement only marked a still further departure from the true order of life and from the Divine law of heaven, and a consequent dehumanizing of the priesthood.
There arose secret evasions of the law, and these multiplied as time advanced. Many of the clergy endeavored to obtain the fame of celibacy without the practice of it. From about the middle of the third century, when the aversion to the marriage of the clergy began to be formidable in the Church, the sub-introduced women began also to appear, and the Church was called upon to suppress an evil that seemed more dangerous, and more difficult to deal with, than even the marriage of the clergy. Milman, in the History of Christianity, says:
The intimate union of the Priest with a young and beautiful woman, who still passed to the world under name of a virgin, and was called by the Priest by the unsuspected name of sister, seems, from the strong and reiterated language of Jerome, Gregory Nazianzum, Chrysostom, and others, to have been almost general. The practice was interdicted by an imperial law.--Bk. iv. ch. i.
In his Latin Christianity, he says:
Celibacy may be the voluntary self-sacrifice of an individual, it may be maintained for a time by mutual control and awe; by severe discipline; by a strong corporate spirit in a monastic community.
But in a low state of morals as to sexual intercourse, in an order recruited from all classes of society, not filled by men of tried and matured religion; in an order crowded by aspirants after its wealth, power, comparative ease, privileges, immunities, public estimation; in an order superior to public opinion, or dictating it; in a permanent order, in which the degeneracy of one age would go on increasing in the next, till it produced some stern reaction; in an order comparatively idle, without social duties or intellectual pursuits; in an order not secluded in the desert, but officially brought into the closest and most confidential relations as instructors and advisers of the other sex, it was impossible to maintain real celibacy; and the practical alternative lay between secret marriage, concubinage without the form of marriage, or a looser and more corrupting intercourse between the sexes.--Latin Chris., Bk. vii. ch. i.
We cannot wonder, therefore, at the perpetual conflict in the Church between those who favored the marriage of the clergy, and those who, renouncing marriage, favored celibacy. This conflict continued with varied results through the Dark Ages, and its intensity was at its highest point when Hildebrand determined to enforce celibacy upon all the clergy.
The Divine authority for celibacy had been doubted and contested, as we have seen, from the time when the prohibitions against marriage were first promulgated: and even where the Papal authority was not called in question, there was a bold resistance or a tacit infringement of the law. Hildebrand well understood this when he undertook the daring task of making clerical celibacy universal in the Church. Italy, from Calabria to the Alps, was in practical rebellion against the measure: and the stronghold of the resistance was in Milan and Lombardy, the strongest province of Italy. Florence and Ravenna were still powerful in their protest against celibacy. In the kingdom of Naples, under Nicolas II., the clergy, from the highest to the lowest, were living openly with their lawful wives. The married clergy of Italy, cowed at times by the authority of Rome, constituted, nevertheless, a powerful faction.
In Germany the influence of the married clergy was powerful chiefly in two ways; first, in their positive conviction that marriage is in every way preferable to celibacy; and, second, as a bond of alliance with the Emperor and the Prelates of Lombardy. Ulric, Bishop of Augsburg, in his famous letter to Pope Nicolas I., boldly asserted the Teutonic freedom in respect to the marriage of the clergy. He urged the moral and scriptural arguments, and boldly contrasted the vices of the unmarried clergy with the virtues of the married clergy.
The marriage of the clergy was no less common in France. This is clearly revealed in the fact that the French Councils denounced the crime as frequent and notorious. The Council of Bourges threatened to deprive of their offices the married Priests, Deacons, and Subdeacons, if they did not give up all connection with their wives and concubines. The Bishop of Toul was accused before Gregory VII. of living publicly with a concubine, by whom he had a son.
In Normandy the Priests of the old Frankish race, even when Bishops, lived openly with their wives, and sate proudly in the midst of their sons and daughters. Milman says:
When Herluin, the founder of the monastery of Bec, betook himself to monastic life, an unmarried Priest or Bishop was hardly to be found in Normandy. Leo IX., at the Council in Rheims, in vain denounced the martial and married Priests. They gave up reluctantly their arms, but nothing could induce them to give up their wives. The Archbishop of Rouen daring, in a public synod, to prohibit under anathema the Priests to retain those whom he opprobriously called their concubines, was overwhelmed with a shower of stones and driven out of the Church.--Latin Chris., Bk. vii. ch. i.
In England even up to the time of the great revolution, and still later, the conflict was similar. There were many who had strong convictions in respect to marriage, and who held it to be pure and holy, and the true form of life for the clergy, as well as the laity: these were brought into conflict with the irresistible spiritual despotism of Rome.
The Bishop of Lichfield was accused before the Papal legate of living openly with his wife and with his family of sons: and Pope Gregory VII. commanded Archbishop Lanfranc to prohibit canons from taking wives; and if Priests and Deacons, to separate them from their wives immediately, or to deprive them of their orders.
The monks were a most formidable force, a standing army, in fact, with encampments in all lands, and ready for any emergency, and they allied themselves with the Pope in his war against the married clergy. The conflict, therefore, of the married clergy with the Pope was an unequal contest. Milman says:
The monastic school were united, determined, under strong convictions, with undoubting confidence in broad intelligible principles; the married clergy in general were doubtful, vacillating, full of misgivings as to the righteousness of their own cause; content with the furtive and permissive license, rather than disposed to claim it boldly as an inalienable right. The former had all the prejudices of centuries in their favor, the greatest names of the Church, long usage, positive laws, decrees of Popes, axioms of the venerable fathers, some seeming positive texts of Scripture: the latter only a vague appeal to an earlier antiquity of which they knew but little; the true sense of many passages of Scripture which had been explained away; and a dangerous connection with many suspicious or heretical names; and the partial sanction of the unauthoritative Greek Church.Latin Chris., Bk. vii. ch. i.
When, therefore, Hildebrand and determined to make, celibacy universal with the clergy, he well knew the forces that would oppose him, and the forces that would come to his support.
The married clergy were numerous, and those living openly with concubines were still more numerous. All these, although against him, he expected, by his daring intrigues, to manage, or to turn out of his way. By his legates and emissaries, he could raise up among the people factions hostile to them, and destroy their influence. If they refused to separate from their wives and concubines he could drive them out of the priesthood, and fill their places with monks and mendicant friars that were always at hand. The clergy also who were celibates, and still opposed to the coercion of the others into it, were easily led tacitly to sanction the extreme measures of Hildebrand.
With the most consummate adroitness of the far-seeing diplomatist, Hildebrand coupled his two mortal enemies together, and declared against both of them an implacable war, namely: Simony and the Marriage of the Clergy. In his war against simony, which was almost universal in the Church, Hildebrand knew that he was sustained by the voice of Scripture, the voice of the Church, and the voice of reason. And although simony did not thwart his pathway to his ultimate end, the autocracy of the Latin Church, so much as the marriage of the clergy, still in his outcry against it he struck a popular note: and by combining the two he increased his power against both. In the inexorable decree of the Synod which Hildebrand held in Rome, March 9 and 10, A.D. 1074, he went beyond the sternest of his predecessors. By this decree all sacraments administered by simoniacal, or by married Priests, were absolutely invalidated. In their unhallowed hands, baptism was no longer a regenerating rite; nor were the bread and the wine transubstantiated into the Body and Blood of the LORD. The communicants were made to share in the guilt of the Priests. At this new and awful doctrine, that the efficacy of the sacraments depended on the sinlessness of the officiating Priest, even the Priests themselves were startled.
For its practical effect was to abandon the priesthood to the espionage and the judgment of the multitude, which might fix on any one the brand of the hidden sin of simony, or the charge of concubinage.
From the pontificate of Gregory the Great, beginning A.D. 590, to the pontificate of Hildebrand, or Gregory VII., A.D. 1086, a period of nearly five centuries, the Roman Catholic Church kept steadily in view its three grand distinctive ends and aims:
First, the celibacy of the clergy;
Second, the absolute segregation of the priesthood from the rest of mankind, so that the clergy and the laity should constitute two castes, separate and standing apart as by the irreparable law of God.
Third, the implicit obedience and subserviency of the clergy throughout to the Papal throne.
These three things were related to each other, and were mutually dependent upon one another. The celibacy of the clergy necessarily involved the foreswearing and sundering of all family ties, and the institution of a clerical caste; and this was, in fact, the practical separation of the priestly orders from the societies of the Church, above which they claimed to be elevated, as the spiritual is above the natural, or as the things of heaven are above the things of earth. And, as time advanced, the organization of the priesthood itself became more and more integral and intense: the various ranks were defined and organized, and the inferior orders of the clergy were made subservient and obedient to the superior orders, and these again to the supreme pontiff.
But during the many ages in which the Church was slowly developing this grand hierarchal despotism, the two extremes of the system remained unsettled and chaotic.
For while the Archbishops and the Bishops in their several provinces and dioceses were ruling with some degree of order, the pontificate was often in the wildest disorder and confusion; there were Popes and Antipopes, and bloody conflicts in the battle-field, for the papal chair.
In the other extreme the monks, although not in the priestly office, were celibates, and were so allied with the ecclesiastic system that, as an army of recruits ready for service, they were easily transferred to the priesthood; and detailed into whatever service was required. Still, they did not at first obey the Pope done, but they were allied with the several Archbishops and Bishops of Egypt, Italy, Gaul, Germany, Spain, and Britain, some with one, and some with another.
Hildebrand harmonized the whole system externally; the monks and monasteries were made obedient to the sovereign control of the Pope; the celibacy of the clergy was made the law of the Church, although never universally practiced; the clergy were thus separated from the laity, and formed into a priestly caste; the several Archbishops and Bishops were forced into an acknowledged dependence upon the See of Rome; and the Pope became the acknowledged Autocrat of the whole Catholic world.
The repressive measures of Gregory in many cases served only to change the form and the mode of manifestation of the evils that he endeavored to remedy. That he might drive them out of the Church, he had yoked together simony and the marriage of the clergy, as though he considered them of equal atrocity. For centuries simony had been almost universal, not only with secular princes who still dispensed the investitures and benefices of the Church, but also with Archbishops and Bishops, and most notoriously with the Chief Pontiff himself.
This nefarious traffic, which for ages had been carried on in the open face of day, when driven back from open view by Gregory, fell into other hands, and became clandestine, none but the more powerful in the Church and State daring to continue in it.
The clergy in many places continued the contest with the papal throne, the question of clerical celibacy. The married clergy of France, and Lombardy, and Germany, and Britain, as well as others, openly defied the Pope, and continued with their wives. But these were only a minority of the whole body. The majority yielded, and, whatever may have been their conduct in secret, openly they adopted the life of celibacy.
But Hildebrands reformation of the clergy was only apparent, it was not real; for history shows that the infractions of the vows of celibacy and continence were so common as to be almost universal, and that the atrocious evils growing out of the enforced celibacy of the clergy were the blight and the curse of the Church as notoriously as ever. Milman says:
One subject we would willingly decline, but the historian must not shrink from the truth, however repulsive. Celibacy, which was the vital energy of the clergy,* was at the same time their fatal, irremediable weakness. One-half, at least a large portion of humankind, could not cease to be humankind. The universal voice, which arraigns the state of morals, as regards sexual intercourse, among the clergy, is not that of their enemies only, it is their own. Century after century we have heard the eternal protest of the severer Churchmen, of Popes, of Legates, of Councils. The marriage of the clergy, or, as it was termed, their concubinage, was the least evil. The example set in high places could not be without frightful influence. To deny the dissoluteness of the Papal Court at Avignon would be to discard all historical evidence: and the Avignonese Legates bore with them the morals of Avignon.
* We should any, which was designed to be the vital energy of the clergy, for celibacy never was so, and never could become so.--EDITOR Words for the New Church.
The last strong effort to break the bonds of Celibacy at the Council of Basle warned, but warned in vain. [In that Council it was declared that after centuries of strife, after all the laws of Hildebrand and his successors, the whole clergy were living with concubines, in adultery, or worse. They were hated by the whole laity as violating their marriage-beds; confession had become odious.Coun. Basle, A.D. 1433.] This was the solemn attestation to the state of Germany and the northern kingdoms. The Elector of Bavaria declared in a public document before the Council of Trent, that of fifty clergy known to him, all but a very few had concubines.
Henry, Bishop of Liege, was a monster of depravity. The frightful revelation of his life is from an admonitory letter of the wise and good Pope, Gregory X., about A.D. 1270. His lust was promiscuous. He kept as his concubine & Benedictine Abbess. He had boasted in a public banquet that in twenty-two months he had had fourteen children born. This was not the most, there was foul incest, and with the nuns. But the most extraordinary part of the whole is that in the letter, the Pope seems to contemplate only the repentance of the Prelate, which he urges with the most fervent solemnity.... As to suspension, degradation, or deposition, there is not a word. The Popes lenity may have been meant to lure him to the Council of Lyons, A.D. 1274, where he was persuaded to abdicate his See.
The visitations of Eudes Rigaud, Archbishop of Rouen, as detailed in his Register, from A.D. 1248 to 1269, give an undeniable and authentic disclosure of clerical morals, still more repulsive, because it embraces the clergy and some of the convents of a whole province. We must suppose that only the clergy of notorious and detected incontinence were presented at the visitation. The number is sufficiently appalling: probably it comprehends, without much distinction; the married and concubinarian, as men of the looser clergy. There is presented one convent of women, which might almost have put Boccaccio to the blush. I am bound to confess, that the Records of the visitations from St. Pauls too fully vindicate the truth of Langland, Chaucer, and the satirists against the English clergy and friars in the fourteenth century.
These visitations, which take note only of those publicly accused, hardly reached the lowest and the loosest. None of the wandering friars, and only some of the monks, were amenable to the jurisdiction of Bishops and Archbishops. The monks and friars were therefore charged neither with marriage nor concubinage. Still they were none the less involved in the guilt of incontinence.
Spread abroad through the world as they were, they had even greater temptations than the clergy, and more fatal opportunities. They had no doubt their saints and recluses of admirable piety, yet of the profound corruption of this class there can be no doubt. But Roman Christianity would not, could not, surrender this palladium of her power.Latin Chris., Bk. xiv. ch. i.
We have mentioned the Court of Avignon, and in it we have a most telling confirmation of the inevitable tendencies and results of the enforced celibacy of the clergy. The historians tell us that in this court it seemed as though all bonds were burst asunder, and that the sexual passion ran wild riot, bidding defiance to all law, human and Divine.
In the pontificate of Clement VI., A.D. 1342, the Court of Avignon became the most voluptuous in Christendom. It was crowded with Knights and Ladies, painters, and other artists. It exhibited a day-dream of equipages and banquets. The Pontiff himself delighted in female society; but, in his weakness, he permitted his Lady, the Countess of Turenne, to extort enormous revenues by the sale of ecclesiastical promotions. Petrarch, who lived at Avignon at this time, speaks of it as a vast brothel. His own sister had been seduced by the holy father, John XXII.--Dr. Draper, p. 395.
In the ages following, history shows no abatement of the evils which Hildebrand so resolutely determined to drive out, of the Church. Simony, concubinage, fornication, and adultery, continued in all their atrocity. The Church itself, in its superior functionaries, the Bishops, Archbishops, and the Pope himself, became one grand simoniacal broker; and this especially after the sale of indulgences was introduced and legitimized. And the attempt to make the celibacy of the clergy universal, as we have seen, led into incontinence, unchastity, and sexual excesses and outrages so formidable that the civil authorities were obliged to defend the homes and families of the people against the unbridled lusts of the Priests.
The Catholic authorities, it is true, endeavored in many ways to reform the Church and abate these abuses, but while the Celibacy of the Clergy continued, the abuses springing out of it could not be cured; the cause remaining, the effects necessarily followed.
During these ages of war with nature, war with the truth, war with one of the fundamental principles of the Church, namely, with marriage, the wonder is that anything of the Church could remain. For in this war the assault was made upon the citadel, and the citadel was carried. Marriage was assaulted and destroyed in the very heart of the Church. The priesthood, through whom, according to the order of heaven, the Church was to be established and built up, and the people led into a true and heavenly life, were doomed to celibacy, to estrangement from marriage, and consequently to alienation from the most holy and blissful bonds and relations of human life. When they came into marital relations at all, it was by stealth and clandestinely, or by declaring open mar upon the Church and assuming the marriage relation. What were such clergymen to a family? How could they be the means in the LORDS hand of forming the Church and leading the people in the way of eternal life? The Priest in the house was often a cause of apprehension and dread. The husband feared for the spiritual safety of his wife and daughters. The shepherd of the flock was often a wolf in sheeps clothing.
The priesthood as a class had fallen under the ban of an outraged laity, which, however wanting themselves in the purest morals, had learned to estimate the clergy according to their own claims of sanctity and purity. How then was the Church to become, in immaculate purity, the Bride, the Lambs Wife? Evidently this external body no longer was the Church.
This organized Roman Catholicism had become MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH: it was the Church vastated and going to the Judgment.
There was a remnant known to the LORD,--a remnant of good among the clergy, a remnant among the laity. These were saved from spiritual death, and were led into a conflict that separated them more and more from the visible Church, delivered them from its infestations, and conjoined them with the LORD.
Gladly would we draw the veil over the closing scenes of the sixteenth century, and blot out the memory of the Borgia from the annals of history. But the facts are there, nor can they be erased. The vastated Church never repudiated the infernal atrocities of Pope Alexander VI. Through the whole of his infamous career he continued to be enrolled as the holy father. His acts of simony were beyond all rivalry, and his concubinage, adultery, incest, robbery, pillage, and murder develop in the Papal Court the culmination of all imaginable villainy and wickedness.
In the six pontificates for the fifty years preceding Alexander VI. things were growing worse. Step by step was the descent in impurity and wickedness, until the utmost limits were reached in the pontificate of Alexander. The Ecclesiastical records of fifteen centuries through which we have taken our long journey contain no name so execrable; and the historians who have said the worst things shout him have been the most faithful to the truth; for all are disposed to turn away from this monster of evil with a sort of shamefacedness. The fallen state of the Church and the concurrent depravity of the Cardinals, Bishops, and Priests, may be inferred from this fact alone, that when Roderic Borgia was sixty years old, and his character well known, he was made Pope.
The course of history shows that before the reign of Alexander VI. the Popes were altogether neglectful of their flocks, but that after his reign they still more, without seeming thought of holy and Divine things, abandoned religious discussions, and cast themselves into political struggles and intrigues, strategy, finance, the formation of armies, the building of fortifications, and whatever else promised them protection against rival powers. Gold was their God; assassination and murder their methods whenever these were their shortest ways to present success. In the reign of Alexander, cruelties, perfidies, massacres, and debaucheries were no longer concealed and done in the dark, but they were perpetrated in the open light of day and were gloried in; so that in a most literal sense, the abomination that maketh desolate was standing in the holy place, and the sanctuary was utterly desolated.
Alexander was thoroughly educated, under the best master, and at an early age entered the profession of law. But he soon abandoned himself to the defense of immoral and scandalous cases. Then as the profession of law obliged him to put a certain restraint upon his own morals, he abandoned the law, and to indulge his thirst for licentiousness, he entered a troop of freebooters and became a leader of the band.
A beautiful Spanish lady, a widow with two daughters, he seduced, and of the youngest of the daughters, Roza Vanozza, he had five children, Francis, Csar, Lucretia, Gregory, and another who died in infancy. For about seven years Roderic scandalized all Spain with his debaucheries, when his uncle, Calixtus III., who had become Pope in 1458, offered him a post in the government, with an annual revenue of twelve thousand crowns, which at once brought him to Rome.
He sent Vanozza to Venice, and installed himself in a magnificent palace in Rome, and became a most devoted courtier to the Pope. He assumed the mask of a most rigid sanctimoniousness, and, notwithstanding his real character, was deemed, by the masses, a very holy man.
He was eloquent, charming, and so skillful that he captivated his enemies, and soon became master of the secret purposes of his uncle, the Pope. He was so humble and devout that soon he was made Archbishop of Valencia, Vice-Chancellor of the Church, and Cardinal Deacon of St. Nicholas, with a revenue of twenty-eight thousand crowns of gold. He thus became one of the richest men in Rome.
The papacy was now the passion of his heart. His external sanctity became more strictly pronounced. His language was serious. He assumed the solemn behavior of a veritable hermit. In public his hands were crossed on his breast, and his eyes were bent to the ground. He visited churches, hospitals, and the homes of the poor, and scattered alms everywhere; the unfortunate he said should, at his death, become his heirs. He was intent on business, and was always at his post. By turns he was grave, light, serious, and playful, and was always the charm of the meeting at the Vatican.
While he was thus playing adroitly with the credulity of Cardinals, Ambassadors, and Italian Lords who frequented the papal court, his mistress in Venice was on his heart, and in his letter to her he explained the farce he was playing in Rome. He said to her: Imitate my example. Remain chaste until it shall be in my power to reseek thee, and mingle our love in infinite pleasures. . . .
A little more patience, and my uncle will bequeath me the chair of St. Peter.... Take great care to educate our children, for they are destined to govern people and kings.
But Calixtus III. died and Plus II. was made Pope. After Plus II., Paul II., and after Paul II., Sixtus IV., succeeded each other in their order. In the mean time Roderic still further increased his wealth by seizing upon his uncles estate and making it his own. But finally he could endure the restraints of religious life in Rome no longer. He therefore bought the Abbey of Subiaco, and the legation of Arragon and Castile; and returned to his former course of life, as a captain of a band of freebooters. In his depredations on the settlements in Spain, he committed so many murders and debaucheries, that Henry the king of Castile drove him out of the country.
Roderic could no longer conceal his passion for Roza Vanozza; and returning to Rome, he brought her there, with her children, where he gave them a palace, and Vanozza took the title of the Countess Ferdinand of Castile. This of course was a mask. Roderic spent whole nights in shameful orgies with Vanozza, and with his daughter Lucretia.
The papal court had become an unrestrained saturnalia of lewdness and crime, and Rome with its fifty thousand prostitutes seemed like an immense brothel. The streets and lanes were infested with assassins and robbers and the roads with banditti.
Upon the death of Pope Innocent VIII., A.D. 1484, the Cardinals could not assemble to elect his successor until first soldiers were placed in their sumptuous palaces, and cannon planted is the avenues leading to them, to save them from pillage. And as soon as the Conclave was assembled, the approaches to the Vatican were closed with enormous beams, and guarded by battalions of cavalry and infantry.
Such was the order which the Church allied with the State had superinduced on Rome after a career of more than a thousand years.
The Conclave thus guarded that it might deliberate in peace and security, proceeded with its solemn work, and after mature deliberation chose Roderic Borgia, and made him Pope Alexander VI.
We cannot follow Alexander VI. in his infamous pontificate of eleven years. His conduct was too obscene, brutal, and atrocious for recital in our pages. We pass over these dark and dismal years of his life, and make brief mention of the tragic events that cut short his career of wickedness and ended his days.
The treasury of Alexander often became exhausted, and to replenish it, he resorted to the most extraordinary means. At one time he preached a crusade against the Turks, and called for money to carry on the war. Large sums of money were given for this purpose. The money enabled the Pope to continue his profligate life, but the crusade was carried no further.
At another time Alexander and his son Csar, to replenish the treasury, published a law making the Pope the heir of the members of the College of Cardinals. They then sold the Cardinalships to the richest Roman citizens, and then, to inherit their estates, poisoned them. Cardinals were made and unmade at pleasure. To sustain the papacy money must be had, they said, and money was gathered by taxation, by fraud, by assassination, by robbery, and by all other possible modes.
Finally, Alexander ended his course in accomplishing an atrocious plot to poison the rich ecclesiastics of the court and seize upon their wealth. Having ordered a great feast at the palace of Cardinal Cornetto, near the Vatican, Alexander sent his servant to arrange the feast, and with him sent two bottles of wine, with orders to set them away until he should call for them.
The wine contained the poison which was to do the work.
Alexander and his son arrived in the evening. They were warm and thirsty and called for wine. By mistake the poisoned wine was given them. Terrible convulsions immediately seized them both. The son recovered. But before the dawn of another day Alexander VI. was dead. This took place August 18, A.D. 1503, when Alexander was seventy-two years old, and had reigned eleven years.
Alexander VI. more than ally other Pope proved to the world what a Pope could do with men and money. He differed from the other Popes more in the quantity of his wickedness than in the quality of it. Many of the ropes equaled him in the kind of his atrocities, but not in the amount of things actually done. Steinmetz says of him:
His whole pontificate was spent in vice, spoliation, and murder. Still the Catholic Christians of those times endured him, and he died in prosperity, his coffers being filled with more than a million golden ducats. Roderic Borgia, the head of the Church, and remaining so during life, tells, as no words can tell, the utter vastation and ruin of the Church.
Rsum.
ONCE more we must part with our readers before finishing our Monograph on the Conflict in the Christian Church. In our general view of the Dark Ages, we have paused near the pontificate of Nicholas V. in the middle of the fifteenth century, our space not allowing us to recount some of the momentous conflicts preceding the revival of Letters and contemporaneous with it, as for example: The Crusades; the Great Schism, or the War of the Popes; the Reformations attempted by Wiclif, John Huss, Jerome of Prague, Savonarola, and others, and their calamitous results:
Purgatory; Indulgences; the Inquisition; and the Jesuits; The discovery of the art of printing, and the publication of the Bible by the press; The loss of the Eastern Church by the Mohammedan conquest of Arabia, Syria, and Egypt, and the fall of Constantinople and the Eastern Empire.
These subjects await our consideration in a future Paper; as well also as the grand conflicts in the Reformation under Luther, Melancthon, and Calvin.
Monastic Life, and the Celibacy of the Clergy, set forth in the present number of our SERIAL, are things that have pervaded the Church in all time, and they continue their influence in it. The Protestants repudiate clerical celibacy, but the essential spirit of Monachism continues to reign wherever Pietism in the Church is made the chief thing of religion, and the life of practical Charity is made a matter of minor importance. And who cannot see how lamentably prevalent, indeed almost universal this is, not only among Catholics, but also among Protestants? This subject will be considered when we come to unfold the state of Christendom since the great Reformation.
NOTES AND REVIEWS.
Swedenborg and the New Age.
SWEDENBORG AND THE NEW AGE; or, The Holy City New Jerusalem. What it is, and when and how it comes down from God out of Heaven; and Swedenborg and His Mission in relation to it. With an Introduction on God and Man. By EDMUND A. BEAMAN. Philadelphia, J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1881, pp. 225.
THE work before us, which is published in the usual fine style of J. B. Lippincott & Co., is in many respects a peculiar book. It is the first elaborate effort to disprove the position occupied by the work on Authority in the New Church, by Dr. R. L. Tafel. The position there maintained is in general that the doctrines of the New Church contained in the theological writings of Swedenborg come to us with the authority of the LORD, and not with the authority of Swedenborg, and that the LORD has made in these writings His Second Coming. (Authority in the New Church, p. 19.) But the work before us maintains that The Writings are, in the fullest sense of the word, purely and exclusively Swedenborgs Writings. (Swedenborg and the New Age, p. 32.) And, again: So far as the LORD was concerned, Swedenborg received nothing more from Him in preparation for his mission than the wickedest devil of the wickedest bells receive. (Ibid., p. 12.)
This position the author maintains throughout his treatise, and with an industry and zeal worthy of a better cause. As his zeal is frequently more burning than convincing, and betrays him into many statements which appear equivalent to a total rejection of the Heavenly Doctrines as a Divine Revelation, it is easily intelligible why even those periodicals of the Church who essentially hold with him are unwilling to accept his platform, and leave to the New Church Independent alone the honor of giving him a hearty indorsement. There are several passages besides those given above which may have deterred the New Jerusalem Magazine and the New Jerusalem Messenger from giving this work a more hearty welcome. Some of these objectionable passages are the following:
Swedenborg is not a medium of truth to us; he is not between the LORD and us, neither are his writings. We do not look to him or go to his writings for truth, as we go to a well for water; they contain none. (Swedenborg and the New Age, p. 48.) Swedenborgs writings are not genuine truths,--teachings are not genuine truths,--they cannot be, any more than bottles are wine.... They are not designed to give men truth, but to lead them in the may of truth.... His writings are not even recipient vessels of truth, as mind is. We can receive no truth from them or through them, as we can from the Word, They are in no sense the Word or like the Word. (Ibid., p. 47.) The Writings are not even the husk, for they are not an outgrowth from the corn. (Ibid., p. 36.)
These statements are indeed interlarded with other statements which are intended to moderate and neutralize these declarations, so as to leave, instead of a purely negative quantity, that vacuity and emptiness which results from subtracting equals from each other; but yet the negations predominate, and the affirmations, in the sense in which they are adduced, are equally false with the negations. We quote:
Swedenborgs writings are a needful substitute for truth to the spiritually blind. They are truth speaking, as it were, when it cannot shine by reason of our blindness. Rather they are an explanation of the truth, or a verbal presentation of principles of truth, which, if not spiritually blind, we might see, and see in their fulness and glory. (Ibid., p. 48.) They (the Writings) are only verbal expressions of truth or suggestive mediums or formularies of truth.... Yet we regard Swedenborgs statements as true statements or doctrines of truth, and of priceless value as such. (Ibid., p. 47.) They are nothing but a treatise; yet they are as such of priceless value until you have come into a state to see the truth itself, and then their value is of a very different character. You then see truth as Swedenborg did, as all regenerated men do; you see it illuminating the very letter itself of the Word as you devoutly and lovingly read it. What do you care, when you have arrived at this state, for any explanation, any verbal statement of truth or about truth? I once heard about a man, a good old man: who had read the Heavenly Doctrines with great delight and profit for about fifty years. His interest in them then gradually subsided, until they at length lost their attraction for him. He laid them aside and read the Bible only. (Ibid., p. 36.)
These are the positive statements which take back a part of the sweeping negations, and, though they fall far short of an acknowledgment of the Writings as a Divine Revelation, they show that the book would claim to stand on the platform of the New Church, at least of the New Church as understood by some New Church people.
The last quotation would seem to show the ideal New Churchman of the author: a man who read the Writings diligently for a time, but, having become regenerated, he has no more use for them. That there are many holding the authors views, who do not read the Writings, we have known for some time, but that it is because they have mastered them and become regenerated is a new piece of information; and it may be considered an open question whether the solution proposed is as true as it is new.
That the truths of the Writings only speak but do not shine is perhaps new distinction; but it does not follow that it is true. We read in Swedenborgs Sketch of an Ecclesiastical History (Photo-lithographic MSS., volume viii.):
When the Summaria Expositio was published, the Angelic heaven from the east to the west, and from the south to the north, appeared purple with the most beautiful flowers; this was before me and the Danish kings and others. At another time it appeared as it were flamy, beautifully. (No. 7.)
But that the Writings themselves shine we find stated in the following:
That the writing (of the works written by the LORD through Swedenborg) is such that it gives light before those who believe in the LORD and the New Revelation, but that it is obscure and of no moment to those who deny these things, and are not in favor of them for various external reasons. (Ibid., No. 4.)
From the above it may be seen that not all are so spiritually blind as not to see the Heavenly Doctrines shine with a heavenly light.
The book lays a great stress on the fact that the Writings are merely verbal statements of the truth, but it does not show that the Word in the letter is not in the same may composed of verbal expressions of truth; and, as we see from the above, the Writings do shine before those who believe in the LORD and in the New Revelation, just as the Word in its internal sense shines in the sacred repositories of Heaven. That it does not shine before those who do not believe in the LORD and the New Revelation is not the fault of the Writings, but of the unfavorable state of the readers.
We find in the book many other examples of broad statements followed by retractions, which might seem at first glance to be equally broad, but yet are not. This is the ease with the presentation of the central Doctrine, the Doctrine of the LORD as given in the work. The impression which the book is likely to leave on the mind of the reader is, that the Divine Itself has no shape or form, but that It only assumes the human form when It manifests Itself to angels or men; and still the author leaves this subject, as he does many others, in such a cloudy shape that he can prove from the book either the acknowledgment or the denial of the Divine Human of the LORD.
We quote: God in His absolute, unfinited, unrevealed, or unmanifested nature is not person in any such gross sense of the word. God consists of infinite possibilities; the universe consists of these possibilities developed and developing into actualities. (p. 25.) It is contrary to true manhood reason to suppose that Infinity and Omnipresence are in such externally visible and measurable shape. Out of Christ, or Deity as clothed and manifested in finite (!) humanity it is impossible to think of God but vaguely and absolutely. Out of Christ we can think of God only as Love, Wisdom, Power, and Providence. (p. 26.) Outward personal form cannot be predicated of the Divine Being, out of Christ, His finite (!) personal manifestation of Himself any more than it can of Life, or Truth, or Love, or Light; and these we have seen are just what God is in His real nature. (p. 27.) Is there a personal God? We answer, yes. But this seeming acknowledgment is at once nullified by the words immediately subjoined: But then, what is meant by person? Does it necessarily imply limited outline, figure, shape? We answer, no. God does not exist as person in any such finite, external sense, though He so manifests Himself, as we have seen above. (p. 25.) The common views of God as a personal God belong to a darker age than that in which we are now living,--belong to a low, sensuous, Israelitish (!) state of mind. When we have by regeneration risen above that merely natural, external view of God, we shall find Him risen,--risen in our true conception of Him,--we shall wonder how we could ever have been content with a were finite (!) personal manifestation of Him, a being so much like ourselves, a being outside of us and listening and influenced by our selfish (!) prayers and pleased by our fulsome praises! We shall have no less a personal God than before; we shall not think of Him any the less in His personal manifestation; but we shall think more of Him as that of which such manifestation is comparatively only as the shadow. (p. 27)
The common view here spoken of cannot be the Israelitish view mentioned above, for the Israelites believe in no personal God, nor can it be the view of the sects of the Old Church, for though these may differ on other points they all agree with one another, and as it seems, also with the author, that God is without body parts or passion! The only Church body to whom the authors stricture therefore can apply is the New Church; but if this is meant the author has grossly misrepresented this faith, for we have never get found New Churchmen worshiping or even speaking of the LORD as in a finite humanity, or of a were finite personal manifestation of Him, or a limited outline, figure, or shape; but the New Church teaches that the Human of the LORD is Divine and therefore Infinite.
It also teaches that the Divine and the Divine Human are inseparably united, and that the Divine Human is not a mere manifestation that may be put off or on as opportunity may demand, but is altogether united and one with the Divine.
The book indeed, in declaiming against the acknowledgment of God in a human form, always limits the expression by adding finite, limited, or measurable, but as such ideas and expressions in relation to the Human of the LORD are entirely foreign to the New Church, we cannot understand the expressions as meaning anything else but determinate, and understand the book as teaching that God has no determinate form or figure. This is the only sense in which the author can use the term finite, when speaking of the Divine Human or Christ, for if the author knows anything of the doctrine of the Divine Human, he must know that the Divine Human is uncreate and infinite. In declaring however that God has no determinate form or figure the book plainly takes issue with the Writings and the New Church, and the author places himself side by side with the Israelites, the Unitarians, and the infidels, and also with the great mass of the Old Church, who all reject with Mr. Beaman all faith in a God of determinate form or figure.
That God is actually a Divine Man, and that the Human is not a mere manifestation temporarily assumed, but is united with the Divine Itself and inseparable from it, may appear from the following passages:
That there are Infinite [things] in God, every one can affirm with himself, who believes that God is Man; and because He is Man, He has a body, and all that belongs to the body; thus He has a face, breast, abdomen, loins, and feet, for without these He would not be man; and because He has these, He has also eyes, ears, nostrils, a mouth and tongue; so also those things which are inside in man, as the heart and the lungs, and what depends on them, which all taken together make man a man. In created man these are many, and viewed in their contexture they are innumerable, but in God-Man they are Infinite, there is nothing lacking; thence He has Infinite perfection.Divine Love and Wisdom, 18.
And again:
God is Man Himself. In all the heavens there is no other idea of God than the idea of Man.... Because God is Man therefore all angels and all spirits are men in perfect human form. (Ibid., 11.)
From this we see that the very idea of a Divine Being outside of Christ is opposed to all angelic and heavenly thought. This idea that God only assumes the Divine Human as He manifests Himself to angels and men is not new with Mr. Beaman, it is the old heresy of Tulk over again. We read in his Spiritual Christianity:
The LORDS Divine Essence is called the Divine Essence in the heavens, and the Divine Human Essence:
the former in relation to the angels of His heavenly kingdom, and the latter in relation to man.
As He cannot appear to any created being such as He is in Himself, or absolutely, and as He cannot change so as to be accommodated to the imperfect condition of a finite being, without Himself becoming imperfect, which the Divinely Perfect Being cannot be, therefore, when He is mentally seen, it is in the ground of their finite state and modified by their state; and as the state of mind is different in each, He appears different to each, and to each according to the state of his recipiency. (Spiritual Christianity, No. 272.)
In reference to man especially, the manifestation of God in the ground of human recipiency is called the LORDS Divine Humanity or His Divine Human Essence. (Ibid., No. 274.)
When Swedenborg adds, that they (the angels) perceive the Divine Essence in a human form, it may be necessary to explain, that he means by a human figure, and by a human form the limitation which He puts to His infinite perfection by inflowing into angelic minds, and into the inner representative plane of sensuous life. (Ibid., No. 201.)
So we see that Tulk as well as his follower Mr. Beaman deny the Divine Human as being united with the Divine and one with It, and thus uncreate and infinite, and ascribe the Divine Human to the limited conceptions in the minds of angels and men. Therefore both of them are equally opposed to acknowledging any appearance of the LORD in His Divine Human before the spiritual eyes of angels and men, and both conceive of the Divine as being without form or figure except as the Divine takes these on Itself from the sphere of thought of angels or men. The views of Tulk, though they have been rejected as a whole by the Church, seem yet to have a charm for some minds in the Church, and especially for all who would rather follow self intelligence than Divine Revelation. Though acknowledging that the perception of man while on earth is inferior to that of the angels, they would yet rise into views and intuitions outside of, and, as they think, superior to those of the angels. How the angels conceive of the Divine we see in the following:
The Divine Human is the all of heaven, because no one there, not even an angel of the inmost or third heaven, can have any idea concerning the Divine Itself, according to the words in John, No one has seen God at any time, i. 18. Ye have neither heard the voice of the Father at any time, nor seen His shape, v. 31. For the angels are finite, and what is finite cannot have an idea of the Infinite; wherefore in heaven, unless they had an idea of the human figure respecting God, they would have no idea, or an unbecoming one; and thus they could not be conjoined with the Divine either by faith or love; this being so, in heaven they perceive the Divine in a human form.
Hence it is that the Divine Human in the Heavens is the all in all in their intuitions, and hence the all in faith and love, whence comes conjunction, and by conjunction, salvation.A. C. 7211.
The author in endeavoring to explain away all finiteness in the Divine, seems to have fallen into the opposite extreme of denying to the God-Man all form and figure, whence his ideas have become no idea or an unbecoming one, even such a one as Jews and Unitarians hold of an invisible, formless, and shapeless deity, the only addition to this idea, being, that it occasionally manifests itself in the human form.
The author has a very summary view of disposing of the many passages which do not agree with his theories, by simply declaring that they cannot mean what they seem to mean, because they would not else agree with Swedenborgs general principles. These general principles on closer examination do not however turn out to be the principles of the Writings, but only the authors views of them, which as we see are frequently erroneous. An example of this convenient if not convincing mode of reasoning we have in his view of the passage we have quoted in full above:
It is true that Swedenborg says that God being Man has a body and everything belonging to it. Divine Love and Wisdom, 18. But does he mean by this that God has such a body, with all its organs and members in actual, outwardly developed shape and form? Does he mean that God has eyes with which to look out upon external things as we do, and ears to hear audible sounds as we hear? Of course not. He only means that God has all these, everything in fact, that belongs to the whole universe in potency or in first principles, or in the possibilities from which all things are; like as the seed or the egg contains all the possibilities of the future plant or bird. God consists of infinite possibilities developed and developing into actualities. What Swedenborg means by the above is evident from that he says in the Arcana Coelestia, 3569, namely, That JEHOVAH has neither ears nor eyes as man has, is known, but ear and eye signify an attribute predicable of the Divine, namely, infinite will and infinite intelligence. (Swedenborg and the New Age, pp. 25 and 26.)
There are several things which will impress the reader in this extract:
1st. The statement of Swedenborg that God has a body and everything belonging to it, is coolly contradicted by another teaching: that JEHOVAH has neither eyes nor ears as man has; and yet there is nothing contradictory at all in these passages, the fact that JEHOVAH has not eyes or ears as man has, simply means that they are not material, limited and finite, but it in no way proves, as the author seems to think, that God has not a body and everything belonging to it.
If it did, what would either Swedenborg or the author do with the glorified resurrection body of our LORD?
2d. The author seems not to know that the LORD is not only the Alpha but also the Omega ever since the incarnation. Concerning this we read:
It was told me from Heaven, that in the LORD from eternity who is JEHOVAH, there were before the assumption of the Human in the world the two prior degrees actually and the third (or natural) degree in potency such as they are also with the angels, but after the assumption of the Human in the world lie superinduced also the third degree which is called Natural.Divine Love and Wisdom, 233. From this and many other passages it is evident that the Natural Degree is not merely in potency but in actuality in the LORD, and that the author in herein following Tulk has made a grievous mistake. That this Natural Human like as the higher two degrees is Infinite and Uncreate is a necessary consequence from its being a DIVINE HUMAN. (See Divine Love and Wisdom, 233.)
3d. A somewhat queer and certainly novel definition of the LORD and creation is given in the words: God has everything that belongs to the whole universe in potency, or in first principles, or in the possibilities from which all things are; like as the seed or egg contains all the possibilities of the future plant or bird. God consists of infinite possibilities developed and developing into actualities. If we make God like a great egg and the universe its development, it is evident that the universe in many respects has the advantage over the Creator, being an actuality while He is merely composed of Infinite possibilities!
This quotation gives some insight into the authors dealings with passages that do not agree with his theories.
And yet it would seem from some passages in the book that the author really believes God to be a Divine Man, as where we read: It is the Divine that makes man man; for the Divine is Itself man in his highest essence and cause, but then we must recollect that man in his highest essence and cause does not necessarily, according to the authors conception, include human figure and form; for the author considers the Divine Human to be merely a finite personal manifestation and the personal God of the author is without limited outline, figure or shape, since outward personal form cannot be predicated of the Divine Being, and that God in His real nature is Life, or Truth, or Love, or Light. These the author evidently regards as formless and shapeless, if not also without substance. The Writings however view them otherwise, for we read: That the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom are substance itself and form itself (D. L. W. 40), and these indeed are man. (See D. L. W. 287, 432.)
Light and Life proceed from the Divine, but even the Divine Proceeding is not without form and figure, but has the human form not only in the whole and the greatest, but also in every part and in the least. (H. H. 460, S. S. 100.) So even granting the assumption that the LORD is Life, or Truth, or Love, or Light, this would still mean nothing else but that He is in the Human form and is Man.
The erroneous idea concerning the LORD as being essentially without shape or form, and assuming form only when He desires to manifest Himself, may be said to be the leading and fundamental falsity of the work; a necessary consequence of this is the idea, that God in His own form cannot appear to any one. The solemn declarations of Swedenborg: I can sacredly and solemnly declare that the LORD Himself has been seen of me. Again: The LORD our Saviour, has manifested Himself to me in a sensible personal appearance. The Second Coming of the LORD is effected by a man before whom He manifested Himself in person, are simply set aside by an ipse dixit of the author, we quote:
Again we ask, what does Swedenborg mean when he says that the LORD manifested Himself before him in a sensible personal appearance? Does he mean that the LORD was finited out (!) into external shape and actually stood before him somewhat as He stood before the disciples? No one can think this who has any true thought of the LORD as He is represented by Swedenborg. It was not such a finited presentation of the LORD. Swedenborg does not say this. Rather, it was a MANIFESTATION or sensible personal APPEARANCE. And was this appearance really and purely the LORD? Was it only what was Divine? or was it not, on the contrary, the LORD as the Word, as living Divine Truth, clothed and finited into external visible appearance by what was in Swedenborgs own mind, in like manner as is the case with the angels to whom things appear objectively or outside themselves, when in reality there are no such things outside, but they so appear from what is in the angels themselves. (Swedenborg and the New Age, p. 23.)
The reader will see that through the ratiocination of the author, which is not however original, but again taken directly or indirectly from Tulk, Swedenborgs solemn declarations melt away like a dark mist before the bright sunshine. At the same time this shore extract shows a total misapprehension of the laws of the other world, which indeed runs through the whole treatise. There are various false doctrines half stated and half suggested in these few lines: 1st, we see in it the sensual idea of the Infinite which conceives of it as unlimited space, for everything of form is carefully excluded, and every manifestation or appearance is styled by the author a finited representation, and it is said that it was clothed and finited into external visible appearance by what was in Swedenborgs own mind.
And yet we are taught in the Writings that the Divine is substance itself and form itself, and that the Human in the LORD is uncreate and Infinite, and the Human was thus glorified in order that men might be saved by looking upon it. (Sec: D. L. W. 40, 2331 A. C. 4075.) So that the Divine, though Infinite, is yet in the Divine Human form, and in this He can be seen without any putting on of what is with men or angels. 2d. That the LORD cannot be seen in His Divine Human, since His ascension is impliedly denied in the words: Does he mean that the LORD was finited out into external shape and actually stood before him somewhat as He stood before the disciples? We would ask why could the LORD not actually stand before Swedenborg as He did before His Disciples after the resurrection without any finiting into external shape, but simply in His Divine Human? That this takes place in the other world we are plainly taught in the Writings, we only quote a few passages: The LORD in person is constantly surrounded by the Sun (of Heaven.) The LORD appeared to me also outside of the Sun in an angelic form, a little below the Sun on high, and also near in a similar form, with the face shining; once also in the midst of the angels as a flaming splendor.Heaven and Hell, 121. The appearance through aspect is also there spoken of but as being different from that by means of an angel. And again: When the LORD manifests Himself to the angels in Person, He manifests Himself as Man, and this sometimes in the Sun and sometimes outside of the Sun.D. L. W., 97. Here no mention whatever is made of angels, or of what is in the minds of angels and of men. And again: By an angel in the Word is understood the LORD; here the more, since He was seen to stand in the Sun; for the LORD is the Sun of the spiritual world, wherefore the LORD alone is there.A. R., 831. And again: Suddenly the Sun appeared again, and in its midst the LORD surrounded by a solar circle; when He was seen, the spirits of Mercury humbled themselves profoundly and subsided. Then the LORD appeared also outside of the Sun to spirits from this earth, who when they were men on the earth had seen Him, and one after the other of them confessed, and thus many in their order, that it was the LORD Himself; and this they acknowledged before all the assembly.A. C., 7173. That the LORD when He appears in Heaven and below it appears by aspect, and so by means of an angel (A. R., 465), does not therefore take away the fact that He also appears personally in His Divine Human in the Sun of Heaven, as also below it and outside of it; and even the appearance in heaven or below heaven by aspect is not an external visible appearance of what is in the mind of angels, but is made by means of an angel who is filled by the Divine.
The third error in this extract is, that the author at one fell swoop takes away all the reality of Heaven and makes of it a matter of unreal phantasy, a mere subjective creation without any objective reality. Not that this is novel, for the author agrees in this with certain modern infidel philosophers, who deny all reality not only to the spiritual but also to the natural world; in this these philosophers go beyond our author and also in making God a creation of man without any objective existence outside of the mind of man. Yet this agreement more than anything else shows the whole drift and tendency of the present work: it denies the reality of the LORDS Divine Human, and the reality of Heaven, and this would be naturally followed in time by a total lapse into unbelief and infidelity. The error in the authors presentation of the appearances in Heaven is, that he makes them to be like the deceitful phantasies of hell, merely the results of the subjective states of spirits, while on the contrary the real appearances of Heaven are objective and real because they result from the creative power of the LORD, and though entirely in correspondence with the interiors of the angels, receive their actuality and continued existence from the LORD Himself; differing thus altogether from the delusive phantasies of satans and devils. These different appearances are thus distinguished in the Writings: The appearances which are thence in Heaven are called real appearances, because they really exist; there are also appearances not real which are those that appear indeed, but do not correspond with the interiors.Heaven and Hell, 175. As to the origin of these real appearances we read: In the Heavens all things exist from the LORD according to correspondences with the interiors of the angels.Heaven and Hell, 173. Therefore the conception of the author that appearances with the angels are things appearing objectively or outside themselves, when in reality there are no such things outside, could not well have been more erroneous and deceptive, and it shows that the author, besides having no real idea of the Divine Human, has also positively no idea concerning the reality of Heaven and the spiritual world.
Closely conjoined with these fundamental errors of the work is that false position, which meets us already on the first page of the work and never leaves us to the end, and which consist on a total misconception of the nature of influx. According to the presentation of this work the influx from the Divine proceeds on a scale of unvarying intensity and mechanical sameness, without any adaptation to the varying states and needs of Heaven and the Church. The author seems to forget that it is a living Sun and not a dead mechanical sun which shines on the Heavens and the Church, and that the conjunction of the LORD and His Kingdom is the conjunction of the Bride and the Bridegroom, of the Lamb and His Wife. Misled by a partial resemblance of the influx of the sun of this world,--and even this is not without its variations, as late inquiries show,--
the author, endeavoring to ascend through sensuals to spiritual truths, has ended in altogether perverting the doctrine of influx and of mans relation to God.
As to this we will only quote the following: The LORD is the Sun of the Angelic Heaven; from Him as the Sun proceeds all the Light and the Bent there. The Light that proceeds is in its essence Divine Truth, for it is Spiritual Light, and the Heat that proceeds is in its essence Divine Good, because it is Spiritual Heat. These flow out from the LORD as Sun into all the Heavens in a manner accommodated to the reception by the angels there; and therefore sometimes more gently, sometimes more intensely. When it flows in more gently, then the good are separated from the wicked, but when more intensely, then the wicked are rejected. Therefore when the Last Judgment is at hand, the LORD at first flows in gently, in order that the good may be separated from the wicked.A. E., 418. And again: The separation of the good from the wicked, and the rejection of the wicked in the spiritual world are effected by various degrees of relaxation and intensity of the Divine proceeding from the LORD as Sun; when this flows in more gently, then the good are separated from the wicked, but when with intensity then the wicked are rejected; the causes of this are that when the Divine flows in gently, there is tranquillity and serenity everywhere, in which all appear as to the state of their good, for then all are presented in light. When the influx of the Divine is rendered intense, which is done when the wicked are to be rejected, then there arises lower down in the spiritual world a wind blowing strongly, like a storm or tempest; this wind it is which is called in the Word an east wind.A. E., 419. And again: When the Divine is emitted strongly from the LORD as Sun, and flows into these dense and opaque clouds, there arises a tempest, which the spirits there perceive in like manner as men perceive tempests on the earth.A. E., 419. Winds in the spiritual world arise from a influx of the Divine through the Heavens into the regions below.A. E., 419.
A more serious and pernicious error, however, than this misconception of the immediate influx is the total neglect of all consideration of the mediate influx through Heaven and the angels; although this is mentioned a few times in the work, no account whatever is taken of it in applying the doctrine of influx, and yet we know that without the influx through spirits and angels man could not live. Concerning this we will only quote the following: Man could not live even a moment without communication with heaven and hell; if that communication were taken away, man would fall dead like a stock.A. C., 5848. See also A. C., 288'7, 5993, 6321. Any view of influx which omits this vital part and at the same time misconceives the immediate influx cannot fail to produce confusion and to induce fallacies and falsities of all kinds.
Of such a nature are some of the following statements:
So far as the LORD was concerned, Swedenborg received nothing more from Him in preparation for his mission than the wickedest devils of the wickedest hells receive. (Swedenborg and the New Age, p. l2.) So, also, in regard to the spirits or angels and prophets through whom the Sacred Scriptures were written,--or the Word was veiled or clothed in human language,--according to the above principles or laws of the LORDS relation to man iterated and reiterated throughout the Writings, they received nothing from the LORD different from what all men receive,--nothing different in either quality, or measure, or degree; they received nothing, absolutely nothing, but that Influx which is equally given by the LORD to all men. (p. 13.)
These statements bear their absurdity so evidently on their face, that it is unnecessary to make any further remark about them. We would only add that what is there called the laws of the LORDS relation to man means nothing else but a sensuous and partial and therefore perverted view of Influx.
A curious and almost incredible mistake of the author is found in his statement, that truth and thus also the internal sense of the Word cannot be written down. This strange hallucination is however an almost necessary consequence of the writers ignorance or forgetfulness--whatever we choose to call it--of mediate influx. Divine Truth immediately proceeding from the Divine Human clothes itself as it descends and thus becomes Divine Truth mediately proceeding, such as is the truth which is heard and perceived by angels and men, and this truth can be and is written down in heaven and on earth. It would seem almost impossible for a member of the New Church to draw into doubt the possibility of writing down the internal sense of the Word, seeing that this is found written in every society of the Heavens, yet the author states as follows:
The internal sense of the Word can, indeed, no more be put into human language than the sunlight can, or than the life of the soul can. The spiritual sense is utterly ineffable. It can flow into the mind, and it actually illuminates the regenerated mind, but it cannot flow into words. Hence there is an infinite difference between that sense and any possible verbal statement of it. (p. 151.) To prove this he quotes: The internal sense is the most essential Word. The internal sense is the Word Itself. In single things there is an internal holy, which is its internal sense, or celestial and Divine sense; this sense is the soul of the Word, and is Truth Divine Itself proceeding from the LORD, thus the LORD Himself.
The spiritual sense lives in the literal sense, as mans spirit in his body.A. C. 3432, 9349, 5457, 1540. (p. 148.)
The quotation here given includes however not only the spiritual and celestial senses, which can be expressed and which are expressed in angelic language (A. C. 4387), but also the Divine or supreme sense, which is indeed ineffable and incomprehensible even to the highest angel. Owing to this confusion of subjects the author has applied to the internal sense proper that which in reality belongs only to the Divine sense, and to the internal sense only when made to include all above the literal sense.
The reader will note that these quotations present but a very one-sided and therefore incorrect view of the internal sense, and hence something quite different from what is obtained from a full inquiry into the Writings. There we read besides the passages quoted by the author, that The internal sense is the Word of the LORD in the Heavens; those who are in Heaven so perceive it. When man is in the Truth, that is, in the internal sense, then he can make one with those in Heaven as to thought, although man is respectively in a most common and obscure idea.A. C. 2094. The internal sense of the Word coincides altogether with the universal language in which the angels are, or with the spiritual language of their thought; their thought is spiritual, because their thought is from the light of Heaven, which is from the LORD.--A. C. 4387. The internal sense involves such things as take place with the angels and spirits.A. C. 6914. That the Word is written in the Heavens and exists in all societies there appears in the True Christian Religion, 240-242, and we also see from the description there given that it is there written in the internal sense, and indeed is different in different Heavens; for we read: The Word in the Celestial Kingdom of the LORD is written otherwise than in the Spiritual Kingdom; for in the Word of the Celestial Kingdom are expressed the goods of love, and the signs are affections of love: but in the Word of the Spiritual Kingdom are expressed the truths of wisdom, and its signs are perceptions of interior truths.--T. C. R. 242. We read further in Heaven and Hell: The Word is the same [in Heaven], but its natural sense, which to us is the sense of the letter, is not in Heaven, but the spiritual sense, which is its internal sense.H. H. 259.
So we see that all our authors fine declamation about the impossibility of writing down the internal sense is were fancy. The fact that the internal sense shines before the angels of Heaven and is seen there as the glory of Heaven itself and that when received into the life of the angels it gives them eternal life, does not in the least militate against the fact that it is also written down in so many words in every society of Heaven. It is difficult indeed to transcribe anything from the angelic language into that of men, and the ideas of angelic thought can only be transcribed into human language in a general and somewhat obscure manner, nevertheless they can be so transcribed.
We have a long continued series of such transcriptions in the Arcana Coelestia (with the necessary explanations) and in the Apocalypse Revealed and the Apocalypse Explained; in the Arcana, to avoid all misunderstanding, this translation into the internal sense is everywhere found under the distinct heading.--THE INTERNAL SENSE.
As a natural consequence of the authors disregard to the laws of mediate influx and of truth mediately proceeding from the LORD, and owing to his lack of apprehension of these laws, he is also totally in the dark as to the Second Coming of the LORD, which is not effected as the author leads us to think by the immediate influx alone, but by a conjunction of the immediate and the mediate influx.
Since the author does not seem to know that the Second Coming of the LORD is effected through the communication of truth mediately proceeding from the LORD conjoined with the immediate influx from the Divine Human of the LORD, therefore he continually errs in attributing everything to the immediate influx alone; and ends the Second Coming of the LORD where there is no sign nor vestige of the Divine Truth mediately flowing in from the LORD.
The author iterates and reiterates the statement that Swedenborgs writings are not the New Jerusalem as real doctrine is, when it descends into life, when it flows into men as the life of the vine into the branches; they are not the LORD in His Advent, as the perception of such doctrine is (p. 218); in other words, they are not the immediate influx of the LORD, and therefore he concludes that they are not the LORDS Advent at all. So far as we know, no one has ever claimed that the Writings are the immediate influx of the LORD, which as all rational New Churchmen know, can neither be heard nor perceived by any man, and not even by any angel (A. C. 6996); but it has been shown repeatedly in the work on Authority in the New Church, and elsewhere, that the Writings are Divine Truth mediately proceeding from the LORD, being such as is accommodated to the understanding of angels and men. This differs from the Word in the letter in that it did not descend into natural imagery, but is presented without this, as it is in the Heavens; so much of it as could be comprehended and used by man while on earth being brought down by God from heaven through the instrumentality of a. man who fur this purpose was filled with the Spirit of God. In this Divine Truth the LORD Himself is present, and where it is received into the understanding and life of man, there is conjoined with it Divine truth immediately proceeding from the LORD and flowing in through the will of man, whereby the whole of man becomes a tabernacle of the LORD.
This has been repented again and again, but the opponents of the Divine Authority of the Writings seem unwearying in their desire of putting up a man of straw for the pleasure of then knocking him down. This may be an amusement indeed, but it seems after all somewhat childish. The same may be said of the charge of establishing a papal authority in the Church. Even the best jokes fade out when repeated too often. The work on Authority, as well as our daily experience in the Church, shows that the only may of escaping the tyrannical assumption of man is by giving to the LORD alone in His now revealed Truth the glory and the honor and the power.
Since the author does not ascribe the glory and the honor and the power of the revelation of the Heavenly Doctrines to the LORD, but to Swedenborg, he very consistently elevates the man Swedenborg until he arrives at a really colossal and superhuman stature. A few passages will convince the reader of the sincerity of the reverence (if we should not say worship) he pays to the man. So we read:
Swedenborg became the extraordinary men he was, and performed the extraordinary use that he did, because, and solely because, of the extraordinary conditions furnished by his nature for the operations of that influx from the LORD which is the same to all. (Swedenborg and the New Age, p. 111.) His mind indicated great breadth and versatility, even in his childhood. There was a clear prophecy of the man in the child. His was a very remarkable mind,--it was sui generis. None like it had ever existed. Such breadth, such depth, such perspicacity,--there was a significance that none could interpret,--a future that none could read; for it was most unlike the developed future of any previously existing youth,--that of Shakespeare, for example, or Milton, or Bacon, or Humboldt. (Ibid., p. 115.) It was in respect to his learning that Swedenborg was so much in advance of other men who may have been in a similar state of perception or illustration. (Ibid., p. l20.) The italics in this quotation are ours. Indeed it was Swedenborgs peculiar combination of tastes and capacities and qualities of heart and intellect that virtually elected him to his peculiar office or use. Seeing to some degree the evident monstrosity of this assertion, the author hastens to add: Or rather it was the Divine influx, acting through that combination that so elected him. (Ibid., pp. 122 and 123.) His works on science are wonderful stores of knowledge, and such as the works of no other author contain, ancient or modern. They are too profound, go too far into the secrets of nature for even modern scientists to understand. (p. 123.)
In addition to being the profoundest and most versatile scientist and philosopher of his or any other age of the world, he was, in the fullest sense of the word, a practical man. (p. 126.) Take him all in all, he was such a man as the world had never seen. (p. 125.) But Swedenborg was no prodigy. He had not been lifted up to that high vantage ground, nor let down from heaven, ... but had toiled up, had made himself just like other men. The LORD had led him, and had led him, because he could be led, ... but He led him precisely as He leads all men. (p. 125.) It was a Jacobs ladder that he was climbing,a ladder resting on solid ground, and its top lost in the sky. He had planted his foot on the lowest rundle, and then ascended, step by step, as he got sight of the higher ones. He was now standing on the topmost one visible from earth or accessible by any appliances of natural science. He was eating still upward, and searching, but in vain, for some clue that could guide him still higher. (p. 127.) But it is impossible for any one who has not followed him in his wonderful development of rational and illuminated thought, by a systematic study of his works, to form any adequate conception of the huge proportions of the man as he at this stage of his life stands before us. He is immeasurable, by any known standard, in almost every attribute of his nature. (p. 135.) The italics here are ours. His illustration or internal inspiration was as naturally and inevitably the result of such growth as the opening of the flower is of such state of the plant. So also was his spiritual vision or open and conscious presence with spirits and angels in the other life. (p. 130.)
We see from these quotations, which might be largely extended, that the author attributes a great deal to Swedenborg and but little to the LORD,--the LORD, according to the authors view, contributing merely a sort of cast-iron mechanical influx, the same to Swedenborg as to all other men; therefore for everything in which Swedenborgs Writings excel those of other men, we have to thank not our merciful LORD, but the immeasurable Swedenborg.
And here we come to that evident trend of the whole work, which, whether conscious or unconscious to the author, runs through it all, and must necessarily affect every mind that receives it as true: it tends to take away from the LORD the glory due unto His Name, and to bestow it upon man. The author shows this tendency wherever he comes to speak of the coming man, the man of the New Age, of which Swedenborg was but the van-courier and exemplar, and of his manhood reason. The pretty catch-words of manhood-reason and manhood-thought seem, from the authors presentation, to be only more poetic names for that which in the Writings is called self-intelligence; and this, it seems, is to sit in judgment upon that which is God-with-us, the Divine Truth as now revealed to us from Heaven.
This man with his manhood reason, enlightened, like the Quaker, by an inner light alone, seems to be the coming man, the man of the noble, God-like phase of humanity. (p. 220.) Who is not reminded, in this man-worship and man-glorification, of the serpent in paradise, of which we read: And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened; and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
And yet with the good-natured inconsistency which would ever be all things to all men, the writer concludes His fierce onslaught on the Authority with the following characteristic words:
No modest man who considers the real nature of Swedenborgs mission and his wonderful qualifications for it, will for a moment question the accuracy of his statements because he does not understand them, or because they seem inconsistent with other statements; but he will not be a blind slave to them; he will simply suspend his judgment, remembering that he is yet groping in comparative darkness, under the clouds, low down on the acclivity of the mountain, whilst Swedenborg, when he wrote, had risen above the clouds into the bright light of the summit. (p. 225.)
There are a great number of minor points which we had marked for review, but as they are the natural offshoots of the erroneous general views pointed out above, it does not seem necessary, for the present at least, to enter on their consideration.
The position that the LORD has made His Second Advent in the Writings of the New Church, and is through them teaching and reforming mankind, and that these Writings are therefore of Divine Authority, has nothing to fear from candid investigation. It does not shun inquiry, but courts it; and such inquiry, made with a desire of learning the truth, will be very apt to lead, even as it has led the author before us on the last page of his work, to the practical admission of what is asked for the Writings, namely: their perfection and freedom from error and this even while the ground of this perfection in the Divinity and infallibility of the real Author, the LORD, who in them has made His Second Coming, is not seen.
The Problem of Human Life.
THE PROBLEM OR HUMAN LIFE: embracing the Evolution of Sound, and Evolution Evolved, with a review of the Six Great Modern Scientists, DARWIN, HUXLEY, TYNDALL, HAECKEL, HELMHOLTZ, and MAYER. Revised Edition. By A. WILFORD HALL. Hall & Co., New York, 1880.
IN the deceptive light of science--a light which belongs to the sensual man and which is as alluring as the ignis-fatuus--we are led into innumerable fallacies, unless we continually keep before us the higher truths of rational light, now revealed to man out of Heaven.
Even so-called facts are too often false. And we should not accept the most plausible of them, unless they agree with interior truths.
The brilliant experiments of Tyndall, together with his simple but effective style of lecturing, and the profound productions of Helmholtz and Haeckel, have persuaded the common render into the acceptance of their utterances as so demonstrably true as to be beyond peradventure.
But quite recently Mr. Wilford Hall issued a book so denunciatory of the favorite theories of these naturalists, that they must appear vanquished, unless they can speedily institute a defense. And the defense must be rigorous and well sustained, for this doughty author has demolished their choicest efforts, and has turned their own utterances into telling witnesses against them.
Mr. Halls success is principally due to his admission of several truths, which furnish him with premises adverse to modern scientific conclusions. He asserts that the world was not created out of nothing; that there can be no activity without substance, and that life is not inherent in matter, but belongs to an Almighty Creator.
With such weapons he deals fatal blows at Darwinism, and hurls into the common ruin the materialistic works of Huxley and Haeckel and Helmholtz, and of all of their followers.
In grappling with the Darwinian doctrine of evolution, Mr. Hall discovered, he claims, a fundamental law of Nature, upon which he has based the entire argument of his book. This law is that every animate being, including man, is a dual organism or double entity, the outer or physical structure being the visible or tangible half, while the incorporeal, though invisible, constitutes the other half, the one being the exact counterpart of the other.
Thus prepared he besieges the citadels of the enemy, captures their guns, and turns them against the foe with telling effect.
His first successful charge is against the stronghold of Professor Haeckel, the Darwin of Germany, who openly expresses himself as an atheist.
Employing his wonderful art of turning ones own utterances against their author, he completely demolishes the Professor, and with him his boasted theories.
We quote but one instance, which, however, illustrates the whole subject.
The moneron, says Professor Haeckel, is the simplest of all known organisms, as well as the simplest of all imaginable organisms, being a mere lump of pure albumen without organs or heterogeneous parts. This tiny animal, no larger than a pins head, is so slightly removed from inorganic matter, that it required but a trifling effort of Nature to usher it into being from anorgana.
But Mr. Hall quotes further from the Professor. When the moneron moves itself, there are formed shapeless finger-like processes, the so-called false feet. How, he asks, can an organism destitute of parts or organs, move and provide itself with temporary feet for the purpose? Does not all this imply vital power and muscles, or their equivalent, with which to effect motion? And then, with his wonted coolness, Mr. Hall makes Professor Haeckel dispute his own words by quoting the Professors language as follows: All animals, in fret all organisms, consist in great measure of fluid mater, with other substances. How, then, can the moneron consist of one single substance, as asserted by Haeckel, when all organisms consist of water and other substances?
But this is only a skirmish. Further on, Mr. Hall wields a heavier weapon, which the Professor himself fashioned, but for another use. The law of biogeny is that all animals originated from a one-celled organism. But in a previous place, the Professor asserted that the moneron is the origin of all animal organisms. And yet he says that the moneron is not a cell, but a lower grade of organic individuality, a cytod!
It is by the exposure of these inconsistencies that Mr. Hall refutes the theory of evolution, with its associate survival of the fittest.
But we cannot follow him implicitly. For example, after showing the fallacy of Darwins theory of self-propagating organisms, he proceeds to modify the theory so as to apply to his own conception of the substantiality of all vital essences. He assumes a vital microcosm essentially embraced within every life-germ in which are represented the ideal forms of universal being. He supposes that there are present in every life-germ a microcosm representing the essential but incorporeal forms of the vital and mental entities of being throughout Nature. But as these vital and mental germs can all exist within the same space of one of them, like other incorporeal substances, such as sound, heat, light, gravitation, without the conflict of space, they do not therefore involve the necessary want of room or idea of crowding in a human ovule.
He therefore ceases to wonder that the embryos of all animals appear alike at the commencement of their corporeal concentration of organic substance. Could we see these incorporeal germs, the absolute presence of all animate nature would probably appear just as leaves, buds, twigs, trunk, etc., may be supposed to exist in their essential and elemental outlines within the life-nucleolus of every acorn.
The reader of the Writings needs no comment on the boldness of this assumption; and we shall see presently that Mr. Hall is too much given to a transposition of scientific theories so as to fit his own favorite ideas.
Neither can we assent to his sweeping statement that all physiologists from the damn of science up to the present time have been floundering in darkness upon the subject of invisible vital organism within the body. Several have differed with Mr. Hall as to the nature of interior parts; but the student of that great physiologist, Swedenborg, will recognize a predecessor of Mr. Hall, who has beautifully described the evolution of era in the fecundated ovule.
Mr. Hall says that birds, bats, and insects are miracles, because, according to his estimation, the flying of a bird a thousand times heavier than the sir is a purely mechanical process, accomplished in violation of the central law of Nature, gravitation. This sentence is as inconsistent as it is untrue; for flying is not a miracle, neither is it contrary to Natures laws.
These, and other objectional statements, require qualification. But in general, Mr. Halls expose of the fallacies of evolution will receive the hearty indorsement of all New Churchmen.
Flushed with victory, Mr. Hall next assails the wave-theory of sound, a doctrine universally accepted for more than two thousand years. This theory he denies, and offers as a substitute the hypothesis of substantial sonorous corpuscles, which are emitted from a vibrating body, and which impinging on the ear-drum, give the hearer the appreciation of sound.
His basis for so startling an innovation is his premise that force is substance, and that, consequently, light, heat, electricity, and sound are substances.
To the objection that all this is were presumption, his reply is that no other theory will stand the test of experimentation, and that we have an analogous and generally admitted corpuscular emanation from odoriferous bodies.
A noticeable defect in Mr. Halls theorizing, as already mentioned, is his many assumptions. In the effort to establish his position he depends mainly upon analogy.
He borrows ideas from his adversaries which, though regarded as absurd when applied to the wave-theory, confirm, as he thinks, his corpuscular theory.
But we fail to see, always, the necessary similarity between the terms of his analogies. For instance, Professor Tyndall states that secondary waves may arise from primary waves and strike the ear as resultant tones, etc. Mr. Hall, by a substitution or two, changes the statement into the remark that sonorous corpuscles may give birth to secondary corpuscles, constituting over-tones, etc. And he applies this in endeavoring to explain a well-known fact. If one stands with either side turned towards a bell which is ringing, the sound of the bell is heard nearly equally by both ears. If sound-waves exist, then, according to Mr. Hall, they must lap around the head and find their way into the distal auditory canal. But, if we admit sound-corpuscles, all we have to do is to likewise admit that, in hurrying past the head, secondary particles are thrown off, like scintillations, and affect the farther ear.
Now, not only is this a bold substitution, but it is also defective in analogy; for where is the similarity between secondary waves and secondary corpuscles?
Again, reasoning by analogy, he asks, if the nasal mucous membrane is affected by odor-particles, without any vibration, why my not the membrana tympani be affected without vibrations from impinging air?
But it does not follow because odor-particles exist that therefore sound-particles do. Neither is there any proof that the nasal mucous membrane is at all analogous to a tense-membrane, which is provided with means for tension and relaxation. If one is thus supplied, and the other not, is not this evidence of difference rather than of analogy? And, moreover, is it altogether certain that there are no vibrations connected with the perception of odors?
As an illustration of were assumption, we need but refer to Mr. Halls explanation of soundless vibrations in vacuo. After denying that the cause is the absence of undulating air, he boldly assumes that the reason is because corpuscles of sound, emanating from the vibrating body, fall powerless for want of the atmosphere as a conductor. And yet he would have us believe that the appreciation of the distant scratching on the surface of a huge rock arises from the transmission through the rock of these hypothetical sound-atoms! Pray, what is the conducting medium through this compact structure? Surely not the rock-atoms.
In the test of experimentation Mr. Hall has a better case, at least so far as concerns his successful demolition of modern interpretations and illustrations of the wave-theory. He however falls into the error of the extremist and denies the principles of the wave-theory themselves, thus destroying both wheat and chaff.
Among the numerous objections raised, the most important are those which oppose the theory of condensation and rarefaction, and the possibility of alight vibrating body affecting the air far around. According to Mr. Halls calculations, a locust, if its vibrating legs impress the air for a mile or more, must exert millions of tons of mechanical force.
The wave-theory, too, is regarded as incapable of explaining the transmission of sounds through hard bodies, in which condensation and rarefaction are of course impossible. The very pertinent question is propounded, to the effect that if the scratching of a point on a rocks surface can be heard at any other part of its surface through an applied stethoscope, how is this possible on the theory that sound is the result of vibration of air, or of the particles of a solid? Can a gentle scratch move the weighty particles of a huge rock?
Facts derived from experimentation with fog-horns prove that sound may travel more rapidly against the wind than with it. Mr. Hall objects to Prof. Tyndalls theory of vapor-banks, and substitutes a novel conception of his own. He submits that the air may be lamellated like wood, and that its presentation lengthwise, or at right angles, to emanating sound-corpuscles may account for the variations in the transmission of sounds; just as mood turned in one direction proves to be a more expeditious transmitter of sounds than when turned in another direction.
The beautiful theory of the interference of air-waves is severely handled. He denounces the double-siren as false, and denies the validity of the conclusions usually deduced from it. So far from being neutralized by opposition, sounds, he thinks, are intensified.
If common air is composed of particles, suspended like grains in an ether, which resembles jelly, we cannot but lean towards Mr. Halls objections to the prevailing theories of sound. But in the philosophy of Swedenborg, air is treated quite differently.
Creation was a progressive work from the simplest to the most compounded forms. The primal substance is simple in the sense that it is uncompounded, though it is finitely perfect in that it is universal, and contains potentially all that can possibly exist developed in nature. It is the substance which receives immediately the spiritual forces, whence come all natural power and activity. It is therefore quick with life, eager to project itself into innumerable forms, and to push on the creative work. Its motion, which is the physical equivalent of life, is the most perfect possible. Mathematically considered, this motion is the spiral. But spiration demands a moving centre, progression of parts, axillary motion, and, if there is no hindrance, local motion.
The particles of this primal substance, then, are arranged by their vis insita into forms presenting poles, equators, meridians, etc. Since the motor power is central, this substance is highly elastic, the elasticity depending upon its own tendency to expansion.
Now, in the succeeding creative steps, substances were formed more and more coarse and compounded. But since they were derived in regular series from the first, they all agree in activity, form, and properties, with modifications incident to their relative inertness.
Common air, which encircles the earth, must be several degrees removed from the initial substance, and so is, relatively, more compounded. According to Swedenborg, air is the fourth element. There precede it, then, three higher elements, the lowest of which is ether, the next higher the magnetic element, and the highest the first element.
Within the magnetic ether is the first element; within the ether is the first element; within the air is the second element, and around it is ether. Common air, then, owes its activity to the preceding elements, from which, it also derives its form. Its particles are, therefore, spherical, each of which is in perpetual motion from centre to periphery. They are highly elastic, and hence expansible and compressible. Each superficies is arranged in most regular order from one pole, as it were, by continual spires, to the corresponding opposite pole. Hence arises a mutual connection, by which a motion received by the surface necessarily circumfuses itself instantaneously, and occupies the whole surface of the particle. The motion of a volume of aerial particles is the same as that of the particles themselves, and is equal in all directions. When a volume moves, the particles preserve their equilibrium and remain in their mutual situation. Hence within one volume in motion there may exist numerous volumes, as many, indeed, as there are centres of motion
The differences between the common theory and that we are advocating are apparent, and materially affect the conclusions to which Mr. Halls experiments led him.
If the air possesses a central power compounded of the centrifugal force of its constituent particles, if its elasticity is from the same cause, instead of from were rubber-like springiness, if its motility is directed into spirals, and if its particles are in continual contact, equatorially and by polar touch, will it not exhibit properties immeasurably more subtle and powerful than a body constituted after the notions of the day?
But there is another fact which we may adduce here. Each of the elements is without the lower as well as within them. Thus is equilibrium: preserved. Hence, around ether are elements, as well as within it; around air is the ether, which sustains it, and contributes to its activity and sensitiveness.
But the particles of air do not float in ether like inert grains; neither is the circumfluent ether comparable to jelly. For both are agile and possess a natal power, which modem writers have scarcely dreamed of. Impressions made upon a volume of air by a vibrating body are readily transmitted from part to part, a process which excites the surrounding ether, and both forces conspire to the same end.
In the wonderful harmony of nature, analogies are discernible everywhere: The association between first and last, by intermediates, is effected by the touch of particle with particle. There are no vacua; neither is there a descent by were tenuity of substance. But particles of one element are in contact by reason of agreement in motion, surface, and figure, and these are in contiguity with coarser, nether particles, which latter desire their force from the former and perpetuate the same in a heavier manner by mutual touch. And so descent is marked by successive steps with unity of vis insita, and in the reciprocity of cause and effect. Each succeeding degree takes up the work of its antecedent and carries it on in a lower plane. But since such is natural harmony, born of an orderly sequence, the solid earth, which is the ultimate plane of creation, must bold within itself the hard-lined, inert amassing of the powers which preceded it and made it. Hem, then, can we suppose the harmony suddenly lost and conclude that earthly bodies vibrate in a manner entirely discordant with the elements? So far from this, objects are fashioned in the pattern of the world at large, are veritable microcosms. Substances, then, may vibrate in strict accord with the atmosphere. And the car, which appreciates these vibrations, is itself formed in the motion of the air, just as the eye is in that of the more subtle ether.
Mr. Hall may differ with us, and retort that it is me who are making assumptions. But the New Churchman, to whom our remarks are especially directed, will see that as to principles, at least, our position is correct. For in the revelations now made for the Church, principles are laid down which we may, and indeed must, use in reasoning upon science. And among these principles are some which refer to the doctrines of degrees and series, to creation of the world from the sun, distinct atmospheres, communication by contact, etc.,--all of which should be admitted premises in investigating scientific subjects. And if these are used in a critical review of the book before us, they reveal many good qualities in it, but also numerous fallacies; prominent among which is the total rejection of the wave-theory of sound as well as of light.
Ontology.
ONTOLOGY. By EMANUEL SWEDENBORG. From a photolithographic copy or the original Latin MS. still preserved in the Library of the Academy of Sciences at Stockholm, by Philip U. Cabell, A.M., Professor of Ancient Languages in Urbana University. Philadelphia, Lippincott & Co.
THE translator states in the preface that it is believed that the treatise will be useful in more clearly defining certain philosophical terms in frequent use throughout Swedenborgs scientific writings. He also adds that it seems quite reasonable to infer that the meaning of those terms remained essentially the same in his theological works. In these remarks we are inclined to believe with him. The terms explained in the little work are: form, figure, structure, state, substance, matter, extent, body, essence, attribute, predicate, subject, affection, accidents, contingents, modes, and modification.
What Swedenborg meant by the term Ontology in connection with the above tractate, which was originally intended for a section of a work entitled: Introduction into national Psychology--appears from a prospectus of this work, where he entitles the section: Vocum philosophicarum significatio vel Ontologia (The signification of philosophical terms or Ontology). As the translator observes, the task of translating this tractate immediately from the authors handwriting, is by no means an easy one. For, says he, the handwriting of the original is in parts so obscure that there are still a few passages in which the test has not been determined beyond doubt. Moreover, in subjects so purely abstract, perfect accuracy and perspicuity are difficult of attainment.
We fully agree with the translator in these words, but as it is of the utmost importance that all of Swedenborgs writings should be rendered into English with the utmost fidelity, and as in the present case the Latin original, in cases of doubt, can be referred to only by a few Latin scholars who are thoroughly cognizant with Swedenborgs handwriting, it becomes incumbent upon the reviewers of the book to call attention to such imperfections in the translation as should be avoided in a future edition of the work.
The improvements suggested are of two kinds, 1. improved readings of the original; and 2. improved translations.
The following are improved readings which we suggest:
At the close of chapter vi. we read: Ex his apparent, quas turbas sola critica et significatio vocis non producat; omnia tamen sunt infantilia, flocci, nauci, nec viros decent,--from which we obtain the following translation:
From these things it appears what confusion the mere criticism and signification of a word may produce. All such things, however, are puerile, of no account and no consequence, and do not become men. The published translation is as follows: From these things it appears how ideas purely critical may confuse a subject, and how the mere signification of a word may protract a discussion. All such niceties, however, are mere perile ornamentations, and ill become men.
On page 26, line 15 from bottom, we read: PUNCTUM aliquod circuli instead of partem.
On page 25, line 8 from bottom, we read: vivum, instead of virium or virem, so that the sentence reads as follows: and besides this subutantia there is given nothing else living [instead of: none other force] in this body.
On page 34, line 11 from top, we suggest a different punctuation, so that lines 11 and 12 may read thus: Attributes of things and proximate possibilities of modes are unchangeable in themselves. Attributes and modes, quantity being excluded, are qualities. Instead of Attributes of things and proximate possibilities of modes are attributes and modes unchangeable in themselves. Quantity being excluded, they are qualities.
On page 35, line 8 from bottom, we suggest the following reading: summa durities in centro concentrata, et mobilitas in peripheriis extra centrum, which gives the following translation: the greatest hardness is concentrated in the centre, and mobility is in the peripheries (or circumferences) outside the centre, instead of all its diameters meet in the centre, mobility is confined to its periphery, outside of its centre.
On page 38, line 6 from bottom, we read: quantenus SUMITUR pro subjecto in quo forma, which yields the following translation: so far as it is taken for the subject in which form is, instead of so far as that means, at the same time a subject in which form is.
Suggested improvements in translation are as follows:
The translator is sometimes oblivious of the fact that Swedenborg very often uses the future tense to express necessity. In the following cases we think the future tense is not correctly used by the translator: page 18, line 2 from bottom: there will [must] be given in that substance a sufficient reason of that change, etc. Page 37, line 4 from bottom: there will [must] be that which affects and that which is affected. Page 11, line 10 from top: Thus internal and external forms will [must] correspond.
Throughout the whole of his writings Swedenborg uses the Latin word proinde in the sense of consequently; of this the translator does not seem to have been aware, at least not in the first part of his translation, and therefore in many passages he fails to give the force of the argument.
On page 10, line 14 from top, he translates it yea even; on page 13, line 13 from bottom, he says: moreover [consequently] it is without every limitation. On page 25, line 2 from the bottom, he translates it therefore, which is better; and on page 26, line 7 from top, hence; same page, line 14 from bottom, wherefore; and on page 35, line 6 from top, thence. But on page 37, lines 8 and 7 from bottom, he translates again: It also supposes a form, possibility of modes, likewise essentials so determined, as well as mutability of state, instead of It also supposes form, possibility of modes, consequently essentials, thus things determined (ita determinata), consequently mutability of state.
Convenire, in Latin, is frequently used in the sense of to be becoming, to be appropriate, to belong to. While the translator in the latter part of his work translates this word correctly by to appertain to (page 29, line 13 from top), to belong to (same page, line 14 from top), to agree (page 32, line 11 from bottom, and page 36, line 4 from bottom), to be applicable (page 34, line 10 from bottom), in the beginning of his work he translates the word literally by to enter into (page 14, line 8 from top), where he says, The reason of those things which enter into [belong to or are suitable to] an organic body, etc.; on page 29, line 5 from top, he says, why it should enter into [be attributed to] the ens, etc. On page 18, line 19 from bottom, he translates which we find meeting in a real thing, instead of which we notice (observamus) as belonging to a real thing, cases in which the sense is not fully rendered.
Page 9, line 10 from top, consequently it is a cause [the cause] of the ens.
Page 11, line 14, from bottom, instead of That a form may be truly human, read That there may be a truly human form.
Page 7, line 9 from top, read: according to the likeness of which an effect is formed (formata), instead of produced.
Page 7, line 17 from top, read: as the whole quiddity (quidditati) of any given substance, instead of as the whole of whatever belongs to any given substance. N. B. On page 11, line 10 from bottom, the translator renders quidditas by quiddity.
Page 11, line 11 from bottom, read: that it [instead of: there] may be something.
Page 12, line 13 from top, read: the figure of that ens (illius) is changed, instead of the figure of those parts, etc.
Page 12, line 15, read: its figure is not changed, instead of their figure.
Page 12, line 4 from bottom, read: So (sic) the face so far as it is regarded, etc., instead of In so far as the face itself is regarded, etc.
Page 13, line 8 from top, read: Thus we recede (receditur) from figure, the more this is raised to higher powers, instead of Thus form is withdrawn from figure, etc.
Page 13, line 11, read: for these are more (magis) removed, instead of far removed.
Page 13, line 13, read: So also there are superior forms, which [insert: at last (tandem)] cannot be called figured forms.
Page 13, line 12 from bottom, read: Thus superior forms always (semper) recede from the idea of space and figure, instead of gradually recede.
Page 14, lines 7-9, read: The reason of those things which belong to (conveniant) an organic body, in so far as it is organic, or which are actually in it (vel actu insunt), or may be in it, is contained in its structure, instead of which enter into an organic body .... whether they are actually in it, etc.
Page 14, line 15 from bottom, size seems to be a better translation for the Latin magnitudo, than magnitude.
Page 14, line 4 from bottom, read: it does not possess from itself (ex se) a principle of action, instead of in itself.
Page 14, line 2 from bottom, read: another cause holding the place of a principle (principii locum tenetem), instead of holding the chief place.
Page 16, line 10 from top, read: is formed (urgetur) into an ellipse, instead of transformed into, etc.
Page 16, last line, read: They are like equations (sunt tanquam quationes) which are composed successively from ratios and analogies, instead of There are equations which are composed successively of reasonings and analogies.
Page 17, line 1 et seq., read: Thus in finite entities there can be given several states at the same time, but not from themselves (ita in entibus finitis dari quent plures status simul, sed non ex se): yet infinitely more in superior forms (at infinite plures in formis superioribus), instead of On the same principle we reason, that, while in finite existences there can be given several states at the same time which are not self-created, there are infinitely more in superior forms.
Page 18, line 15 from bottom, read: The substantial of things, he therefore says (dicit), to be unknown, instead of is therefore said.
Page 19, line 13 et seq. from top, read: Wherefore (itaque) every form distinct from another (ab alia) is a substance, in so far as it is a subject in which there is form (in quo forma); and in so far as there are adjuncts and predicates of form (ac form adjuncta et prdicata), instead of In like manner every form distinct from others is a substance in so far as it is a subject in which from resides, and in so far as it is adjoined to and predicated of form.
Page 20, line 4 from top, read: the cortical glands are the organic substances of imagination, and together with the pure intellectories (et una cum intellectoriis puris) they belong to thought, instead of also, the cortical glands ... and along with what is purely of the understanding belong to thought. As we speak of a sensory, Swedenborg in his psychological treatises speaks also of an intellectory or intellectories.
Page 20, line 11 from top, read: Active and motive force ought to be conceived of as like substance, also nature (etiam natura), instead of though of another nature.
Page 20, line 6 from bottom, read: the substantial which by means of essential determinations is made specific, instead of because by means, etc.
Page 21, line 11 from top, read: Matter is often (subinde) called matter, instead of Matter therefore is called, etc.
Page 21, line 15 from top, read: but natural matter is never (nunqam) without form, instead of but natural matter is first without form.
Page 21, line 21 et seq. from top, read: The ancient philosophers said that it was not and could not be known (cognita) in the nature of things, unless by means of an indirect and imperfect conception, as Plato (ut Plato); and as Aristotle, by means of analogy and similitude which must be regarded as without form and accidents, instead of The ancient philosophers said that it was not and could not be understood in the nature of things, unless by means of an indirect and imperfect conception. Such was Platos mode of expressing it. Aristotles thus: that that which must be considered as without form and accidents, must be understood by means of analogy and similitude.
Page 22, line 12 from top, read: The unit is not a number, but the beginning (principium) of all numbers, instead of Unity is not a number, but is the principle of all numbers.
Page 22, line 7 from bottom, omit to these before only.
Page 23, line 14 from top, read: is regarded as the beginning (principium) of being, instead of the principle of being. Translate beginning instead of principle, also in lines 9 and 11 from bottom.
Page 23, line 12 from bottom, read: The soul is not material, because (quia) without part, extent, figure, etc., instead of which is without part) etc.
Page 24, line 16 from top, read: but (sed) which are united among themselves, instead of and which, etc.
Page 25, last line, read: But extension cannot be denied to superior forms, instead of But in superior forms extension cannot be denied.
Page 26, line 7 from top, read: consequently [supply: non dici potest] it cannot be said to be corporeal, instead of Hence it is not corporeal.
Page 26, line 15 from bottom, read: For who will suppose any point (punctum) of a circle to be above or below another? And so it is in every superior form (ita in omni forma superiore),the last sentence has been omitted.
Page 27, line 9 from bottom, read: except from elements (a elementis), instead of in their elements.
Page 28, line 6 from bottom, read: and which, by the mode of derivation (per modum derivationis), instead of and which, by derivation.
Page 28, line 2 from bottom, read: The rest (exetera) which have been added, etc., instead of Other things which have been, etc.
Page 29, line 5 from top, read: while it has no intrinsic reason why it should be attributed (conveniat) to the ens, but must be posited at first (sed primum poni debeat), instead of why it should enter into the ens, but ought to be regarded as the first thing in it.
Page 29, line 16 from top, read: real essence is the beginning (principium) or root of real operations, etc., instead of principle, root, etc.
Page 31, line 11 from top, read: Species and inferior genera (genera inferiora) differ by essentials, instead of Species and genera differ by means of essentials.
Page 31, line 16 from top, read: Essence ... is the most general, instead of is most general.
Page 31, line 15 et seq. from bottom, read: Wherefore we must proceed by another way (per aliam viam eundum), in order (ut) by mere examples to arrive at a full understanding (ad ipsum intellectum) of essence and things similar; and in order that we may form ut formemus) distinct definitions (definitiones distinctas) which may be combined into one general induction (inductionem), instead of Wherefore we must approach the subject in another way, and by examples solely, arrive at a clear understanding of essence and of things similar. We may then form partial definitions which may be combined into one manifest general definition.
Page 31, line 7 from bottom, read: besides it there is nothing in a subject which properly is test), instead of properly belongs to it.
Page 33, line 3 from bottom, read: and the same proximate possibilities of modes (et easdem modorum possibilitates proximas), instead of and proximate possibilities of the same modes. This mistake is three times repented on page 31, in lines 1, 3, and 6, which ought to read: the same possibilities of modes, instead of possibilities of the same modes.
Page 34, line 5 from bottom, read: separable from its subject effectively (effective), instead of re separable from its effective subject.
Page 35, line 5 from top, read: That essence is everywhere (ubivis) is an attribute, and consequently an accident, instead of That essence is in everything, etc.
Page 35, last line, read: We cannot know what any form, organ, body, etc. is; organ has been omitted.
Page 36, line 12 et seq. from top, read: but they are proper attributes, so that proper and common attributes ought to be distinguished (adeo ut propria, communia sunt distinguenda), instead of but they are proper attributes, and like proper attributes, common attributes are to be distinguished from them.
Page 36, line 10 et seq. from bottom, read: they are supposed as possible, but only when in potency, instead of they are not supposed as possible, unless in potency.
Page 37, line 9 from bottom, read: an agent and a re-agent, instead of acting and reacting.
Page 37, line 2 et seq. from bottom, read: There is not always an affection, as there are states of the affecting [object], but an intermediate sometimes arises; and indeed an affection is caused in a contrary manner (non semper officitur, nam sunt status afficientis, sed intermedium quandoque exsurgit, et quidem contrario modo afficitur), instead of The one subject is not always affected as are the states of the affecting subject, but something intermediate arises; indeed the one is affected in a contrary manner.
Page 38, line 6 from top, read: the affection is such as is the internal sensory, and the intermediate which conducts (et intermedium ducens), instead of, the internal sensory and its intermediate.
Page 39, line 2 from bottom, read: Thus substance is the subject itself (ipsum subjectum) of the accients (accidentium), instead of Thus substance itself is the subject of accident.
Page 38, line 14 et seq. from top, read: as the objects made by us (nostrae facturae) have (habent) a necessary cause in the state of the soul, instead of And again, the fashioning of our own characters has a necessary cause in the state of the soul.
Page 39, line 2 et seq. from bottom, read: Among contingents may be (potest esse) the highest necessity, but we do not perceive it as such, instead of Among contingents might be placed the highest necessity, but we do not so regard it.
Page 40, line 8 from top, read: A stone is modifiable because it can be made (potest reddi) warm, cold, dry, moist, instead of A stone is modifable because warm or cold, dry or moist, can be added to it.
It is not a grateful task to point out imperfections in a work evidently undertaken by another con amore; but as the work in question is not the translators, but Swedenborgs and as it is of the greatest importance that in everything published of our illustrious author in the English language his own ipissima verba should be rendered with the utmost fidelity, our office of reviewer leaves us no other choice than to execute the work intrusted to us with precision and painstaking exactness.
In conclusion we would acknowledge our indebtedness to the Morning Light for some valuable readings and improvements suggested in the work under review. As the reader will see from the above result of our examinations, we differ considerably from the opinion expressed by the reviewer of the New Jerusalem Magazine. He says, in the January number of 1851:
In a single case (p. 39) Prof. Cabell seems to have erred, making Swedenborg speak of the fashioning of our own characters as an example of chance, when the words nostrae facture, which are rendered by this expression, would be read more naturally as nostrae fortunae, our fortunes,--a rendering which brings out the meaning.
In characterizing this criticism we cannot do better than to adopt the language of the Morning Light on this subject:
The passage alluded to by the Editor of the New Jerusalem Magazine reads, ut facturae nostrae causam habent neccessariam in statu animae, the proper translation of which is, As our deeds (or the objects made by us) have a necessary cause in the state of the soul. This simple sentence Prof. Cabell rendered as follows: And again the fashioning of our own characters has a necessary cause in the state of the soul,amplifying unnecessarily the simple word deeds (facturae). In the expression fashioning, however, which he uses, something of the original idea of L doing (factura) is still retained; but this idea is altogether lost in the expression our fortunes, suggested in its place by the Boston editor. Besides, the word written by Swedenborg is plainly facturae, which cannot even by a stretch of the imagination be changed into fortunae,wherefore we are obliged totally to differ from the Editor where he says that this is a rendering which brings out the meaning.
We do not wish in any way to check the desire of making public in the English language the contents of the photolithographed manuscripts of Swedenborg, for we regard this as a great and important work, and we hope that the translator of the work will make use of the considerable familiarity with Swedenborgs handwriting and with his technical terms which he has acquired during his present work, in giving us some of the other works of our author, which still wait for the painstaking and patient hand of the scholar to become more generally accessible.
Authoritat in der Neuen Kirche.
AUTHORITAT IN DER NEUEN KIRCHE. By Dr. R. L. Tafel, Pastor of the New Jerusalem Church, Camden Road, London, England. Translated into German by F. W. Turk, Pastor of the New Jerusalem Church, Berlin, Ontario, Canada. Published by the German Missionary Union of the New Church in America, 1011 Arch Street, Philadelphia. Pa., 1881. Pp. 274.
WE welcome the appearance of this important work which has contributed so much to make the Second Coming of the LORD in the Heavenly Doctrines rationally understood in the Church. The translation is given in good flowing language, and the reader is reminded only in few cases that he has a. translation before him. The work cannot fail to be of great service to all New Churchmen who speak the German tongue, and we would advise all such to read and consider well its important teachings.
The appearance of the translation at this time, when the Church in Europe and America is agitated by the important questions there so well presented, is exceedingly opportune, and it is also a symptom that the views there presented are becoming to be more fully appreciated.
We quote the following from the Translators Preface:
We believe that this treatise will be of use toward counteracting the influence of self-intelligence, and toward giving to the LORD all power and authority in the Church, so that He alone may reign in it. Hardly any sincere member of the Church can read it without being thereby blessed with a better understanding of the Heavenly Doctrine, and with an increased reverence and love for the same.
May it contribute with the LORDS assistance in bringing all hesitating and vacillating New Churchmen, who as yet are ignorant of the full significance of the Doctrines, to a fuller appreciation of the LORD in His Second Coming, and thereby conjoin them more intimately with the LORD.
WORDS
FOR
THE NEW CHURCH
A SERIAL
CONTROLLED BY THE ACADEMY OF THE NEW CHURCH
X.
THE CONFLICT OF THE AGES
PART IV.
PHILADELPHIA
PUBLISHED FOR THE ACADEMY OF THE NEW CHURCH
BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO.
1882
Copyright, 1883, by J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO., for the ACADEMY OF THE NEW CHURCH
CONTENTS
THE CONFLICT OF THE AGES.
IV.CONFLICT IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH (Continuation):
THE CRUSADES 365
CONFLICT BETWEEN THE CHURCH AND STATE 373
THE GREAT SCHISM 382
THE INQUISITION 387
INDULGENCES 395
THE INTERMEDIATE STATE 399
PURGATORY 410
WICLIF 417
HUSS 418
JEROME 420
NOTES AND REVIEWS.THE WINE QUESTION 422
THE IMPORTANT ISSUE 449
INFANT AND ORPHAN HOMES 425
THE MINISTERS CONFERENCE 462
THE GENERAL CONVENTION 464
THE REV. JAMES PARK STUART 473
[Blank page.]
THE CONFLICT OF THE AGES
V.
CONFLICT IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH.
CONTINUATION.
The Crusades.
In the conflicts of the Christian Church the Crusades mark a most important era, and, during their continuance, they transcended in importance all other movements in the Church. Two hundred years of the life of the Church were largely occupied with these so-called holy wars. The Crusades were tit first designed to restore to the Christian Church the control of Jerusalem and the Holy Land. Then, afterward, Crusades were made against Egypt and other countries, and even against certain incorrigible communities and individuals.
Pilgrimages to Palestine were always more or less common in the early ages of the Church. To see Jerusalem and Bethlehem, the Mount of Olives and Mount Calvary, and the other places made sacred as the scenes of the LORDS life in the world, was always deemed a high privilege for the devout Christian. These pilgrimages were made without much difficulty or danger until the Roman Empire fell, and Palestine was subjugated by the Mohammedans. Under the Mohammedan rule, Christian pilgrims were taxed or otherwise annoyed; and when in after-years the Moslem authority passed into the hands of the Turks, they were often imprisoned and refused admittance to the holy places, and some were even put to death.
During the eleventh century there was throughout Christendom a wide-spread belief that the End of the World was at hand, and that the mundane system at furthest would be wound up at the close of the century. According to this belief, Palestine was to be the place of the LORDS Second Advent. He was expected to set His throne on Mount Zion, and to establish His earthly kingdom in Jerusalem. Pilgrims, therefore, with wild enthusiasm pressed forward toward the Holy Land; and as the time drew near, these pilgrimages were the more numerous. Sometimes the pilgrims formed great cavalcades, and moved forward under the direction of well-informed leaders. Escorted by thirty Norman horsemen, it is said that Archbishop Mayence, with seven thousand German pilgrims, went to the Holy Land and worshiped at the fountain of their religion, but not without encountering many dangers and suffering many losses.
About the year 1090, Peter the Hermit, a monk of austere habits, returned from Jerusalem filled with the idea that the LORD had called him to the work of arousing the Christians of Europe to a war, for the recovery of Palestine from the dominion of the Turks. He brought a letter from the Patriarch of Jerusalem, calling for help. He went with it to Pope Urban, who was deeply moved with the Hermits story, and he commissioned him to travel everywhere, and to testify to all people what he had seen and heard, and to call upon them to go forth to the rescue of the East and of the Holy Sepulchre.
Accordingly, he went forth traveling throughout Europe. Peter was small in stature and most ungainly in form, but he had the fire of eloquence, the strength of faith, and the wild extravagance of enthusiasm that enabled him to arouse the barbarous and warlike people and to get Europe in a blaze.
Clothed in a monkish cowl, and a woolen gown with a cloak over it, he went forth barefoot and riding upon a mule. Immense crowds of people gathered round him. His words were received as the utterances of an oracle. He was venerated as a saint; and men were eager to obtain from him something in the shape of a relic, were it but a hair from his mule.
Thus by the labors of Peter the Hermit were the minds of men prepared, when Urban, in the year 1095, held the Church assembly at Placenta, at which the First Crusade was planned. Afterward, at Clermont, in Auvergne, another assembly was held.
The histories tell us that the Pope, in a fiery discourse, described the importance of Jerusalem in its bearings upon the Christian Faith, and recounted the insults and abuse which Christians, as sojourners there, or as pilgrims, were obliged to suffer. Next, he urged the assembly to grasp the sword and to turn it against the enemies of the Christian Faith. The time was now come. He announced the fullest indulgence to all who would take the sword and go forth to the rescue of Jerusalem. He promised forgiveness of sin and eternal life to all who should die in Palestine in
true penitence.
Peter the Hermit was also there, and his voice was lifted up in fiery declamation. From that Council the enthusiasm spread like a devouring fire. From nation to nation it went until all Europe was in a blaze. The battle-cry of the millions was, It is the Will of God!
The passion of the age was for war. The barons sold and pledged their lands to obtain the means of joining the expedition. Thousands of hardened offenders, whose crimes were difficult to expiate by the ordinary acts of penance, found in the Crusade a shorter and more agreeable method of meriting heaven.
If they succeeded, a fortune in this world seemed secure; if they died, a crown of martyrdom was promised in the next.
More than a million persons soon pledged themselves to the Crusade. Three hundred thousand of these were beggars, and women and children. They had no preparation to make; hence they refused to wait for the rest, and they at once set out for the East, Peter the Hermit and Walter the Penniless marching at their head. In the whole motley crew there were but eight horsemen, and the expedition was in all other respects equally unprovided for. They were ignorant of the distance, of the road, of the countries through which they must pass. The children inquired at every turn if that was Jerusalem. This multitude firmly believed that God would feed them with bread from heaven, as He had fed the Israelites. Disappointed in this, they were forced to levy contributions upon the countries through which they passed. The inhabitants rose against them and gave them battle, and cut them to pieces. A few only escaped. Among these were Peter and Waiter, and a small band of associates. These waited at Constantinople the arrival of the disciplined army which, when they left, was marshaling in France.
This great armament, amounting to more than three hundred thousand fighting men, assembled from different quarters, but chiefly from France.
The Crusaders swept through the Eastern Empire like a tornado. Emperors and kings, with their subjects, they treated more like slaves than allies. Cities were taken by assault. Nothing withstood their fiery war-tramp.
But, as they had no supreme commander, the different generals could not manage the distribution of the spoils, and the expedition fell into factions and its movement was crippled.
A portion remained firm, and rallying to the standard of Godfrey of Bouillon, they arrived within sight of the Holy City. Jerusalem was takes by assault on the 15th of July, A.D. 1099, and the standard of the cross was planted upon the battlements of Mount Zion. Godfrey was elected king of the city, and as the appropriate symbol of his authority he assumed a crown of thorns.
But this triumph was accompanied by horrors of war unequaled since the capture of the city by Titus. It is the Will of God, was their battle-cry, as they pushed on their bloody determination to exterminate the infidel hosts. The massacre was indiscriminate and universal. The cries of women, the screams of children, were no barrier to the iron-clad Crusader. The horrid work finished, the Army of the Cross, with garments rolled in blood and hands dyed in the gore of innocence, ascended Mount Calvary to worship at the spot where the Cross was once planted.
Here their religious fanaticism overcame their martial enthusiasm. For while they worshiped their eyes were suffused with tears, and their hearts seemed ready to break with penitence and with gratitude.
The loss in this First Crusade was something terrible and the sufferings incalculable. For not only were there the three hundred thousand miserable adventurers under Peter, and then the three hundred thousand warriors under Godfrey and others, but in addition there were innumerable others, pilgrims, adventurers, and warriors, forming a tide of human beings so vast that all Europe, as the Princess Anna Comnena expressed it, torn from its foundations, seemed ready to precipitate itself in one united body upon Asia. This tide rolled onward, and the follies, sufferings, and crimes of this Crusade have, perhaps, never been equaled in the history of human madness. The loss of life in the First Crusade is estimated at one million two hundred thousand.
True, a Latin kingdom was established by it in Jerusalem, and the Crusade was deemed a military success. Thus matters stood at the close of the eleventh century.
Nearly fifty years after this the Christians met with sad reverses in Syria. Edessa was lost. The Turks were gaining strength, and Europe had to be aroused to another Crusade, of which St. Bernard was the apostle. He was a man of excellent genius and powerful mind. Going forth throughout Europe, he traversed its fruitful provinces and populous cities. Vast multitudes assembled to applaud and listen. He pretended to miraculous power, and to the gift of prophecy; and on the faith of God he foretold a glorious career of triumphs. Armed with such weapons, in a superstitious age, with high personal celebrity, and with the supposed powerful princes, what wonder was it that Bernard broke up the repose o f Europe, that he depopulated cities and provinces, and sent forth the whole flower and vigor of Christendom to another mad struggle with the millions of Asia?
But the Second Crusade was unsuccessful, and after three years of unparalleled privations and suffering, the miserable survivors of the expedition returned to Europe to relate their misfortunes and to marvel at their discomfiture.
Forty years after the Second Crusade, the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem fell. During that year Saladin gained the Battle of Tiberias, and soon recovered Jerusalem from the Christians.
Two years afterward, in the year 1189, the Third Crusade was projected. It was distinguished by the adventures of the Lion-Hearted Richard. This Crusade lasted three years.
The Fourth Crusade followed only three years later.
It was under the auspices of Pope Celestine III., and terminated in inglorious defeat.
The Fifth Crusade resulted in the capture of Constantinople, and nothing more.
The Sixth Crusade terminated in the conquest of Damietta, in Egypt,--quite foreign to the rescue of Jerusalem. The Fifth and Sixth Crusades were both under the fostering care of Pope Innocent III.
In 1234 the Seventh Crusade was undertaken, and owing to the dissensions of the Moslems some success attended it.
In 1244, St. Louis projected the Eighth Crusade. In preparations for it, four years were consumed and great efforts were made. The immediate object of this Crusade was the conquest of Egypt; the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem being left fur the time in the hands of the Infidels. But the result was disastrous. The army was defeated, and Louis himself fell a captive into the hands of the Infidels. He was redeemed with money and returned to Rome.
Twenty years afterward his old passion returned, and he projected the Ninth and final Crusade. This, like His first expedition, was directed against the Moslems of Africa, and not against the usurpers of the Holy Land. He occupied with his forces the plains of Carthage, and endeavored to deliver from the hands of the Mahommedans the tombs of Tertullian, Cyprian, and Augustine, the former Bishop of Hippo.
While his army was encamped under the walls of Tonis, and before ally decisive result was attained, St, Louis was called away forever from the sanguinary scene.
The adventures of the English Edward immediately followed, which closed the long succession of fruitless efforts a worthless object. The power of the Moslem presently increased in might and boldness, and in the year 1291 the last fragments of Christian rule were swept away from the surface of Palestine, and Acre, the last bulwark of the Cross, fell into the hands of the Mohammedan conqueror.
The Catholics from the Council of Nice, A.D. 325, onward to the termination of the last Crusade had everything of Church and State in their fingers. The monks and monasteries, the nuns and nunneries, were theirs. The Crusades were theirs. By the sanction of the Pope in the open assembly of Church Councils at Placenza, at Clermont, and elsewhere, the dismal work was begun. At Placenza, four thousand ecclesiastics concurred with thirty thousand seculars in declaring: It is the will of God.
At the same Council also Pope Martin II. presided. Martin the Pope, as well as Peter the Hermit, harangued this assembly; and thus it was the voice of the Pope, and the voice of the monks, and the voice of the ecclesiastics and the seculars, and not by any means the voice of God, that decreed to rout the Turks from Palestine and fill it up with the soldiery of the Roman See.
Whatever, then, may be our estimate of the Crusades, whether we deem them good or evil; led on by heaven or by hell, we cannot but consider them the legitimate offspring of the Catholic Church.
The Church originated the Crusades. The men of the Church projected them. The authority of the Church controlled them. The money of the Church sustained them. Consequently, they were wars of the Church; and whatever their character, and their results, the Church espoused them, and called them Holy Wars.
Conflict between the Church and State.
THE Crusades over, we must now follow the Church in its sorrowful struggle with the King of France. The conflict resulted in the removal of the papal court from Rome to the city of Avignon, in the Babylonish captivity, as the Italians called it, and in the humiliation of Rome and Italy. The attempt to restore the papal court to Rome caused the Great Schism, and the Church for many years had two Popes, one reigning in Avignon, the other in Rome. Finally, the University of Paris, and aided by the influence of the Councils of Constance, Basle, and Pisa, healed the shameful schism, and the Church, under one Pope with His court in Rome, went on in the usual way.
The conflict between the King of France and the rope began in this manner:
Boniface, who was made Pope A.D. 1294, like many of the Popes, was ambitious and unprincipled. Celestine V., his predecessor, was violently thrust aside and forced to abdicate to make way for Boniface. The princely Colonnas, the leaders of the Ghibellines in Rome, were outraged at the conduct of Boniface, and they revolted. The Pope excommunicated them, and they appealed to a General Council, for this they knew would touch the papal power to the quick. Boniface, then proclaimed a crusade against them. Palestina, one of their strongholds, which fell into the hands of the Pope, was utterly devastated and sown with salt. Some of the Colonnas fled to France and sought the protection of Philip the Fair, in whom they found a friend, who was destined to avenge their wrongs, and to inflict on the papacy a blow from which it never recovered.
The Crusades had brought all Europe under taxation to Rome, and the drain of money into Italy, especially from France and England, was enormous.
The wealth of England and France had insensibly glided into the hands of the Church; and the kings of these nations, in order to carry on the affairs state, were at length compelled to levy a tax on the clergy and on the immense estates and revenues of the Church. When Edward I. began to tax the English clergy, they resisted. But when told that those who refused to share the burdens of the state had no right to the protection of its laws, they at once submitted.
Philip made a similar attempt in France. But Rome could not tolerate this trespass upon what she considered her proper domain. Boniface, therefore, issued his bull excommunicating all kings who should levy subsidies on ecclesiastics. Philip then prohibited the exportation of gold and silver from France without his license, on the ground that if the French clergy were not to be tributary to him, France should not be tributary to the Pope.
The king then put forth his hand and touched what the Church had, and site cursed him to his face. At first a literary war ensued: the rope published his bull, the king his reply. Boniface had as antagonists the King of France, the Colonnas, the Lawyers, and the Mendicant friars. The friars, both high and low, hated him. The higher English Franciscans were enraged against him because he refused to let them hold their lands. They attempted to bribe him with forty thousand ducats; but Boniface seized the money at the bank, under the pretext that it had no owners. The Mendicant friars, he held, could not own it, inasmuch as they had vowed perpetual poverty. The Pope then, with the money in his hand, denied them the privileges that they sought by the offered bribe. The lower Franciscans were steeped in the most direful heresies. St. Francis they placed instead of the LORD JESUS CHRIST!
And still they had a just estimate of the Pope, whom they declared to be Antichrist, the Man of Sin.
The quarrel between Philip and Boniface increased in bitterness. Philip seized and imprisoned a papal nuncio chosen because he was personally offensive to the King. The Pope retaliated with bulls protesting against the outrage, and citing the French clergy to appear in Rome to himself was invited to be present and hear his own doom. The indignation of Philip knew no bounds when Boniface issued his celebrated bull Ausculta Fili. The King had it publicly burned in Paris, at the sound of a trumpet. Philip assembled the States-General, and under the advice of his Lawyers the issue was brought to this:
Does the King hold the realm of France of God or of the Pope?
Philip was determined to throw off the supremacy of the Pope in respect; to the temporalities of his kingdom, and to break up the papal usurpations of Boniface. And as the protector of the people against the tyranny of the priesthood, and against the atrocious barbarities of the Inquisition, the people rallied to his standard and supported him in his conflict with Boniface. William de Nogaret, a lawyer of great ability, was one of the Kings advisers, and at his suggestion the States-General preferred four charges against the Pope:
1. That Boniface was not the true Pope; 2. That he was a heretic; 3. That he was a Simoniac; 4. That he was a man weighed clown with crimes. De Nogaret demanded that the whole subject be referred to a General Council to be summoned by the King.
A second meeting of the States-General was held; and in it, from many most revolting charges brought against the Pope, and sworn to upon the Holy Gospels, the following will show the infamous character of Boniface:
That Boniface denied the immortality of the soul, and the life to come: That he did not observe the fasts of the Church, not even Lent: That he spoke of cardinals, monks, and friars as hypocrites: That the Holy Land was lost through his fault, inasmuch as he had embezzled the money sent for its relief: That he held that fornication and other obscene practices were no sin: That he was a sodomite, and had caused clerks to be murdered is His presence: That he had enriched himself by simony: That his nephews wife had borne him two illegitimate sons. The King appealed to a General Council and to a legitimate Pope.
The quarrel had now become a mortal one. The Pope could take but one course, and he took it. He excommunicated the King. He deprived him of his throne, and anathematized his posterity to the fourth generation. The bull was to be suspended in the porch of the Cathedral of Anagni on September 8; but William de Nogaret and one of the Colonnas had already passed into Italy. They hired a troop of banditti, and on September 7, attacked the pontiff in his palace at Anagni. The doors of the church which protected him were strong, but they yielded to fire. The brave old men in His pontifical robes, with his crucifix in one hand and the keys of St. Peter in the other, sat down on his throne and confronted his assailants. His cardinals had fled through a sewer. Sciarra, Colonna raised his hand to kill him on the spot, but the blow was arrested by De Nogaret, who, with a bitter taunt, told him that here, in his own city, he owed his life to the mercy of a servant of the King of France,--a servant whose father he had burned by the Inquisition.
The Pope was spared only to be placed on a miserable horse, with his face to the tail, and led off to prison. They meant to transport him to France to await the General Council.
But he was rescued and returned to Rome. But he was again seized and imprisoned; and on the 11th of October, A.D. 1303, he died, a raving maniac.
Benedict XI., the successor and creature of Boniface, had but a brief reign. In less than a year poison ended his pontificate.
The Archbishop of Bordeaux, as Clement V., succeeded Benedict. In the conclave of cardinals electing him, Philip, the King of France, determined in advance the policy of Clement. The compromise provided that the Church and the King should be reconciled, that the Calonnas should be restored, and that the papal throne should be transferred to Avignon, in France. By this movement the paramount influence of Rome in ecclesiastical matters was broken up, and France, instead of Italy, was now the home of the Church. The tomb of the Apostles was abandoned. The Eternal City had ceased to be the metropolis of Christianity.
Clement died in 1314, enormously rich, after a reign of about nine years. His pontificate was remarkable chiefly for His prodigal munificence to his mistress, the beautiful Brunisard, the Countess of Talleyrand, and for his remorseless persecution of the Knights Templar.
The Crusades were begun and carried on in the interest of the papacy. By them all Europe had been wrought up into a fanatical expectation, doomed to a fearful disappointment. The papacy had appealed to the religious temper of Europe, and had deliberately pitted Christianity against Mohammedanism, and stated the authenticity of each on the conflict. In the face of the whole world the papacy had proclaimed as the true criterion the actual possession of the holy places, hallowed by the life, the sufferings, the death, the resurrection of the Redeemer. Whatever the result might be, there was no concealing, no dissembling, the trial by battle was to determine the issue.
The papacy had drained the Continent of its blood and of its money. Every family is Europe had been pecuniarily involved in the Crusades, and almost every family had furnished men. Was it, therefore, to be wondered at that everywhere the people, accustomed to the logic of trial by battle, were terror-stricken when they saw the result?
The trial by battle was a criterion as false and unwarrantable in the fourteenth century as it would have been in the first century. But, insane as it was, the papacy had taken the issue, and the question whether Christianity or Mohammedanism is the true religion was to be determined by the battles of the Crusades! And now the time had come to reap the consequences of the miserable failure of these holy wars, in the intellectual revolt among the people, and heresy among the clergy.
One of the first manifestations of defection and revolt was among the Knights Templar. Their stay in Palestine had opened their eyes on the state of things there, where Mohammedanism in its strength was brought face to face with the armies of Christianity that fought in the Crusades. The Templars had gone out as the vanguard of Christianity; but as they returned, being expelled from the Holy Land at the close of the Crusades, they were in fact Mohammedanized, and by stealth they became the apologists of the religion which they were sent out to destroy.
The King of France, Philip the Fair, and the Pope united in a determination to destroy the Templars. Accordingly, all the Templars in France were arrested in one day, October 13, A.D. 1307. Their crimes seem to have been twofold, namely: 1. Apostasy in respect to Christianity, and a leaning toward Mohammedanism; 2. The possession of great wealth, which they acquired by methods unlawful to any except to Popes and Kings!
The historian says:
After some hesitation, the Pope issued a bull, commanding the King of England to do what the King of France had already done,--To arrest the Templars and seize their property.
A papal commission assembled in Paris, August 7, A.D. 1309, and the Grand Master of the Templars, Du Molay, was brought before it. He professed His faith is the Catholic religion, and denied the charges brought against the Templars. Nevertheless, he was to he condemned, and he was condemned. But it was not until after a weary imprisonment of six years that Du Molay was brought up for sentence, and that with a brother convict he was burnt at the stake. Previous to this one hundred and thirteen Templars were, in slow succession, burned at stakes.
The Templars that escaped death were despoiled of their wealth, and either banished, or so scattered and degraded that their power and influence were for the time destroyed. But there followed a grand reaction; for the effect of all this was to arouse inquiry in thousands of minds as to the Divine right of kings and Popes to determine what men shall think and believe, and what they shall say. The Templars could be banished or burnt, and their names forgotten, but their protestations of innocence, and their outcry against the tyranny and wickedness of the Pope lingered in the memories of the people, and came down through the ages. Thus we have the words of the Grand Master, Du Molay, spoken from the fire of the stakes Clement! thou wicked and false judge, I summon thee to meet me within forty days at the bar of God. Some say that in like manner he summoned the king. Soon after this shameful martyrdom, King Philip the Fair and Pope Clement V. were both death.
John XXII., after more than two years spent in rivalries and intrigues between the French and Italian Cardinals, was made the successor of Clement V., and he continued to reside in Avignon. His pontificate was remarkable for the vigor of his persecutions of the believers in a book called The Everlasting Gospel, and the Albigenses and Waldenses; also for the accumulation and hoarding up of immense sums of money. At his death eighteen millions of gold florins, in specie, and seven millions in plate and jewels, were found in His coffers.
John also had a taste for theological questions. He raised the question as to what was called the beatific vision, and caused the most learned of the clergy to examine the question, and he himself entered into the dispute. The deliverances of the Pope were deemed heretical, for he held that the dead, even the saints, do not enjoy the beatific vision of God,--that is, they cannot enter heaven until after the Judgment Day. The University of Paris became involved in the controversy. The King of France condemned the heresy. The revenues of the Church were in danger. The cry of the orthodox was: If the Apostles, Peter, James, and John, and the blessed Virgin, and the rest of the Saints do not yet stand in the presence of God, and see His face, why expect their intercession, and why pray to them?
The question, therefore, of the beatific vision became one of great practical interest to the Catholics of the fourteenth century, but it was not settled during the reign of Pope John XXII. His successor, Benedict XII., solved the problem and set the Church at rest, by proclaiming that only those saints immediately appear in the presence of God who do not pass through Purgatory!
A most sombre picture of the fallen Church is presented in the history of the pontificates that follow to the time of the Reformation.
The enormous crimes that flourished under the escutcheon of the Church showed beyond the shadow of a doubt, that whether reigning in Rome or in Avignon, the Pope was Antichrist, and that the Catholic Church which he represented had departed from the LORD, and had prostituted its superlative powers and prerogatives to the service of things merely sensual, corporeal, and therefore infernal. Our space does not allow us to go far into details: a few must suffice.
In the pontificate of Clement VI., A.D. 1342, the court in Avignon became the most voluptuous in Christendom. It was crowded with knights and ladies, as well as with artists. It exhibited a day-dream of equipages and banquets. The pontiff himself delighted in the society of women, but, in his weakness, permitted his lady, the Countess of Turenne, to extort enormous revenues by the sale of ecclesiastical promotions. Petrarch, who lived in Avignon at this time, speaks of it as a vast brothel. His own sister had been seduced by the Pope John XXII.
The papal court being in Avignon, its enormous revenues could no longer be garnered in Rome, and as time advanced the Romans became clamorous for the return of the Papal Chair to the Eternal City. Accordingly, Urban V., to the great grief of his cardinals, left Avignon A.D. 1367, and returned to Rome. The Pope feared the Roman populace, for not only in Rome, but also throughout Italy, the discipline of the Church was relaxed and demoralized, its pretended sanctities derided, its piety mocked at, and its priesthood a common laughing-stock.
In other quarters Urban had trouble on his hands. In Tuscany Barnabas Visconti was raising trouble. The Pope sent by the hands of two legates a bull of excommunication.
Barnabas was unmoved by the bull, and actually compelled the legates, in his presence, to eat the parchment on which the bull was written, together with the leaden seal and silken string,--telling them that he hoped it would sit as lightly on their stomachs as it did on his! With this answer to the bull he sent the legates back to the Pope. Urban soon grew tired of Rome and returned to Avignon, and died there.
Gregory XI. finally ended what was termed, from its seventy years duration, the Babylonish captivity, and stored the papacy to Rome, A. D. 1376.
On the death of Gregory XI. the conclave met in Rome, and, intimidated by the Roman populace, elected as his successor Urban VI. But repenting of what they had done, the conclave escaped to Fondi, and there proclaimed his election void, and substituted for him Clement VII. Thus began the great schism, which was, in reality, a struggle between France and Italy for the control of the Papacy.
The Great Schism.
THE Church now had two Popes, one in Avignon, the other in Rome, and both surrounded by a train of cardinals. To pay the expenses of the two papal courts, and of the war between two Popes, new methods of extortion had to be devised, by which everything on earth and in heaven that the Church could seize upon was put up for sale. Each Pope was under the ban of the other, and as they had no peers on earth, and therefore could not be tried by their Peers, the People necessarily became the arbitrators of the controversy. The University of Paris swayed the leading influence in the establishment of peace. The simultaneous abdication of both competitors was proposed as the only practicable method of allaying the strife.
Benedict XIII., then reigning in Avignon, and Gregory XII., then reigning in Rome, both promised on their election to make the sacrifice which the interests of the Church required, but after their election, both, on various pretexts, refused to abide by their engagements. Benedict, abandoned by the French, fled into Spain, and both Popes were finally forsaken by their cardinals. (See Dr. Hase, pp. 275, 276.)
The cardinals now laid aside their divisions, and by the advice of the Universities convoked a General Council in Pisa. The extent to which the Church was embroiled in the schism is shown by the greatness of this Council.
The priesthood was represented by twenty-four Cardinals and two hundred Bishops; the monastic orders by three hundred Abbots; scientific bodies by deputies from the Universities, one hundred and twenty Masters in Theology, and three hundred graduates of the Roman canonical law; and the State especially by the Envoys of France and England.
In opposition to the protests of the two Popes, and Rupert, Emperor of Germany, and Ladislaus, King of Naples, the Council confirmed the principle defended by Gerson, Chancellor of Paris, that the power with which the LORD invested the Church was independent of the Pope.
Both Benedict and Gregory were then summoned before the Council, and after a formal trial were deposed for contumacy and the violation of their engagements. The cardinals then elected Peter of Candia Pope, who assumed the name of Alexander V. Still Benedict and Gregory would not yield, and the astonished Church now had three Popes! (See Dr. Hase, p. 276.)
The burdens of taxation and extortion increased, as a third Pope was added, and a third papal court. As time advanced things grew worse. With reflecting people all belief in anything Divine in the papacy died out.
The spell was broken. The papacy had broken down, and the devout and simple-minded among the people knew not where to look for the Church.
John XXIII., an atrociously wicked man, succeeded Alexander V. to the papal throne. His career was most infamous. Money must be had, he said, at all hazards. He established ecclesiastical brokers offices, where preferments were sold, sometimes the same one over and over again, and where a revenue was actually derived from the licensing of prostitutes, gambling-houses, and usurers. For ages England had given so much money to Rome that now a remonstrance was made in the House of Commons; and it was declared that five times as much as the taxes levied by the King went from England to the Pope, and that his revenue was greater than that of any prince in Christendom.
Wiclif and his followers protested against the papacy. Thousands crowded the Universities in England and on the Continent, where the doctrines of Wielif were disseminated far and wide. For the use of his countrymen he translated the Bible into English.
He taught that the bread in the Eucharist is not the real Body of Christ, but only its image; that the Roman Church has no true claim to headship over other churches; that its Bishop has no more authority than any other Bishop; that Bishops ought not to have prisons for the punishment of those obnoxious to them; and that the Bible alone is a sufficient guide for a Christian man.
All classes of society were influenced by these doctrines. It was paid that every other man in England was a Wiclifite. For a time the government vacillated, but was at length persuaded by the Church to try her hand at the sorrowful work of burning heretics. The statute de heretico comburendo was passed A.D. 1400. William Santree, a priest who had turned Wiclifite, was the first English martyr.
John Badbee, a tailor, who denied transubstantiation, next went to the stake. Lord Cobham, the head of the Lollards or Wiclifites, who denounced the Pope as Antichrist, the Son of Perdition, was imprisoned, and after escaping, was again arrested for some political offense, and at length suffered the double penalty for heresy and treason, being hung on a gallows with a blazing fire at his feet. From the social rank of these three early martyrs we see that heresy was pervading all classes, from the lowest to the highest.--Dr. Draper abridged, pp. 397, 398.
The Council of Constance met A.D. 1415. It had three objects, namely: The union of the Church under one Pope: The reformation of the clergy: And the suppression of heresy. The Council proclaimed itself supreme, and finally decreed:
That in their opinion the schism could never be effectually healed but by the simultaneous abdication of each of the three Popes; and the general voice became more and more decided in its demands for the impeachment of John XXIII. on account of his dissolute course of life. John then appeared willing to resign the tiara, but soon after, in spite of his oath to the contrary, with the aid of Frederic of Austria, he escaped to Schaffhausen. Afterward he moved still farther down the Rhine, and revoked all his promises on the ground that they were given under constraint.
The trial of John XXIII. was then regularly carried forward, and being proved guilty of a long catalogue of crimes, he was suspended from his dignities, and after the submission of Austria, he was imprisoned, and finally deposed. Gregory resigned. After long and fruitless negotiations, Benedict, deserted generally by his friends, was deposed by the Council as a heretic, July 26, 1417. (See Dr. Hase, p. 278.)
An election was soon held for a new Pope, and Martin V. was chosen November 11, 1417, and he reigned until February 20, 1431, but the hopes for the long promised reformation of the Church were baffled, and turned over to a Council promised is five years.
In September, A.D. 1420, Martin V. finally became master of Rome, and restored the government of the churches which had been so long in confusion and decay. Still the promised reforms were held back, Martin dreading the fearful ordeal of another general Council. Nevertheless, he was compelled to yield, and be summoned the promised Council in the imperial city of Basle, in March, A.D. 1431.
Martin died in 1431, and Eugenius IV. succeeded him. Eugenius endeavored and managed to master the Council of Basle. The Council at first, after arranging its members into four deputations, proceeded to formulate its decrees.
The abuses of which the prelates and the clergy were charged were brought forward. The papal court was reduced in many respects; and so were the revenues of the Pope, and his power of bestowing benefices beyond the Alps; the illegal transfer of ecclesiastical trials to Rome was forbidden; the Pope himself was solemnly reprimanded for his disregard of these decrees, and other matters. But when Eugenius heard of this, he at once adjourned the Council to Ferrars, and afterward to Florence. In this way he threw the Council into confusion, and endeavored to break up its power, and by thus removing it to another place, to make it, in fact, another Council. This indeed was the result; for the Council in Florence excommunicated the rebellious assembly in Basle. Nevertheless, the Pope did not escape. The Council in Basle instituted legal proceedings against him, and Engenius was deposed, June 25, 1439, for simony, heresy, and the disturbance of the public peace. (See Dr. Hase, pp. 279, 280.)
The reformation of the Church, therefore, was not to be accomplished in the Council of Basle, and its energies were wasted in a series of intrigues and political broils.
No further details are needed. neas Sylvius, the ablest man of the day, in three words gives us the true insight into the state of things: Faith is dead.
In a room attached to the Cathedral of Basle, the modern traveler may read on a piece of paper this inscription: The room where the famous Council of Basil was assembled. In this room Pope Eugene IV. was dethroned, and replaced by Felix V., Duc of Savoie and Cardinal of Repaile. The Council began in 1431 and lasted till 1448. (Dr. Draper, p. 400.)
The Inquisition.
THE Inquisition is defined as a tribunal in Roman Catholic countries, established by the Popes, for the trial and punishment of heretics.
In the Primitive Church trials for heresy and for other offenses were in the hands of the Church itself, and the extreme penalty inflicted upon the worst offenders was excommunication. But when the Roman Emperors were converted, and the Church and State united, then the Emperors were ready to help the Church, and this help they offered in many ways. The punishment of heretics was a work in full harmony with the spirit of imperial Rome, and the Emperors entered into it with delight. The Theodosian and Justinian codes enacted that heretics should be banished and their estates confiscated. Thenceforward it was given to the Ecclesiastical courts to determine who were heretics, and to excommunicate them; then it was the business of the civil courts to banish them, and to seize upon their estates.
But the civil authorities in connection with the Church soon began to go further, and for heresy and other offenses banishment was deemed an insufficient punishment, and at the option of the court the dungeon, the rack, or the stake was substituted. And the enormity of these fiendish atrocities increased from age to age until, in the Inquisition, the limit of cruelty was reached, beyond which nothing further was possible.
Pope Innocent III. was almost a match for Hildebrand in making the papacy supreme in the Church, and the civil authorities subordinate to it. Practically, this ideal of spiritual despotism had never yet been fully realized. For many of the Bishops still maintained a certain independence in the government of their dioceses, and many of the civil rulers set aside the decisions of the Church. Innocent III., in his final crusade against the Albigenses, found an occasion for concentrating in himself, and consolidating in the papacy, a power over the bodies and souls of men most formidable, and hitherto unknown in the Church.
The Pope called into this new service Father Dominic and his followers, the Dominican Friars, and sent them into Languedoc, where the Albigenses had given the greatest trouble to the Catholics. They, indeed, had troubled the Catholic Church, for they had protested against the false doctrines and wicked practices of the Popes and of the Catholic Church generally, and had refused to recant unless convinced that they were wrong. The Popes had sent legates and preachers to them to endeavor to reclaim them, but to so purpose.
Dominic and his friars were therefore sent with a new commission. They had orders to excite the Catholic princes and people to enter into the work of extirpating the heretics. Dominic and his followers were also ordered to inquire and find out the number and character of the heretics, and to transmit a faithful account of the same to Rome.
Hence they were called Inquisitors; and from this beginning arose the formidable tribunal known as the Inquisition.
The Inquisition began in a small way, but it was soon enlarged. By a canon of the Council of Toulouse the tribunal consisted of one Priest and three laymen. This was the foundation of the Court of Inquisition. This Council decreed as follows:
Any prince, lord, bishop, or judge, who shall spare a heretic, shall forfeit his lands, property, or office; and every house in which a heretic is found shall be destroyed. Heretics, or persons suspected of heresy, shall not be allowed the assistance of a physician, or of any of their associates in crime, even though they may be suffering under a mortal disease. Sincere penitents shall be removed from the neighborhood in which they live, if it is suspected of heresy; they shall wear a peculiar dress, and forfeit all public privileges until they receive a papal dispensation. Penitents who have recanted through fear shall be kept in confinement.Dr. Hase, p. 293.
Dominic, at the first, was at the head of the inquisitors scattered abroad into various Catholic countries. But as time advanced the Pope found these roving inquisitors insufficient for his purpose, and therefore he established courts of inquisition in several of the Catholic countries. The first of these was in the city of Toulouse, and Dominic was made the first regular inquisitor. But the Spanish inquisition in the end became the most powerful, unscrupulous, and diabolical institution of the kind in the world.
In the pontificate of Gregory IX., about A.D. 1232, the independence of the inquisition was increased by making the courts of inquisition and the inquisitors generally consist of foreign monks, and finally of the Dominican Friars, who were in the most implicit and abject obedience to the Pope. About the same time the papacy constrained Louis IX. and Raymond VII., of Toulouse, and Frederic II., to enact certain laws which required the civil authorities to carry into execution the decrees of the inquisition.
Fredcric, in his great zeal for the inquisition, in A.D. 1244 published two most cruel edicts,--namely: 1. That all heretics who continued obstinate should be burnt. 2. That all heretics who repented should be imprisoned for life.
As the inquisition became more fully organized in the several great Catholic centres, its officers generally consisted of three inquisitors, a fiscal projector, two secretaries, a magistrate, a messenger, a receiver, a jailer, an agent of confiscated possessions, physicians, surgeons, door-keepers, familiars, and visitors, who were sworn to secrecy.
Heresy was the chief offense that the inquisition was appointed to remove; and heresy may be anything spoken or written against the traditions, or the creed, or the conduct of the Catholic Church. To read the Bible in the vernacular tongue, or to read the Koran or the Talmud, or the books of the reformers or of the Philosophers, was deemed a heresy.
The inquisitors were responsible to no one but the Pope himself, and it was their duty to search for heretics in every quarter. They had the right to imprison any one who was suspected, and instead of furnishing him with a statement of the charges against him, they required of him a general confession. In their examination torture was used, and witnesses, whose names were concealed, were sometimes taken from convicted criminals and from the most worthless men. The punishments inflicted were confiscation of property, public penance, perpetual imprisonment, and death by burning. Even a recantation would not always deliver the victim. In the hands of the hierarchy, therefore, the inquisition became a desperate means of sustaining by violence and terror a religion already dead at the core, and without foundation in the Word of God.
As the inquisition went on with its atrocious work, the people stood so much in fear of it that parents delivered up their children, husbands their wives, and masters their servants, to its officers, without daring in the least to murmur. Those arrested were shut up in frightful dungeons, where they were often kept for months, till they themselves turned their own accusers, and declared the cause of their imprisonment, for they were never confronted with witnesses.
The friends of those thus taken off went into morning, and spoke of them as dead; and lest they should be brought in as accomplices, they did not dare to petition for their pardon. When there was no shadow of proof against those imprisoned, they were discharged after along imprisonment, and with the loss, in most cases, of the greater part of their property. Indeed, in one accused, the greater his wealth the greater his danger. The rapacity of the inquisitors often led to the most fiendish cruelties. To get hold of property, without scruples, they would destroy life.
The history of the inquisition by an array of facts that have never been doubted, tells a most sorrowful tale as to the character of the inquisitors. They were called Holy Fathers. Their external sanctity was faultless, and their seeming zeal for the Church could not be excelled. And still they did not go to the LORD for salvation, nor to the Word for instruction in the way of life.
The inquisition found auricular confession one of the most efficient means of entering into the very heart of the men of the Church, and of establishing everywhere its reign of terror. This was another measure due to that spiritual despot, Innocent III.
In the Fourth Lateran Council, A.D. 1215, under the influence of Innocent, the necessity of auricular confession was first firmly established in the Church. Its aim was that no heretic should escape, and that even the absent priest should be paramount in the domestic circle.
The sacred privacy of life was invaded, and a mans wife, children, and servants made his spies and accusers. A social immorality in the Church so atrocious, we may be sure, demonstrates that it is irrecoverably diseased and hastening to its end.Dr. Draper, p. 373.
So far the nature of the inquisition and its ally, auricular confession, and the character of the inquisitors. What, then, of its works, and the results of this huge machinery of evil? What was the influence of the inquisition on the various heresies which it was designed to eradicate?
We again open the books of history, and they answer the question in the sorrowful story of the martyrdoms without number that filled Christendom with anguish and despair, and that made the Roman Catholic religion a reproach in the earth.
The inquisition, as a tribunal wholly distinct from the Bishops, was fully instituted during the pontificate of Innocent IV., about A.D. 1243, and was established in Italy, Spain, Germany, and in the southern provinces of France, and continued to exist in Roman Catholic countries until abolished by Bonaparte, A.D. 1808, a period of more than five hundred and sixty years.
The power of the inquisition was first manifested in the south of France, in the conclusion of the Albigenses war. The Catholics, after many fruitless attempts to convert the Albigenses, finally proclaimed a crusade against them. The war was waged with the most remorseless fury. None were spared. No protection was given, either in age or sex or sacredness of function. The Church determined not simply to crush the belief of the Albigenses, but absolutely to annihilate it. And by turning upon these unarmed, peaceful, and cultivated people the legions of fiendish barbarians and iron-clad warriors, with the command to give no quarter, the Albigenses were destroyed and their birth-place consumed with fire.
But fugitives escaping the storm of war concealed themselves in secret places, and mingled with the orthodox. To ferret out these the inquisition organized its troops of spies and began its atrocious work, and finished the annihilation of the Albigenses.
Llorente, the historian of the inquisition, computes that Torquemada and his collaborators, in the course of eighteen years, burnt at the stake ten thousand two hundred and twenty persons, and otherwise punished ninety-seven thousand three hundred and twenty-one.
These frightful atrocities failing to convert the people to the Catholic religion, Torquemada insisted on the immediate banishment of every unbaptized Jew. The edict of expulsion was signed March 30, 1402; and the unbaptized Jews of whatever age, sex, or condition, were ordered to leave the realm by the end of the following July. If they revisited it, they should suffer death. They might sell their effects, and take the proceeds in merchandise or bills of exchange, but not in fold or silver. The Jews were thus suddenly robbed of their wealth and exiled from the land of their birth, and for hundreds of years the land of their ancestors.Dr. Drapers account abridged.
A similar action against the Moors soon followed. A pragmatica was issued in Seville, February, 1502, calling upon the Castilians to drive out of the land these enemies of God, and ordering all unbaptized Moors in the kingdoms of Castile and Leon to leave the country by the end of April. They might sell their property, but they were forbidden to take away any gold or silver; nor were they permitted to emigrate to the Mohammedan dominions; death was the penalty of disobedience. (See Dr. Drapers Conflict, pp. 144-148.)
The inquisition was charged, as we have seen, to discover and bring to judgment heretics lurking in towns, houses, cellars, woods, caves, and fields, and history recounts its deeds of blood.
With such savage alacrity did it carry out its object of protecting the interests of religion, that between 1481 and 1808 it had punished three hundred and forty thousand persons, and of these about thirty-two thousand had been burnt!
In its earlier days, when public opinion could find no means of protesting against its atrocities, it often put to death, without appeal, on the very day that they were accused, nobles, clerks, monks, hermits, and laymen of every rank. In whatever direction thoughtful men looked, the air was fill of fearful shadows. No one could indulge in freedom of thought without expecting punishment. So dreadful were the proceedings of the inquisition, that the exclamation of Pagliarici was the exclamation of thousands: It is hardly possible for a man to be a Christian and die in his bed.
The inquisition, as we have seen, destroyed the sects of reformers in Southern France in the thirteenth century, and in subsequent times, by its unscrupulous atrocities, it extirpated Protestantism in Italy and Spain. Still, as already observed, the inquisition failed in its purpose. As Dr. Draper has it:
When the heretic could no longer confront the inquisition he evaded it. A dismal disbelief stealthily pervaded all Europe,--a denial of Providence, of the immortality of the soul, of human free-will. Multitudes cherished such ideas, driven to them by the tyrannical acts of ecclesiasticism.See Conflict, pp. 207-209.
The object of the inquisitors was to force the unfortunate victim to recant and turn Roman Catholic, or to confess to some alleged crime, or to reveal his confederates, or to divulge the hiding-places of his money and other effects.
The tortures inflicted were remorseless without a parallel. The persecutions under the Emperors, where hundreds were butchered or burnt together, or where individual martyrs went to the stake, were mercy to the refined cruelties of the inquisition. Every imaginable fiendish device that human ingenuity could invent was resorted to.
The tortures were of many kinds, and yet there was method in the madness of these atrocious fiends.
There were the iron boot and wedge, the thumb-screw, the red-hot pincers for tearing the flesh, mutilations by the knife, such as slitting the nose and the ears, cutting off the tongue, and by the ring and the screw forcing the eyes out of their sockets.
But the most formidable feature, after all, was the profound secrecy and the deathly silence that enshrouded the whole movement of the inquisition, from the arrest of the victim to the Auto-da-Fe. All that was said to him was simply: You are suspected of heresy. Or when the victim was a young woman: You are wanted in the convent. And to the question so often imploringly asked by these terror-stricken victims: What have I said or done? no other answer was given but the dungeon, with fetters and chains. The plan of the inquisitors was, by the terrorism inspired, to force their prisoners to confess something that would criminate themselves, or that would criminate others, in the hope of exculpating themselves. And to this end they were occasionally brought out of prison and set before the inquisitors. When no confessions were voluntarily made, then to force them, tortures were applied. And these tortures were repeated, varied, and intensified from time to time, until either the desired confession was extorted, or until the inquisitors were convinced that they could get nothing to their purpose from their victims, or until the final limit was reached, death under the rack closing the conflict.
Indulgences.
IN the earliest ages of the Church penances were often substituted for repentance, and in the ages following indulgences were substituted for penances. This transition marked the decline of the Church into worse states, and in the end its downfall and ruin.
For repentance involved the convictions of the heart, the acknowledgment of evil as sin against God, and the struggle against it; penances involved sometimes the exclusion of the subject from Church communion and worship for a longer or shorter time, with tortures and privations beginning and ending in the sensations of the body; while the scheme of indulgences subsequently introduced provided for the pardon of sin, for a consideration of money, or for so much service in the wars.
From the time of Gregory VII. the Popes dispensed plenary indulgences for crimes the most atrocious; services rendered to the Church, or actual money, was taken in payment for these pardons. The common people, of course, understood these promises of pardon literally, and the evil consequences were numerous and most disastrous.
The theologians of the twelfth century, unable to reconcile this human forgiveness with their views of the greatness and goodness of God, either questioned its efficacy, or else greatly qualified its application. Innocent III, restricted the right of the Bishops to grant indulgences, but, as it would seem, only to exercise it himself the more unreservedly. For not only was plenary indulgence granted to all those who joined the multiplied crusades of the thirteenth century, and lesser indulgences on the most frivolous pretexts, but the various monastic orders were allowed to offer full dispensations on conditions wholly inadequate. At the end of this period, A.D. 1300, Boniface VIII. ordained a year of Jubilee, during which the forgiveness of all sins could be obtained by a pilgrimage to Rome.Gieselers Ecc. Hist., vol. ii. pp. 354-357.
Pope Leo X., in his bull De Indulgentiis, designed to remove all ignorance of the doctrine of the Roman Church respecting indulgences and their efficacy, declares:
That the Roman pontiff, vicar of CHRIST on earth, can, for reasonable causes, by the powers of the keys, grant to the faithful, whether in this life or in purgatory, indulgences out of the superabundance of the merits of CHRIST, and of the saints (expressly called a treasure); and that those who have truly obtained these indulgences are released from so much of the temporal punishment due for their actual sins to the Divine justice, as is equivalent to the indulgence granted and obtained.Bulla Leo X. adv. Luther.
Clement VII, in the bull Unigenitus, gives what was held as the rational basis of these papal dispensations of pardon. Clement says:
As a single drop of CHRISTS blood would have sufficed for the redemption of the whole human race, so the rest was not lost, but was a treasure which He acquired in the Church militant, to be used for the benefit of His sons; which treasure He would not suffer to be hid in a napkin, or buried in the ground, but committed it to be dispensed by St. Peter and his successors, His vicars upon earth, for proper and reasonable causes, for the total or partial remission of the temporal punishment due to sin; and for an augmentation of His treasure, the merits of the blessed mother of God, and of all the elect are known to come in aid.
The reasonable causes on account of which indulgences are granted are various and numerous. Bellarmine, in his work De Indulgentiis, says, that the works done must be pious works, and must tend to the honor of God and the service of the Church; the indulgence will then be valid. It is not necessary that the work be in itself very meritorious, or satisfactory, or difficult, but as a means it must be not and useful, toward obtaining the end for which the indulgence is granted.
The first, third, and fourth General Lateran Councils, A.D. 1123 to A.D. 1215, granted remission of sin to all who should go to Jerusalem and help to oppose the infidels; and to all who should set themselves to destroy heretics, or who should take up arms against them. Boniface VIII. granted a most full and abundant pardon of all sins to all who should visit Rome the first year in every century. Clement V. decreed that all who should visit, at the jubilee, certain churches, should obtain a most full remission of all their sins. And to all who died in the road to Rome, he granted not only a plenary absolution of all sins, but also he commanded the angels of paradise to carry their souls direct to heaven.
In the Council of Trent it was decreed concerning indulgences as follows:
As the power of granting indulgences was given by CHRIST to His Church, and as she has exercised it in the most ancient times, this holy synod teaches and commands that the use of them, as they are greatly salutary to the Christian people, and approved by the authority of councils, shall be retained; and she anathematizes those who say they are useless, or deny to the Church the power of granting them; but in this grant the synod wishes that moderation be exercised, agreeable to the ancient and approved practice of the Church.--Session xxv.
The chief pontiffs, by virtue of the supreme authority given them in the Universal Church, have justly assumed the power of reserving some graver criminal cases to their own peculiar judgment.--Session xiv., chap. 7.
The more weighty criminal charges against Bishops, which deserve deposition and deprivation, may be judged and determined only by the supreme Roman pontiff.--Session xxiv., chap. 5.
Clementine, is his examination of the Council of Trent in respect to indulgences, says:
No testimony can be produced from any father, or any ancient Church, showing that this doctrine, or the practice of such indulgences, was known or used for twelve hundred years.
As many of these indulgences could be obtained only from the Pope, an office for their sale was opened in Rome, and a table of fees payable in the Chancery of Rome, was published by authority.
The pardon of a heretic was fixed at 36 9s. The marrying of one wife after murdering another was forgiven by the payment of 8 2s. 9d. A pardon for perjury was charged at 9s.; simony, 10s. 6d.; robbery, 12s.; seduction, 9s.; incest, 7s. 6d.; murder, 7s. 6d.
These, then, were the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church concerning indulgences, and the practical methods employed to make the traffic in them a source of revenue and of spiritual power. When money was needed in the administration of the papal government, an innumerable host from the monastic orders was ready at the call of the Pope to go forth to sell these indulgences and to return the money to the papal exchequer. And when crusades were decreed, plenary indulgences were the most ready pay for the required service.
We cannot wonder that, in the beginning of his conflict with the papacy, Luther was outraged by the effrontery of the ropes peddlers of indulgences. The histories describe the career of the voluptuous Pope, Leo X., and show us how Luther shuddered at the profanity and the extent of these indulgences in the Church.
Leo had resolved to carry on the building of the great Church of St. Peter, and, having exhausted his funds in riotous living, he sent round his emissaries to collect fresh treasures by the sale of these pardons for human sin. Tetzel, a Dominican Friar, of the rudest manners and the most brazen audacity, appeared in the market-place of Wittenberg, ringing a bell, and offering indulgences from the Holy See to be sold to all the faithful. Pour in your money, cried Tetzel, and whatever crimes you have committed, or may commit, are forgiven! Pour in your coin, and the souls of your friends and relations will fly out of purgatory the moment they hear the chink of your dollars at the bottom of the box.Whites Eighteen Christian Centuries, p. 421.
The Intermediate State.
THE Spiritual Universe, we are told, consists of Heaven, the Intermediate State, and Hell. We are dependent on Divine revelation for whatever is known respecting either the one or the other of these; and without revelation from the LORD we can know nothing of them.
The Scripture, in the literal sense, clearly reveals the existence of Heaven and Hell, the one, the abode after death of the good, and the other, the abode of the evil. But even the existence of the Intermediate State is by no means clearly revealed in the letter as generally understood. As to the nature of the heavenly state, its joys and blessedness, the Scripture in the letter gives no definite information. Nor is the nature of hell revealed except in terms the most general and indefinite. Definite knowledge in respect to these things was not the boon of the Primitive Church: consequently, we do not wonder at the multiplicity of theories and opinions that were advanced as early as the middle of the second century touching these matters,--theories and opinions that continue to prevail in the Christian Churches even to the present day. To know how interminable the confusion of thought and opinion in respect to Heaven and Hell now prevalent in Christendom, we need only ask a number of Theologians and Ministers some of the most simple questions, as for example:
What is Heaven; where is it? How does man enter it? Who are the Angels? Is Heaven in the natural universe or out of it? And so as to Hell.
What is Hell; where is it? Is it in the earth, or under it; or is it outside of the natural universe?
But at present we must treat of the Intermediate State. And as we are wholly dependent upon Divine revelation for all that is known of this world of spirits, we therefore open the subject by setting forth what is written upon it in the work on Heaven and Hell, in which the Intermediate is called The Word of Spirits.
The world of spirits is neither heaven nor hell, but an intermediate place or state between both. For thither man goes first after death; and then, after a certain period, the duration of which depends upon what kind of a life he has lived in the world, he is either elevated into heaven or cast into hell.
The world of spirits is an intermediate place between heaven and hell, and also the intermediate state of man after death. That it is an intermediate place, was made evident to me from the fact, that the hells are beneath and the heavens above; and that it is an intermediate state, from the fact, that the long as man is there, he is neither in heaven nor in hell. The state of heaven with man is the conjunction of good and truth with him; and the state of hell is the conjunction of evil and the false. When good with a man-spirit is conjoined with truth, he then enters heaven, because, as just remarked, that conjunction is heaven with him; but when with a man-spirit evil is conjoined with the false, he then enters hell, because that conjunction is hell with him. This conjunction takes place in the world of spirits, since man is then in the intermediate state. Whether we say the conjunction of the understanding and the will, or the conjunction of truth and good, it is the same thing.
So far, therefore, as the truths of the understanding are conjoined to the goods of the will,--that is, so far as man wills truths and thence does them, he his heaven in himself, because, as was said above, the conjunction of good and truth is heaven; but so far as the falses of the understanding are conjoined to the evils of the will, man has hell in himself, because the conjunction of the false and the evil is hell; but so far as the truths of the understanding are not conjoined to the goods of the will, man is in an intermediate state. Almost every man at this day is in such a state that he is acquainted with truths, and thence also thinks from knowledge and understanding, and either does many of them, or few, or none, or acts against them from the love of evil, and thence the belief of what is false. In order, therefore, that he may be a subject either of heaven or hell, he is brought after death first into the world of spirits, and there the conjunction of good and truth takes place with those who are to be elevated into heaven, and the conjunction of evil and the false with those who are to be cast into hell. For no one either in heaven or in hell is allowed to have a divided mind, understanding one thing and willing another; but what on wills he must understand, and what he understands he must will. Wherefore he who wills good in heaven must understand truth, and he who wills evil in hell must understand falsity. Therefore with the good, falses are removed in the world of spirits, and truths are given them suitable and conformable to their good; and with the evil, truths are removed, and falses given them suitable and conformable to their evil. From these disclosures it may be evident what the world of spirits is.
In the world of spirits there is a vast number, because the first meeting of all [after their decease] is there, and all are there examined and prepared for their final abode. The period of their sojourn in that world is not in all cases the same. Some only enter it, and shortly after are either conveyed to heaven or cast down to hell; some remain there only a few weeks; others, several gears, but not more than thirty. The varieties in the term of sojourn there arise from the correspondence or non-correspondence of the interiors and exteriors with man.H. H., 421, 422, 425, 426.
The Christian Church, even from the beginning, has been in conflict with itself about the Intermediate State, and the conflicting theories which prevailed in the beginning still prevail. The numerous theorists may be included in two classes:
1. Those who define the Intermediate State as the time between the death of the body and the final resurrection of the body at the last day.
2. Those who define the Intermediate State as a place where the souls of those who die remain for a longer or shorter time, before entering Heaven or Hell.
The first theory is held most probably by the vast majority of Protestants, and is well expressed in the Westminster Confession of Faith, as follows:
The communion in glory with Christ, which the members of the invisible Church enjoy immediately after death, is that their souls are made perfect in holiness, and received into the highest heavens, where they behold the face of God in light and glory, waiting for the full redemption of their bodies, which even in death continue united to Christ, and rest in their graves as in their beds, till at the last day they be again united to their souls. Whereas, the souls of the wicked are at their death cast into hell, where they remain in torments and utter darkness; and their bodies are kept in their graves, as in their prisons, until the resurrection and Judgment of the great day.Larger Catechism, Quest. 86.
Elsewhere it is said respecting Heaven and Hell, that
Besides these two places for souls separated from their bodies, the Scripture acknowledgeth none.--Chapter xxxii. I.
The Westminster Divines may never have thought of the questions which rational men, and even the simple-minded, would naturally ask in respect to their Extratology:
According to the Schism, there is either a plenary separation of the righteous and the wicked, with a judgment, or there are two judgments. The Confession of Faith says: That immediately after death, the souls of the righteous are made perfect in holiness, and are received into the highest heaven, where they behold the face of God in light and glory: waiting till the last day for the full redemption of their bodies to be again united to their souls. On the contrary, the souls of the wicked, at their death, are cast into hell, where they remain in torments until the resurrection and Judgment of the great day.
This separation of the righteous and the wicked at death must involve a judgment much according to Pauls teaching: but we are not told how it is done, and how it is related to the Last Judgment at the end of time, which the Westminster Confession tells us all about. Then would not rational men, and much more the spirits of the righteous in the highest heaven, who for thousands of years have been in glory, ask the questions: Why this retrograde movement in the progress of human life? Why must we return to the earth to resume the garments cast off when we were translated into the spiritual world? Why were not the things of the former body required for the perfection of our development here withdrawn from the old organization with the soul itself? Then how would this wonderful retrograde movement seem otherwise then as insane and monstrous to the myriads in heaven who never heard of the resurrection of the material body at the end of time, or who, if they had heard of it, never believed in it?
The second view is the doctrine of the New Church, and under many varied forms has prevailed in the Church from the beginning. The doctrine in its true form is set forth and unfolded in the extracts quoted above from the work on Heaven and Hell. The state is fully revealed in the light of heaven, will its nature and uses defined; and from those who will receive it, all uncertainty is removed.
Returning upon the line of the ages to the Primitive Church, we find various opinions touching the Intermediate State prevailing in the Church from age to age.
The Apostles and Disciples at the first had but little rational comprehensions of any sort of a state after death but heaven. At death they expected to be at once translated to heaven, and to be again with the LORD. To be absent from the body, they held, was to be present with the LORD. And although their ideas respecting the nature of death, and of the life after death, were often somewhat confused and obscure, yet the realities of the heavenly state were most vividly impressed upon their minds; and their faith in the Divine presence of the LORD, the Redeemer and Saviour, was most firm and immovable. They had open vision of things spiritual. They had much Divine revelation. They had seen the LORD after His resurrection in His Divine body, and they had witnessed His ascension into heaven. They had also seen the heavenly angels, and by them some of the Apostles had been delivered from prison. However indefinite, therefore, their ideas, as we have said, of the Spiritual universe, they must have had hopes of the future most bright and joyous.
Pauls teaching is respect to the resurrection must; have been consoling to those who were looking to heaven, and were longing to enter into its glories; and must have made it difficult a century later to introduce the doctrine of the resurrection of the natural body at the end of time.
For in his First Epistle to the Corinthians, Paul says:
Some will say: How are the dead raised up, and with what body do they come?...
A natural body is sown, a spiritual body is raised up. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.--l Cor. xv. 35, 44.
In his Second Epistle he says:
For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven.... For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened: not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life. Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the LORD.... We are confident, and willing rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the LORD.2 Cor. v. 1-8.
But this simplicity of the Apostolic faith respecting the world to come did not long survive the Apostles themselves. Heresies began to prevail, and the future life was more imperfectly understood the more that was said and written upon it.
As time advanced, the resurrection of the natural body began to believed in by the Church and to be advocated by the principal Fathers. This belief was promoted in the Church and strengthened by the expectation which, from the Apostles, lingered in the minds of all Christians, of the LORDS Second Coming as an event near at hand. How full and startling the Apostolic annunciations of this amazing event! And even more wonderful are the LORDS own words concerning His speedy return.
After His Ascension the LORD appeared to John, and said: Seal not the words of the prophecy of this Book: for the time is near.
And, behold, I come quickly: and my reward is with me, to render to every one as his work shall be.Apoc. Xxii. 10, 12.
The Apostles and Primitive Christians earnestly looked for the appearing of the LORD during their time. To them, the Second Advent was the very pole-star of the church. When in their conflicts and struggles, they wavered and faltered, this glorious hope gave them strength, and resolution, and determination.
John said: We know that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him: for we shall see Him as He is. And every one that hath this hope in Him, purifieth himself, as He is pure.1 John iii. 2, 3.
James said: Be patient, therefore, brethren, unto the Coming of the LORD. Be ye also patient, confirm your hearts, for the Coming of the LORD hath drawn nigh.--James v. 7, 8.
Paul said: We that are alive and remain until the Coming of the LORD, shall not anticipate them that are asleep.--l Thess. iv. 15.
In Hebrews it is written: Unto them that look for Him, shall He appear the second time, without sin unto salvation.Heb. ix. 25.
Then in the Apocalypse it is written: That certain ones of the martyrs lived and reigned with CHRIST a thousand years. But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection.Apoc. xx. 4, 5.
These annunciations of the Word and of the Epistles, even from the first century, were often understood literally, and the Church fell into heresies which continued to infest it in the centuries following. Of these heresies three were most conspicuous and mischievous:
1. That the Second Coming of the LORD would at once take place.
The Apostles expected to see it: and the disappointed hope was passed over, generation by generation, to the succeeding ages.
2. That at this Coming of the LORD the First Resurrection would take place, and a certain part of the dead would be raised up.
3. That then would follow the LORDS personal reign on the earth for a thousand years.
But the Church did not generally drift into Millenarianism until near the middle of the second century, and then there was a vigorous reaction against it. There were innumerable difficulties in the way, and unsettled questions. Foremost among these were the questions: Where are the dead? When the soul is withdrawn from the body at death, and the body returns to dust and ashes, in what state is the soul? If the body is essential to it, what is the soul without its body?
An intermediate place where souls could remain became necessary in the general plan of these theorizing Theologians; and especially to the Millenarians, as an arena for the display of the LORDS reign on the earth,--in its nature semi-celestial and semi-terrestrial, and, therefore, neither of heaven nor of earth.
Dr. Shedd describes the prevalence, in the second and third century, of Millenarianism, showing that the heresy became wide--spread, deep-rooted, and mischievous. He says:
The period between A.D. 150 and A.D. 250 is the blooming age of Millenarianism.... Irenus and Tertullian give glowing descriptions of the Millennial reign. Antichrist, together with all the nations that side with him, will be destroyed. All earthly empires, and the Roman in particular, will be overthrown. Christ will appear again, and will reign a thousand years, in corporeal presence on earth, in Jerusalem, which will be rebuilt and made the Capital of His Kingdom.
The Patriarchs, Prophets, and all the pious, will be raised from the dead, and will share in the felicities of this kingdom. The New Jerusalem is depictured in the most splendid colors. The metaphors of Isaiah, liv. 11, 12, are treated as proper terms. Irenus describes the foundations of the rebuilt Jerusalem as literally carbuncle and sapphire, and its bulwark crystal; and he regards it as actually let down from heaven, according to the Apocalypse, xxi. 2. Tertullian confirms the interpretation of Irenus, and confirms it by reference to the report, that in the Parthian war, in Judea, a city was observed to be lowered down from the sky every morning, and to disappear as the day advanced. The earth was to become wonderfully fertile....
The Millenarian tendency became stronger as the Church, in the last half of the second century, began to feel the persecuting hand of the government laid upon it. The distressed condition of the Christians led them to desire and pray for an Advent of the LORD, that would extinguish all His enemies. It was natural, therefore, that when the earthly condition of the Church was intolerable, the belief in the personal reign of the LORD should be most prevalent. In the latter half of the second century, so general had the belief in Millenarianism become, that Justin Martyr declares that it was the belief of all but the Gnostics; but Irenus holds that the heresy was not so universally prevalent.Shedds Hist. Chris. Doc., vol. ii. pp. 392-394.
Millenarianism was vigorously attacked by Clement and Origen and others; and the conflict in the Church continued for more than a century. Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria, with great difficulty suppressed a gross form of the heresy which, near the close of the third century, was infesting his diocese.
From A.D. 400 onward Millenarianism gradually declined until but little was heard of it in the Church. But in the ninth and tenth centuries the heresy was again revived on a grand scale, and especially the masses were filled with fear and formidable forebodings that in A.D. 1000 the LORD would make His Second Advent.
Various doctrines prevailed in the Church during the ages following in respect to the Coming of the LORD, and there was great conflict of opinion. The various Confessions of Faith generally condemning the belief in any specified time for the Second Advent.
The various Confession is especially guarded in teaching that the time of the LORDS Second Coming is unknown to all created beings, and it will not take place until the number of the elect is complete.
In Europe and in America the heresy has been revived in a small way, even during the present century. The enlightened orthodox, and the uneducated fanatical pietists, have been alike involved in its meshes. In Germany we have had Delitzsch and Auberlen; in Great Britain, Cumming, Elliott, and Bonar; and in the United States, the Adventists and Millerites.
We have already set forth the doctrine of the Intermediate State generally held by the Protestant denominations who take the Westminster Confession of Faith as their standard. All these discard the Intermediate State, and, as we have seen, believe that the soul at death goes immediately to Heaven or to Hell. But beside these there are other denominations, it may be equally numerous in membership, who believe in an Intermediate State, or separate place, into which all souls are gathered after death, and where they remain until the resurrection of the body at the last day.
John Henry Hobart, D.D., Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the State of New York, in a work published in 1846, declares the faith of the Protestant Episcopal Church and of others as follows:
The doctrine is, that the souls of men do not go immediately to Heaven, the place of final bliss, nor to Hell, the place of final torment, but remain in a place of enjoyment or of misery in the place of the departed, until the resurrection at the last day, when, their bodies being united to their souls, they are advanced to complete felicity or woe in Heaven or in Hell.
This is a doctrine of the Church of England, and of the Protestant Episcopal Church.
This doctrine has been maintained by a series of Protestant divines eminent for learning and piety, and may be traced to the Apostolic Age.
Dr. Campbell, of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland, in a learned dissertation, maintains and vindicates this doctrine.Hobarts State of the Departed, pp. 28, 29.
It is unnecessary to follow Bishop Hobart in the numerous confirmations of the doctrine: we therefore give only the array of authorities upon which he relies.
After Dr. Campbell, whom we have just mentioned, he gives, of the Presbyterian divines, Doddridge and Macknight. Then Bishops of the English Church, Taylor, Bull, Burnet, Seeker, Horseley, Tomline, and others. Then, Hammond, Whitby, Clarke, and Scott, clergymen. Then follow Wesley and Clarke, of the Methodist communion. Finally, of the Episcopal Church, Bishops Seabury and White. (See State of the Departed, p. 123.)
It may be difficult, if not impossible, ever to allow how many of the people hold with these great leaders in the various Churches. But the leaders evidently comprehended the necessity of the Intermediate State and some of its uses, and therefore they believed in its existence.
Purgatory.
ROMAN CATHOLICS believe as firmly in Purgatory as either in Heaven or Hell. Whatever may be the voice of history respecting the time when the doctrine was first introduced into the Church, whether as late as the Council of Florence, A.D. 1439, or as early as A.D. 600, by Gregory the Great, or still earlier under the influence of Augustine, it is undeniable that at present the belief in Purgatory universally prevails among the Catholics, nor has it been otherwise for the last four hundred years.
The belief in Purgatory prevailed in the East from the ancient times, and from the East found its way into the Primitive Church in its earliest ages.
All Buddhists retain the old Hindoo belief that nearly all departed souls remaining for a while in regions of punishment, graduated according to the sins they have committed in the body. They go through a process of purification by fire, water, and other means, and are thus prepared for a degree of Paradise proportioned to their merits. It was held that the prayers and oblations of the living are accepted by the Higher Powers in lieu of these purifying sufferings; therefore, the more prayers and gifts offered, the shorter is the term of punishment. Priests were supposed to be divinely instructed concerning the most efficacious ceremonies and forms of prayer; and in this way the pious affection of relations and friends became a lucrative source of revenue to the Temples and Lamaseries, as it was to the Brahmins of Hindustan from the most ancient times.Prog. Rel. Ideas, vol. i. pp. 230, 231.
Nevertheless, the belief in Purgatory never prevailed in the Primitive Christian Church; nor, indeed, until long after the Council of Nice was it made a canon of the Church. Augustine was inclined to favor the doctrine, but neither Ambrose, nor even Jerome, had any belief in it. Gregory the Great, about A.D. 600, established Purgatory among the unquestionable canons of the Church. In the Fourth Book of his Dialogues he maintains the existence of a Purgatory for the expiation of the more venial offenses of persons whose general excellence may have deserved such indulgence. His reasons given for establishing Purgatory at that time are indeed remarkable. He says:
Many discoveries have lately been made respecting the condition of souls after death which had not been penetrated by antiquity, and for the reason, that as this world is now approaching its end, men see more closely into the secrets of the next.Wad. Ch. Hist., p. 186.
Gregory defined with precision the doctrines concerning Purgatory, and invested it with accessories both terrifying and attractive.
He represented it as a region on the confines of hell, where souls not good enough to enter heaven were detained, for a longer or shorter time, to be purified by suffering. One spark of its fire was said to cause more agony than any bodily pain that could be endured, or conceived of, in this world. Prayers offered for the dead, and gifts to churches and monasteries in their behalf, would lessen these sufferings and shorten the time of them. Gregory therefore provided that priests should recite these prayers, and be paid for it. As time advanced, the Church, in its avaricious greed, made masses for the dead a means of plundering the living of their money, under the pretext of benefitting the dead.
Gregory also, in his Sacramentarium, established the rules for administering the Sacraments nearly as they are nom preserved. The belief in the importance of this rite and in its atoning power became more exaggerated in proportion as the belief, first suggested by Augustine, became general, that men would be subjected to a purifying fire as soon as they left this world. Gregory did much to confirm this view of the subject by his descriptions of the tortures of departed spirits, and their alleviation by the offering of the sacrament.Gieseler, vol. i. pp. 351, 352.
The belief in Purgatory was first made a canon of the Catholic Church in the General Council of Florence, A.D. 1439. That Council briefly defined the belief as follows:
That if those who truly repent depart from life before that by worthy fruits of repentance they have made satisfaction for their sins of commission and omission, their souls are purified after death, and to the relieving of these pains, the suffrages of the faithful who are alive, to wit: the sacrifices of masses, prayers, alms, and other pious works, are profitable. But whether Purgatory is a fire, or a mist, or a whirlwind, or anything else, we do not dispute.
Bellarmine says: Purgatory is a certain place, in which, as in a prison, the souls are purged after this life which were not fully purged in this life, to wit: that so they may be able to enter into heaven, where no unclean thing can enter in.Hooks Diet.
The belief in Purgatory once established in the Catholic Church, its development was effected with amazing rapidity. LORD before the sordid abuses of the belief which, in after-times, made it a means of the most atrocious extortions of money, Purgatory was looked to rather in a hopeful way where the life, even after death, could be further fitted for heaven.
A belief so portentous and so far-reaching and so universally held by millions as the Catholic Purgatory, could not have been the invention of sordid monks and Priests in the Middle Ages. The Catholic Priests, finding that the people glided so easily and so universally into the belief, most assiduously used the belief to augment their power and to fill their coffers. This was the culmination of the perversion, and its legitimate result. But it took more than a thousand years to develop this result; nor shall we ever fully comprehend through what fear and trembling, misgiving and doubt, the men of the Church confirmed the belief, or struggled against it. History shows that the conflict was long and manifold. For the questions involved were not simple, and to be answered with a word, but complicated in many ways.
Questions were involved that could be answered only by Divine Revelation on this subject, and this was not given. To supply this vital want recourse was had to unwarrantable interpretation of Scripture, or the opinions of the Fathers, or the decrees of Councils, or to the relations of enthusiasts, who claimed to have been let into the world of departed spirits, and to have witnessed the repose of some and the burning torments of others. But these things were insufficient to form the ground-work of a rational faith in Purgatory, or in the numerous contrivances to help men out of it.
The great theologians were adrift. For neither in Moses nor the Prophets, nor in the Gospels, nor in the Apocalypse, did they find a word about Purgatory, nor indeed anything even remotely answering to it. In this sacred volume of Divine revelation, with contents so varied, and so replete with all that relates to God and to man, and to man s immortality and future destiny, the question naturally arose, Why is there nothing given about these purgatorial fires?
The doctrines of the New Church reveal, as we have shown, the existence of a world of spirits, intermediate between Heaven and Hell, into which all are removed immediately on departing this life. About one hundred thousand newly-arisen spirits, it is estimated, enter that world daily. The work of receiving all these, and so providing for them that no one is neglected, no one forgotten, is immense, and possible to the LORD alone, who determines, in general and particular, the fullness of all its infinitely varied parts. Under the Divine auspices of the LORD certain societies of Angels are employed in the administration of the stupendous work. Of these societies and their employment, in the work on Heaven and Hell, it is written:
The societies in the heavens are all distinct according to uses, since they are distinct according to goods, and the goods are goods in act, or the goods of charity, which are uses. There are societies whose employments consist in taking care of infants; there are other societies whose employments are to instruct and educate them as they grow up; there are others who in like manner instruct and educate boys and girls, who are of a good disposition from education in the world, and who thence come into heaven; others who teach the simple good from the Christian world, and lead them in the way to heaven; others who perform the same office far the various Gentile nations; others who defend novitiate spirits, those who have recently come from the world, from infestations by evil spirits; some also who are attendant on those in the lower earth; and some who are present with those in hell, and restrain them from tormenting each other beyond the prescribed limits;
there are some also who attend upon those who are being raised from the dead.H. H., 391.
The Catholics claim that Purgatory is a purifying fire into which, after death, all are plunged who are not pure and spotless, and fit for heaven; and they say that the prayers; and sacrifices of the mass will serve to deliver from the flames the unhappy souls for whom the masses are offered, or, at least, to give them relief from their suffering. The Priests also report to the friends of the departed that some are delivered from the flames and are taken up to heaven, that others are on the way out, but, to make the case clear, more money is needed, and that others still, unprovided for, are hopelessly overwhelmed in the flames.
Singularly enough, the Catholics have no one beyond the grave, no one in the Intermediate State, to tell them anything about the efficacy of their prayers and sacrifices for the dead, and to report to them how many are still in their bunting caldrons, and how many they manage to release. Indeed, they make no pretext to any such knowledge. This fact alone demonstrates that Purgatory is a fiction, a mere figment of the imagination.
In the Apocalypse Revealed the Catholic doctrine of Purgatory is disclosed, as follows:
That the guilt for which temporal punishment is to be suffered is not all blotted out by Justification: that therefore all come into Purgatory, that they may be absolved, before the way is opened into heaven. That the souls there detained are helped by the suffrages of the faithful, and especially by the sacrifice of the Mass; and that this is diligently to be taught and preached. The torments there are variously described; but they are inventions,--in themselves figments.Prefatory Note A. R., vi.
As regards the dispensations by which the Catholics profit, they are various. There are dispensations in regard to contracting matrimony within the degrees prohibited by the lams; relating to divorces; relating to evils, even enormous ones, and exemption at the same time from temporal punishments.
There are also dispensations by indulgences: dispensations relating to administrations without any power or authority of the secular rulers: among which also are confirmations of dukedoms and principalities: likewise, by promises of heavenly joys made to those who enrich monasteries, and augment their treasuries, calling their gifts good works, in themselves holy, as also merits; to which they are prompted by the belief impressed upon them in the power and help of their saints, and in the miracles performed by them. Especially do they take advantage of the rich when they are sick, and likewise infuse at that time a terror of hell, and so extort wealth from them; promising to offer masses for their souls according to the value of their legacy, and a gradual delivery thereby from the place of torment, which they call Purgatory, and thus admission into heaven.
As regards Purgatory, I can aver that it is purely a Babylonish fiction for the sake of gain, and that it neither does nor can exist. Every man after death first comes into the world of spirits, which is midway between heaven and hell, and is there prepared either for heaven or for hell, every one according to his life in the world: and in that world there is torment for no one; but the evil first come into torment, when after preparation they come into hell.
There are innumerable societies in that world, and joys in them similar to those on earth, for the reason that they who are there are conjoined with men on the earth, who are also in the midst between heaven and hell. Their externals are there successively put off, and thus their internals are opened; and this until the reigning love, which is indeed the lifes love, and the inmost, and the one that rules over their externals, is revealed; and when this is revealed, the mans real quality appears; and according to the quality of that love, he is sent forth from the world of spirits to his place, if good, in heaven, and if evil, in hell. That it is so has been given me to know certainly, because it has been given me by the LORD to be together with those who are in the World of Spirits, and to see all things, and thus to relate it from actual experience; and this now for twenty years. Wherefore I can assert that Purgatory is a fiction, which may be called diabolical; because it is for the sake of gains, and for the sake of power over souls, even of the deceased, after death.A. R. 784.
Wiclif.
ABOUT one hundred and fifty years before the time of Luther there three celebrated Reformers, who seemed like harbingers of Luther and his associates: these were Wiclif, Russ, and Jerome of Prague.
John Wiclif, Fellow of Merton College, in Oxford, began to be distinguished as a scholar and a reformer. The doctrines and customs of the Catholic Church he examined in the light of Scripture and reason. In A.D. 1360, Wiclifs exposure of the corruptions and crimes of the Mendicant Friars, and his controversies with them in the university, brought him into general notoriety. In England he was held in high repute as a Theological Professor and as a realistic philosopher. His great power as a reformer was manifested in his defense of the English government in its endeavors to shake off the papal despotism. The writings of Wiclif were powerful, and were extensively read in England and on the Continent. And although his career began eighty years before the invention of printing, yet so great was the demand for his writings at home and abroad that they were most extensively published.
Dr. Hase says:
He spoke and wrote against the oppression of the Church by the papacy, against the arbitrary mode of excommunications then prevalent, against monasticism and purgatory, against the necessity of auricular confession, indulgences, and the worship of saints and images.... He taught that the Scriptures alone are worthy of complete confidence, that the temporal power of the Pope was derived solely from the Emperor, that it was treason to obstruct appeals from the spiritual courts to the King, that Priests lost all spiritual power by the commission of mortal sin, that tithes and other alms should be withheld from Priests living in sin, that the saving grace of God was not connected exclusively with the priesthood and the sacraments, and, finally, that CHRIST was present in the LORDS Supper only in a spiritual manner.
His doctrines were condemned at the Earthquake Council in London, A.D. 1382; and Wiclif himself was excluded from the University.Dr. Hases Hist., p. 346.
In England the time was opportune for the protests of Wiclif and others against the usurpations of Rome. The House of Commons remonstrated with the Crown on the appointment of ecclesiastics to all the lucrative offices. Then there was a universal clamor against the Mendicant Friars, who were numerous in the country. In this the clergy united, and in their general dissatisfaction they began to wish for more light and knowledge. And as the universities on the Continent and in England were crowded with scholars and controversialists and theologians of every school, Wiclif had no great difficulty in disseminating his views. His translation of the Bible into English was the crowning work of his life. With the Scripture in the hands of the people Wiclif felt that his position would be strengthened and his doctrines confirmed.
Huss.
JOHN HUSS, of Hussinetz, Professor of Theology in Prague, and after A. D. 1402 preacher at the chapel in Bethlehem and Confessor to the Queen, was one of the most illustrious reformers before the time of Luther. The writings of Wiclif in their wide circulation had been brought into Prague, and by these writings Huss was led to embrace the doctrines of Augustine and the philosophy of the Realists. From Wiclif he learned to take a deeper view of the abuses of the Church, and was strengthened in his love of truth and goodness. He was therefore zealous in circulating the writings of Wiclif, and in this work he became closely associated with the great advocate of these writings, Jerome of Prague, thus arousing the hostility of the numerous German professors in the University of Prague, who were Nominalists, and opponents of Wiclif.
Huss becoming famous as a preacher, turned his influence against the corruptions of the Catholic clergy.
In concert with Jerome of Prague, Huss succeeded in making the University strictly Bohemian, the German professors being removed; but the German students were also withdrawn, and Huss brought upon himself the hatred of his German neighbors. Nevertheless, from A.D. 1400, he stood at the bend of the theologians in Prague, and as a preacher had an unbounded influence over the people. To counteract his influence Pope Alexander V. authorized the Archbishop of Prague to forbid all preaching in private chapels, and publicly to born the writings of Wiclif. But Huss continued to preach in the Bethlehem Chapel. The King and Queen, the nobility and the University, all joined in interceding for him, although a complaint had been entered against him in Rome. The pressure was so great that the Archbishop was overawed and withdrew his accusations, while Huss, in his various writings, continued to defend both Wiclif and himself.
But soon the Pope returned to the attack, and proclaimed a crusade against Ladislaus, the King. But this only aroused Huss and Jerome of Prague to a more determined resistance of the papal abuses. And as the whole nation was aroused against the papacy, the wrath of the Pope could be restrained no longer. The writings of Wiclif were condemned at a Council in Rome A.D. 1.413, Huss was excommunicated, and the place where he resided was laid under interdict. Huss appealed from the Pope to the LORD Himself, and having written his own defense, the Tractatus de Ecclesia, he retired to Hussinetz, where he continued preaching in the open air, and where he wrote several new works.
In the mean time, the Council of Constance was opened, and the Emperor Sigismund summoned Huss to appear before it to answer the charges which were made against him,--the Emperor furnishing him with a letter of safe-conduct to Constance add return. He arrived in Constance November 3, A.D. 1414.
In the Council he fell into the hands of the inquisitors, and this will explain the atrocities which follow. No opportunity for a fair and open defense was granted him, and a fresh outcry was raised against him because he had favored the doctrine of James von Misa (Jacobellus), who was defending the restoration of the cup to the laity.
November 28, A.D. 1414, Huss was imprisoned and accused as a heretic; and in spite of the intercessions of his friends in Bohemia, and the Emperors letter of safe-conduct, he was treated with increasing severity. With no opportunity of defending himself, he was required unconditionally to retract; and upon his decided refusal to retract, he was burned at the stake, July 6, A.D. 1415. To justify the Emperor in violating his faith in respect to the safe-conduct of Huss, the Council passed the infamous decree, that no faith need be kept with a heretic. (See Gieseler, 149.)
Jerome.
JEROME OF PRAGUE, the associate of Huss in his conflict with the papacy, was considered superior to Huss in talents and in culture. He fled from Constance to escape the threatened danger, but was arrested in Herschan and brought back to Constance. After a long and cruel imprisonment he was induced, September, 1415, to recant;
but when new accusations were brought against him by his enemies he was aroused from his seeming lethargy, and turning upon his accusers, he renounced his recantation, summoned Iris judges before the Supreme Judge of all, and, with the fortitude of a Stoic, went to the stake, May 30, A.D. 1416. (See Dr. Hase, p. 349.)
The doctrines of these reformers were similar, and, in many cases, identical with the doctrines of the later reformer, Luther, Melancthon, and Calvin; and, as with Wiclif in England, their followers were numerous. The whole country was moved by the bloody work of the Council of Constance in the martyrdom of these excellent men. And as with the Albigenses in the south of France, and the Waldenses in the elevated valleys of the Piedmonts, the struggle against the papacy could he quieted only by the slaughter of those crying out for reform and redress, so it was in Bohemia. The armed battalions of the Pope could trample down and silence these earnest people who were looking to the Church as the kingdom of God on earth. The conflict went on: inquiry, protest, argument, and now the publication of the Scripture, on one side, or on the other, myrmidons of Rome, troops of vulgar mendicants with indulgences at a bargain, or, when required, fire and afford.
We are now brought face to face with the downfall of the Eastern Church. Its pomp and splendor faded before the conquering Mohammedans; but its scholars, driven into other lands, carried with them their learning and culture. And thus was favored the revival of letters, so essential a precursor to the great reformation of Luther.
NOTES AND REVIEWS.
The Wine Question.
THE WINE QUESTION, in the light of the New Dispensation. By JOHN ELLIS, M.D. Published by the Author. New York, 1882.
THIS book contains, in two hundred and twenty-eight pages, the authors defense of his position of total abstinence. It is divided into fourteen chapters, treating respectively of alcohol as a poison, fermented, and unfermented wines, their history and Biblical use, communion wine, and counter reviews of articles in New Church periodicals.
It would seem at first sight that so external a question as What, shall we eat or drink? however important it may be on its own natural and sensual plane, should not be discussed in a publication devoted chiefly to the consideration of spiritual subjects. But there is one aspect of the question which is important and vital to the Church; and this is the use of mine as the representative and correspondent of the Divine Truth in the Holy Supper. For this reason it is deemed useful to consider the subject in its varied aspects and at some length.
The plan pursued is the book readily admits of a consideration of the question under four heads: the linguistic, the scientific, the historic, and the theological.
The consideration of certain terms occupies a large portion of the book. These are: wine (Hebrew, [Hebrew]; yayin; Greek, [Greek]; Latin, vinum); must (Hebrew, [Hebrew]; Greek, [Greek]; Latin, mustum); strong drink (Hebrew, [Hebrew], shekar; Latin, sicera); and finally honey (Hebrew, [Hebrew]). As the author writes as one having knowledge and authority, we naturally ask what qualifications he brings to the inquiry.
From a careful perusal of the work we are convinced that the author either has no adequate knowledge of the sacred tongues, or he has grossly perverted them. Common charity forbids the latter conclusion. But how far it is compatible with true charity to claim to teach authoritatively that which we do not understand, and concerning which we do not even use the means of instruction always at hand, namely, dictionaries, and works of unbiased learned men, we leave to the decision of the reader.
Further, we are met with the query, Does the author sufficiently understand his own mother tongue, and does he use words with a meaning foreign to their recognized sense? This question is forced on us by statements like the following: We know there are wines and strong drinks which are never unholy or unclean,wines every may suitable for use in the most holy ordinance of the LORDS Supper,--wine that never maketh drunken. (p. 44.) It is not wines, but intoxicating wines that earnest Christian leaders seek to have exchanged for the ancient unintoxicating wines. (P. 197.) Wine, according to Worcester and Webster, signifies the fermented juice of grapes. How, then, can wine, fermented juice, be called wine that never maketh drunken, and how can it be claimed that some fermented grape-juice gives intoxicating wine, while other wine (fermented grape-juice) is unintoxicating? It is evident that the author uses the word wine in an unauthorized sense. We are indeed well aware that he wishes to make it appear as if Worcester and Webster define wine as unfermented grape-juice. But he does not, as would be naturally expected, turn to the definition of wine, but evasively inquires into the definition of must. Worcester is careful to call must the juice of the grape, and does not call it simply wine, but new wine. Webster, less careful, defines it as wine pressed from the grape not fermented, thus contradicting his own definition of the word wine. Yet the author, in his blind zeal, exclaims: So that both authorities say that the unfermented juice of the grape is wine. (p. 167.) The straightforward course which would be chosen by any one who is desirous of finding out the real truth, would be to go to Worcesters and Websters definition of wine. Here he would at once see that both these authorities are very clear, and agree perfectly, for Worcester defines wine as The fermented juice of the grape, a spirituous liquor, and also the fermented juice of certain fruits, thus not allowing any application to unfermented beverages at all; and Webster defines it as: 1. The fermented juice of grapes; a beverage prepared from grapes by squeezing out their juice, and allowing it to ferment. 2. Hence a liquor or beverage resembling that prepared from grapes yielded by other kinds of fruit. 3. The effect of drinking wine in excess, intoxication. Thus we see that the author in claiming for himself these authorities has allowed his zeal to outstrip his discretion. We dwell so long on this point because it illustrates the general mode of demonstration of the writers on abstinence, and of our author in particular. There is everywhere apparent an attempt to confuse common perception by some misleading twist or turn.
Since scholars are aware that the recognized meaning of the English word wine is the fermented juice of the grape, or of other fruits, it is evident that when the Latin dictionaries translate vinum with wine they thereby declare that vinum in Latin signifies the fermented juice of the grape, and so when Swedenborg uses the word vinum unqualified, he means fermented grape-juice.
The author indeed endeavors to show that Swedenborg recognizes two kinds of wine, both called vinum, the one fermented and the other unfermented; but the only passage which he brings to support this strange assertion is mistranslated, and thus rendered is quoted eighteen times in the course of the book. It is found first on the title-page, and reads: Such wines and strong drink (?) as cause drunkenness. This would seem to imply that there are also wines and strong drink which do not cause drunkenness. Any scholar would at once know that since wine is fermented grape-juice, and strong drink is in the original intoxicating drink, the passage, as the author quotes it, would mean: Such fermented grape-juice and intoxicating drink as do not cause intoxication And as this would be evidently absurd, the scholar would at once go to the Latin to rectify the mistranslation. If the author had pursued this course he would have seen that the passage simply reads in the original: Wine and strong drink which cause intoxication, thus leaving no support whatever to his fancies.
When we consult the Greek, we find that the term used for wine in the New Testament is [scanner unable to insert word] (oinos). The meanings of this word, as given in our largest Greek Lexicon, that of Liddel and Scott, are the following: 1. The fermented juice of the grape; 2. The fermented juice of apples, pears, etc., cider, perry; 3. A fermented liquor made from barley or wheat, a kind of beer. And this very complete dictionary of the Greek tongue knows of no unfermented liquor under the name of [scanner unable to insert word]. There is no doubt therefore that the beverage into which the mater was changed at Cana, being [scanner unable to insert word], was also fermented grape-juice. The ingenious may in which the author tries to circumvent the well-established definitions acknowledged by all scholars and learned men, is as remarkable as his misapplication of Worcester and Webster.
The Hebrew word [scanner unable to insert word] yayin (wine), according to the great authorities, Frst and Gesenius, signifies wine, which, as we have seen, is understood by the learned to mean fermented grape-juice. Gesenius distinctly declares it to be equivalent to [scanner unable to insert word] and to vinum.
Must Latin mustum, is translated fresh, new or unfermented wine. But as the fresh or new wine speedily begins to ferment, must also signifies partially fermented grape-juice. This much is granted by the author (p. 48).
When we pass to the Greek this is still more manifest.
The term which the author quotes as signifying the sweet, unfermented juice of the grape is [scanner unable to insert word] (gleukos), which in Liddel and Scotts Greek Lexicon is regarded as equal to the Latin mustum, must, and is translated sweet new wine. Still even this must, in the only passage in which it is found in the New Testament, signifies fermented and intoxicating wine: Others mocking said, These men are full of must [scanner unable to insert word, gleukos). But Peter ... said .... These are not drunken [scanner unable to insert word], seeing it is but the third hour of the day. (Acts ii. 13-15.) Indeed, it is well known that more drunkenness occurs in the wine-producing countries about the time of new wine than at any other, and this from drinking the partially fermented must while it still retains sonic of its sweetness. While we sec that the [scanner unable to insert word] in the New Testament is fermented and intoxicating, still more is this the case with the new wine, which is compared to the truths of the New Testament and the New Church (A. R. 316). This is conclusively proved by two considerations: First, Swedenborg, in translating it does not use the ambiguous term mustum, but the term vinum, which, as we have seen, is the fermented juice of the grape; and, Second, This term is the translation of the Greek [scanner unable to insert words], and [scanner unable to insert word], as we have seen, signifies fermented grape-juice. The author of the work before us indeed devotes several pages to show that a fermented wine would not in any case burst the (skins) bottles. But he merely proves his unacquaintance with the subject. Those who are acquainted with wine-making know that the primary fermentation is followed by secondary fermentations, occurring periodically for several years, until full purity is reached. On account of this secondary fermentation it is that new mine ([scanner unable to insert words]) needs new bottles.
In the Hebrew, too, the term translated must or new wine generally means fermented mine. Gesenius, who is one of the chief authorities in Hebrew, says in his great dictionary: [scanner unable to insert word] new wine, so called because it gets possession of the brain and inebriates. In sustaining this derivation he quotes Hosea iv. 11: Whoredom and wine and new wine take away the heart, i.e., the understanding. Frst defines it as mead, which seems a less felicitous rendering, and he gives to it the meaning of what is gotten from grapes and other fruits. As Swedenborg uses the Latin term trosh, and as trosh is recognized as intoxicating in the Hebrew, the same force must evidently apply to the term mustum when used by Swedenborg, The English translator of the Hebrew Lexicon of Gesenius has the following remarks on [scanner unable to insert words], trosh: All the passages [in the Word] go to show that [scanner unable to insert word] is new wine of the first year, the wine-crop or vintage of the season; and hence it is mostly coupled with wine and oil as a product of the land. That it was intoxicating is shown by Hosea iv. 11.
Thus we see that not only is mine always used for the fermented juice of the grape, but also new wine is wine which is passing, or has passed, through its first and chief fermentation, and is therefore usually intoxicating. Smith, in his Dictionary of the Bible, indeed considers the trosh or new wine in Hosea iv. 11, as the climax of engrossing influences. So we see that the author is altogether in error when he teaches that [scanner unable to insert words] and vinum, as also [scanner unable to insert words] and mustum, in the Word and the Writings, when used in a good sense, signify unfermented wine.
But the perversion of the author becomes more glaring when we examine his definition of strong drink (Hebrew, [scanner unable to insert words]; Greek, [scanner unable to insert words]; Latin, sicera). This word is derived from the verb [scanner unable to insert words] to be drunk, and all scholars agree that it signifies intoxicating drink. (See Frst and Gesenius.) As a convenient general term it was also introduced into the Greek as [scanner unable to insert word], which is defined in Liddel and Scotts Dictionary as a fermented liquor, strong drink (Hebrew shakar, to be intoxicated). It was also introduced into Latin as sicera, and this is defined in White and Riddles Latin Dictionary as A kind of spirituous, intoxicating drink. A word, the derivation, as well as the usage and signification of which is so clear, might have been expected to be safe from perversion. But the author describes it as a luscious drink or sweet syrup of sugar or honey, of dates or of the palm-tree (p. 56), and he forthwith devotes two and a half pages to a consideration of this new (intoxicating) syrup. He says: The very fact that strong drink in the Word sometimes has a good signification ... is evidence that in an unpolluted and unperverted state it [the intoxicating drink] could neither have been fermented nor have been a drugged drink. (p. 57.) A mind that can content itself with such a miserable begging of the question is evidently outside of the reach of any logical reasoning. The entire scriptural and philological reasoning of the author might be summed up in the assertion: Fermented drinks are evil, therefore wine (fermented grape-juice) and strong drink (intoxicating drink) when mentioned in a good sense in the Word, must have been unfermented. All the pseudo-learning of the abstinence writers quoted by the author amounts to no more than this, when tested by standard dictionaries and learned commentaries.
We come now to the word [scanner unable to insert words] (debash), honey. Concerning this the author declares: In only three cases out of nearly fifty does the word refer to the product prepared by bees rather than by man. (p. 63.) The fact, as shown by the dictionaries, is just the opposite. There are only two passages referred by Frst and Gesenius to the syrup formed from grapes, while all other passages refer to honey. But even these two show nothing in their context which would lead us to think of them as signifying syrup, rather than honey.
They are the following: Carry down to the man (Joseph) a present, a little balm, and a little honey, spices and myrrh, nuts and almonds (Gen. xliii. 11), and, Judah and the land of Israel, they were thy merchants: they traded in thy market, wheat of Minnith and Pannag, and honey and oil and balm. (Ex. xxvii. 17.) There is nothing in these passages which would make it probable that something else is meant there by debash than what is acknowledged to be the meaning of the word in the other fifty-two passages; namely, honey. The only reason, so far as we know, why it has been supposed that these passages refer to syrup instead of to honey, is because the Mahommedans, who are forbidden to use their grapes for making wine, boil the grape-juice into syrup and export it largely in this form. But it has not been shown that this custom prevailed in ancient times; i.e., so far back as 1700 and 600 years before Christ, especially when grapes were then so abundant in Egypt that even slaves like the sons of Israel could enjoy them. (Numbers xx. 5.) Nor is there, on the other hand, any reason why honey, so plentiful then in Canaan, should not have been largely exported to those countries in which honey was less rich and less plentiful. But in the New Church we are not left in doubt, for the passages mentioned are translated eight times and always with the Latin word mel, which signifies not, syrup, but honey; and no distinction is made in the internal sense of honey as developed in these passages from what it means in other passages.
We see therefore that in its linguistic aspect, the work under review is altogether in contradiction to what the learned world knows on this subject. And the authors opinions being altogether opposed to the facts of the case, are false.
When we turn to science we might expect something better, as the authors profession would seem to necessitate a certain amount of scientific culture. But what knowledge of science the writer may have, has been made subservient to a false principle and therefore falsified, as will be seen in what follows. In reply to a former article in the SERIAL our author says:
That alcohol, like other poisons, may sometimes be used advantageously, as a remedy, we do not question. Its action is to paralyze the capillary vessels and thereby fill them with blood, and in cases of hemorrhage, by thus temporarily storing up the blood in these minute vessels and preventing the heart from forcing it out of the body through the ruptured vessels, and by thus congesting the minute vessels of the brain, it prevents fatal syncope or fainting, and when thus used as a medicine it is useful.
One unacquainted with physiology might think this a true explanation of the modus operandi of brandy. But a very superficial reading will demonstrate its utter falsity.
In the first place, though, we wish to state that we did not allude to hemorrhage, and we do not see how we could have been so misunderstood. Our words sere, that diluted brandy may save life when the parturient woman is exhausted and the uterus fails in its expulsive efforts. We referred to the power of brandy in effecting contractions of the uterine fibres with consequent increase of labor-pains.
But granting the writers interpretation of our meaning, we nevertheless decidedly differ with him, in his attempted physiological explanation of the action of alcohol.
Picture to the mind a woman seized with dangerous hemorrhage. In a few moments her body becomes cold, and she is almost pulseless. The breathing is superficial, and the pale race wears the anxious look of approaching death. Brandy is administered, and soon the bleeding ceases, the radial pulse is felt to increase in volume while it lessens in rapidity; the breathing is more deeply drawn, and warmth replaces the clammy coldness of the skin. Did the remedy employed work these changes by paralyzing the capillaries? The author of the work before us says yes; but Ringer, Wood, Bartholow, Pavy, Bache, Still, and a host of others, whom even Dr. Ellis would hardly regard as comparatively obscure writers, say no.
The author, probably following Richardson, mistakes the dilatation of the arterioles caused by alcohol for paralysis. Such dilatation of necessity augments the amount of blood in the small vessels, but not to be retained there in storage, as would be the case in paralysis. On the contrary, to keep them full, the heart must send more at a time in each pulse, and so must receive more from the venous system; hence the circulation is quickened, not retarded. And the increased volume of blood in the various organs stimulates them to more vigorous activity. Thus the uterus is induced to contract, and to close its gaping vessels, through which the lifes blood was pouring out. The action of the heart is also quickened by a direct effect of the brandy on its structure, making it do more than average work in a given time.
The author, in one place, considers our physiology stupid and simple. Viewed in the light of such physiology as he treats us to above, we feel like pardoning the offense; it was evidently unavoidable.
It requires enormous doses to produce an immediate decided reduction of pulse-rate. Zimmerberg used an amount of alcohol equivalent to three or four pints of brandy before he succeeded in lessening the arterial pressure. In moderate doses, says Wood, alcohol appears to be a powerful stimulant of the heart and circulation, but in poisonous doses it very probably does diminish both the force and frequency of the pulse.
To assert, then, that brandy makes the blood slink away into the capillaries, is to say what experimentation and daily observation flatly contradict.
And, besides, how can brandy induce uterine contractions,--and that it does is a matter of demonstration,--if it nets paralyzingly?
In reply to the SERIALS position that alcohol is a food, the author retorts that the increase in weight, which follows its use, is due to its property of retarding the waste of tissue.
But facts are sprain in opposition to mere theory. At present the weight of authority and the deductions of experiment are in favor of the view that alcohol yields up force which is applied as nervous, muscular, and gland force. The amount of alcohol ingested in excess of this oxidizing power of the organism is eliminated by the various excretory channels. It is a useful food in the small quantity which increases but does not impair digestion: which quickens circulation and gland secretion but does not overstimulate, nod which is within the limit of the power of the organism to dispose of by the oxidation processes. (Bartholow.)
Flint, who can scarcely be numbered with the advocates of alcohol, nevertheless admits that it is absolutely certain that most of the alcohol, which is taken in quantities not sufficient to intoxicate, is consumed in the organism.
Of the same nature is the objection to the SERIALS allusion to the experiments of Dr. Ford and of Dupr. The alcohol, which they found in the tissues of the most abstemious, was derived from hepatic sugar. The author claims that this conversion of the sugar is excretory, and so is as foreign to the organism as is the used-up carbon, the retention of which is dangerous to life.
Dr. Ford, however, who, by the way, is not an obscure journal writer, but a professor in an accredited college, offers an entirely different solution of the subject. He says: According to the hypothesis under which the preceding experimentation was conducted, alcohol should coexist with sugar in the circulation.... The destination of alcohol, whose presence in the economy I have thus demonstrated, must be to a haemal oxidation or combustion, as a main source of animal heat. The italics are in the original.
Another palpable physiological error in the pamphlet is contained in the following: Good, pure, clean water, the unfermented blood of the grape, good sound wheat and other grains, sweet unleavened bread, good fresh mutton and beef from healthy cattle, supply the wants of the human body and give substance and thus strength, without causing any unnatural excitement or depression, or any disease peculiar to the article used, however freely it may be taken, and without causing any unnatural appetite which other healthy articles mill not satisfy, and without requiring to be taken in gradually increasing quantities to satisfy the appetite for them, and which therefore in their action are not seductive, are all good uses, according to the philosophy of Swedenborg, and always have a good signification and correspondence, and they are never evil or bad uses, and they never have a bad signification or correspondence. (page 13.)
If the reader is not out of breath and perplexed with this long and involved sentence, which, by the way, we took the liberty of abbreviating somewhat, we desire to tax his patience with a line or two more. On another page the author says: The sweet, which corresponds to spiritual delights, causes no disease which any other healthy article taken in excess might not cause.
It is not the only object of food to supply substance for the body. Functions need their normal stimulus, and this they receive in many ways; as by spices, mine, pure air, etc. Temperately employed stimulants do not create undue excitement and subsequent depression; neither do they develop an ever-increasing appetite for them, demanding larger and larger quantities to satisfy craving. In proper amount they simply arouse and invigorate the functions in a manner which insipid articles of food cannot do. And as this is effected within the normal range of activity, no subsequent depression can possibly exist, any more than debility can follow the inhalation of a pure, odor-laden atmosphere.
The sight of green trees, the sound of the sea, the smell of flowers, may give energy and appetite to the invalid in such a may as to be perceptible. The healthy man may be less conscious of such emotion, but it may strongly influence him. How alcohol in some liquors, which contain but a small quantity, does check, in many cases, the current of cares for a time, and the slight degree of pleasure thus excited serves to set the digestive process in action. This is not only a lawful use of alcohol, it is one which is in many cases very beneficial, and to neglect it would be wrong.... To speak of the danger of producing such slight excitement of the hearts action is an abuse of science; if it were true, every exertion, every pleasing emotion, nay, all activity of every sort, would tend to shorten our days, and they alone would be wise and happy who existed in torpor. These are the words of the conservative writer, Dr. W. S. Greenfield.
To say that intemperance in sweets does not lead to its peculiar diseased states, is an error. Sugar in excess causes dropsy, swollen liver, emaciation, pallor, and even chlorosis. Sugar, says Hering, spoils the temper and unfits our women for the duties of life. It dulls the mind, while it renders the temper irritable and peevish. This is unique, and is by no means the same as any other healthy article taken in excess will cause.
Phillips writes approvingly of the grape-cure; but, referring to its excessive use, he says: With less constancy but still with much frequency, grapes not in a laxative or even a decidedly purgative manner;
and if this is carried to excess there may be excoriation of the tongue, chronic diarrhea, and an aphthous condition of the whole alimentary canal.
It is to the deleterious effects of the sugar, etc., in the must that Swedenborg refers in True Christian Religion, 404: The must of mine unfermented has a pleasant taste, but infests the stomach.
Alluding to this passage, the author of the pamphlet remarks, that must fermenting is spoken of by Swedenborg as disagreeing with the stomach (p. 105). Such mine, he remarks on another page, is turbid and foul, and in this state is unwholesome to the stomach (p. 152).
But this is a gross perversion of the clear meaning of Swedenborgs words. The words are must of wine unfermented; and cannot mean, wine while fermenting, as the author asserts (p. 105). For how can that be pleasant to the taste, which, according to the authors admission, is turbid and foul?
We presume Swedenborg had in mind the well-known fact that new, unfermented wines are laxative. Thus Dioscorides wrote: Sweet wines disorder the bowels, as does unfermented wine. And Pliny remarked: Sweet wines are less useful for digestion; old wine mixed with water is more nutritious; for while sweet wine is less inebriating it floats in the stomach.
And, too, Swedenborg declares that new wine is not readily digested; for he says, the chyle sometimes contains crude vegetable emulsions, effluvia, juices, and vapid portions of new wine, or of unfermented or unclarified beer. Hence, the lymph is a kind of ultimate saliva, whose office it is to digest the chyle itself. (Animal Kingdom, Part I. p. 220.) He never says this of good, old, generous wines.
Referring to D. P. 284, the SERIAL stated that in this beautiful extract evil with its falsities is compared with leaven and with the lees; and good is compared with generous wine.
To this the author replies: by what authority does the Academys organ say that, in the above extract (meaning D. P. 284) evil with its falsities is compared with leaven and lees? It will be seen that this representation is not correct; for it is the combat and separation and familiar to the bottom which is compared, and not the leaven and lees. Lees have a good signification when this word is used in a good sense, as in Isaiah xxv. 6. (A. E. 1159, 252, A. C. 5943.) ... But it is perfectly evident that the lees which fall to the bottom during the fermentation of wine can have no such signification, so that the Academy, after all, is not so far from the truth when it claims that lees are compared by Swedenborg to falsities, and, consequently, according to their philosophy, correspond to falsities.
Well, our authority is Swedenborg, and we are pleased to see that our critic, after a brief and wholly irrelevant digression, returns to the subject with a similar conclusion. That the comparison in the passage referred to extends to the lees as well as to the falling of the lees, is further proved by a similar analogy in C. L. 272, where we read that man in the world is invested with a material body and this is filed with cupidities, and these are there just like the lees, which precipitate themselves to the bottom when the must of mine is clarified. Here lees, and not merely the falling of lees, is compared with cupidities.
But the author maintains that whenever fermentation and regeneration are compared in the Writings, reference is made to a similarity in process, not in products. And he claims that Swedenborg denounced alcoholic preparations (whisky) as pernicious. Wine, when fermented, always has a bad correspondence, because ferments are evil.
Let us see, then, what were Swedenborgs views concerning alcoholic preparations.
Distillation, in his philosophy, is the separation of finer elements from the coarser, and their arrangement as the superficies of sphericles, the cavities of which are occupied by ether. This new formation, alcohol, is less compounded, more perfect and more universal than coarser bodies. It therefore belongs to ethereal forms, which are on the plane of the purer portions of the human body. It is the highest of three orders of chemical substances: salts, oils, and spirits; which latter are called oils most highly rectified.
Alcohol, therefore, belongs to the class of chemicals, which generate the mild heat produced interiorly in the blood, directly under the influence of the animal spirit.
It is well known that Swedenborgs philosophy was the same for the macrocosm that it was for the microcosm of man. And so we find him applying precisely the same principles in the human economy that he did in his studies of the world at large.
The blood receives pabulum, from the various classes into which chemicals are divided. And substances which are employed for food are resolvable into these same classes in the processes of digestion and assimilation. So perfect is the comparison between the manufacture of alcohol and digestion, that Swedenborg explains the two phenomena as nearly identical. He says: The heat first sends off phlegm (meaning water), as in the mouth and fauces, then the weaker, and afterwards the more rectified spirits, as in the stomach; next oils, gradually more and more dense, and at length fetid, as in the intestines; the residue being a caput mortuum, or fces. (Animal Kingdom, Part I. p. 162.)
Here stomachic digestion is very appropriately compared to the manufacture of rectified spirits. When food comes under the influence of the gastric juice it is set in motion by the muscular fibres of the stomach, macerated and fermented by warmth, impregnated by purer and purer menstrua of digestion, until it is resolved into spirits, tinctures, milky products, phlegm and refuse. Is this not very much like distillation? The purest portions are carried to the brain, the next, into the blood, the next, into lymphrtics; the residue goes into the intestines for further digestion. The purest portions are, like alcohol, most highly rectified.
Consulting the Writings, we find Swedenborg making use of His chemico-physiological knowledge to confirm corresponding spiritual truths.
Thus, there is a series of analogies between digestion, fermentation, and regeneration, extending to the highest and purest productions of the respective processes.
In some places the clarification of mine makes the comparison; in others, its homogencity is referred to (D. P. 25). In still others, its nobility (see below). Again, elevation into a purer aura is mentioned, comparing the chemical altitude of alcohol to the raising of the mind by regeneration into a superior aura. (C. L. 145). And, finally, spiritual wisdom is compared with alcohol, both because it is highly rectified spirits, and because of its ardor (C. L. 145).
But when this culmination is reached, and alcohol and wisdom stand forth as parallels, the author of the book under review would have us drop the figure and declare the comparison at an end. The one produce he regards as essentially hellish, the other, of course, essentially heavenly.
His ground for this false assumption is that alcohol is a poison and that fermentation is evil, and its resultant evil also. And he quotes Swedenborg to sustain his position.
Alcohol may indeed become a poison when taken in concentrated form, as when separated from the mine or liquor and used in quantity. And this ails up another point in the book before us. The author continually declares against drinking alcohol, coupled with the assertion that it is a poison. We have indeed used the term alcohol in place of alcoholic beverages. But this is unavoidable in considering scientific statements as to doses, etc., for alcohol is the only proper basis of comparison. But we had no idea that our readers, especially one who lays claim to any scientific education, would fail to understand us.
Whether or not absolute alcohol is poisonous has nothing to do with the question before us. And the whole argument of the author, based thereon, is false and misleading. The question at issue is whether or not alcoholic beverages are injurious or poisonous. We assert, in contradiction to the author, that such beverages are not poisonous; and, further, we claim that alcohol itself has a good correspondence.
It becomes poisonous only when so concentrated as to become productive of injury by its very ardor. The suns rays, concentrated, destroy life; are they therefore poisonous? An atmosphere of pure oxygen is by no means salubrious; is it therefore poisonous?
Even granting, for arguments sake, that pure alcohol in quantity poisons, it does not follow that the same alcohol properly swathed, like the suns rays in the atmospheres, or the oxygen in association with a large volume of nitrogen, is poisonous. There are in nature a number of substances which are of great use, but which when concentrated act as poisons. Prussic acid is a direful poison, but a kindred salt, the sulphocyanide of sodium (or potassium), is in the saliva; it thus contributes to the usefulness of one of the menstrua of digestion. This same sulphocyanide, extracted in quantity, will destroy life. So, too, hydrochloric acid, which no one will class as less injurious than pure alcohol, exists as an essential ingredient of the gastric juice, and contributes to the maintenance of the human body.
Many other substances might be cited, as citric acid, oxalic acid, etc. It is equally true that these in concentrated form injure and kill, while in diluted form they perform good uses in the animal economy.
Drs. Anstie and Parkes agree in assigning one fluid ounce of absolute alcohol, drunk with mater of course, and thus equal to from two to two and a half fluid ounces of spirits, as the limit of moderation for a dose, without resulting injury. Up to this quantity, says Pavy, its action is that of a stimulant; thus not of a poison.
But to resume. Swedenborg has been misquoted as an opponent of alcoholic beverages.
Referring to digestion, Swedenborg says: The office of menstruum is not confined to the saliv, but extends to all kinds of liquids taken by the mouth, as mater, milk, syrups, juices, beer, wine, SPIRITS; which the stomach therefore desires, sometimes with a certain secret craving (Animal Kingdom).
The use of therefore here is highly significative. The stomach desires these liquids because they are menstrua of digestion.
In several places in the Writings wine is designated generous, noble (Coronis 221, C. L. 475, T. C. R. 215, D. P. 254, 284, etc.). These two adjectives, which Swedenborg employed synonymously (C. L. 475), are only applied to fermented wines. Generous, according to Worcester, means strong, stimulating, vigorous.
Our critic admits this so far as D. P. 284 is concerned; for he says the word generous as here used, does not necessarily mean good, but it undoubtedly means vigorous or strong in this instance.
In this sense the term is used by medical writers at this day (p. 151).
When the fine flavor of noble mine is referred to (Coronis 22), or vinous odor is mentioned (A. C. 1720), fermented wine is meant. For noble wine is never unfermented. And it is well known that the peculiar aroma of wines arises from ethers and volatile oils generated in their manufacture (see Pavys Food and Dietetics).
Conversing with the spirits of the spiritual London, where, be it remembered, men were preparing for heaven, Swedenborg asked concerning wines, liquors, beers, cocoa, tea, etc. The reply was that there were such things there. I asked, he continues, likewise concerning the liquor called punch. The reply was that this liquor also is with them, but it is given only to the sincere and industrious (S. D., vol. iv., p. 88).
But despite such incontestable testimony Dr. Ellis remarks: If the lees, which fill to the bottom from the action of leaven on wine, instead of having a good signification have a good signification, how can the wine from which such lees have been separated fail to have an evil signification?
By parity of reasoning, if the evils, which are removed to the sides from the action of spiritual leaven, instead of having a good signification, have a bad signification, how can the resulting state of the man from which such evils have been separated fail to have an evil signification?
The author seems to wholly misunderstand the use of ferments. We are taught that the Divine Providence of the LORD causes that evil, and falsity may serve for purification (D. P. 21). This is effected in various ways,one of which is as follows:
Spiritual fermentations take place in many ways, for there are evils and at the same time falsities, which being let into societies, do the like as ferments put into meal and must, by means of which, heterogeneities are separated and homogeneities are conjoined, and it becomes pure and clear. (D. P. 25.)
As usual, the author is at variance with revealed facts. Here the homogeneity of wine is referred to. But the author nevertheless declares that fermented wine is not homogeneous. Now, what is the like in these two fermentations referred to above? Evidently the separation of heterogeneities; the removal of the foul and turbid mess of decomposed grape, and that of the evils and falsities which becloud the mind. But such removal supposes a cause, an active force. Hence the like extends to the purifying forces at work. In the one case, regeneration, this force is spiritual truth. In the other, it is a similar principle in the grape; for the grape is a corresponding form of good. In the one case, this preservative force, good by means of truth, rejects evils and falsities as heterogeneities, and conjoins all that agree.
In the other, alcohol, formed of a fiery principle, clothed with the finer elements of the grape, is the preservative force, which aids in the precipitation of decomposed nitrogenous matter, excess of bitartrates, fungi, etc., constituting the lees, and conjoins homogeneities into one invigorating, pure, wholesome wine. By its action on the acids, ethers and volatile oils are evolved, from which arises the vinous odor, now first produced. And finally, by commingling in the most intimate of unions with all the ingredients of the new wine, there is formed a smooth, rich, oily, and perfectly clear liquid, wine which maketh glad the heart of man.
The likeness, then, extends to properties of wine, chiefly to properties of the alcohol it contains. And hence, when by distillation the latter is obtained pure, it is very appropriately compared to wisdom (C. L. 145).
We have thus demonstrated that alcoholic beverages are normal stimuli, food, heat-producers, and agents in the digestion of aliments. This is deduced from the concurrent testimony of eminent scientists; and, above all, from the teachings of Swedenborg as a philosopher and as a theologian.
The quotations which the author of the book under consideration makes from scientific works are inappropriate, partisan, or utterly false. And hence his numerous reiterations that alcohol, mine, etc., are poisons, infernal putrefied substances, etc., may deceive the ignorant by the force of their repetition. But they are empty phrases to those who view the whole subject from the rational, and find confirmations in the plain, statements of the Word and the Word opened.
Swedenborg does not give us falsities and contradictions. If in one place he asserts that wine is fermented and has a good correspondence, and in another that it may be drunk, he does not assert in a third place that properly used it is a hellish substance. So, when we endeavor to comprehend the true meaning of Swedenborgs words to the Swedish Diet, we apply our knowledge of His views of alcohol, and conclude accordingly. If, as a physiologist, he considers spirits a menstruum of digestion, if as a theologian he speaks of liquor as an admitted beverage, commands the use of fermented wine in the Holy Supper, and declares that the regenerating man may drink wine to excite in himself charity, can he, as a correspondent, call whiskey pernicious because it is alcoholic?
The rational answer to the question of perniciousness is plainly given in the book under notice, in a quotation from Swedenborg: The immoderate use of spirituous liquors will be the downfall of the Swedish people. The perniciousness lies in immoderateness.
We have demonstrated that the book in its linguistic and scientific aspects, is but a series of falsifications and perversions; we shall now see that this is equally true of the historic portions.
One of the most striking perversions is an attempted explanation of Egyptian wine-making. It is also illustrated with an engraving (pp. 78, 19). This figure, the author supposes, is an exhibition of the straining of the saccharine from albuminous ingredients in grape juice. The immediate drawing off and storing of the strained juice is considered proved by the fact that both operations are shown on the same plate. Then it is presumed that coating of olive oil is poured on the top of the grape juice of the jars.
Wilkinson furnishes us with these pictures and also with their true explanation. He supplies other pictures, too, which flatly contradict the false explanations given in the book before us. He says: After the fermentation was over, the juice was taken out in small vases with a long spout, and poured into earthenware jars, which corresponded to the cadi, or amphor, of the Romans (Wilkinson, vol. II., p. 157). We also read there that the consumption of wine in Egypt was very great, is evident from the sculptures, and from the accounts of ancient authors, some of whom have censured the Egyptians for an immoderate love of excess; and so much did the quantity used exceed that made in the country, that in the time of Herodotus, twice every year a large importation was received from Phnicia and Greece (p. 168). Wilkinson does not in treating of Egyptian vineyards and wines make any mention of the preservation of unfermented grape-juice. On the other hand, he gives pictures of drunken Egyptians carried home from carousals (p. 168) and even of Egyptian women who had partaken to excess (p. 165). It is hardly necessary for him to add (p. 168) that even of Egyptian women were not restricted in their use of wine. Wilkinson adds, In Greece women enjoyed the same privileges regarding wine as in Egypt (p. 167), and that though in the early times of Rome wine was forbidden to females and even to men under thirty years of age, it was afterwards allowed them on the plea of health, and no better method could have been devised for removing the restriction (p. 166). Athenaeus concludes that they (the Egyptians) were a people systematically addicted to intemperance (p. 169). We further learn that in offerings to the Egyptian deities wine frequently occurs (p. 164).
We can hardly believe that the author of the book is guilty of the systematic deception, which is apparent in this copying of a plate and in giving an explanation thereof the very opposite to that given by Wilkinson, from which it was taken. The author must have taken the picture and explanation from Dr. Samson, without consulting the original at all. But if so, how unreliable is his book.
Our space does not permit us to enter with equal fulness into the refutation of the many similar statements in the book, but we will at least make mention of the following.
In speaking of fermented grape-juice the author says: It was regarded so polluted that even the ancient heathen would not dare to offer it to their gods (p. 153). That this is false in reference to the Egyptians we have already proved; that it is false with respect to the Greeks is equally evident; for it is always in their offerings called [scanner unable to insert word] (oinos), and this, as we have seen, signifies the fermented juice of the grape. It is equally erroneous with respect to the Romans, for their libations were of vinum, which is also the fermented juice of the grape.
The author states (p. 67) that the Lesbian wine mentioned by Horace was perfectly harmless and unintoxicating. He evidently supposes it to have been unfermented. But in that he is altogether mistaken, for it is called by ancient authors [scanner unable to insert word] (oinos) or vinum, and this, we have repeatedly shown, is fermented. It was simply a light ladies wine, which, like some of the Egyptian and some of the lighter modern wines, was exhilarating because fermented; but not intoxicating unless taken in very large quantities.
As to the use of wine in France the author in one passage declares: As to the use of ordinary wine, it is almost entirely confined to the men. It is proverbial that if a young woman is known to be in the habit of using it, she is unlikely to receive proposals of marriage (p. 72). The falsity of this statement is proved by the author himself in his slander on the French nation: Drunkenness is the beginning and end of life in the great French industrial centres. At Lille 25 per cent. of the men and 12 per cent of the women are confirmed drunkards (p. 85). Women rival the men in drunkenness. At Lille, at Rouen, there are some so saturated with it that their infants refuse to take the breast of a sober woman. The French go about it as a business. I never saw so many women drunk (p. 85). We see that abstinence writers are able to furnish testimony on the same subject of the most conflicting character whenever it suits their good cause. The truth of course lies between these two exaggerations. The French as a nation use fermented wine, and generally in moderation. Drunkards in France, as elsewhere, are the exception. One of the queerest blunders of the author in connection with the above exaggerated statements of drunkenness in France is the following: Look at the peasant at his meals in the vine-bearing districts! Instead of milk, he has a basin of pure and unadulterated blood of the grape. In this, its native original state, it is a plain, simple, and wholesome liquid, which at every repast becomes to the husbandman what milk is to the shepherd,--not a luxury, but a necessity; not an intoxicating but a nutritive beverage (p. 71).
Every one at all acquainted with French customs knows that the beverage here described is a light claret, which, as is also well known, is fermented grape-juice, pure and harmless--unless taken in an excessive quantity--and called blood of the grape from its redness.
But the author, in his ignorance of foreign customs and in his exceeding fondness for syrup, supposes that the French husbandman quaffs daily for breakfast his pint of syrup!
Even Luther, who was a regular but moderate consumer of the fermented grape-juice, is somehow or other dragged in to support total abstinence. Probably the author is not aware of the bon-mot attributed to Luther:
He who loves not women, wine, and song,
Remains a fool his life long.
The authors ignorance of the process of making and of preserving wine, causes him to make several ludicrous mistakes. In every process of the regular manufacture of wine, he discovers some may of preserving must. Thus, it is well known that in Southern Europe part of the wine is sometimes boiled, and is then mixed with one-half or two-thirds of the same quantity of fermented wine to give it additional sweetness. Such wines are made in comparatively small quantities in Spain, Italy, the Canary Islands, and sometimes in Syria; these are the Malaga and similar sweet wines. These, as is well known, contain about twice as much alcohol as the ordinary wines (from 15 to 23 per cent.), yet the author mistakes them for syrup!
Then again, when the wine is fully fermented and is to be protected against acetic fermentation, it is poured into casks which have been fumigated with sulphur. This is described by the author in these words: The last process in wine-making is sulphurization; its object is to secure the most long-continued preservation of all wines, even of the very commonest (p. 78). The fact is stated with some approach to correctness, but yet the authors use of the fact is altogether false, for we read (p. 66) they also used sulphur to neutralize the yeast or gluten (p. 66). The real use is the expulsion of oxygen from the casks, so as to prevent the wine from passing from the vinous to the acetic fermentation.
The author probably reaches the climax of his falsification of history in the following:
The time was in those lands (Palestine, etc.) when fermented wine was not called wine at all, but it existed under other names, and unfermented wine was the wine (p. 69). This assertion is made without the least particle of foundation, and is one of the many fictions with which the author strives to support his position. The fact that from the first the term wine ([scanner unable to insert word]) signified true,i. e., fermented wine, is evident that its earliest mention in the Bible is in the history of Noah, where it is referred to as an intoxicating beverage. The fact that this is not real but correspondential history does not in the least affect the argument;
for we see from it that the writer who penned tills statement, and the people who read it in far-off antiquity (like Worcester and Webster of this day), knew of wine simply as the fermented juice of the grape, which when taken in excess produces intoxication. That wine ([scanner unable to insert word]) preserved this signification throughout the whole of Bible history may be evident to any one from careful consideration. Intoxicating wine is evidently referred to in the story of Lot (1898 B.C.), also in the story of Hannah (1171 B.C.),--Eli said unto her, how long wilt thou be drunken? Put away thy wine from thee. And Hannah answered, I have neither drunk wine nor strong drink. This passage not only proves the quality of the wine used at that time, but also shows the falsity of the authors quotation: It is beyond all reasonable doubt that orthodox Judaism has ever and always rejected alcoholic or fermented wine at sacred feasts (p. l77). Its shows how careless of the truth are the upholders of abstinence when they wish to prove their points. So again in the case of Nabal (1060 B.C.),-- Nabals heart was merry within him for he was very drunken. But it came to pass in the morning, when the wine was gone from Nabal, etc. So we read of Ammons heart merry with wine (1035 B.C.); and in Isaiah (758 B.C.),--They have erred through wine and through strong drink ire out of the way. In Jeremiah (599 B.C.) we read, I am like a drunken man, and like a man whom wine has overcome. In Zechariah (518 B.C.), They shall drink and make a noise as through wine. And they of Ephraim shall be like a mighty man, and their heart shall rejoice as through wine. Certainly in these passages, taken from the various books of the Old Testament, wine is not our authors grape-jelly! Wine is there just what it is now defined to be,--the fermented juice of the grape. Therefore the authors assertion to the contrary is wholly unsupported by the Word of GOD, and is utterly false.
As the author did not know that boiling the wine was only a part of the making of fermented wine, he was entirely unable to see how in Syria they could boil wine and still have fermented wine. He starts with an extravagant statement as to the prevalent custom of boiling wine in the following words: The wines of Syria, are most of them prepared by boiling, immediately after they are expressed from the grape, till they are considerably reduced in quantity, when they were put into jars or large bottles and preserved for use. The Doctor (Bowring) adds, that the habit of boiling wine is almost universal [in Syria] (p. 70). If this refers to wine-making the very important fact is omitted that this boiled juice is added to fermented wine. It may, however, refer to the preparation of syrup or grape-jelly by the Mohammedans, who are not allowed either to make or to drink wine. But that boiled grape-jelly or syrup is not called wine, either in Syria or elsewhere, is plainly apparent in the book itself, where we read:
Certain missionaries a few years ago declared that there were no unfermented wines used in Palestine at that day, and that by careful inquiry they could not hear of any such wines. But the author consoles himself by adding, But it is evident, from the testimony we shall adduce from other missionaries and travelers, that if they had inquired for boiled grape-juice or dibs, and had been familiar with the writings of the ancients, who describe the method of boiling, and who called such boiled grape- juice wine (?), and spoke of it as the best wine (?), they would have made no such statements as they did; for they were undoubtedly honest, but lacking in a knowledge of the necessary facts, which would have enabled them to speak understandingly (p. 69).
Who that was lacking in knowledge, the missionaries or their self-satisfied critic, is probably by this time clear to the reader. No doubt had they asked for grape-syrup or jelly, jam or preserves, they might have received some; but the people knew better than to call such articles wine.
The author may indeed claim that he is no scholar, and that he had neither the time nor the ability to inquire into the truth or falsity of the statements advanced by the Old Church writers on abstinence. This we may grant, but it hardly excuses his indorsing these fasifications and perversions, and presenting them to the New Church with the air of one who has examined and knows whereof he speaks.
We have thus far seen that the author in his linguistic, scientific, and historical arguments has blindly followed the Old Church writers on the subject without taking the trouble of giving to their statements any critical investigation. The whole mass of the ferment of falses from self-derived intelligence in the Old Church has thus been emptied into the New Church. In his theological argument the author has applied the same course of falsification and perversion to the truths of the internal sense, as the Old Church had applied to the truths of the letter.
Some slight excuse may be found in the fact that before the writer had become acquainted with the New Church, and indeed before he had come to years of discretion (see p. 207), he had already espoused the cause of abstinence, and having imbibed with avidity the falsities of the Old Church writers, so as to make it difficult for him to receive the truth on this subject as presented by the New Church, he was unwilling to receive the new wine offered by the New Church on this subject, but holds to this day that the old is better.
As a sample of the falsification of the truth of the New Church, we need only take the two passages chosen by the author as a motto for his title-page. The first is must signifies the same as wine, viz., truth derived from the good of charity and love (A. E. 695).
The Latin of this is, Mustum sicut vinum significat verum ex bono charitatis et amorisMust like wine signifies truth from the good of charity and love. So the statement that must signifies the same as wine is not contained in this passage, the Latin for the same as would be idem ac (or idem et, que, ut, quod), sicut only signifies just as, like as. Must is like wine in this, that it signifies true from the good of charity and love. But every student of the Writings knows that there is an endless variety of such truth, and that all the angels of heaven are in truth from good and in good from truth. Must in the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures is used in general for wine of the first year. Therefore the word has a similar signification in the Writings. We would expect therefore that must, in so far as it differs from the ripened wine, would have a, more external sense. This we also find in the Writings,Must signifies natural truth. Wine signifies spiritual truth (A. C. 5380). Must in the cluster signifies truth from good in the natural principle (A. C. 5117). In so far as must is well fermented and approaches in nature to the ripe and generous wine, its signification becomes more interior. Hence, though must and wine both signify truth from good, must has a more exterior sigrni6cation and wine a more interior.
In the other passage quoted on the title-page the perversion is even more apparent. We read, Falses from evils may be compared to such wine and strong drink as induced drunkenness. The Latin is Falsa ex malo comparari possunt vino aut sicer, qu inducunt ebrietatem, which simply means falses from evil may be compared to wine and strong drink that induce drunkenness. The words such as are not found in the original. The difference seems at first sight insignificant, and yet the whole doctrinal argument of the author may be said to be based on this mistranslation; and so falls to the ground when this foundation--i. e., the mistranslationis withdrawn. It is the only passage to which ignorance could cling to make it appear as if Swedenborg supposed there was a wine (fermented grape-juice) or strong drink (intoxicating drink) which would not induce drunkenness. We see this passage, therefore, introduced no less than eighteen times or about once in every thirteen pages.
We do not accuse the author of intentionally misquoting these passages,--perhaps he does not understand Latin. Nevertheless it is a peculiar example of how one error loves another; for here are two quotations selected as mottoes, and both of them palpable mistranslations, and used to sustain a point which a true rendering does not in the least support. Surely the doctrines of the church are in great danger of being perverted and misapplied when those without proper training and education undertake to instruct.
Another instance of false teaching is where the author exalts sugar above what is spirituous. We read of sugar, so delightful to the unperverted taste (p. 25); the delightful sugar is perverted by leaven into alcohol (p. 130); alcohol developed by the destruction of a heaven-born substance, sugar (p. 120); the sugar which is so delightful, and which corresponds to spiritual delights (p. 94). The author sees nothing but what is pure and heavenly in sweetness and in sugar.
It will probably be of some interest to mention the internal sense of honey, which in the Word stands as the representative of sweetness. Honey signifies delight which comes from the good and true, or from their affection, and it especially signifies external delight, thus that of the exterior natural; because this delight is of such a nature, that it is from the world through sensual things, and thus contains within itself many things from the love of the world; therefore it was forbidden that honey should be used in meat-offering, concerning which it is thus written in Leviticus: No meat-offering, which ye shall bring unto JEHOVAH, shall be made with leaven, for ye shall not burn any leaven, or any honey, in any offering made by fire unto JEHOVAH(ii. 11), where honey denotes such external delight, which because it contains in it somewhat from the love of the world, was also like leaven, on which account it was prohibited (A. C. 5620).
This passages teaches us several important points: First, that sugar (or its representative in the Bible, honey), which the author calls heaven-born and so delightful, is really in the Word accounted so unclean that it was not allowed to be offered upon any offering made by fire; Secondly, it is be, like leaven, rather hard for those who glorified it as heaven-born and as signifying spiritual delight; and thirdly, external delight to which honey corresponds contains in it somewhat from the love of the world. The author is equally at fault when, from his inner consciousness, he develops the signification of alcohol. We read, Pure spirit we know, by its effects, corresponds to falses from evil (p. 150). We know both from its origin and effects, that it [alcohol] corresponds to infernal delights (p. 161). Now when we turn to the Writings we find that the author is nowhere sustained in this assertion, but on the contrary, he is in open and irreconcilable conflict with their teachings; for the only passage in which the signification of alcohol is referred to is in Conjugial Love where spiritual purification is compared with the rectification of natural spirits and wisdom purified with alcohol (C. L. 145). We are aware that the author disputes the correctness of this comparison, and also that comparisons in the Word and in the Writings are made in accordance with correspondence; but our readers will have little difficulty in choosing between the statements of the Writings and the assertions of our author.
Proceeding from the false assumptions finished by his Old Church authorities, the author continually perverts and falsifies every passage from the Writings and the Word which he quotes. We will add a few more instances to those already mentioned.
The wine declared by the Master of the feast (at Cana) to be good wine was good wine ... good because nourishing and unintoxicating (p. 156).
That this statement is false may be seen from the term used, which is [scanner unable to insert word] (oinos) the fermented juice of the grape (see Liddel and Scotts Greek Lexicon). But there is another incontestable proof contained in the passage itself; the word [scanner is unable to insert word] in Greek signifies to make drunk, to intoxicate; in the passive to be drunk; now this term is never used for designating the effects from any other than intoxicating drinks. Yet we lead in this narration: When men have well drunk ([scanner unable to insert word], literally, are exhilarated with wine) then that which is worse, etc. (John ii. 10). This also again proves the utter falsity of the authors statements where he says, The Jews do not in their feasts for sacred purposes, including the marriage feast, ever use any kind of fermented drinks.
The example of the Nazarite is sometimes mentioned as an emblem of the Christian state, but when we know that the state in which he had to abstain from grapes and wine signified a sensual and natural state, but the grapes and wine (vinum = fermented grape-juice) signified the spiritual and celestial state with its good and truth (A. E. 918), the New Churchman will hardly cling to that which represents the sensual and natural state, and which is recommended by the author, but rather press forward to that which represents the spiritual and celestial state with its good and truth. In strict agreement with this teaching of the above passage is the following from the Adversaria:
Lastly it is added, that then the Nazarite shall drink the wine (vinum) which before was forbidden him, because afterward he is sanctified, for then wine (vinum) could not intoxicate him; as it is with the regenerate who are then not hurt by cupidities, because then the cupidities are no more excited by nature and by the body, but they are only the excitements of the natural and corporeal life....Wine (vinum) is thus gladness or heavenly joy, for then it exhilarates, and only excites those things which are of charity (Adv. vol. iv., 6879S, 6880).
From this we see the use of wine in exciting the things which are of charity, and this explains why wine has always accompanied every state of high national development, and why its right preparation, preservation, and use form one of the criteria of the state of individuals and of nations.
Again the author falsifies Scripture when he states that the people were taught not to look upon it,--i.e., fermented wine. This is a garbled quotation of Ezekiel: Ezekiel reproduces the law, Neither shall any priest drink wine (xliv. 21).
The reader, not thoroughly acquainted with Scripture, would from this quotation suppose that the priest was not allowed to drink wine at any time. But the author had omitted the half of the verse which states, when they enter into the inner court. That this partial quotation is intentional, and not accidental, appears from the face that the offense is repeated in another form on page 215,--Do not drink wine, nor drink that maketh drunken (Lev. x. 8, 9). This is introduced as if it was a general prohibition, while the fact is suppressed that this was a command to Aaron and his sons, and also that this command is further limited by the words, when ye go into the tabernacle of the congregation. The same perversion is again found on page 227, where we read: Let us all remember the words of Holy Writ,Woe to him that giveth his neighbor rink, and puttest thy bottle to him. From these words thus solemnly put, the uninformed reader would no doubt suppose that it was forbidden to give anyone anything to drink; but here as above the meaning of the passage is skilfully concealed by omitting the leading idea which immediately follows and qualities all that precedes; namely, and makest him drunken rise, that thou mayest look on their nakedness. By omitting the qualifying phrase the whole intent of the prohibition is changed and perverted.
Another fancy of the author and his authorities is, that the blood of the grope signifies unfermented wine. He brings nothing from Scripture to justify such a supposition, but as he does in so many other instances, he assumes that which he thinks ought to be so. Unfermented must, however, is in the True Christian Religion compared to love of the world, and it is said of it that it tastes sweet, but infests the stomach (T. C. R. 404). Even must, when fermented, only corresponds to truth from good in the natural principle, but wine (vinum, fermented grape-juice) corresponds to spiritual truth. From this series it is evident that the blood of grapes, which denotes the good of love, is not a step backward towards must, but is a peculiar kind of fermented grape-juice; probably, as Gesenius suggests, this name comes from the redness of certain wines. This is indeed plainly taught also in the Writings. Wine (vinum, fermented grape-juice) is called the blood of grapes, because both signify the holy truth proceeding from the LORD, but wine is predicated of the spiritual church and blood of the celestial church (A. C. 5117, see also T. C. R, 706, A. E. 918). Hence the author is entirely in darkness when he says: Surely no one will pretend that the blood of the grape is fermented wine (p. 115). As we see not only the dictionaries which are the exponents of the learning of the age, but also the Writings given by the LORD from heaven declare the truth of what he so rashly denies.
Quite as unfounded are the declarations of the author concerning the fruit of the vine.
He proves, indeed, to His own satisfaction that wine is not the fruit of the vine, but then we have seen that in such matters he is easily satisfied. Perhaps in his ignorance of the language he supposed that the term here used for fruit is the word usually employed for fruit in Greek. But the term is not [Greek] (karpos) but a more general term, [Greek] (gennema), which really signifies that which is produced. And it is well known that wine and must are both the product of the vine, though neither could in strict literalness be called a fruit. But even on this point we are not dependent alone on the explanation of the learned, for we read: By the product (genimen) of the vine or the wine (vinum), which the LORD will drink new with them in the kingdom of His Father ... is understood that from His Divine Human then will be all the Divine Truth in heaven and in the Church, wherefore he also calls it new (A. E. 317). And again, Because by wine (vinum, fermented grape-juice) is meant the Divine Truth nourishing spiritual life, therefore the LORD saith to them: I say unto you, that I will not drink of the produce (genimen) of the vine from henceforth, etc. (A. E. 329). Here again the fruit or produce of the vine is shown to mean nothing else than wine,--i.e., fermented grape-juice.
The author asserts on the authority of some abstinence writers that the Jews never used fermented grape-juice at their feasts. This we have already disproved from those passages which show that both at the time of Hannah and at the marriage at Cana the fermented grape-juice was used. Another plain Scripture passage on the subject is the command as to the observance of the feasts: And thou shalt bestow that money for whatsoever thy soul lusteth after, for oxen, or for sheep, or for wine ([scanner unable to insert word],--fermented juice of the grape), or for strong drink ([scanner unable to insert word],--intoxicating drink), or for whatsoever thy soul desireth: and thou shalt eat before the LORD thy God, and thou shalt rejoice, thou end thine household (Deut. xiv. 26). So we see that the LORD has left no ambiguity as to how the holy feasts were to be observed. We also see that the drink-offering was always of [scanner unable to insert word] or fermented grape-juice, and this as well at the feast of first fruits (Lev. xxiii. 13) as at the daily sacrifice (Exodus xxix. 40). It is really surprising how, in the face of so many indisputable facts, the writers on abstinence, quoted by our author, could boldly make statements which plainly conflict with the declarations of the Word.
As the use of wine--i.e., the fermented grape-juice-was enjoined at all sacred feasts and used by the Israelites, so also at the passover, as the author suggests, the LORD very probably used the passover wine, which was fermented. And this was the wine used by the apostles in celebrating the Holy Supper, as we see from the terms [Greek] and vinum employed by all the early writers on the subject.
This is also plainly shown in the reproof in the Epistle to the Corinthians: When ye come together therefore into one place, this is not to eat the LORDS Supper. For in eating every one taketh before his own supper: and one is hungry and another is drunken. The ancient liturgies, in which the service of the Holy Supper is given, always denominate the wine partaken of [scanner unable to insert word] or vinum. In agreement with this ancient usage Swedenborg always uses the term vinum for the wine at the Holy Supper, and never the term mustum, much less mustum infermentatum. There can be, therefore, no doubt in the mind of scholars that the wine required for the Holy Supper is fermented grape-juice; and that this alone is the proper ultimate for the representation of the Divine Truth.
Concerning passover wine, which our author in no less than four places declares is unfermented, Rabbi Isaac M. Wise, an acknowledged Hebrew scholar, thus forcibly expresses himself:
We do not know how often we have been asked and how often we: have answered the question, what yayin means, whether it is fermented, alcoholic, and intoxicating wine, or a merely cleared and refined beverage, made of the juice of the grapes,Thirosh.
All ancient versions of Scriptures, from the Septuagint down to the last Targum, translate yayin by an equivalent which means fermented wine, and no ancient commentator or lexicographer deviated from this definition of the term. The most ancient Hebrew was undoubted vun or vin, which is identical with vinum and oinos. Besides, there are plenty of passages in Scriptures which prove that yayin means intoxicating wine. Noah and Lot were intoxicated with yayin (Genesis ix. 12). Aaron was prohibited to drink yayin or shecher before entering the sanctuary (Leviticus x. 9). That shecher means any intoxicating drink cannot be doubted, hence yayin must be intoxicating, or else it would not have been prohibited to Aaron in connection with shecher (Numbers xxviii. 7). The libation of wine upon the altar is commanded, and yayin is called plainly shecher [[scanner unable to insert word]. That the libation was of wine and not of any other drink is plainly stated in Numbers xv. 6, 7. If shecher is a synonym of yayin, the latter must necessarily be intoxicating. If the libation upon the altar was upon intoxicating wine, the Hebrews certainly had no idea of any other kind of wine to be called the good wine, as the best was put upon the altar. It is with the wine as with slavery. The slaveholders advocates attempting to prove from Scripture that slavery was a divine institution, and the temperance advocates mean to have the Bible say that yayin was not an intoxicating drink, although the various authors of the Bible books had no idea that it was any more of a sin to drink wine than it was to eat bread. They considered intoxication a medium leading to crime, but thought no worse of the drunkard than of the glutton, and in fact they belong to one and the same category of brutality. Per se the one is no more a vice than the other.--American Israelite, May, 1882.
In some cases the opinionated ignorance of fiends does more harm to a cause than the attacks of the most malicious foes. The present seems to be such a case. For many an unlearned New Churchman, receiving the little book of our author and not possessing the knowledge necessary to refute its many falsifications and perversions, might take the wine of the Holy Supper in silent or open protest. And if the minister has not the learning sufficient to expose its character, a whole society of the Church might be misled and might substitute for the only true representative of the Divine Truth some article contrived by the self-intelligence of the vastate Church, and which might thus lead to the deprivation of that conjunction with heaven so necessary to the life and progress of the Church. In either case the table of the LORD is profaned, for we read: Ye have profaned it in that ye say, The table of the LORD is polluted, and the fruit thereof, even its meat is contemptible. Ye said also, Behold, what a weariness, and ye have snuffed at it, saith the LORD of Hosts. And this terrible sin is involved in the insinuation that the weak may be tempted to their ruin by partaking of the representative of the Holy Blood of our LORD!
It was, as we are taught in the Writings, of the Divine Providence of the LORD that (with the Catholics) in the Holy Supper, the bread is given, which is the flesh, but not the wine (vinum) which is the blood; and yet it is the blood which vivifies the flesh, as the wine does the bread.... else they would have profaned holy things like the Jews (A. C. 10,040). There seems at the present time to be an extension of this judgment also to the Protestant Church, in that it is beginning to substitute for wine unfermented grape-juice, whereby the representative character of the Holy Supper is changed and perverted. The whole opposition to wine as it is now developing in the vastate Church is but an ultimation of opposition and repugnance to the truths of the internal sense of the Word to which wine corresponds. In utter disregard of the import of language, and of the teachings of science, history, and theology, the author sees in this downward step of the dead Church an upward step; and so exhorts the New Church to follow the corruption of the Old! Surely such gross perversion is without a parallel. Never in the New Church has such a mass of false statements been crowded into the same narrow limits as we find in this book on the wine question.
The Important Issue.
IN the March number of the New Church Independent we find a characteristic and somewhat interesting article by the Rev. B. F. Barrett, entitled, The Important Issue. In his article the writer recognizes the truth set forth in the earliest numbers of the SERIAL,--and for which at the time it was taken to task,--that there is an Issue. True, only a part of the issue: is mentioned, but to the writer, in the article before us, it is doubtless deemed the most important part.
In my judgment, says the writer, it is the great issue among the receivers of the New Church doctrines at this time. There are two schools differing widely as to where and what the Apocalyptic New Jerusalem is, or as to what our illumined teacher means by the New Church, signified by the New Jerusalem, of which he so often speaks.
One of these schools is represented (partially, at least, if not fully) by the Boston New Jerusalem Magazine.
The other school is fully and adequately represented by Words for the New Church,--a handsome serial published in Philadelphia under the auspices of The Academy of the New Church.
As it is very evident that the writers views upon the issue are not in accord with those maintained in the SERIAL, are we to suppose that they are (partially, if not fully) represented by the New Jerusalem Magazine?
It is hardly necessary to say that the writer has entirely failed to state the views of the Academy upon the issue; for nothing that has ever appeared in our SERIAL, we think, can warrant any one in making the following statements: The SERIAL holds that the receivers of the Heavenly Doctrines Is revealed through Swedenborg, in their organic form, and to the exclusion of all other professing Christians, constitute the New Church. These and these alone it regards as the Holy City into which none were to enter but they who are written in the Lambs book of life. Other statements, equally absurd, are made in the article under review.
The distinction plainly recognized in the Writings between the Church Universal and the specific Church New, the writer seems not to comprehend. The Catholicity of the New Jerusalem as the Church Universal we most cordially recognize; but the specific New Church, according to the doctrines, is not co-extensive with this. The Writings say: That is called the Church where the LORD is acknowledged and where the Word is (A. C. 10,761).
Certainly no New Churchman can believe that all men are saved even in lands where the LORD and the Word are acknowledged.
But that there may be no room for doubt the Writings further say: They who are out of the Church and still acknowledge one God, and live according to their religious principles in a certain charity toward the neighbor, are in communion with those who are of the Church; since no one who believes in God and lives well is damned. Hence it is evident that the Church of the LORD is everywhere in the world although it is specifically where the LORD is acknowledged and where the Word is (A. C. 10,765).
These declarations of the Writings we have often set forth in our SERIAL, nor can we quite comprehend how we could have been understood teaching otherwise.
Long before the Academy had a habitation or a name, one of out most noted ministers, who has since departed this life, had a discussion, or it may have been a controversy, with Mr. Barrett upon this very question. The subject is exhaustively treated by this writer, and as his views most fully accord with our own, we quote his words in which, most briefly, he unfolds the subject before us in the light of Divine Truth. He says:
Inasmuch as our Writings teach that the good everywhere form the LORDS body, even some of us are prone to think that the New Jerusalem is to descend everywhere in general without any particular, distinct, separate and local manifestation. But the LORDS injunction to the good of the Old Church is to keep themselves from the acknowledgment of its falses and evils, and this is to come spiritually out, while His injunction to the good of the New Church is to come out of the Old Church, not only spiritually, but also ostensibly and formally, and this because the New Jerusalem is to be a New Church in form as well as in essence--is to be a New Earth as well as a New Heaven, is in short to be a new visible Church as well us a new invisible communion.
There is the Church of the LORD as to truth, and there is the Church of the LORD as to good. And the Church of the LORD as to truth is visible, but the Church of the LORD as to good is invisible. For the Church as to truth is the Church in form, but the Church as to good is the Church in essence.
Those who are internally good, whether in the true or the false visible Church, alone constitute the LORDS invisible Church. And these, like the love or good in man, are seen by the Loan alone in direct aspect. The LORD alone knows who or where they are. No man can tell them, or classify, or embody them. They are spread through this world in all its parts, and throughout the universe of worlds in all its parts, as the soul is invisibly spread throughout its body. This is the Holy Catholic Church alluded to in the Apostles Creed. And it is this Church to which our Writings allude when they speak of the LORDS Church as universal.
The LORDS visible Church is alone where the Word is, and the LORDS true visible Church is alone where the Word is rightly understood. But the LORDS invisible Church is in all places where the hidden wisdom of the Word is willed and practiced, and this, whether the willers and practicers of that wisdom are conscious of it or not.--See New Church Life, April, 1882.
In our notice of the Swedenborg Library edited by the writer before us, we objected to a sub-heading by the editor, in Chapter xvii., Volume III. The chapter is on The New Church Signified by the Apocalyptic New Jerusalem, and the editors sub-heading is in these words: Not a New Church Organization. And the editor quotes four numbers from the Writings, namely, L. J. 73, 74; Contin. L. J., 18; A. R. 66. In The Important Issue now before us the editor says: If the candid reader will turn to these passages and read them attentively, he will be surprised, I think, that any intelligent person should object to the editors sub-heading in this instance, for he will see that it is fully sustained by the extracts.... Yet our Academy critics assert that this sub-heading teaches a doctrine which is not at all sustained by the extracts, nay, worse than that, a doctrine which is false and erroneous, and in direct conflict with the whole trend of the doctrine concerning the New Jerusalem.
These extracts from the Writings that, according to the editor of the Swedenborg Library, so fully sustain his sub-heading, of course we read attentively before making our criticism in the SERIAL. We found in them nothing whatever to sustain the sub-heading; our conclusion, on the contrary, being as above stated, that the doctrine of the sub-heading is utterly false and erroneous. The four extracts relied upon by the editor, we have most fully explained and disposed of in WORDS FOR THE NEW CHURCH, No. VIII., pp. 252, 253.
Since that number of the SERIAL was issued our earnest editor has not shown us how, by any process of sound reasoning, we can come to any other conclusion than the one already act forth.
The writer before us thinks that we have exceedingly treacherous memories. Our statement that we know of no other minister of the Church who has carried his conviction so far as to secede from the general body of the Church is given in proof of our treacherous memory. He replies--properly replies--that His withdrawal was for no such reason as they here allege.
We all know that the more recent withdrawal of this writer from the Convention, as alleged at the time, was that he might accept, with others, an important trust, the conditions of which forbid connection with any general body of the Church. But in our remarks we did not refer to this, but to the transaction of 1865, or thereabouts. The writers connection with the general body of the Church was then severed (although after a number of years the connection was restored). In 1865 the ground of the severance appealed to be the total want in the writer of sympathy with the General Convention. Without in any manner indorsing the method of the severance we nevertheless find in the transaction the want of sympathy between our writer and the Convention.
In a letter to the Christian Inquirer in 1864, this want of sympathy with the Convention at that time is openly avowed. Strong convictions at that time evidently carried our writer very far toward seceding from the general body of the Church. From this latter we need quote only the following:
As to my withdrawal from the Unitarian ranks at the time I did, being a mistake I am free to confess that I now think so myself; and I make this confession in the hope that it may be the means of preventing other ministers of your denomination from following my example, should they feel inclined to do so. If I had twenty-five years ago understood Swedenborg as I now understand him,--if I had seen then as clearly as I now see what he meant by the Church of the New Jerusalem,--I should have seen that there was no necessity for changing my ecclesiastical connection; and if I had then known the character of the ecclesiastical body which I joined on my withdrawal from the Unitarian ranks as well as I now know it, I certainly should never have taken the step I did. But I had not the remotest expectation of encountering bigotry, intolerance, or oppression among a people familiar with the teachings of the large-minded and catholic Swedenborg. I had no idea that such a people, as a body, could ever seek to abridge any mans Christian liberty, to deny freedom of thought, or restrict the freedom of the press. How sadly, and with what good reason, I have been disappointed to notice so favorably.
In conclusion, we would fully indorse the statement of the writer: that there is an issue in the New Church, and that it is far wiser and better to frankly admit the facts and freely discuss the subject in a friendly spirit and in the light of the truth revealed from heaven.
Infant and Orphan Homes.
In the Apocalypse Revealed, 547, we are told that
It is of the LORDS Divine Providence, that the Church should at first be among a few, and should increase gradually among many, because the falsities of the former Church must first be removed, as truths cannot before be received; for the truths which are received and implanted before falsities, are removed, do not remain, and are also dissipated by the dragonists The case was the same with the Christian Church, that it increased gradually from a few to many.
Many of our Ministers and Teachers have held out to us the hope that in the New Church there will be a rapid increase in numbers; but the Writings nowhere justify this expectation.
The words quoted above are explicit in teaching that it is of the LORDS Divine Providence that the Church should at first be among a few, and that it should increase gradually or successively among the many. The experience also of a hundred years confirms the doctrine that the increase of the New Church is slow,--beginning with few and gaining access to the many very gradually.
And as but comparatively few of the consummated Church can be expected to embrace the principles of the New Church, it would be wise in us to turn from the hopeless undertaking of converting them to a more promising field of labor. And this, in the Divine Providence of the LORD, is immediately before us. For we have
First. The children of our own families in the Church.
Second. Orphans of New Church families.
Third. Orphans and foundlings not of New Church families that might be taken charge of and brought up under the influence of the New Church.
There is an appalling loss to the Church from the falling away of the young people, who, although brought up in our families, are so lamentably ignorant of the heavenly Doctrines, and of the distinction between them and the old doctrines that they are easily drawn aside, and swallowed up in the social and sensuous sphere of the Old Church. The most potent remedy for this evil would be a complete education that should thoroughly imbue our children with the Doctrines and the Life of the New Church, and that should extend from infancy to adult age.
To do this work of education in the New Church well, will require an immense expenditure of means. For all things must be made new. Our children must be taken away from the schools and seminaries, in which the principles taught are often pernicious, and in which the whole sphere is destructive of that innocence implanted by the LORD in infancy and early childhood. Well may it fill New Church parents with alarm to know that the course of education now available even in the schools and colleges supposed to be free from sectarian influence is such that should a New Church youth pass through the course and come out a good New Church man, it would not be because of the education, but in spite of it.
Our children, therefore, ought to be taken away from those schools, and genuine New Church schools ought to be established, and a genuine education given, in which the principles of heaven are brought down to guide in the business of governing, educating, and training the young.
A genuine educational sphere in which the innocence of young life is nourished and guarded by the LORD is possible only in the New Church. In the True Christian Religion we are told that
It is to be kept in mind, that there continually proceeds from the LORD a Divine celestial sphere of love toward all who embrace the doctrine of His church, and who obey Him, as little children in the would obey father and mother, apply themselves to Him, and wish to be nourished, that is, instructed by Him.
From this celestial sphere arises a natural sphere, which is one of love toward infants and children; this is most universal, and affects not only men, but also birds and beasts, even to serpents; nor animate things only, but also things inanimate.T. C. R. 305.
This natural sphere extends even beyond the limits of the Church, affecting the evil as well as the good, and even animals; but it is appropriated by each according to his state. In the Old Church, because they do not acknowledge the LORD, and embrace the doctrines of His Church, this sphere is immediately perverted and becomes a sphere of the love of children for the sake of self and the world. They therefore train their children accordingly. But in the New Church, the natural sphere of love toward infants and children is to have within it the lore of them for the sake of the LORD and heaven.
In the New Church will exist a genuine love of Divine truth, which is none other than a love of conjoining truth with good and good with truth, and from which flows forth an ardent zeal for defending truth and good against the assaults of falsity and evil. From the genuine love of truth originates love truly conjugial, and from this springs the love of infants, which coincides by correspondence with the love of defending truth and good (sec C. L. 127). Love of infants, or true parental love, guards its objects by imbuing them with truth and good, and by protecting them against falsities and evils.
In this way alone, that is, by the proper defence, care and training of our own households, do we expect to see the problem solved,--the growth and increase of the New Church from a few to many. The accession of numbers will be gradual, and will be mainly not from Old Church adults, but from the children; from those whom the LORD will give to us by birth and by adoption.
The proper education of the children of the Church, those born of New Church parents, when the Church enters into its highest function, will occupy our attention primarily. These are the special gift of the LORD, to us, and it is our duty, as it will be our delight, to lead them by a true scientific, moral and religious training into the paths of heavenly wisdom.
In doing this great work of preparing those who have been committed to us by the LORD to become true members of the LORDS Church, as well as useful citizens in the world, we necessarily meet with a class of children of the Church in whose behalf we ought to make some special effort; we mean children whose parents have gone into the other world. It is a wish dear to the heart of all true New Church fathers and mothers, that their children as they grow up may become good and true members of the Church;
and such patents must earnestly wish to provide for their offspring a course of training that will keep this one great end in view. To them it would be a source of rejoicing to know that a way is provided for the education of their children in the Church, even though they should be called away into the other life. To this end an orphan home is needed; a home where the orphans of New Church people will be received and cared for, in which will be provided for them a mothers tender solicitude and a fathers guiding counsel, where all the facilities of a genuine New Church education will be offered; an institution that will become legally the guardian of such children, and which will faithfully administer every trust.*
* It is with great pleasure that we can chronicle the fact that our brethren in England have taken measures to establish a New Church Orphanage.
Children who are born in the Church, with the hereditary advantages they ought to have as the result of a true New Church life in their parents, ought, if possible, to be kept in the Church. Such children are our hope; in them we see the promise of the future; they are to rise up and fill our places to carry forward and to improve upon the work which it has been given us to begin.
Let us then provide for the orphans of the Church. Of such a work, if guided by the precepts of wisdom received from the LORD, whilst the possibilities are without visible limit, the results may be readily foreseen. And it is interesting to note that the LORD has clearly indicated this to us, in the doctrines of the Church, as one of the uses of charity. We refer to a statement in the Divine Love in the Apocalypse Explained, xi. 5: Amongst general uses also may be reckoned the contributing toward the building and establishment of orphan-houses.
We have already spoken of the grand possibilities in such a work; it now remains for us to take a still larger view of those possibilities.
In the establishment of an orphan home we shall doubtless find reason in the coarse of time to extend the limits of its use much farther than we have indicated, and include in its scope orphans that may be given into our care from sources outside of the Church. We have in mind especially a certain class of orphans known as foundlings. There is presented to us here an interesting field of use. The number of infants annually deserted by their parents is so great, that orphans of this class may be obtained to the full limit of our capacity to supply the means and do the work. When an Infant and Orphan Home is established, and it becomes known that foundling will be received, all that we can care for will be brought to the very door, and we shall not have to seek them.
In order to bring before our readers a clear view of the great use which here opens to us, a use collateral to that of caring for those who are specially the children of the Church, a use by which in time many may be added to its numbers, we present some historical facts and statistics upon the subject, in the light of which we can see what the New Church may do in the same direction.
Foundling hospitals probably existed in ancient times, both in Athens and Rome. In both of these cities places were set apart where parents could expose their children. In most cases they preferred this to putting them to death. The children found were declared to be the slaves or the absolute property of those who reared them. Some were taken and mutilated for the purpose of public exhibition. Such as were not adopted by private individuals were educated at the public expense. But the slavery of foundlings was abolished by Justinian, A.D. 530. It is said that imperial Rome afforded assistance to abandoned children. Augustus offered 2000 sesterees each to any citizen who would take charge of them.
The 70th article of the Council of Nice enjoined that a house should be established in each town for the reception of children abandoned by their parents. But there are perhaps no positive evidences of the existence of regular foundling hospitals until the one established in Milan, A.D. 787, though at Treves, in the same century, there was a provision for deserted children. The Bishop permitted infants to be deposited in a marble basin in front of the cathedral, and grave them in charge to the members of the Church. In the year 1198 Innocent III. allotted a part of the great hospital of Spirito Santo, in Rome, to the reception of foundlings. In the 14th century foundling hospitals were established in various cities on the Continent. In A.D. 1620 the great foundling hospital of Paris was established, and up to A.D. 1807 it had received 464,658 children, of whom nearly two-thirds died before they were one year old. Foundlings were not educated at first in France. After the Revolution of 1789 the Republic assumed the guardianship of foundlings, decreeing in 1793 that they should be called children of the State. In 1798 eleven thousand francs were assigned to their support, and it was ordered that two lying in hospitals should be connected with the foundling house in Paris. An imperial decree in 1811 ordered the establishment of a foundling hospital in each arrondissement of France, under the following regulations: The children were kept in the hospitals until the age of six, they were then placed under the charge of peasants and artisans, who received a stipend for their board and training, which was reduced from year to year until they reached the age of twelve, when the able-bodied boys were placed at the disposal of the Minister of Marine, the rest, both boys and girls, were placed under apprenticeship.
The number of foundlings in France in the year 1781 amounted to 40,000; in 1795, to more than 51,000; in the year 1822 which was after the imperial decree above mentioned, to 35,500; and in 1847 to 27,284. The number in recent years has varied from 25,000 to 50,000. The present annual average admitted into the Paris hospital is 5000. The number claimed by their parents annually and restored to them, in Prance, is about 3000,--or 1 in 9.
The foundling hospital in Rome, mentioned above, still exists. It is capable of accommodating about 3000 children; the number annually received is about 1150. During the ten years ending with 1865, out of 11,425 received, 9260 died,--over two-thirds. There are several other foundling hospitals in Rome, so that the total number received is about 3000 annually. The facilities for admission are so great that infants are brought from all parts of Central and Southern Italy. Naples receives about 2000 foundlings annually, where it is said more attention is paid to their education and welfare than in any other city of Italy. The number of foundling in Tuscany is about 12,000 annually. It is supposed that a large number of foundlings in Italy are legitimate children, abandoned on account of poverty; and a large number are afterwards reclaimed by their parents,--about 1 in 16.
There are several foundling hospitals in Madrid, and also in the other cities of Spain. The number annually received at the principal hospitals in Madrid is 1200. At the age of seven these children are transferred tied of college, devoted especially to them, where they are educated. 1860 there were 149 foundling hospitals in Spain, containing 53,464 children.
In Portugal there are 21 foundling hospitals, into which about 16,000 are received annually. The mortality is about 50 per cent.
The Austro-Hungarian empire has 35 foundling hospitals, into which about 12,000 infants are received annually. With each foundling house a lying in hospital is connected.
In Belgium twelve cities have foundling hospitals.
In Germany the system of foundling hospitals was soon abandoned, and the duty of rearing children, as in England, was imposed by law, first upon parents, then upon more distant relations, then upon the parish, and last of all upon the State. But there are numerous institutions for the care and education of deserted children. In Germany, as in England and America, foundling hospitals are considered unfavorable to morality.
The London Foundling Hospital was incorporated by charter in 1739, but the first admission of children took place in 1741. A time was specified by advertisement, but from lack of means only 20 children could be taken at one time.
A hundred women were sometimes at the gate at once, striving with each other for the privilege of being among the twenty favored ones. In 1756 Parliament appropriated the funds and a hospital was opened sufficiently large to receive all the children that might be offered. On the first day of general reception 117 infants were deposited in the basket at the gate of the hospital. During the first year the number received was 3296; in the second year 4085; in the third, 4229. The indiscriminate system was abolished before the end of the fourth year. But while the system was still in force, in less than ten months, 3324 were received. In all, nearly four years, the number received was 14,934. The mortality was so great that of this number only 4400 lived to be apprenticed out,--a mortality of 70 per cent. Many of the children received at the gate did not live to be carried into the wards of the hospital. There was also a great difficulty in securing proper nurses. The system was therefore abolished by an act of Parliament, on the ground that it had been attended with many evil consequences. The hospital has continued since then, but much restricted in its operations now lack of funds and the strict rules enforced in regard to the admission of infants. For instance: No child could be admitted unless the mother herself should appear and be examined, and show that previously she had borne a good character. In recent years the average annual admission has been 41, the average applications 236. At least one-fifth admitted previous to 1865 were so emaciated that they could hardly live. At present the general health in the hospital is remarkably good. Wet-nurses are provided for all, and infants are taken into the country. The children are generally disposed of by apprenticeship; the girls at 16 for domestic service for four years, the boys at 14 to some mechanical trade for seven years. In 1870 the hospital contained 501 children, at an expense of 13,775,a little over 27 per annum for each child, or about $135. We find no record of any other foundling hospital in England or Scotland. There are infant and orphan asylums which in some respects answer the same purpose. There was one in Dublin, but in 1535 it was closed, in consequence of the great mortality among the children; in the thirty years preceding 1825, 52,150 children were received, of whom 41,524 died.
In Stockholm, where public prostitution is prohibited, statistics show that there are 46 illegitimate children to every 100 born, showing a great need for foundling hospitals. But there are none called by this name, or established with this purpose in view; but there is an infant asylum and two or three other hospitals where abandoned children are received and cared for.
There is an immense foundling hospital in Moscow, founded in 1762 by Catherine II. A lying-in hospital is connected with it, and 12,000 infants are annually received into it.
The infants are not left at the door, but they are taken openly into a room where they are at once received and no questions asked, except, Has the child been baptized? If so, By what name? A receipt is given to the bearer, by which she can reclaim the child until the age of 10 years. The mother also, if she wishes, is permitted to remain and nurse the child. The girls are separated from the villages. In one of the large villages the inhabitants are entirely devoted to the bringing up of foundlings. About 50 per cent, die before the age of one year. In 1772 a founding hospital was also established in St. Petersburg by Catherine II. as a branch of the one in Moscow, but now in manly respects it eclipses the present institution. It has received so many gifts and donations from successive Czars and others that at present this hospital is one of the wealthiest landed proprietors in Russia. It forms a little district of its own, covering twenty-eight acres in the best part of St. Petersburg. A lying-in hospital is connected with it. The total number of physicians, nurses, cooks, house-keepers, and other employees, is about 6000. There are about 6000 infants annually received into it. The mortality is greater than at Moscow. (Children are brought to these hospitals from all quarters of the empire, even from Siberia and Bessarabia. The infants are given into the care of wet-nurses for six weeks, and then they are sent into the country, where they remain until they are six years old, when they are brought back to be educated. They are disposed of in various ways as they grow up; those showing great ability are sent to the university. The foundlings, after receiving their education, are still considered the property of the government, and both of these hospitals furnish a constant supply of recruits to the army and navy. There are other foundling hospitals in Russia, but they are inferior to these. The property devoted to the support, maintenance, and education of foundlings in Russia is said to amount to $500,000,000. There is this remarkable fact that must be taken in connection with the foregoing, viz., that in Russia infanticide and abortion are comparatively rare.
China has many foundling hospitals, and the reputations governing them compare favorably with the best of those in Europe.
There is one in the city of Mexico, supported by private individuals, and many of the Mexican ladies give it their time and attention. When the child is a month old, an Indian nurse takes it to a neighboring village, where she is subject to a responsible resident. Mothers of the children often officiate as nurses, and are paid for their services. The child when weaned is returned to the hospital, but is generally adopted in some respectable family.
In the foundling hospital of Rio de Janeiro the boys and girls brought up in separate establishments. At each anniversary men who wish to marry attend. If one makes a proposal to one of the young women, and he is accepted, he then applies to the managers, who inquire into his character. If this is found to be satisfactory, the young woman receives a dowry from the fund of the hospital.
In the United States as well as in England and Germany, foundling hospitals have met with but little favor. Foundlings are sent to the alms-houses, from which, in many cases, they are farmed out, and no systematic record concerning them is kept. We have found record of but one regular foundling hospital in the United States under the charge of Protestants, and this is in Chicago. It has been ill existence about eight years. It receives annually about 300 infants; and has an average of about 60 in the home at one time. The children are almost all adopted before they are three years old. Those who adopt these children must be well recommended and must agree to give the children a Christian education. Many more children could be obtained if sufficient funds were available. At this hospital in Chicago the mother is allowed to come into the home and nurse her own infant, but she is required to take charge of one in addition to her own. She receives no compensation except the gift of a comfortable home while she remains. The home is well kept, and the children are under strict homopathic treatment, the mortality, consequently, is very small. Most children are saved who are in a fair condition when they arrive. Perhaps the greatest cause of mortality in all foundling hospitals is the unfavorable physical condition of the children when born and when first received at the hospital.
The foundling asylum of the Sisters of Charity in New York was established in 1869. The legislature in 1870 authorized the city to grant a site for the building of an asylum, and appropriated $100,000 toward the building on condition that an equal sum should be raised by voluntary contribution; the amount was obtained and the hospital mss built, and formally opened in October, 1573. From its commencement in October, 1869, to October, 1873, a period of four years, the institution received 5076 infants, of whom 2037 have died, being a less percentage of deaths than in the European hospitals. After the hospital was opened a crib was placed in the vestibule every night, and during the first month 29 infants were deposited in it, many of them within three hours of birth. Want of sufficient funds and room, made it necessary to refuse all infants over three weeks old, and still many have to be bearded in the city and in the surrounding country. The number admitted in one year ending September 30, 1873, was 1124. The expenses fur the year were $115,645.
Of this $80,000 was paid to outside nurses, and $7000 for rent and repairs. The boys upon reaching a certain age are taken to a farm in Missouri, where they are under the charge of monks. The asylum is a model of neatness and good order. Several years ago the Kindergarten system was introduced into it with striking beneficial results upon the children.
Protestant countries have generally opposed the establishment of foundling hospitals, on the ground that these institutions encourage vice and immorality. But this has never been proved; on the contrary, their tendency will be to render far less frequent such enormities as infanticide, abortion, and the preventing of conception; indeed, we are told that these evils are more rare in those countries where foundling hospitals have their fullest and most vigorous operation, as in Russia for instance, than elsewhere. In this country where but few of these institutions exist, the evils mentioned are widely prevalent and alarmingly on the increase. Roman Catholics charge that Protestants directly promote infanticide and abortion by refusing to establish foundling hospitals,--and the charge seems to be supported.
The absurdity, yea, the cruelty of the Protestant view appears manifest in the fact that infanticide is made by law a capital offence, and get there is nowhere any provision made to prevent infanticide by caring for the child; for no sane mother will murder her child when she sees the may open for its nurture and protection, and for herself the opportunity of being shielded from public degradation.
No spurious sentiment of morality ought to deter the New Church from entering a field of work so extensive and so promising as this.
We know that the hereditary state of foundlings must be low and possibly even lower than the general average. But this does not present an obstacle sufficient to discourage us from undertaking the work in their behalf, when the LORD shall open the way. The statistics we have presented show that 50 per cent. of foundlings die in the first year of natural life, and all these are saved, no matter what may be their hereditary state. The angels are not discouraged by even the lowest hereditary condition in the infants brought to them from the world; and the angelic mothers love them all as their own children.
No one is condemned on account of hereditary evils, but by the evils that hare become confirmed in the life in adult age. If we learn from the wisdom of the angels that is given us in the doctrines of Christ, children placed under our care by the LORD, no matter what may have been their birth or origin, may be taught to resist their hereditary tendencies, and bring themselves under the dominion of the Divine Truth, as they grow in years, preparing thus to become in this world useful and true members of the Church, and in the world to come angels of heaven.
The Ministers Conference.
THE Ministers Conference was held in Chicago from May 31 to June 3, 1882.
There were few papers presented and read at the session, but the nature of these and the discussion arising upon them gave general satisfaction to those present. There was a noticeable freedom and outspokenness manifested quite in contrast with the meetings held a few years ago. The general tendency of the Conference seemed to be toward the acceptance of the Authority of the Writings not only intellectually but also practically by the reception of their dictum without question. This disposition on the part of the ministers shows that the discussion of the question of Authority in the New Church, which has occupied the attention of the Church for several years pest, is now beginning to produce good fruit. There were of course differences of view in certain particulars, but they might be classed rather as harmonious varieties than as opposites.
Of the papers devoted to doctrinal matters the first read was by the Rev. O. L. Barler on the question. In what may can ministers of the New Church come into greater unity of feeling and harmony of action in regard to the uses of their office? The paper presented the necessity of charity, and the duty of priests to teach the truth and thereby lead to the good of life. The necessity of uniting on essentials was advanced, and these essentials were shown to be the universal principles of love to the Lord and the neighbor. The impossibility of all seeing alike was spoken of, and therefore there must be freedom in the Church to differ in particulars. This paper gave rise to an interesting discussion. Most of those who took part in it recognized that a variety of opinions exist in the Church, and they were in favor of encouraging an open and free expression of sentiment among the ministers. The Rev. E. A. Beaman differed with most of the speakers in this respect. He thought that we ought to listen to the papers that were read, but was opposed to discussing the subject or criticizing the sentiments expressed. He said our chief fault was that we are inclined to criticize each other, which he thought very wrong, and expressed his hatred and abhorrence of criticism, which in his opinion produced no good but rather a spirit the very reverse of charity. In this opinion he stood almost alone; others thought it a good and useful thing, one remarking that if the brother hated criticism he should not indulge in it himself, mentioning the face that his speech was chiefly a criticism of others and of the Conference in general.
A paper on the Church Militant was read by the Rev. J. Whitehead. This paper was an exposition of the doctrine that the New Church can be established only by means of the Divine Truth from the Word combating against the falses and evils which oppose.
The history of the Israelites in Egypt, in the Desert, and in Canaan were treated of in their relation to the establishment of the Church, as also the Seven Churches in Asia, the conflicts with the dragon and the judgment on it and on Babylon, thereby showing the practical necessity of a conflict against the falsities and evils of the old theology. The general sentiment of the Conference seemed favorable to the paper, but a few introduced the question of truth alone as hard, harsh, cold, and repellent, and hurtful to the progress of the church. This imputation on the paper as teaching faith alone was controverted by several speakers, who contended that the paper was an eminently charitable one.
The Rev. E. Gould read a paper on the Textus Receptus of the New Testament, favoring the idea that it was in general correct and that the alterations in the Revised Version were the result of a destructive criticism arising from the self-intelligence of the Protestant divines and scholars.
A paper by the Rev. T. F. Wright was read, entitled, On whose beast did the good Samaritan place the wounded man? He came to the conclusion that it was the Samaritans own beast.
An interesting report from the chairman of the class in the Text of Swedenborg showed great progress in the work of editing and publishing the Latin works, and the Conference took steps to bring the subject before the Convention, asking it to co-operate in this great work and the better remuneration of the editor.
The Rev. P. Sewall read two papers before the Conference, one in regard to the authorship of the Athanasian Creed, the essential doctrine being attributed to Athanasius, but holding that the statement of the doctrine was somewhat modified after his time. The other paper was on Swedenborgs work on the Worship and Love of God and its place in the writings of that author. There was a general expression as to the excellence of the paper and the desire was expressed that it be published, which we are informed will take place in the New Church Review.
The Annual Address was delivered by the President, the Rev. J. R. Hibbard, who took for his theme the order and functions of the priesthood in the New Church. The trinal order of the priesthood was shown and the necessity of a thorough preparation of the student enlarged upon. He showed the nature of the duties and uses of the priesthood, and the necessity of preaching the truth, that the New Church is founded upon a New Revelation of Divine Truth from the LORD, and that this Revelation is contained in the Theological Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg. The address was a strong presentation of the doctrine of the priesthood and of the Authority of the Writings, and there was a general agreement with the views of the President on the part of the members of the Conference.
The Rev. Warren Goddard, during the discussion of the address, said he thought we should have to take the positions advanced in the address, he thought that the Authority of the Writings and the trine in the ministry were taught, and said that he had been modifying in that direction for some time. The Rev. E. A. Beaman, despite his published views, claimed that he believed as much in the Authority of the Writings as any one in the room.
In closing we notice a general disposition to accept the Writings as Authority, and this word is now used quite freely by those who a few years ago regarded it as a dangerous innovation and as savoring of papal dominion.
Should this be followed by a more thorough study of these Writings and the opinions of the ministers formed by the truths contained therein, the church would certainly receive a new impetus to its growth in understanding and life. It must grow more and more united in the true bonds of brotherly affection and charity. The freedom of all must be recognized and the varieties of thought and affection which will grow up in the Church will all harmonize, and peace will indeed reign in Jerusalem and prosperity will be within her palaces.
The General Convention.
THE meeting of the General Convention was held at Chicago, from the 9th to the 13th of June, 1852. About one hundred were present, including thirty-seven out of a hundred ministers now on the list. This is a fuller attendance than has been for the last two sessions. A few more than one-half of the members in attendance were, very naturally, from the West; that is, from the Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, and Missouri Associations. The rest were from the Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New York, Maryland, and Canada Associations. The Minnesota and the Maine Associations, as well as individual Societies belonging to the Convention, were not represented.
Though some of the transactions at this meeting may not have been altogether wise and useful, a number of matters were settled well and harmoniously. There was a greater freedom, as well as a more kindly sphere, than has prevailed at some of the late meetings, so that we think the promises of the late Convention in Washington as to a further progress to a larger freedom, charity, and love were in a great measure fulfilled. What may be considered of questionable utility was the separate incorporation of the Board of Publications. Such a division of the general uses of the Convention threatens to convert its meetings into were conversational gatherings, and, by withdrawing its usefulness, eventually to bring about its destruction.
So manifest was this trend of the Convention, that a former Vice-President offered the resolution, that since the chief work of the Convention has been given into the hands of separate corporations, the meeting of the General Convention be postponed for three gears, the Executive Committee to attend to its business and the Conference of Ministers to manage its ecclesiastical affairs. But though this scheme seemed quite feasible, the Convention refused to go out of office, and the proposition was ignominiously laid upon the table.
The customary reports of the various officers and committees show steady work in the Church, but no especial numerical increase. According to the Messenger the following societies presented the greatest net increase in membership: Riverhead, N. Y., 35 Orange, N. J., 27; Boston, 24; Mystic, Conn., 21; Providence, R. I. 17, Pittsburgh, Pa., 10; N. J. Society of the Advent, Philadelphia, 9; New York, 7; New York German, 7; Allentown, Pa., 5; First Society of San Francisco, 5. Of the others, some have an increase of less than five, some have remained at a stand-still, and come have decreased. Statistics furnished to the Convention and, still more, extracts in the Messenger, are quite meagre. Some Associations give no account of their membership; other Associations fail to apportion their increase among their several Societies. It therefore becomes impossible to discover the progress and changes of the component parts of the general Church body. So far as we can gather from the Messenger, 11 societies reported a decrease of membership amounting to 105, and 23 Societies and Associations reported an increase amounting to 338, making the net increase 227. But this is in part accounted for by the addition of one or more Societies not hitherto included in reports.
One of the first subjects of importance taken up was the revision of the Constitution. The Executive Committee, evidently bewildered by the number and variety of the amendments submitted at the preceding meeting, and despairing of satisfactorily performing its task, called for a total revision.
The most important part of the subject, that relating to the Order of the Ministry, had already been given into the hands of the Ecclesiastical Committee, and had been carefully considered, first by a sub-committee, and afterwards by the whole Committee, which includes all the ministers of the Convention. This resulted in a report, which was unanimously adopted, first by the ministers in the Committee, and afterwards by the General Convention. This subject, the Order of the Ministry, is a great step forward towards the consideration of the trinal and true order of the ministry. No one, according to this order, is called a minister or priest unless he is ordained. In the new order adopted no mention is made of licentiates; the first order is constituted of ordained ministers and not of licentiates.
Thus is abolished that nondescript order, which is unknown to the Writings; while the three orders of the priesthood of which the Writings do treat, minister, pastor, and general pastor, are preserved. The latter term seems only a more general expression for primate, used in the Writings, or the term bishop, as found in the Epistles. And each Association, as we understand it, is at liberty to select which of these terms it chooses.
The Church in this country is now fairly based upon the doctrine as found in the Writings, and we have but little doubt but that the Associations, left in full freedom, will gradually adopt the Order of the Ministry, as it is laid down in the Writings. It is to be hoped that this example may prove not without its effect upon the Church in England, for there certain usages hare grown up for which we do not find any sanction in the Writings of the Church. There persons not ordained have frequently been given powers which belong, according to the Writings, only to ordained priests.
To bring the more external working machinery of Convention into the desired order, the revision of the remaining parts of the Constitution was given into the hands of a Committee, which was selected by the delegations from the various Associations. These delegations severally decided that their ministers were best fitted for such a task. The only layman elected was from the Massachusetts Association, which was regarded as entitled to two delegates. But one of the elective members (styled by some peers), evidently longing to have a hand in the formation of the new Constitution, so as to secure his valuable prerogatives, urged the wisdom of adding more laymen to the Committee. And at his urgent request five laymen, himself of course included, were added. If, therefore, the elective members shall at any future time be relieved of the task of managing the Convention, and its affairs shall be left to the management of the ministers and the delegates of the Associations and Societies, it will not be because the peers have not had an opportunity of urging their privileges and prerogatives on the Committee, but because it does not seem to be in consonance with the spirit of the Church and of this country to establish and maintain such a privileged class.
According to the account of the Messenger, however, the elective member did not claim that the four elective members were entitled to representation on the Committee of Revision, but that their society should be represented. This, if a correct report, only adds to the absurdity of the situation. For in order that a smaller body may be entitled to representation in a general body, it has always been held that the smaller shall be a part of the general body, which is not here the case. It is indeed just as reasonable for a new Church Society in England or in Sweden to claim representation in the General Convention as it is for this Society, which has so far shown no desire of becoming a part of Convention, to make such a claim.
The doors are open, and if the Society desires representation, it should first apply for membership. One of the weaknesses of Convention seems to be that it is not charitable to refuse any request urged, be it ever so unreasonable and absurd.
The election of officers passed without exciting the usual amount of interest. The present incumbent, the Rev. C. Giles, was re-elected to the presidency, receiving one vote more than was necessary for his election. The opposition might easily have elected their candidate, if there had been any previous consultation; for he is a minister universally beloved and esteemed for his justice and fairness, as well as for his frankness and kindliness of character. He lacked the few votes necessary for his election merely because it was not generally known that he would become a candidate. The Vice-President, Secretaries, and Treasurer were re-elected. A considerable change was made in the Executive Committee, which was perhaps owing in part to the fact that the Nominating Committee was not, as in past years, selected by the President, but by the delegations of the various Associations. Still, the four elective members succeeded, as in past years, in getting one of their number on the Executive Committee. But this was effected by inducing; the nominating member from the Missouri Association to conclude that his Association would forego representation in order to make room for one of the peers. Missouri, therefore, will have this year the honor of being represented, if we choose to misuse the word, by a peer from Pennsylvania.
It may be a question whether Associations, which do not furnish any statistics as to their constituency, or the constituency of which is no more than that of a medium-sized society, should be represented upon the Executive Committee. Still, even such representation is preferable to that of a member on that Committee who represents only himself and two or three other elective members.
It is also a question, which we hope will be considered by the Committee on Revision, whether it would not be advisable to reduce the number of delegates to which the Associations are entitled. At present an Association is entitled to one delegate for every twenty members. This makes it almost unavoidable that when the Convention meets where there is a large Association, the more distant Associations are practically deprived of their voice and influence. A most striking example is that of the Massachusetts Association. At a meeting of the Convention in Massachusetts, it is comparatively easy to bring together at Boston the 77 or more ministers and delegates; but it is next to an impossibility to gather together from great distances the 248 or more ministers and delegates of the other Associations.
Judging from the last two meetings at Boston, we should deem it likely that all the other Associations combined would not, under the present representation, bring as many ministers and delegates as belong to the local Association. Thus we find that in 1872 Massachusetts had 86 representatives, and all the other Associations 82. At the meeting in 187S Massachusetts had 96 representatives, and the others only 63. But we need not suppose that the advantage is always on one side. Whenever the meeting of Convention will be in the West, Massachusetts will be shown of a great part of her influence, because of the difficulties arising from distance. Thus we find that Massachusetts had at Chicago, in the year 1871, only 25 representatives, at Cincinnati, in 1873, only 13; in 1577, in the same place, only 7 representatives, and even at Washington, in the year 1881, only 15. Other Associations are of course subject to similar fluctuations, but as they have not so large a constituency, their presence or absence does not produce the same unsettling results. The meetings of Convention would acquire far more stability if the basis of representation were different; e.g., if one delegate represented 50 members, then every live Association could afford to send its representative or representatives without needing to fear that a local mass-meeting would make their presence and influence ineffective. Thee, also, each Association being restricted in its choice, would be more careful to send its best men, instead of choosing everybody that can go.
The great contest at this Convention was concerning the separate incorporation of the Board of Publication. This contest was made particularly interesting from the fact that the friends of the measure brought forward their lawyers with fully-studied speeches and well-prepared briefs, wherewith to convince the high court of the Church in meeting assembled of the usefulness and necessity of the measure. The first speakers, the Honorable J. Y. Scammon, J. L. Koethen, Esq., and the Rev. W. H. Benade, were in opposition to the measure, and argued that the formation of a separate corporation, and the transfer to it of the property of Convention now in the hands of its Board of Publication, would be not only unnecessary and unwise, but also a breach of trust with respect to those subscribers who had contributed to the uses of the General Convention. A motion to refer the subject to the Committee on Revision was, however, lost, the vote being 34 in favor of the reference and 40 in opposition.
A speaker for the incorporation labored in a lengthy harangue to refute the arguments advanced by the opposition, by stating that the Board had gone so far in making the new Board accountable to Convention, that there was a doubt whether they could obtain an incorporation under their present plans. They had indeed reminded the dependence on Convention to the by-laws, but that was only because it was impossible to put it into the articles of incorporation. The Board had in fact gone to the very verge of self-destruction.
These and similar protestations were made at the Convention in Washington. C. C. Bonney, a lawyer of Chicago, laid before the meeting the legal advantages of a separate incorporation of the Board. Nevertheless, he flatly contradicted the one who preceded him as to the impossibility of incorporating one body as the agent of another, by asserting that this was continually being done. It was plainly apparent that if Mr. Bonney was right, and the practice of other Church bodies leaves hardly a doubt on this subject, the lawyers who asserted the impossibility of incorporating one body as the agent of the other, and that the Board of Publication in its plans had gone to the verge of self-destruction, had either spoken in ignorance of the law and the practice they professed to explain, or had misrepresented the subject to Convention. And here we notice that the Messenger, which has most decidedly taken aides in this question, forgets entirely to mention this not uninteresting fact in its report. The reason why the lawyers and other laymen on the Board were so desirous to render the Board independent of the Convention, would seem to be their unwillingness to submit to direction of any kind. Members of the old Board had, on various occasions, declared that Convention had no right over the Board at all, except to confirm or reject nominations. This, in fact, was declared at the last Convention by the editor of the Messenger. Mr. Bonney, however, as well as other speakers, declared this position as erroneous, holding that the Board was in every may subject to Convention. The Board in all its endeavors seems to give another striking example that the love of rule in the Church exists as strongly, if not more so, with the laity as with the clergy. Indeed, the latter seem to be afraid to claim the exercise of that government in the Church with which the LORD in the Heavenly Doctrines invests them. For the present Board of Publication is, strange to say, a lay body; eleven of the twelve members of the self-perpetuating Board being laymen and only one a minister. And this one was probably allowed to stay because he did not disturb the lay element in its desire of managing matters, being, as we are informed, usually absent from its meetings. This lay majority explains, perhaps, why we find so many tracts, bearing the imprint of the Conventions Board of Publication, which contain false doctrines, subversive of the very existence of the Church. But to this subject we shall return at another time.
While the Board of Publication was merely a sub-committee of the Executive Committee, its constitution was quite different; in 1869, e.g., though a layman was its chairman, which must be considered as disorderly, the Board, nevertheless, consisted of 8 ministers and 7 laymen. So, also, when 12 trustees were first appointed and the present Board was thus formed in 1871, it consisted of 7 ministers and 5 laymen. In 1872 the situation was already reversed, there being 5 ministers and 7 laymen.
In 1875 it was found that they could do with one minister less, and we find 4 ministers and 8 laymen. In 1876 three ministers were thought sufficient to balance nine laymen. In 1877 one more minister was dropped, leaving only two on the Board. In 1881 the laymen found that even two were too many, and accordingly one more was dropped. When, at Washington, this was protested against, a layman of the Board politely informed the Convention that they might refuse to sanction their appointee, but they would at once re-nominate him! How long the eleven self-perpetuating laymen could have endured the presence of even one clergyman we will never be able to tell, as they themselves now proposed a new scheme, which was to render them forever independent of all control of the Church. Their plan of an independent corporation was, however, so strenuously resisted that they found it necessary to change it several times; and it was only after agreeing to place the new corporation under the direction of the Convention as far as practicable, that they succeeded in forcing their measure. The measures, as advocated by this lay Board, were naturally directed altogether to their own duties in the Board; namely, the gathering and safe-keeping of the funds. The right and orderly performance of the use seemed altogether a secondary matter. Yet there was some attempt at this by restoring to the Board the ministry that had been ejected. The Executive Committee was instructed to nominate 20 members, 10 ministers and 10 laymen. But it would not be surprising if those clever managers, who in eleven years have contrived to convert a clerical majority of two into a clerical minority of one, would sooner or later manage to increase the lay representation so as to outvote, and finally to cast out, the clergy.
How difficult, if not impossible, it is for a lay Board to provide wisely for the needs of the Church may be seen from its last publication, called Collection of Selections and Hymns from the Book of Worship, Arranged by Prof. George J. Webb for Unisonal Singing. There was no reason, so far as we have been able to discover, Why such a book should be issued; unless, perhaps, because the New York Society and one or two others of the New York Association, were inclined to make such a trial. But with all due respect to its eminent musical editor, the book, so far from being progressive, is a step beck to the dark ages. It may be easier for all to thus sing the same notes, but if that were sufficient to determine the question, it would be still easier if every tune consisted all through of the same note and the monotone were substituted for melody and harmony. The New Church does not tend either to monotone or to unison; uniformity is opposed to the whole spirit of its teachings; this spirit calls for variety in unity; but how can there be a harmonious variety where there is the were uniformity of unison?
The action of the Board of Publication in using the funds in a manner so opposed to true principles and doctrines, and afterward in forcing the Convention, as it were, to use it, and by introducing a dead unison destroying the harmony at its meetings, is both arbitrary and unwise; and we hope that future committees of arrangement will not feel themselves bound, by the fact that the Board has published this pamphlet, to destroy the musical harmony at its gatherings. Unisonal singing is like so-called popular preaching. One may practice it year after year, and at the end there will be no cultivation or instruction, but instead, a disinclination for exertion of either thought or voice.
There are, however, same pleasant reminiscences of this meeting. For instance, the friends of The Theological School in Boston had finally decided to change its name, which to many seemed exclusive, sad therefore unfair to the other two theological schools. They suggested instead The New England Theological School of the New Church, or any other suitable title. The speaker from the East, who made the suggestion, assured the Convention in a frank and pleasant manner, that believing there is a New Church outside of New England, he hoped that in time there would be a number of theological schools throughout the country. These conciliatory remarks were received with applause; and it was suggested, that since there was a movement on foot looking to the transfer of the school from Boston to Waltham, it might be as well to delay the change of name until its future location should be determined.
A good work accomplished was the support assured to the republication of the Writings of the Church in Latin. Not only was the former Latin fund, with the interest thereon amounting to over $700, devoted to this use, but also the income from the Mrs. Emily S. White Fund, which will probably amount to over $5000. From the money thus secured the Convention subscribed for a sufficient number of copies of each volume thus far published, and of each volume as it issues from the press, until otherwise directed. One copy of each volume is to be presented to every New Church Theological School, to New Church public libraries, and to every minister of the New Church in the United States and Canada not already supplied. As this is a general use, being of equal benefit to the New Church in all countries, the Secretaries of Convention were instructed to inform the English Conference of the action of the Convention and to invite the co-operation of that body. It is to be hoped that our English brethren may see their way toward co-operating in this use. It is very desirable that the depots of these works be widely scattered, so that they may not be destroyed by some calamity, as was the great library of Latin works in this country in the conflagration at Boston. These general uses in which most of the educated members of the Church are agreed, and which yet involve too great an outlay of capital to be easily borne by any one body or institution, form, when carried on in common, a great bond of unity of heart and purpose.
A similar use, in which the New Church in England and in America have already joined hands, is the Foreign Mission. We were sorry to see an unwillingness on the part of some to the continuance of this work. We hope that this narrow spirit will not prevail, but that our brethren in this country will rather endeavor to surpass our generous brethren in England, than to be left behind in this good race. Without desiring in any way to dictate to the Board of Missions, we would venture to express the opinion that the amount spent in Italy, Denmark, and Sweden has produced far more such far better effects than the larger amount spent in the one State of Tennessee, which, for some hidden reason, has continued to receive more pecuniary support than has been granted to the whole of the Foreign Missions, and only $25 less than the amount apportioned to all the other States; namely, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Kansas, and Michigan. And yet, if we were asked where the most work and the most valuable work has been done, we would rather point to Michigan and Kansas than to Tennessee.
Noticeably among the transactions of this meeting of the Convention were the speeches in memoriam of the earnest workers of the Church departed in the past year. Some of these speeches were, as usual, extravagant in their laudations, but others were true and sensible.
Services during the week were limited to five brief speeches on Friday evening. The several subjects were the following: The New Dispensation, by Rev. S. M. Warren; The New Theology, by Rev. A. F. Frost; The New Education, by Rev. P. Sewall; The New Literature and Art, by Rev. T. P. Wright; The New Life, by Rev. L. H. Tafel. These were all characterized by more than the usual degree of acknowledgment of the LORD in His Second Advent and of the New Church as distinctly separate from the Old. We are glad to recognize so decided a contrast between the speeches at this Convention and those at a number of the preceding. A discourse, more directly devotional, was: given by the Rev. J. C. Ager, on Saturday evening, as a preparation for the communion. On Sunday there were services in the morning at the new temple by the Rev. Warren Goddard, Jr.; at the temple near the Union Park by Rev. L. H. Tafel; at the German Church services and the Holy Communion by the Rev. F. W. Trk. In the afternoon the Holy Supper was administered in the new temple by the Rev. C. Giles, assisted by the Revs. J. C. Ager, H. E. Goddard, S. S. Seward, and T. P. Wright. In the evening there was a sermon at the new temple by the Rev. R. R. Rogers, of. Birmingham, England, and at the German Church by the Rev. G. Bussmann.
On the whole we believe that there were few if any present at the meeting in Chicago, who would not acknowledge that a great step forward was made at this Convention, and there seemed to be a general relief that a number of questions had found a just and amicable settlement. If at the next meeting in Boston the revision of the Constitution can be settled with the same friendly spirit, there seems to be a good prospect for a time of peaceful rest after a lengthy but not unfruitful contest.
The Rev. James Park Stuart.
BEFORE going to press we feel called upon to mention the departure into the spiritual world of the Rev. J. P. Stuart, editor-in-chief of WORDS FOR THE NEW CHURCH. We take the following from the address delivered at the funeral of Mr. Stuart, on Sunday, July 2, 1852, by the Rev. L. H. Tafel, Pastor of the Society of the Advent, in Philadelphia:
We are met together to show our friendship and love for our departed brother, James Park Stuart, and our respect for his eminent services to the Church of the LORD. He was not only one of the oldest of the Ordaining Ministers, but also one of the most active in its uses. He was foremost in every good work, and stanch in opposing every attack upon the Church, whether it came from within or from without.
Soon after His ordination in 1847, he was active in the founding of the Urbana University, where for a number of years he served as Professor of Rhetoric and Philosophy, and by his administrative ability contributed much to the success of the school. After resigning his position in the Urbana University, he labored faithfully both as a missionary and as a minister. He showed his great organizing capacity in his conduct of the Messenger. He was prominent in the formation of the Ohio and New York Associations and book-room for three years. And it was chiefly through his efforts that the Missouri association was organized.
But it was not only in these ways that he proved himself useful to the Church. The great study which he gave to rituals and other forms of external worship made him of great service in the preparation of its liturgies. One of the first to advocate a change from the old Boston Book of Worship, he was among the most active in the preparation of the Consecutive Services, and afterward of the Missionary Liturgy, and finally of the liturgy published in 1876 by J. B. Lippincott & Co.
When the Academy of the New Church was organized, he became one of the twelve corporators. As Vice-Chancellor, as Professor of Rhetoric, and as Editor of WORDS FOR THE NEW CHURCH, he labored zealously, unremittingly, and successfully;
and the ACADEMY owes no little of its present position and influence to his resolute and wise counsels.
While he was respected for the eminent capacity and talents manifested in every position to which he was called, he was no less beloved as a man and a brother. Sincere and upright, he was a sympathetic friend and adviser to all who stood in need of him and who deserved his friendship. Humble and unassuming himself, he was always ready to acknowledge and encourage the good and truth that he saw in others. And there are not many in the Church who have so many friends, and friends so well chosen.
His place cannot be filled; though successors will be given by the LORD to carry on the work which His ever busy hands have now dropped. They will carry on the work which he has left, with the wisdom and zeal granted them by the LORD, but in the hearts of his friends there is a place which only he can fill, and which he will all again, as one after another they will be called to those brighter regions where parting is no more.
There his friends will delight in grasping his warm hand again, and our eternal home will seem to us all the more like home because we shall meet him and other friends to be associated with them there forever.
And even now he is not removed from us. Tenderly mindful of the affection of his family and friends, he will be near them, and will continue to be to them the medium of many good affections and wise and beautiful thoughts from the Bounteous Giver of all.
WORDS
FOR
THE NEW CHURCH
A SERIAL CONTROLLED BY THE ACADEMY OF THE NEW CHURCH
XI.
CONFLICT OF THE AGES
PART V.
PHILADELPHIA
PUBLISHED FOR THE ACADEMY OF THE NEW CHURCH
BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO.
1883
Copyright, 1883, by J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO., for the ACADEMY OF THE NEW CHURCH
CONTENTS
THE CONFLICT OF THE AGES.
Page
CONFLICT IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH (Continuation)
THE EASTERN CHURCH 479
MOHAMMEDANISM 500
THE REVIVAL OF LEARNING 518
NOTES AND REVIEWS.THE ENGLISH CONFERENCE 529
THE NEW-CHURCH REVIEW 532
THE BRAIN 557
THE END OF THE WORLD 573
A STAND AGAINST THE ACADEMY 586
THE NEW CHURCH MAGAZINE 597
[Blank page.]
THE CONFLICT OF THE AGES
VI.
CONFLICT IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH.
CONTINUATION.
The Eastern Church.
OUR view of the Christian Church is incomplete without at least a brief examination of the Eastern or Greek Church, which embraces more than one-fifth of the Christians. This Church is the national Church of Russia, Greece, Armenia, and Abyssinia, and also includes a great part of the inhabitants of Roumania, Servia, Turkey, Egypt, and Hungary. It embraces in fact the whole Christian Church in the Orient, including the Churches depending on the patriarchal sees of Constantinople, Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria, as well as the Church in Russia governed by the Russian Synod. Its members number over seventy-five millions, while those of the Protestant Churches are numbered at ninety-eight millions. From the fact that Greek is its sacred language, as Latin is that of the Romish Church, and because its centre was one with that of the Greek Empire so long as this empire stood, this Church is frequently called the Greek Church, but its present state and extent seems to be better expressed by the name Oriental or Eastern Church, which is also preferred by later historians.
There is probably no part of Christendom and no part of its history of the Christian Church more a terra incognita, even to men generally considered well read, than the countries and the history of the Eastern Church, and yet, in view of its former influence and splendor and its present extent and power, it is evident that ally treatment of the Christian Church and its conflicts will be only partial which does not include this great division of the Church.
One characteristic distinction between the Eastern Church and the Roman Catholic Church is that the love of power never gained such a universal sway in the Oriental as in the Western Church. The Patriarch of Constantinople, dwelling in the same city with the great Emperors of the East, never thought of changing the relation of subject to the Emperor, in which he found himself, and though the Patriarchs at times exercised a considerable influence at the Imperial Court, they never endeavored to make themselves independent of it, much less to subject it to their supremacy. The same submission to the civil authority has ever existed in the Greek Church, and at the present time it goes so far in Russia, in which country this branch of the Christian Church is most numerously represented, that the Czar is himself the head of the Church, even as the Sovereign of Great Britain is the head of the Church of England.
This relation of Church and State has naturally caused a totally different development of the life of the Church. Being excluded from the contest for external power, the energies of the Eastern Church were in its first ages turned to the cultivation of the intellect, to theoretic speculations and meditations, to which the prevalent spirit and language naturally contributed.
In the present state of darkness, or, at least, twilight, prevailing in Russia, and especially also with the clergy, it may seem like mockery to accuse them of giving too much prominence to intellectual cultivation, and yet there is no doubt that formerly that Church was essentially intellectual.
In the earlier ages nearly all of the intellectual leaders of the Christian Church belonged to that part which was afterward separated under the name of the Orthodox or Eastern Church. Concerning this the historian says:
The distinction which has been most frequently remarked is that of the speculative tendency of the Oriental and the practical tendency of the Western Church. This distinction is deep-seated in the contrast long ago described by Aristotle between the savage energy and freedom of Europe and the intellectual repose and apathy of Asia. It naturally finds its point and expression in the theology of the two Churches. Whilst the Western prides itself on the title of the Catholic the Eastern claims the title of Orthodox. The East, says Dean Milman, enacted creeds, the West discipline. The first decree of an Eastern Council was to determine the relations of the Godhead. The first decree of the Pope of Rome (Siricius, A.D. 355) was to interdict the marriage of the clergy. All the first founders of theology were Easterns. Till the time of Augustine (baptized A.D. 387) no eminent divine had arisen in the West; till the time of Gregory the Great (A.D. 589) none had filled the papal chair. The doctrine of Athanasius was received, not originated, by Rome.Stanleys Eastern Church, p. 109.
The Oriental divine, as has been correctly observed, succeeded to the Grecian sophist. Eastern theology is rhetorical in form and based on philosophy. The Byzantine Court, as well as the people, was distracted and agitated by endless discussions of theological questions, many of which remained almost untouched in the Western Church, and the niceties of which could hardly have been brought out in the Latin language. As the true life and vigor of the Church gradually died out after the Nicene Council, these discussions degenerated into were wranglings about words and expressions, and yet they were carried on with such rancor and bitterness that Christian charity and brotherhood were destroyed altogether. Of this state the historian says:
They having drawn the abstrusest niceties into controversy which were of little or no moment to that which is the chief end of our Holy Christian religion, and divided and subdivided about them into endless schisms and contentions, did thereby so destroy that pence, love, and charity from among them, which the Gospel was given to promote, and instead thereof continually provoked each other to that malice, rancor, and every evil work, that they lost the whole substance of their religion, while they thus eagerly contended for their own imaginations concerning it, and in a manner drove Christianity quite out of the world by those very controversies in which they disputed with each other about it. So that at length having wearied the patience and long-suffering of God, in thus turning this holy religion into a firebrand of hell for contention, strife, and violence among them, which was given them out of His infinite mercy to the quite contrary end, for the salvation of their souls, by living holily, righteously, and justly in this present world, He raised up the Saracens to be instruments of His wrath to punish them for it; who, taking advantage of the weakness of power, and the distractions of councils, which these divisions had caused among them, soon overran with a terrible devastation all the Eastern Provinces of the Roman Empire. And when the matter came to this trial, some of those who were of the hottest contenders about Christianity became the first apostates from it; and they, who would not afore part with a nicety, an abstruse notion, or an unreasonable scruple for the peace of the Church, were soon brought by the sword at their throats to give up the whole in compliance to the pleasure of a barbarous and savage conqueror. And no wonder that such, who had afore wrangled away the substance of their religion in contention and strife against each other, and eaten out the very heart of it by that malice and rancor which they showed in their controversy about it, became easily content when under this force to part with the name also.Preface to Prideauxs life of Mahomet.
The deep-seated contrast between the Eastern and the Western Churches showed itself more and more plainly as Christian brotherly love diminished and as the love of rule was developed in Rome. To this natural divergence there were added differences in doctrine. The Eastern Church taught that the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father alone, the Latin Church that it proceeded from the Father and from the Son. So also their practices differed, especially in that the Eastern Church at the Holy Supper used leavened bread, the Western, more correctly, unleavened bread;
to these differences there was added the acrimonious dispute concerning the worship of images. These doctrinal differences were embittered by the rivalry of the two capitals, Rome and Constantinople, and the assumption by the Bishop of Rome of power and precedence over the Patriarchs at Constantinople, Antioch, Alexandria, and Jerusalem.
There being so many causes of dissension, it did not in the end require a great provocation to produce an open rupture and separation between the Churches. An open rupture therefore ensued when the Byzantine Emperor Michael III. deposed Ignatius, Patriarch of Constantinople, who had reproved him for licentiousness, and when he put one of his courtiers, the learned Photius, into his place. Of Photius it is said that he passed through all the various degrees of ecclesiastical dignity in the short period of six clays. This hot-house procedure did not seem to please Pope Nicholas any more than the unjust deposition of Ignatius, and he accordingly deposed Photius at a Council held in Rome A.D. 862. But Photius, who was not only a learned man, but also a man of strong character, retaliated by excommunicating Pope Nicholas and accusing the Church of Rome of heresy. This was done at a Council held in Constantinople A.D. 867. This schism was indeed healed by Emperor Basilius, who restored Ignatius A.D. 877; but though the outward separation of the two great divisions of the Christian Church was thus put off for a time, the relations between Constantinople and Rome continued strained, and their disputes culminated finally in the excommunication sent by Pope Leo IX. to Constantinople, which was returned in kind by the Patriarch Cerularius, A.D. 1054.
With the separation from Rome and Western Europe there fell on the Eastern Church the stupor of monotonous stagnation.
Of this period of the Eastern Church the historian truly says:
The Eastern Church has no history. The nations which it embraces have been, for the most part, so stationary, and their life so monotonous, that they furnish few subjects of continuous narration. The influence which it has exercised on the onward course of religious opinion has been so slight, that by tacit consent it has almost dropped out of the notice of ecclesiastical historians. The languages in which its records and literature are composed are such as to repel even the learned classes of the West; even the Greek dialect of the East after the sixth century becomes almost intolerable to the eye and the ear of the classical student. Its system has produced hardly any permanent works of practical Christian benevolence. With very few exceptions, its celebrated names are invested with no stirring associations. It seems to open a held of interest to travellers and antiquarians, not to philosophers or historians.Stanleys History of the Eastern Church, p. 87.
The stir and life of the Western Church is not, however, when more deeply viewed, a sign of a more heavenly state than the repose and inaction of the Eastern Church. Christian love, and with it true life, had died out in both branches of the Church, but self-love with its unholy, infernal fires gave a new impetus to the Western Church that was in great part lacking in the East. Witness the diabolical tortures of the Inquisition, the relentless persecutions of the Roman Church, the religious (!) wars, and the unholy fires of the autos-da-fe! Of all this infernal life we see hardly a trace in the East. Concerning the different spirit reigning there, the historian says:
A respectful reverence for every manifestation of religious feeling has withheld them from violent attacks on the rights of conscience and led them to extend a kindly patronage to forms of Faith most removed from their own. The gentle spirit of the Greek Fathers has granted to the heroes and sages of heathen antiquity a place in the Divine favor which was long denied in the West. Along the porticoes of Eastern churches (as in Moscow and on Mount Athos) are to be seen portrayed on the walls the figures of Homer, Solon, Thueydides, Pythagoras, and Plato as pioneers preparing the may for Christianity.Stanleys Eastern Church, p. 123.
The reader will here doubtless recall the Memorable Relations in the Writings, where these ancient sages are portrayed in their happy homes in heaven. That this toleration is extended not only to the dead, but also to the living, we see from the following:
In Russia, where the power and will to persecute exist more strongly [than in Armenia], though proselytism is forbidden, yet the worship, not only of their own dissenters, but of Latins and Protestants, is protected as the Oka, the Mahometan mosque and the Armenian church stand side by side with the orthodox cathedral.Stanleys Eastern Church, p. 123.
That also in the Eastern Church toleration has its limits, and indeed limits which considerably hamper, if they do not in the present state altogether prevent all religious progress, it is hardly necessary to state. A trustworthy eye-witness informs us as to the status of religious toleration in Russia:
According to Russian conceptions there are two distinct kinds of heresy, distinguished from each other not by the doctrines held, but by the nationality of the holder. It seems to a Russian in the nature of things that Tartans should be Mohammedans, that Poles should be Roman Catholics, and that Germans should be Protestants, and the were act of becoming a Russian subject is not supposed to lay the Tarter, the Pole, or the German under any obligation to change his faith. These nationalities are therefore allowed the most perfect freedom in the exercise of their respective religions, so long as they refrain from disturbing, by propagandism, the Divinely-established order of things. This is the received theory, and we must do the Russians the justice to say that they habitually act up to it. If the Government has sometimes attempted to convert alien races, the motive has always been political, and the efforts have never awakened much sympathy among the people at large, or even among the clergy. In like manner the missionary societies which have sometimes been formed in imitation of the Western nations have never received much popular support.
Thus with regard to aliens this peculiar theory has led to very extensive religious toleration. Tartars, Poles, and Germans are in a certain sense heretics, but their heresy is natural and justifiable. With regard to the Russians themselves the theory has had a very different effect. If in the nature of things the Tartar is a Mohammedan, the Pole a Roman Catholic, and the German a Protestant, it is equally in the nature of things that the Russian should be a member of the Orthodox Church. On this point the written law and public opinion are in perfect accord. If an Orthodox Russian becomes a Roman Catholic or a Protestant, his heresy is not of the same kind as that of the Pole or the German. No matter how pure and elevated his motives may be, his change of religion is not justifiable; on the contrary, he is amenable to the criminal law, and is at the same time condemned by public opinion as an apostate--almost a traitor.Russia, by Wallace, Wallace, p. 303.
As we may not return to the consideration of this branch of Christendom the reader will excuse us if we relate here how, in modern times, even this toleration of national heresy has had its exceptions, especially as to the Roman Catholics in Poland. But in this case, as in the first conversion of the Russian nation, the impulse was given not by missionaries or the Church, but by the civil authorities. The conversion of Russia was effected A.D. 988 by the example and command of the Grand Duke Vladimir. The great religious persecution A.D. 1827-39 also took place by the command of the authorities, namely, by order of the Czar Nicholas. The Orthodox Church in Lithuania and Poland had about the year 1596 united with the Catholic Church, and while retaining some of its characteristics it had, by the adroitness of the Jesuits, been almost completely Romanized. But when in A.D. 1772 the greater part of this territory came under Russian domination the tide was changed, and the prelates who favored Rome were deposed, but it was not until the time of the Emperor Nicholas that any efforts were made to force back the Church of Lithuania and Poland into the Orthodox Church. The motto of Nicholas was: One law, one language, one faith! And as far as despotic exercise of power could effect this, it was effected.
Whether and to what extent the present revolutionary state in Russia is a reaction against the violently repressive methods instituted by this ruler is an interesting question for the political economist. The efforts of Nicholas were at first secret: all the positions of influence in the Polish and Lithuanian United Church were given into the hands of the friends of the Emperor and the Orthodox Church, and the opponents were removed. In this preparatory work Joseph Semashko especially offered himself a willing tool for the destruction of the National Church, of which he was a member. From the year 1827-1836 this agent of despotism worked assiduously to sever one bond of connection with Rome after another and to assimilate the United to the Established Church. But it was only when the Cavalry General Count Protassov was appointed president of the Holy Synod of Russia that matters advanced to the liking of the Emperor. There was indeed some surprise when the General in his uniform of hussars, with jingling sword and spurs, took his seat as President over the Metropolitans and Bishops. But in Russia all things ape possible. The conversion of the Poles and Lithuanians seemed a simple and easy matter to the clashing cavalry officer. Within three years he had rebuilt and remodeled nine hundred churches in Lithuania alone, so as to assimilate them to those of the Orthodox Church. In other provinces seven months sufficed for the work. Whole car-loads of orthodox liturgies and prayer-books were sent into the doomed provinces. To give to this work the appearance of voluntary action on the part of the people, petitions for union with the Orthodox Church were freely circulated for signatures. Petitions in opposition were also drawn up and circulated, but when the authors of these disloyal petitions were suspended from office and sent out of the province the futility of opposition became apparent.
Some insurrections also took place in the parishes of priests opposed to the change, but the Cossacks soon restored order and unanimity. Troops occupied for a time some of the most restless regions. The priests who submitted received as increase of salary and the apportionment of a glebe. Obedient prelates were promoted, the stubborn were suspended from office. In 1839 the Emperor of Russia graciously granted the petitions of the Churches of Lithuania and of Russian Poland for union with the Orthodox Church, and thus by a few years work five million loyal (!) members were added to the Established Church. Similar efforts to convert the German Lutherans in the Baltic Provinces were not crowned with the same success, but still they added a considerable number to the Established Church of Russia. As a legacy of this epoch it is said that the Russian Church for some time retained the brusque manners and soldierly dualities introduced by its commanding General. (Condensed from Petersburger Gesellschaft.)
Still we must acknowledge that many Russian divines disapproved of the action of the government, and the traitor Semashko, though advanced to high honors by the Emperor, received a reception by so means flattering at the hands of his Russian fellow-prelates. The whole transaction must be viewed as an exception to the general policy of the Eastern Church. Missionary efforts, even when carried on in an orderly manner, seem foreign to its nature. The members of the Eastern Church, proud of the antiquity and unbroken succession of their Church, generally follow the maxim: Live and let live.
The usages and rites of the Eastern Church differ in many respects from those of the Roman Catholic. In some instances the primitive Christian practices have been retained where the Roman Catholic innovations must be considered rational developments rather than deteriorations.
As examples of this we may mention that the Eastern Church still rigidly adheres to Baptism by immersion, and the Byzantine portion absolutely repudiates and ignores any other mode as essentially invalid. So also Confirmation in the Eastern Church takes place simultaneously with the act of baptismal immersion. This Church likewise still retains the anointing of the sick with oil, and the early Christian practice of admitting infants to communicate in the LORDS Supper. In the Coptic Church it may even happen that an infant is the only recipient of the Communion. Another peculiarity is the absence of art; in their churches: no dim religious light, no beauty of form or color beyond what is produced by the mere display of gorgeous and barbaric pomp; and this even while the ritualistic and ceremonial features receive the most careful attention. (Condensed from Stanleys Eastern Church.)
Other peculiarities of worship, especially in Russia, are that up to 1682 no sermons, in our sense of the word, were delivered in the churches, but occasionally, especially at the high church festivals, homilies from the Ancient Fathers were read. This practice, in great part, continues in the Eastern Church even now, the most notable exception being in Athens, where there is regular preaching every Sunday. The chief part of worship in the Eastern churches remains as in the ages past, antiphonal singing by the Deacons and Choristers, the intoned reading of lessons from the Word, prayers, the reading of confessions of faith, and of the legends of the saints and martyrs: The worshipers stand during the services, commonly using a crutch as a rest. Mass is read only once a day and always before sunrise. Instrumental music is forbidden in their churches, but fine choirs sing in the mass and at other services. One peculiarity is the pronunciation of anathemas on unbelievers; this takes place every year on the first Sunday in Lent.
As to the aspect in which religious life in Russia strikes a stranger we have the following testimony:
It must be admitted that the Russian people are in a certain sense religious. They go regularly to church on Sundays and holy-days, cross themselves repeatedly when they pass a church or Icon (a holy image), take the Holy Communion at stated seasons, rigorously abstain from animal food,--not only on Wednesdays and Fridays, but also during Lent and other long fasts,--make occasional pilgrimages to holy shrines, and, in a word, fulfill punctiliously all the ceremonial observances which they suppose necessary for salvation. But here their religiousness ends. They are generally profoundly ignorant of religious doctrine, and know little or nothing of Holy Writ. A peasant, it is said, was once asked by a priest if he could name the three persons of the Trinity, and replied without a moments hesitation, How can one not know that, Batushka (Father)? Of course it is the Saviour, the Mother of God, and Saint Nicholas, the miracle-worker! That answer represents fairly enough the theological attainments of a very large section of the peasantry. The anecdote is so well known and so often repeated that it is probably an invention, but it is not a calumny. Of theology and of what Protestants term the inner religious life, the Russian peasant has no conception. For him the ceremonial part of religion suffices, and he has the most unbounded, child-like confidence in the saving efficacy of the rites which he practices. If he has been baptized in infancy, has regularly observed the feasts, has annually partaken of the Holy Communion, and has just confessed and received extreme unction, he feels death approach with the most perfect tranquillity. He is tormented with no doubts as to the efficacy of faith or works, and has no fears that his past life may possibly have rendered him unfit for eternal felicity. Like a man in a sinking ship who has buckled on his life-preserver, he feels perfectly secure. With no fear for the future and little regrets for the present or the past, he awaits calmly the dread summons, and dies with a resignation which a Stoic philosopher might envy.Russia, by Wallace, p. 63.
The Eastern Church after its separation from Rome seems to have more and more sunk into were ritualism, an external which with a great many had little or no internal. As to the importance given by them to mere rituals, we find the following:
The Russian Church has always paid inordinate attention to ceremonial observances and somewhat neglected the doctrinal and moral elements of the faith which it professes. This peculiarity greatly facilitated the spread of its influence among a people accustomed to pagan rites and magical incantations, but it had the pernicious effect of confirming in the new converts the superstitious belief in the virtue of were ceremonies. Thus the Russians became zealous Christians in all matters of external observance without knowing much about the spiritual meaning of the rites which they practiced. They looked upon the rites and sacraments as mysterious charms which preserved them from evil influences in the present life such secured them eternal felicity in the life to come, and they believed that these charms would inevitably lose their efficacy if modified in the slightest degree. Extreme importance was therefore attached to the ritual minuti, and the slightest modification of these minuti assumed the importance of an Historical event. In the year 1476, for instance, the Novgorodian Chronicler gravely relates: This winter some philosophers (!) began to sing, O LORD have mercy, and others merely, LORD have mercy. And this attaching of enormous importance to trifles was not confined to the ignorant multitude. An Archbishop of Novgorod declared solemnly that those who repent the LORD Allelujah only twice at certain points in the liturgy sing to their own damnation; and a celebrated Ecclesiastical Council, held in 1551, put such matters as the position of the fingers when making the sign of the cross on the same level as heresies, formally anathematizing those who acted in such trifles contrary to its decisions.--Russia, by Wallace, p. 307.
While we thus see that the Eastern Church is in many respects on the lowest plane of Christianity, there are several important points in which it is superior to the Latin and the Protestant Churches. The first is that in their prayer they directly address the LORD JESUS CHRIST.
In the Western liturgies direct addresses to CHRIST are exceptions. In the East they are the rule. In the West, even in Unitarian liturgies, it is deemed almost essential that every prayer should be closed through JESUS CHRIST. In the East such a close is rarely, if ever, found.Stanleys Eastern Church, p. 112.
So also the Eastern priest does not assume to say with the Romish priest, I absolve thee, but he gives the glory to God, saying, May the LORD absolve thee.
So again though the Virgin Mary receives a deep veneration, she has never held that place in the scheme of salvation or of the protection of the Church which she occupies in Rome. So also the subtle logic, or rather want of logic, of imputed righteousness is almost unknown there; in consequence, when the Eastern priest preaches of righteousness his teaching has to his hearers a moral and practical bearing quite different from the learned sermons of the Protestant West. Though in some parts of the Eastern Church, especially those in the neighborhood of the Catholic countries, absolutions are a matter of bargain and sale, they have never extended their bargainings to the other world.
Prayers for the dead exist, but no elaborate hierarchical system has been built upon their performance. A general expectation prevails that by some unknown process the souls of the sinful will be purified before they pass into the Divine Presence; but this has never been consolidated into a doctrine of Purgatory.Stanleys Eastern Church, p. 124.
So also in regard to the Holy Supper, the doctrine of the Eastern Church is not formulated from so gross and carnal a conception of transubstantiation or transmutation of elements as we find in the Catholic Church, nor do they in their practice violate the words of the LORD: Drink ye all of it, by withholding the cup from the laity, but all receive both the bread and the wine.
Scarcely of less importance is the canon of Russian ecclesiastic law which requires that every parish priest (the White Clergy) must be married before being ordained, though he cannot marry a second time. The monks, and the higher clergy, who are all drawn from the monasteries, and are called the Black Clergy, are, however, forbidden to marry.
Yet, while the Greek clergy are no doubt superior in morality to the Catholic clergy, they are inferior to them in mental culture.
There is also in Russia a natural antagonism between the clergy of the higher orders (the Black Clergy), on whom the roles of the Church impose celibacy, and the married perish priests (the White Clergy). The Bishops have therefore but little sympathy for the domestic cares and the family life of the parish priests, who, because they are not celibates, are considered inferior in holiness and unworthy to emerge from their low estate. As to the disrespect generally shown the White Clergy, at least at the present time, we have the testimony of a native Russian:
The people do not respect the clergy, but persecute them with derision and reproaches, and feel them to be a burden. In nearly all the popular comic stories the priest, his wife, or his laborer is held up to ridicule, and in all the proverbs and popular sayings where the clergy are mentioned it is always with derision. The people shun the clergy, and have recourse to them not from the inner impulse of conscience, but from necessity. And why do the people not respect the clergy? Because it forms a class apart; because, having received a false kind of education, it does not introduce into the life of the people the teaching of the Spirit, but remains in the were dead forms of outward ceremonial, at the same time despising these forms even to blasphemy; because the clergy itself continually presents examples of want of respect to religion, and transforms the service of God into a profitable trade.Melnikofs Report to Grand Duke Constantine.
From this we see that the clergy are by no means clear of the besetting sin of Russia.,--the love of gain; and their influence suffers deservedly on this account. But there are other causes which contribute to lower them in the public esteem for which they are not accountable.
In early times the parish priests were drawn from all classes of the population and freely elected by the parishioners. If a man thus elected was found on presentation to the Bishop to be a fit and proper person for the office he was at once ordained. But as many illiterate persons were presented, after a time the Bishops themselves appointed the perish priests, and their selection generally fell on the sons of priests as being the best fitted for the office.
When the Bishops Schools were established for the education of the sons of the clergy, this naturally led in the course of time to the total exclusion of the other classes. But the priestly caste thus formed increased in numbers much more rapidly than the offices to be filled, so that the supply of priests and deacons soon far exceeded the demand. Thus was formed an ever-increasing clerical proletariat, eager for place in order to keep off starvation. The competition thus engendered served to further lower the estimation in which they were held not only by the common people but also by the nobles who employed them as their chaplains.
Yet the fact remains that the marriage of the lower and more numerous clergy has removed in Russia one of the fruitful causes of moral depravity which has been the curse of Catholic countries, and as a consequence we see in Russia, perhaps the most ignorant but also, at least with reference to the marriage relation, the most moral country in Christendom.
It evident, therefore, that the isolation of the Eastern Church from contact and co-operation with Western Europe has by no means proved an unmixed evil, for while intellectual development has been retarded, if not brought to a standstill, many of the vices and corruptions of the West have at the same time been excluded. In the case of the Russian Church we have another exemplification of the truth that when a Church dies by the perversion of good and truth into the evil and the false, the worst elements are in the centre, and the better in the circumference.
In the Writings we find but little direct mention of the Eastern Church, but there is some mention made of the Russians and of their state in the other world. Since about two-thirds of the Eastern Church are Russians, these passages at the same time throw a light on the spiritual state of that Church, and they are therefore here subjoined:
The Russian nation dwells in the southeastern angle (in the world of spirits) altogether in the angle under the earth there. They are more in obscurity than others. I was brought there and saw first an unclean place, where there were many who were consulting concerning the state of their kingdom, and indeed concerning liberty such as is elsewhere; but they did not appear, but were altogether unseen; then I heard that they feared Cesar (the Czar), and said that Cesar was everywhere.
Afterward I was brought to others of that nation who were better; they labored continually; then to others who were also laboring. Then I saw many leading women in procession. I heard that this to them was heaven.
I heard afterward, that they do not care about religion, and scarcely more than this, that if God is He is. If the question is asked them, Where is God? (they reply) that He is in heaven. When they are asked, whether He created all things, they do not comprehend it, because they think, that then He would have had to go everywhere and create; in a word, they are inane, nor do they care about truths, except such (as are mentioned above).
It was also said, that they are inwardly malicious more than others and that they operate very strongly through phantasies. But they are not skilled in magic; for those learn magic, who are in knowledges, but not those who are not in knowledges.
Those of them who were better, were carried thence in great multitude to the north, beyond the desert Babylonish district there, and they were sent into a plain, a great distance to the north, which tract terminates there in forests where there are those who are as it were mild beasts. They enter there into caverns in various places and rarely appear upon the plain. Their district is in the northern part toward the eastern angle there.Spiritual Diary, 5452-5456.
From this passage we see that in the other world, as here, the Russians care little about spiritual truths and are therefore in great obscurity, farther removed from the centre of light than the Roman Catholics, but yet they are toward the East, and this is because though some are malicious they are not in self-love as the Catholics are and call therefore be kept nearer to the LORD.
There appeared to me Czar Peter and I spoke with him in a dream, afterward he appeared among the Russians, and then it was shown of what nature the Russians are: They believe that he has power over their lives and over their possessions, thus that these are not theirs but his, which they also confessed there openly.
I heard them together with the Czar who said that all their possessions belong to him, because the region is his; but I contradicted, (saying) that they are not his, and that their riches are not his, but theirs, and that he had no right over their lives, but that they should give him so much of their own, as is needful for the protection of the kingdom, and no more; and that their life is from the LORD, and that they are under the law and that the Czar also is under it. It was also shown, that when the Czar wished to have all that they had, they were also willing to give it; they worship him as if he was their god.
It was also shown that they do not inflict any pain on the right temple and the teeth like the (other) Christians, which I wondered at, for they were of that region and I felt no pain from them; they are without self-love, but still they are thieves and dare and do anything that they may acquire money.--Spiritual Diary, 5949.
From this we may conclude that although an absolute monarchy or a despotism cramps and destroys intellectual development, it is not without its use, by repressing self-love in those who yield to it from reverence, as is the case with the Russians; so that the pity not unmixed with contempt which we are apt to bestow on those who are living under despotic governments is, in part at least, uncalled for. If we were not so accustomed to make the state of the intellect our only criterion in judging of nations we could hardly avoid seeing some of the uses which are connected with such governments, and how they assist in the preservation of a low state of good even while they hinder and prevent the acquisition of higher states of intelligence. This effect of despotic governments appears more plainly from the following:
They (the Russians) are not malicious as the rest of Christendom, they are in great subordination, believing that all things which they possess are not theirs but the Czars, because the kingdom is his; therefore when he wishes, he takes from them what he wills, and they freely acknowledge whatever they have and give it, in the same way when his officials say that it is by his command. In the other life they retain that faith and live in that subordination, but with the difference, that (they believe that) all they have belong not to the Czar but to God, being given to them that they may rightly use it for performing their uses; and that if they do not use them rightly, or when they use them wrongly, i.e. if they are wicked, then there is taken from them a part or all according to their maliciousness such their abuse or use for wrong purposes; this also takes place.
Sometimes they are also told when they put their heart too much on money, that they should give some of their money to the poor and needy. This indeed they are loath to do; still they are told that it muse be done because it is the command of God; then they do it, but after some time they receive more, for they are then blest. Sometimes they are told, that they must leave their places because they are wicked, but then they think and say that there are wicked ones with them, and that they make them wicked; wherefore they search them out, and when they find them, they cast them into the sea, whence they never return; being thus delivered from them, they remain in their possessions. When they, therefore, afterward perceive that they begin to be wicked, namely to covet the goods of others and to contrive some arts for depriving others of what is theirs, they perceive that there are wicked spirits near them, of whom, being admonished, they purge their society. The wicked spirits are mostly found in certain places, mostly by the side of the sea.
Once there were Russians with me, and by them the wicked from Christendom were kept off. They were in obedience and modest, so that they were much better than they. The reason is, that they can be kept in good affection, because they are in obedience and in subordination, nor do they aspire to high things; therefore they can be detained from the proprium of the will; but they are but little intellectual.--Spiritual Diary, 5963.
The Russians, and with them the Eastern Church, form the circle outside of the Roman Catholics, but they are chiefly to the East and Northeast, because, though in obscurity, they have more of charity and love. Their isolation from the great centres has kept them free from certain of the deeper evils that developed in Rome and in Protestant Christendom. They remind us of the souls preserved in the lower earth, who were kept secure from the dragon and from Babylon. As it is evident from the above extracts that they are not malicious like the rest of the Christians, but in a state of simple ignorance very much resembling some of the better heathen, there would seem to be some hope for their reception of the Heavenly Doctrines when the iron chain of despotism, which has preserved them from seduction, while shutting them off from intellectual progress, shall be broken.
It may be interesting before leaving the state of the Eastern Church to take a brief view of the so-called dissenters and heretics there, because their state throws a further light on the internal religious state of that Church. Foremost in numbers among these are the dissenters called Raskolniks, who arose about the middle of the seventeenth century. Their origin is altogether different from that of the Protestants in this particular, that while the Protestants separated from the Catholic Church because this Church was unwilling to introduce the reforms they demanded, the Raskolniks separated from the Orthodox Church on account of some reforms instituted by Nicon, the Patriarch of Moscow. These reforms consisted in an improved version of the Slavonic Bible and of the liturgies, also in some changes in the ceremonials of the Church, bringing them into conformity with the usage at Constantinople, and in making the sign of the cross with three fingers instead of two, as formerly. All these innovations were rejected by the Raskolniks as pagan practices and heretical. It was in vain that the Patriarch assured them that the change was a return to the ancient forms still preserved in Greece and in Constantinople The reply was that the Church in these places had fallen away into heresy; they refused to believe that the blessed saints and holy martyrs who had used the ancient forms had not prayed and crossed themselves aright. Therefore A.D. 1686 they separated from the ruling Church, claiming that they alone are the Old Believers, the Elect, and the truly orthodox. The tendency of the Eastern Church to look with fond, almost idolatrous, worship on the past, especially on the first Councils, and on the Apostolic and Christian Fathers has become a monomania with this sect.
In defense of their views, and rather than give them up, the inhabitants of a whole village of these non-conformists deliberately set their village on fire and were consumed with it. Thousands went as exiles into foreign countries, others fled into the forests and the deserts. Since toleration has been granted them, their fanaticism has moderated and put on somewhat more rational forms.
A later such less numerous sect, not of dissenters but of so-called heretics, are the Molokani, of which Wallace in his work on Russia gives as interesting account. These sectaries have been transported by the Government on account of their religious opinions from the central provinces to the thinly-populated outlying districts where there may be less danger of their contaminating orthodox neighbors; accordingly we now find them in the southeastern districts of Samara, on the north coast of the Sea of Azov, in the Crimea, in the Caucasus, and in Siberia. Wallace writes thus of a meeting with them:
If the logic of the peasants was not always unimpeachable, their knowledge of the Scriptures left nothing to be desired. In support of their views they quoted long passages from memory, and whenever I indicated vaguely any text which I needed they at once supplied it verbatim, so that the big folio Bible served merely as an ornament. Three or four of them seemed to know the whole of the New Testament by heart. The course of our informal debate need not here be described; suffice it to say, after four hours of uninterrupted conversation we agreed to differ on questions of detail, and parted from each other without a trace of that ill-feeling which religious discussion commonly engenders. Never have I met men more honest and courteous in debate, more earnest in the search after truth, and more careless of dialectic triumphs than these simple, uneducated peasants.Wallaces Russia, p. 296.
We find another peculiar statement as to one of these agitators:
He reminded his friends that in accordance with their own doctrine the Scriptures should be understood not in the literal but in the spiritual sense; that Christianity had made men free, and every true Christian ought to use his freedom.Ibid., p. 299.
From this we can see that the lack of interest in religious truth is not by any means universal in Russia, though it may be very general, and as the Russians are not malicious and in the love of self in the same degree as others in Christendom, it would seem that there must be more remains of good among them than among the more intellectual but also more corrupt nations of Western Europe.
Mohammedanism.
IN an orderly state of the Church, the nations among whom the Church exists are at the same time the means by which the Divine Truth is communicated to the gentiles, who receive this truth more or less readily and quickly according to their genius and state. But when the Church begins to decline, its action ceases to be equal to the reaction of the surrounding sphere, from which it results that the outer circle presses upon the Church, checking its progress, and even forcing back its advancing hosts, until it occupies part or the whole of its territory.
An example of this we have in the rise and progress of Mohammedanism. The rise of this power dates from the year of the Hegira, or the flight of Mohammed from Mecca to Medina, A.D. 622. In its origin Mohammedanism drew largely on the Christian as well as on the Jewish faith and law; it was indeed the medium through which many of the truths of the Bible were communicated to the gentile nations of Asia and Africa, and through which their idolatries were overthrown. Thence also it is that the Mohammedans form in the World of Spirits the circle next encompassing the Christians.
And yet, despite this spiritually dependent relation, Mohammedanism as believed and practiced first by the Saracens and afterward by the Turks, proved stronger than the perverted forms of Christianity existing in the dark ages. Because of the corruption of Christianity, the living, energetic forces of Islam had the power to shake Christendom to its centre, and to wrest from it one rich province after the other, retaining some of these under Moslem rule for centuries, and others even to the present day.
To the student of history, and especially to the student of the history of the Church, Mohammedanism offers a broad and curious field of inquiry, and events vitally affecting Christendom cannot be fully understood without some knowledge of the rise and progress of the Moslem power.
Mohammed was born, according to the best chronologists, A. D. 571. He was of the tribe of the Koreish, the noblest and most honored of the tribes of Arabia; to whose care had been for centuries confided the Kaaba, the national sanctuary of the Arabians. The most distinguished family of this tribe was that of Hashem, to which Mohammed belonged. Being early left an orphan he was adopted by his grandfather, Abd Almuttalib. At his grandfathers death, Abu Talib, Mohammeds uncle, took him to himself, and in his uncles company Mohammed early engaged in commercial journeys, such as were undertaken by the leading men of Mecca, whose caravans carried on the lucrative traffic of Southern Arabia and other countries of the Indian Ocean with Syria and the West.
In one of these journeys, when only twelve years of age, Mohammed and his uncle made the acquaintance at Bozra of a Nestorian monk, named by some Sergius, by others Bahira. This monk seems to have taken a great fancy to the talented, imaginative youth, and the friendship between them was renewed in later journeys.
Mohammed seems to have had an open ear for religious topics, and though he could neither write nor read any language but Arabic, yet from his intercourse with Bahira and also with other Christians who at that time were quite numerous in Arabia, he learned much of the Gospel history, though chiefly in the forms then frequently current of the Apocryphal Gospels. Through his kinsman Waraka, and through Salman and Adallah Ibu Salam, he also became well acquainted with Jewish and Persian lore and this, together with his frequent solitary musings in his youth as a shepherd, and later in a cavern on Mount Hara, to which he often retired for meditation, prepared him for the position of a prophet which he afterward assumed.
His youth and early manhood were passed first as a shepherd tending the flocks of some of the wealthier inhabitants of Mecca, afterward 38 a merchant. In the latter quality he was employed by the wealthy widow Kadijah to travel and trade for her, and as he acquitted himself well and possessed a reputation for trustworthiness and justice, and as he was withal comely in appearance, she chose him for her husband. And although she was some fifteen years his senior he did not take an additional wife until her death, though this would have bees quite in keeping with the customs and practices of his time and country. A fem months after her death, however, her place was filled by two other wives, and at his death he was the happy (?) possessor of fifteen wives.
In his fortieth year Mohammed had his first vision, in which as he relates, the angel Gabriel appeared to bring him a Divine Revelation. Covered with perspiration and prostrated by the vision and the swoon that followed, he came to his wife Kadijah, and after she had covered him up, he told her all that he had seen, being still in doubt as to the Divinity of the Revelation and fearing that an evil spirit was deceiving him.
Kadijah encouraged him with the words: Rejoice, God will not put thee to shame, for thou art affectionate to thy relatives, sincere in thy words, shunning no trouble to serve the neighbor, thou supportest the poor, thou entertainest hospitably every stranger, and the truth in thee always finds a defender. She then went with him to Waraka, according to others also to a monk from Nineveh, called Addas, and both acknowledged him as the prophet foretold in Sacred Scriptures. (See Mohammed der Prophet, von Dr. Gustav Weil, p. 46.)
As to the various modes in which Mohammed received his revelations, the Arabic historians give the following account:
Harith Ibu Hisham once asked the prophet: In what manner dost thou receive the revelation? He answered: Sometimes an angel in human form (usually that of his friend Dihja) appears to me and speaks with me; sometimes I hear sounds as of a bell, then I am grievously affected; when he leaves me I write down what he has revealed. Some revelations Mohammed had immediately from God, as in the night of his elevation to heaven, others in a dream, for he often said: The dream of a prophet is a vision others again God gave into his heart after his own meditation. There is the following tradition founded on a declaration of his favorite wife Ayesha: As often as the angel appeared to him the prophet became inordinately heavy; even in the greatest cold a sweat would stream from his forehead, his eyes became red, and at times he would roar like a young camel. His freedman Zeid relates: When the revelation came upon Mohammed, he became very heavy; once his thigh fell upon mind, and I affirm there is no thigh as heavy as that of the Messenger of God. Sometimes he would receive a revelation while seated upon his camel, then the camel would tremble so that one would expect it to break down, usually it knelt down. Another writer relates: When the revelation came upon Mohammed none of us could lift up the eyes to him; according to some, he would become angry if looked at at such times, his face was covered with foam, his eyes closed, and sometimes he would roar like a camel.Arabic Authors, quoted by Weil, pp. 43, 44.
Weil attributes these attacks to epilepsy, but one not infested by the materialism of the present day would rather refer them to a trance state, and would suppose him to have been controlled by enthusiastic spirits, who in their turn may have been directed by angels and thus mediately by the LORD. That such things sometimes take place we can see from what is said of prophecies in the Adversaria:
It is also given to evil spirits to foretell things to come, but this from GOD MESSIAH through good spirits, to whom it is then given to; direct altogether at their pleasure the speech of evil spirits, so that the evil spirits speak altogether as they tell them ... for no one knows the future but JEHOVAH GOD alone.--IV. Adversaria, 5024-6.
Mohammed in writing the Koran and in his visions seems thus to have been in the hands of enthusiastic spirits, end to have been directed in accordance with the knowledges in His mind, modified also-no doubt by the promptings of his strongly sensual nature. In the other world we find Mohammed not among the cunning and malicious spirits, but among the merely corporeal; we read:
Mohammed himself who wrote the Koran is not seen [in the World of Spirits] at this day. It was told me, that he was put over them at first, but because he wished to rule over all things of their religion like a god, he was cast down from his place, which he occupied below the Papists, and was let down to the right side near the south. Once some societies of the Mohammedans were stirred up by malicious spirits to acknowledge Mohammed as God. To appease this sedition Mohammed was brought up from below and shown to them, and then I also saw him: he appeared like the corporeal spirits who have no interior perception, with a face verging to blackness, and I heard him say merely the words, I am your Mohammed; and immediately after, as it were sinking down, he returned to his place.Continuation concerning the Last Judgment, 70.
The influx into the mind of Mohammed, as with others, was received and modified by the knowledges he possessed; we do not therefore find it strange that the Koran contains not only facts from the Old Testament concerning Adam, Enoch, Noah, Job, Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Aaron, David, Solomon, Jonah, and about the Israelites in general, and facts from the New Testament concerning John the Baptist, Mary and the LORD, but also many tales from the Talmud and the Apocryphal Gospels which were current among the Jews and the Jacobite Christians of Arabia.
And still with all these distortions it may be that the devout Moslem who was familiar with his Koran and knew a good part of it by heart, knew not less even concerning the historicals of the Word then the usually ignorant Christians of the seventh and eighth centuries. This may in part explain why the Mohammedan nations so suddenly took a leading part in the history of the world as well as in the development of the arts and sciences. For Divine Truth has in it all power, and the people among whom Divine Truth is most fully known and practiced must of necessity take the lead of others. Thus when Christendom worshiping three Gods, and corrupted by the ambition of its leaders and torn by their dissensions, could no longer the banner of truth to convert the idolaters, the Mohammedan Church confessing one God was raised up, to perform, at least to some degree, those uses which the unfaithful Church of the LORD neglected. We read in the True Christian Religion the following:
That religion was raised up by the Divine Providence to destroy the idolatries of many nations.... That these idolatries might be extirpated it was effected by the Divine Providence that a new religion, accommodated to the genius of the Orientals should be introduced, in which there should be also something from both Testaments of the Word, and which should teach that the LORD came into the world, and that He was the greatest Prophet, the wisest of all, and the son of God. This was done by Mohammed, from whom that religion derived its name. Hence it is evident that this religion was raised up of the Divine Providence of the LORD and accommodated as was said to the genius of the Orientals, that it might destroy the idolatries of so many nations, and give some knowledge concerning the LORD before they should come into the Spiritual World as they do after death.
This religion would not have been received by so many kingdom, and could not have extirpated the idolatries there, unless it had been made suitable to the ideas of their thoughts, especially unless polygamy had been permitted, because the Orientals without that permission would have burned with the filthy lust of adultery, more than the Europeans, and would have perished.--T. C. R. 833.
Christians generally are apt to view the Moslem faith as a homogeneous whole, but they are mistaken. The Mohammedans, ambitious to excel in everything, claim also to exceed in the number of their sects; they say that the Magians are divided into 70 sects, the Jews into 71, the Christians into 72, but the Moslems into 73. This variety and difference of their views refers to almost every tenet of their doctrines, even to those in which most Christians suppose that there is an entire agreement among the adherents of Islam. We therefore find such a variety also in their views concerning the LORD JESUS CHRIST.
The Koran, indeed, throughout insists as on its primary doctrine on the unity of God. Allah il Allah! is its oft-repeated cry; even as we find in the Old Testament the solemn declaration: Hear, O Israel, the LORD thy God is one LORD! To the doctrine that there was a family of Gods, as God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, Mohammed was ever in decided opposition. In consequence we read in the Koran: They are infidels who say that God is Christ, the son of Mary. (Sura v.) And yet, though Mohammed could not bear the idea of a Son of God as a different Divine Person, he, nevertheless, gives an account of the miraculous conception of the LORD which would put to shame the Arians and Socinians of the present Christian Church; the Moslems thus believe is the miraculous conception of Christ, while by far the greater part of so-called Christians internally deny it. In the Koran we read:
The angel said: O Mariam, God sendeth thee good tidings, the Word from Him, His Name CHRIST JESUS, the son of Mariam, honorable in this world and in the other and of those who draw nigh (to God). And he shall speak to men in the cradle and when grown up and shall be of the just. She said: O LORD, how shall I have a child, and no man has touched me? He said: Thus God createth what He wills; when He has decreed a thing, then He saith to it, Be! and it is. And He shall teach Him the book and wisdom, and the Law and the Gospel, and (to be) a Messenger to the sons of Israel. (Koran, Sura iii.)
The miraculous conception of Jesus is again related in the nineteenth Sura, where we also find a romantic description of the birth of our LORD. He is there again called the Word of Truth. But yet with that strong repugnance to a multiplicity of Gods, which is characteristic of Mohammed in all his teachings, he adds: It is not for God that He should have a son. Praise be to Him. When He decrees a thing, then He saith: Be! and it is. (Sura xix.)
Mohammed, therefore, acknowledges that Jesus had no human father, but yet he is equally positive that Christ is not God. Still there are a number of Mohammedans who insist strongly on the Divinity of Christ. The Hayetians, a sect of the Motazalites, not only hold that Christ was the Eternal Word incarnate, who took on him a true and real body and will judge all creatures in the life to come, but they are so earnest in asserting the Divinity of the LORD, that they hold that there are two Gods or Creators,--the one eternal, viz.: the most high God, and the other not eternal, viz.: Christ. They also hold that God will be sees at the resurrection, not with the bodily eyes, but with those of the understanding. (See Sales Preliminary Discourse to the Koran, p. 125.) Maracci, confessor to Pope Innocent XI., in his notes to the Koran, adds the Cachpmessachites, who, according to him, were very numerous in Constantinople, to those who acknowledge the Divinity of Christ. (Refutation Alcorani, pp. 219, 220.)
Mohammed acknowledges not only the miraculous conception of our LORD, but also all the miracles of the LORD of which he had heard, even adding to those in our New Testament some miracles from the legends then current among the Christians. Thus he makes the angel prophesy to Mary that Jesus would make of clay as it were the figure of a bird, then He should breathe on it and it should become a bird by the will of God, and He should heal him that was blind from his birth, and the leper, and quicken the dead by the will of God. (See Koran, Sura iii.) So, again, he tells of a table with food let down by God from heaven for the use of Jesus and His Disciples.
(Koran, Sura v.)
In his endeavor to emphasize the distinction between Christ and mere mortals conceived of human fathers, Mohammed also willingly received into the Koran the doctrine of the Docetes:
They did not slay Him [i.e. JESUS CHRIST) nor crucify Him, but He was represented in His likeness.... They did not really kill Him, but God took Him up unto Himself, and God is powerful, wise.Koran, Sura iv., 156, 157.
It is interesting to trace how the Moslems, when they came into closer contact with the Christians, were infested by the same divisions and dissensions that distracted Christendom. Thus we find the Motazalites denying to God all eternal attributes, consequently making Him without body, parts, or passions. The Moshabbehites, on the other hand, granted that He might appear in the human form, while the Keramians went further and ascribed to God the human form with all its parts, though they entertained some strange notions as to the constitution of this body.
We also find predestination in all its hideous deformity upheld by the Jabarians, who taught that man has no freedom at all, but is necessarily and inevitably constrained to act as he does. The Motazalites, and especially the Kadarians, however, maintain that man is a free agent, and that God is the author of good only and not of evil. In opposition to the latter doctrine the Mozdarians affirm the power of God to do evil, and declare that it is possible for God to be a liar and unjust. The doctrine of faith alone is found with the Thaubanians, and also with the Jahedhians, who teach that if a man believes God to be his LORD and Mohammed the apostle of God, he thereby becomes one of the faithful and is obligated to nothing further; the Thaubanians, however, grant that a disobedient believer will, before being received into paradise, be tormented on the bridge laid over the midst of hell, by the flames of hell-fire in proportion to
his disobedience. A doctrine similar to that of a sect of the Second Adventists is held by the Thamamians, who teach that at the resurrection all infidels, idolaters, atheists, Jews, Christians, Magians, end heretics shall be reduced to dust. Other sects are divided as to the more personal question concerning the true Imams or successors of the Prophet; of this class are the Shiites, who maintain that only Ali and his descendants were true Imams or Caliphs. (See Sales Preliminary Discourse to the Koran.)
We cannot better show the activity of mind and the sagacity of the Oriental casuists than by quoting the dispute between Abu Hasan al Ashari and his teacher, Abu Ali al Jobbal, one of the Motazalites, who teach that God is bound to do always that which is best or most expedient. This dispute referred to the supposed case of three brothers, the first of whom lived in obedience to God, the second in rebellion against Him, and the third died an infant.
Al Jobbai being naked what he thought would become of them, answered, that the first would be rewarded in paradise, the second punished in hell, and the third neither rewarded nor punished. But what, objected Al Ashari, if the third say, O LORD, if thou hadst given me no longer life, that I might have entered paradise with my believing brother, it would have been better for me? To this Al Jobbai replied: God would answer, I knew that if thou hadst lived longer, thou wouldst have been a wicked person, and therefore cast into hell? Then, retorted Al Ashari, the second will say, O LORD, why didst thou not take me away while I was an infant, as thou didst my brother, that I might not have deserved to be punished for my sins nor to be cast into hell? To which Al Jobbai could return no other answer than that God prolonged his life to give him an opportunity of obtaining the highest degree of perfection, which was best for him. But Al Ashari, demanding further why he did not for the same reason grant the other a longer life, to whom it would have been equally advantageous, Al Jobbai was so put to it, that he asked, whether the devil possessed him? No, says Al Ashari, but the masters ass will not pass the bridge; i.e. he is posed. Hereupon Al Ashari left his master and set up a new sect for himself. (Sales Preliminary Discourse to the Koran.)
The conclusion of the dispute is perhaps not unlike what it might have been even in a Christian country, and the questions such as might have tried the intelligence as well as the patience of many a Christian divine.
It is thought by some writers that the Catholic Church owes one of its doctrines to Mohammed, as we find in the Koran the first mention of the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary. It is a tradition that Mohammed taught that: Every person that comes into the world is touched at his birth by the devil, and therefore cries out, Mary and her son only being excepted, between whom and the evil spirit God placed a veil, so that His touch did not reach them. (See Koran, Sura iii., 36, with Sales Note.) But even in this case, as in others, it is more likely that Mohammed followed a Christian legend than that he created a new doctrine, which to him was of no practical use.
The Koran, with its minute detail of civil law and polity, seems especially adapted to the Arabs with their rude civilization, yet, owing in part to the common sense of the expounders of its laws, it has shown a wonderful adaptability to nations living in very different surroundings, from the west of Africa even to the east of Asia, embracing the Caucasian, Mongolian, and Negro races; the Koran having overturned and supplanted not only rude idolatries, but also the subtle religious systems of Zoroaster and of Manu.
When we come to the conquests of Islam, they must truly be called wonderful.. While at the death of Mohammed in A.D. 632 His temporal and spiritual sovereignty was confined to the Arabian peninsula, in less than a century the victorious Crescent Banner waved from Turkestan in the east to the Atlantic shores of Spain on the west, embracing under its swag the whole Persian empire Syria, Egypt, with the rest of Northern Africa, and also Spain. But even before this first century had half expired the internal decay of the empire had already begun, for when under the fifth successor of Mohammed, Moawiyah, the seat of government was transferred from Medina to Damascus, and the government instead of being an elective monarchy became hereditary, degeneracy rapidly ensued. Rugged simplicity was followed by sensual luxury and voluptuous indulgence; internal revolts and dissensions blunted the sword of conquest. Under the rule of the Abbasides in Bagdad from the middle of the eighth century, internal harmony was indeed in part restored, and under Almansor, Haroun Alrashid, and Almamun learning flourished and wealth and luxury abounded. But the external power and unity of the Saracenic empire did not equal this showy splendor.
The kingdom of Spain, then Tunis and Tripoli, and lastly Egypt of the successors of the Prophet was circumscribed by the narrow limits of the city of Bagdad, their temporal supremacy in the tenth century fading away before their rivals in Spain, Mauritania, Egypt, Syria, and Persia.
Thus the Saracenic power, which had expanded to its full dimensions in a century, rapidly passed through its era, of power, splendor, and luxury, and gradually degenerated. into a nerveless torpor and inaction; The place of the chivalrous, intellectual Arab was usurped by the barbarous, cruel, but indefatigable Turk. Sallying forth from the distant East, from the land between the Caspian Sea and the western border of the Chinese Empire, the Turks gradually occupied the whole of the Saracenic Empire. First invited to serve as guards and mercenaries, then as allies, this people in the beginning of the eleventh century overthrew the Saracenic power, and before the twelfth century began, the whole dominion of the Saracens, from the Chinese Empire on the east to the Mediterranean Sea on the west, from the Euxine and the Caspian Sea on the north to the Indian Ocean on the south, was under the sway of the descendants of Seljuk and the victorious Turkomans. But this change of dynasty made no difference in the prevalence of Islam, for the Turkomans when they crossed the Oxus River, also adopted title religion of their new dominion. Their faith, if less enlightened was none the less earnest and fanatical than that of the Saracens, and the Sultan of Asia bowed in humility before the Caliph of Bagdad, the Commander of all the Faithful; and it was only in the middle of the thirteenth century, when the fierce Tartars overflooded Asia, that the Caliphate of Bagdad ceased. The descendants of the Prophet and other Saracenic rulers even then, however, continued in Northern Africa and in Spain. The Seljukian sultans themselves soon followed the common law of the later Asiatic dynasties: a short round of valor and greatness, followed by discord, degeneracy, and decay.
The era of the Crusades already found them unequal to the defense of their religion and their newly-acquired domain. It was left to a Kurd from beyond the Tigris, to the valiant Saladin, to regain the places lost by the incapacity and inaction of the Turkoman rulers, and the empire of this doughty warrior soon extended from the Tigris to the African Tripoli, and from the Indian Ocean to the mountains of Armenia. To his united forces it was a comparatively easy task to gradually crush out the newly-created kingdom of Jerusalem, and to wrest from the Franks all their possessions in Palestine except a strip of sea-coast, and even this was eventually taken from them, until at the end of the thirteenth century their last stronghold, Acre, fell into the hands of the Turks.
But about this time there arose a new power to desolate the land. Under Jengis Khan and his successors all Asia, and also a part of Europe, was overrun and subjugated by the countless hordes of Tartars, and under his grandson Kublai, who completed his conquests, one empire embraced China, in the east, Great Tartary and part of Siberia and Russia on the north, Thibet, Turkistan, Persia, Mesopotamia, and Asia Minor, extending over more than one hundred degrees of longitude, and from the Arctic circle to the tropic of Cancer; stretching thus from the Pacific to the Mediterranean, and from the Arctic to the Indian Ocean.
At the death of Kublai the vast empire of the Tartars fell to pieces, and a number of smaller, independent sovereignties were formed, most of them having for their head a Tartar or a Turkoman. In this period, the middle of the thirteenth century, falls the rise of the Turkish dynasty of the Ottomans, who from a small origin soon became the Sultans of Asia Minor, and of Roumelia and Roumania in Europe, leaving to the Greek Emperors only their capital city of Constantinople with its surroundings.
So sedulously did the Ottomans cultivate their military resources that Bajazet II., in the beginning of the fifteenth century, was able to meet the innumerable hordes of the Mohammedan conqueror Tamerlane with an army of 400,000 men, the flower of which was composed of 40,000 Janizaries and the national calvary, the ancestry of the modern Spahis, supplemented by the troops of Anatolia, a colony of Tartars, and 20,000 European cuirassiers. But yet these forces were far inferior in number to those of Tamerlane, who had at his disposal the forces of the East from Siberia to the Indian Ocean and from China even to the Euphrates River, and whose army is estimated at from 800,000 to 1,600,000. The Ottoman power was defeated, but not destroyed. The Mogul dynasty founded by Tamerlane vanished from the Orient before the end of the century, except in its hold upon Hindostan, but the Ottoman power soon recruited its strength, so that fifty years later the Turks overthrew Constantinople, the last Christian bulwark in the East and the great depository of Grecian and Eastern lore. It is said that 120,000 manuscripts, chiefly in the Greek language, were destroyed or disappeared in the sack of the city; yet the fugitive Greeks from Constantinople carried with them invaluable treasures of learning to Italy end to other European countries, and these remnants of light were in part the cause of that reawakening of intellectual life which appeared about this period in Italy, and thence in England, France, and Germany.
We cannot conclude this cursory view of Mohammedanism without some special mention of the more direct uses the Saracens performed for science and general culture, especially in those days when Christendom lay in its deepest torpor of ignorance and darkness. The culture of learning with the Saracens was first encouraged by the Abbasides in the middle of the eighth century, and flourished from 750-1050 A.D.
Among these Almamon was especially distinguished. We read of him:
The ambassadors of Almamon at Constantinople, his agents in Armenia, Syria, and Egypt collected the volumes of Grecian science; at his command they were translated by the most skillful interpreters into the Arabic language; his subjects were exhorted assiduously to peruse these instructive writings; and the successor of Mohammed assisted with pleasure and modesty at the assemblies and disputations of the learned.Gibbons Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chap. iii.
The encouragement given to learning by the Abbasides was imitated by their rivals the Fatimites in Egypt and the Ommiades in Spain, and even by the emirs of Samarkand and Bochara.
The extent of the learned labors under these princes is shown by their immense libraries:
The royal library of the Fatimites consisted of 100,000 manuscripts, elegantly transcribed and splendidly bound, which were lent without jealousy or avarice to the students of Cairo. Yet this collection must appear moderate, if we can believe that the Ommiades of Spain had formed a library of 600,000 volumes, forty-four of which were employed in the mere catalogue. Their capital, Cordova, with the adjacent towns of Malaga, Almeria, and Murcia, had given birth to more than three hundred writers, and above seventy public libraries were opened in the cities of the Andalusian kingdom.Gibbon, ibid.
Though a great part of these manuscripts might in our eyes be without any intrinsic value, still the Saracens possessed and cherished the translations of the works of Aristotle and Plato, Euclid and Apollonius, of Ptolemy, Hippocrates and Galen and many others, and some of these works became first known to Christian scholars of the West through these Arabic translations. Besides these valuable translations Arabic literature contains the works of numberless poets, historians, biographers, philosophers, theologians, jurists, philologists, and mathematicians.
But their most useful original contributions to human knowledge are to be found in chemistry, botany, and in pharmaceutics generally, which latter was first cultivated as an independent science by the Saracens, to whom we owe some of our most common medicaments. When we survey the extensive field of their activity and the vast empire in which the Arabic language at times held sway, extending from China, even to Spain, we may concede the possibility though we may not believe the probability of the statement that the library of the last Fatimite caliph in Cairo contained two million manuscripts. Some small remnant of these immense stores still remains in European and Asiatic libraries to tell us of these labors and to give us an account of the great power that once threatened to overwhelm all Christendom.
As to the state of Mohammedans in the other world, which again serves to throw a light on the state of the 160,000,000 Moslems now living on this earth, the Doctrines afford us the following information:
The Mohammedans dwell [in the World of Spirits] in the western part outside of Christendom in many mountains there in great number. The better of them are carried to the east, namely, those of them who in the world acknowledged the LORD as the greatest Prophet, and called him the Son of God and believed that He was sent of the Father that He might instruct the human race, thus that He was wiser than the others. Such as had at the same time lived well according to their religion and had done that which is just, equitable, and sincere from a religious principle, acknowledging the God of the universe, although they also acknowledged Mohammed as a great prophet, were carried toward the east.--Spiritual Diary, 5663.
Others worshiped Mohammed as a God and had no thought concerning the LORD according to their religion. An inquiry was made as to what idea they had of God the Father, and it was found that they thought of Him only as of the created universe and that their idea was without the human idea as with the others, thus that they had no idea of God the Father. Those who were on the mountains there, when they first come into the other life, think concerning Mohammed, but afterward they leave him, and think concerning God the Father, the Creator of the universe, and concerning the LORD, that He is the greatest Prophet, the wisest of men, and the Son of God.
They were explored as to their idea concerning the one God, the Creator of the universe, and it was found, that it was as something human and not like the universe as with others.... The good Mohammedans think in their heart better concerning the LORD than the Christians.Spiritual Diary, 5663-5669.
The Mohammedans conduct their choirs more quickly and skillfully than others, so that they are initiated almost in one night into agreement, for choirs are when all speak and think as one and one as all. Some spirits said that Christians cannot be initiated into consent or into a choir, sometimes even for thirty years.Spiritual Diary, 3494.
Of the Mohammedans many become Christians, acknowledging the LORD as the only God, because the Father is in Him and He in the Father. When they are then led to heaven, they are first led eastward, then toward the north, and there they ascend higher and higher even to the west, and there they are on high but still in a circle or circuit according to their situation.
The Mohammedans are in natural light above the Christians and also desire to know truths more than they.... They perceive also clearly that those who were in the good of life are in the affection of truth because good desires truth since truth is as it were the food of good, and that truth desires good, since truth derives its life from good; thus that there is a reciprocal desire of the one for the other and that man consists in this, for he is man from wisdom and intelligence.Spiritual Diary, 5246-5248.
The Mohammedan Heaven is distinguished into two: in the lower one they live becomingly with several wives, but no others are elevated thence into the higher heaven than those who give up their concubines and acknowledge the LORD our Savior, and at the same time His dominion over heaven and hell. I have heard that it is impossible for them to think that God the Father and our LORD are one, but it is possible for them to believe that He rules over heaven and hell, because He is the Son of God the Father. Through this faith with them, there is given to them by the LORD an ascent into the higher heaven.True Christian Religion, 832.
The Revival of Learning.
IT has been thought by many that the Revival of Letters is to be traced directly and solely to the fugitive Greeks who fled from Constantinople before and after its capture, A.D. 1453, by the Mohammedans, carrying with them the precious burden of Grecian manuscripts and Grecian learning. This important factor must indeed not be underrated, but it was not the only one, for we should not forget that after all it was a general progress under the Divine Providence of the LORD that led to the Revival of Learning as well as to the Reformation. Both these great events were but necessary steps of preparation for the reception of the spiritual truths of the New Jerusalem; for though these truths as now given by the mercy of the LORD are adapted to all classes and to all planes of human life, still they need for their interior reception as well as for their effectual promulgation a certain development and cultivation of the intellectual faculties, and also a general knowledge of the letter of the Word. That this is necessary for the reception of the New Church we may see from the following:
That the science of correspondences, through which the spiritual sense or the Word is given, was not made known after those times [those of the Jewish era] was because the Christians in the primitive Church were extremely simple-minded, so that it could not be discovered to them; for if it had been discovered to them, it would have been of no use to them, nor would it have been understood. After their time there arose a darkness over all the Christian World; first by the heresies of many spread about, and soon afterward by the decisions and decrees of the Nicene Council concerning three Divine Persons from eternity, and concerning the person of Christ, as the Son of Mary and not as the Son of JEHOVAH GOD. Thence originated the present faith of justification, in which three Gods are approached in their order; on which faith all and everything of the Church at this day depends, as the members of the body on their head;
and because they applied all the things of the Word to confirm this erroneous faith, the spiritual sense could not be disclosed; for if it had been, they would have applied to it also that sense and thereby would have profaned the very holiness of the Word, and thus they would have entirely closed up heaven against themselves and removed the LORD from the Church. The reason why the science of correspondences, by which the spiritual sense of the Word is given, has been at this time revealed is, because now the Divine Truths of the Church come forth into the light, and these are the things of which the spiritual things of the Word consists; and while these are in man, the sense of the letter of the Word cannot be perverted.T. C. R. 206, 207. See also S. S 24, 25.
From this it is evident that, while there are many reasons why spiritual truth was not before this revealed, the intellectual state of mankind is one of the factors to be considered in its reception, and when the LORD prepared the way for the descent of the New Jerusalem, the preparation of the intellect of mankind was one of the important conditions. But since it was of the Divine Providence, this preparation was not dependent on any one act or catastrophe of history, but there was a universal movement and progress throughout all Christendom, for the Divine operations are never circumscribed and limited, but ever general and universal. Thus also in this case we see that the fall of Constantinople (A.D. 1453) coincides most remarkably with the first printing of the Latin Bible (1456), and was speedily followed by the discovery of a new continent, on which the new life could develop in greatest freedom.
One of the great factors in the intellectual preparation of Christendom for the new age was the establishment of universities. The foundation for these was indeed laid in the schools connected with the monasteries of the Middle Ages, but the instruction there given was chiefly in the theology of that day and communicated for the most part to those who were to become priests or monks. The beginning of independent institutions of learning was made in Italy, and this was soon followed by France, England, and Germany.
The first university was at Salerno, and its excellence, chiefly in medicine, was in great part owing to the Arabian and Jewish physicians who taught there, and the same holds good of the university of Montpellier in France, which was also distinguished for its instruction in this branch of knowledge. The University of Salerno was founded in A.D. 1075, but its full organization dates from 1150. The University of Paris, so distinguished for its learning, and the model after which many of the other universities were formed, dates from 1109, and it was granted full privileges and immunities in 1200. The incorporation of the University of Bologna, renowned for its jurists, took place in 1158, though its full formation dates later in the century. Some English writers are inclined to ascribe the foundation and endowment of the University of Oxford, England, to Alfred the Great, but evidence only shows the existence of a classical school at that place prior to 1141; according to others, the University was not founded until 1180. In Germany, the first university was that of Prague, chartered in 1347. Yet after the first beginning thus made in these countries, there was a steady and rapid advance in the growth and development of these universities and in the foundation of new ones. In A.D. 1500 the universities numbered 14 in Italy, 15 in France, 5 in Great Britain, 14 in Germany, 8 in Spain, 2 in Portugal, and 1 each in Switzerland, the Netherlands, Denmark, Swedes, Poland, and Hungary.
But when we look to the plan of studies pursued in these universities, we see that they could do but little to promote intellectual development. Scholastic philosophy formed the substance of the instruction, which occupied itself chiefly in formulating, demonstrating, and explaining the dogmas of the Church as they were then received, with the aid of the teachings of Aristotle and Plato as handed down by Boethius, and with the aid of the writings of Augustine and other Latin Fathers.
Is the thirteenth century the works of Aristotle became more fully known through Arabic translators and students. The question which more than others occupied the attention of the scholars of that day was, whether the parts exist from the whole or the whole from the parts. Those who viewed universal ideas as properly existing realities were called Realists, and those who held them to be mere abstractions were called Nominalists. Such controversies were maintained with great zeal by the scholiasts, who stretched all questions on the Procrustean bed of Aristotelian categories, and were satisfied with investigating words and their relations, rather than subjects and ideas of thought. Such philosophy no doubt Swedenborg had in mind when he wrote:
As to philosophy, every part of it has hitherto served only to blind minds, and has thus shut the way to the contemplation of interior and also of universal things; for it consists in terms only and in disputes concerning them; besides this, rational philosophy so contracts others, that their mind cleaves only to particulars, and thus to the dust; besides which it not only hedges in the way to interiors, but even blinds and altogether takes away faith, so that in the other life the philosopher who has been much intent on such matters and indulged in them, is stupid and unteachable above others.S. D. 767.
The universities, therefore, while involved in these scholastic subtleties and abstractions, did little if anything to widen the intellectual horizon and to prepare the mind for the reception of interior truths. Their true use was only developed when, is the fourteenth century, through the labors of Petrarch, Boccaccio, and other indefatigable scholars, the ancient Latin manuscripts were eagerly sought for and the study of the Latin classics revived, and in the fifteenth century, through the labors of Barlaam, Leontius Pilatus, Chrysoloras, and others, the Greek language and its long hidden treasures were again made known to the Occident, and when the downfall of Constantinople sent forth Greek teachers and Grecian lore from that ancient city into Western Europe.
From the remains of the intelligence and wisdom of former ages stored up in these works Western Europe awoke to a new intellectual activity, and began to realize the darkness of ignorance in which it had so long rested. New modes of thought and a new intellectual life began to move the intellect of Christendom so long held blindfolded by a despotic ecclesiasticism.
A just estimate of this Revival of Learning cannot be formed without giving due weight to the introduction to the Occident of the remains of truth from the Ancient Church as gathered by the Greek philosophers from the priests in Egypt, Syria, and Babylon, and carefully recorded by the classic writers of Greece and Rome, and by the later Arabic writers; as also the remains of truth preserved from the Primitive Christian Church in the writings of the Greek Fathers. But yet above all this in importance was the bringing of the Word in the letter to the attention of the
learned laity through the printing of the Latin Vulgate in A.D. 1456, other editions following in quick succession, then also the more general dissemination of the Word by the translations into various living languages of Europe executed before and after that time.
This was really the great cause of the mental progress of the period under consideration. It is true indeed that false doctrines perverted even the plainest declarations of the Word; that the worship of three Gods, the Vicarious Atonement of Christ, and many other perversions of the truth were received by the reformers from their Catholic mother Church; it is also true that although the adoration of saints and of the Virgin and the authority of the Pope, were abolished, the abominable doctrine of Faith Alone was added to the inherited load of falsities.
And yet in spite of all this the LORD according to His promise was present in His Word and in His Church even to its full consummation. Only then, as the Writings declare, the LORD left the Old Church to come to the New. (A. R. 750; T. C. R., 761.) Though the conjunction of the LORD with a Church immersed in falsities and evils is a remote one, yet there is an influx from the LORD and a connection of the heavens with those who are in the possession of the Word, not attainable by those who are without it, and severed only by Consummation and Judgment and by the institution of a new Church. Therefore the Protestant countries on becoming acquainted with the letter of the Word came for the time being into a closer connection with the Heavens and the LORD; it was chiefly owing to this cause that Italy, France, and other Catholic countries which before the Reformation had been nobly leading the van of civilization and progress, after the Reformation fell behind the Protestant countries. That Italy and France especially took the lead before the Reformation may appear from this, that in 1500 the universities in Italy numbered 14, in France 15, while Spain and 8 and Portugal 2, making together 39, while the countries which afterwards, in part at least, became Protestant were behind as well in the number as in the equipment of their great schools, which in Germany numbered 14, in Great Britain 5, in Switzerland, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Sweden each 1, together only 23. Still more clearly does this appear from an estimate of the number of books printed in the various countries between the years 1470 and 1500. During this period Venice, Milan, Bologna, Rome, and Paris, five lending cities in Italy and France, are credited with 5434 books; Cologne, Leipsic, Nuremberg, Ble, Strasburg, Augsburg, Louvain, Mentz, and Deveater, nine leading Cities in Germany, Switzerland, and the Netherlands, with 2754, and London, Oxford, and St. Albans, three English cities, with 141, together 2925 books.
(See Drapers Intellectual Development of Europe, p. 427.) Since the Reformation, however, the intellectual centre of gravity has been transferred to Protestantism, and from a Protestant country was selected the man who should serve as the instrument of the Second Advent of the LORD.
The revival of classic lore, it is further to be noted, was nearly coeval with the formation of the modern languages and of the national literatures of Europe. From the twelfth century we may date the beginning of a separate French language, and the rise of national French poetry under the troubadours and trouveres. The beginning of the thirteenth century is the date generally assigned to the origin of the English language, although the first great English poet, Chaucer, did not flourish until the middle of the fourteenth century. The Italian language arose about the beginning of the thirteenth century, and had in Dante its first great poet in the beginning of the fourteenth century. Into the same period of time falls the distinct formation of the Spanish and Portuguese languages, though the development of their literature was somewhat more tardy. The German is indeed a far more ancient language than the aforementioned, as there are fragments in various dialects from the eighth century, if the Gothic translation of the Bible by Ulfilas in the fourth century be not classed as belonging to German literature. The cultivation of the German language was pursued with some interruptions in the monastic schools founded by Charlemagne; the Minnesingers of the twelfth and the thirteenth century gave to it a poetic development of which the Nibelungenlied, as epic poem, of the thirteenth century is the most notable example. Still it is to the translation of the Bible by Luther and to the writers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries that the German language is indebted for its present form.
Up to that time the Latin language had been in Germany as in the rest of Europe the chief vehicle not only for the communication of learning, but in greet part even for common epistolary intercourse. With those who asked to learning and culture this continued, even though still serving as the universal language of the learned world, it ceased to be that of friendly and familiar conversation among the learned or of the higher forms of literature.
The revival of Latin and Greek classical learning was not without its effect also upon the fine arts. Music and architecture had not indeed much to gain, for this revival brought little if anything in these fields that had not been known before. But Sculpture was enriched by the finding of some noble antiques and by the awakening of a love for the productions of a nobler art. The works of Michael Angelo and his compeers both in architecture and sculpture give abundant evidence that the spirit of the sublime and the beautiful had received a revival on the earth. But it was in Painting that the study of the ancients was most fruitful, and the first half of the sixteenth century was especially distinguished for a galaxy of bright stars, such as the world is not likely soon again to see grouped together within so brief a space of time. We need but to name Leonardo da Vinci, Michael Angelo, Rafael, Correggio, Titian, and their many gifted companions.
Wherever we turn our eyes in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries we see a quickening of life and intellectual activity. But we must be careful not to confound the leaders of the Revival of Letters with the leaders in the Reformation. The Revival of Letters was general, prevailing as well in the countries which took part in the Reformation as in those which remained attached to the Catholic faith;
and even in Protestant countries there were many leaders is the Revival of Letters who did not espouse the cause of Reformation. Prominent examples of these are the learned Erasmus and Reuchlin; though it is also true that these renowned champions of learning did not espouse with any zeal the cause of papal supremacy, leaving this to lesser and more venial lights, such as Pfefferkorn, Hochstraten, Gratius, Von Eck, and others.
The progress of the Revival of Letters in Italy differed in many respects from the course which it took in Germany. In Italy the dignitaries of the Church and even the ropes were among the chief patrons of learning, in Germany the Roman clergy occupied an attitude of indifference and even of hostility to the progress of letters. It may be at this day difficult to ascertain how much the fact that the clergy of Rome were in Germany a foreign power standing under the immediate control of the Pope of Rome, had to do with the opposition not only of the common people but also of the learned to the monks and priests. In Italy, Spain, and France, or the Latin countries, the progressive enlightenment of the people did not bring with it a like opposition to the clergy, and we are left somewhat in doubt as to how much of this opposition of people and clergy in Germany is to be ascribed to antipathy to Roman domination and how much to a more living moral and religious conscience, outraged by the vices and arrogance of Rome. There is no doubt that all Germany before the Reformation was alive with opposition to the clerical domination of Rome, and was only waiting for an occasion to break out into open conflict. The Catholic clergy in Germany seem to have recognized at a more early date the danger to their supremacy lurking in the prevalence of learning, and especially in the study of the Word, and out of this grew their zealous opposition to the new light.
Before the Revival of Letters, there had been but one source and director of learning, indeed, but one science, that of scholastic theology; and but one language had prevailed among the cultivated classes of Europe from the Arctic Ocean to the Mediterranean, from Russia in the east to the Atlantic on the west. The whole earth was of one lip and of one speech and Babylon ruled over it all. But with the Revival of Letters this unity was broken, many languages and new doctrines arose among men. The LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the faces of all the earth: and they left off to build the city. Instead of the study of theology alone, the study of the natural sciences and philosophy, the study of the classic writers of Greece and Rome, the study of oriental and modern languages, of medicine and of law were laying broad the foundations for the reception of a more universal and full revelation of Divine Truth in the New Jerusalem, which is to he the Crown of all Churches and is to remain forever. Unity Proceeding from submission to the traditional authority of men, whereby the human mind is enslaved and fettered, was broken by the conflicts of the Revival of Letters which introduced the Reformation. Individual and national liberty, frequently indeed deteriorating into license, and an endless division of sects, followed as the transition stage, from which in the New Church there is to emerge a new unity springing from the harmony of varieties, formed and developed by the reception of the LORD Himself at His Second Coming. Drawing from the boundless infinitude of good and truth now revealed, there is in the submission of the proprium to the LORD not bondage but heavenly freedom itself, not uniformity but the highest and most perfect development of human individuality in endless variety.
The Reformation, as well as the whole of modern history in all their particulars, must be viewed and judged by the rational man of the New Church according as they forward or retard the reception of the Divine Good and Truth, and thus the great end of establishing on earth the Kingdom of the LORD and thus universal happiness and peace.
The article on the Conflict of the Ages has grown, under our hands, beyond the dimensions at first contemplated. It was thought best to enter more fully into the rise and progress of the Christian Church, the more so since there has not yet appeared any presentation of the history of this Church in the light of the New Church. We have throughout aimed at the utmost condensation compatible with a presentation particular and vivid enough to make a lasting impression on the mind.
The Third Volume will contain the Conflicts in the Reformation and in the Disintegration of the Protestant Church into its numerous Sects, and lastly, the Conflict in the New Church, setting forth the infestations through which it has passed and those through which it is now passing. In this crowning part of our work it will be our endeavor to throw the light of past history and experience on the present, that the Church may thereby be guided and strengthened in its present conflicts. The Divine Order, revealed in the past, is the same Order that rules now, for the Divine Truth is ever the same, proceeding as it does from the same unchanging, all-embracing Love.
NOTES AND REVIEWS.
The English Conference.
OUR notice of the seventy-fifth session of the General Conference of the New Church in England, held in august of last year, comes late, and shall not be long. The delay in the publication of this number of our SERIAL will account for the lateness of our notice of the meeting of Conference, and the fact that the various publications of the Church have spread before their readers pretty full information concerning the doings of Conference, readers it unnecessary for us to consider the meeting in detail.
On August 7, for the first time since its formation, the General Conference met in Scotland, in the city of Glasgow. But neither this, nor the fact that the number of delegates was smaller than at several previous sessions, seems to have altered the composition of the Conference, which far more truly represents the whole body of the Church in England than the composition of our General Convention represents the whole Church in this country. With us, locality has much to do with the character of our general meetings, so much indeed, that although we frequently speak of the representation of the whole Church in the Convention, we are well aware that our speeches relate more to the theory, and to our desire to see it carried out, than to real facts. Owing to the composition of the meeting, as well as to the subjects brought under discussion, this session of Conference, although smaller in the number of its attending members than previous meetings, showed no diminution of interest and activity in its work. We may note some matters of general interest that engaged the attention of Conference. And the first of these is the preparation for the coming Centenary of the commencement of public meetings in the Church. The Committee to which this matter had been referred, in their report speak of the events in 1783, when Robert Hindmarsh and two or three other individuals first met together as New Churchmen, as not appearing to be of such marked importance as to deserve extraordinary efforts in the way of celebration. We cannot agree with the Committee or the Conference in the view they take of the importance of the events referred to.
As to the mode of their celebration we have nothing to say. To us they seem to have been of very great importance; for in them we behold the beginning of the appearance of the New Church in an external form. The Doctrine of Divine Truth had been given by the LORD to men; and the men who had received this Doctrine, which is the internal of the Church, then and there began to bring it forth as an external of the Church, and from this beginning has come the Church in England, in this and in other countries, as it now appears in such outward and organized form as it has had light and life enough to assume. Of course this is very little and very feeble in any comparison with the Divine Revelation from which it has sprung; but, as the first visible outcome of the completion of that Revelation, and as the first public avowal of that Revelation, and of an acknowledgment of the LORD in His Second Coming, in which as a germ in the matrix, lay hidden the whole future of the external manifestation of the Church, which is to be the Crown of all Churches, and which is to endure forever, it seems to us that the importance of these events cannot be overestimated. We are not thinking of the hundred years that have passed since the occurrence of those events, for they are as nothing to the ages of ages yet to come; nor do we take any very especial interest in centenaries in general, but to us it appears that the natural fact of this beginning of an external New Church, as the ultimate of the spiritual fact of the LORDS Coming to establish His New Church, ought to be of paramount interest to all the members of the New Church on earth. Most undoubtedly the heavens were profoundly moved when Robert Hindmarsh and his associates met together to tell each other of what the LORD had done for them, and to congratulate each other that the tabernacle of God is about to be set up with men, who will dwell with them, and cause them to be His people, while He himself shall be acknowledged and worshiped as their only LORD and God. (Rise and Progress of the New Jerusalem Church, p. 16.) This one event, taking place in an inn, in the city of London, was of more importance to England and to the world than all the other events of that day, which are recorded in history as of momentous interest to humanity. It was an outward sign of the LORDS Coming and Presence to save the human race; a fact the spiritual record of which is eternal in the heavens. And, taking this view of the subject, we cannot see why our friends of the Conference should have been willing to narrow down the question of the Presidency of their Centennial Session to matters which appear to us merely local and personal. It was appropriate to appoint the meeting to be held in the House of Worship of the Society first formed in England, and it would have been most appropriate to avoid every appearance of national limitations in the choice of the President of that meeting, which is to celebrate the external beginning of the Crown of all Churches, which the LORD is establishing on the earth by the instrumentality of a man born in a land foreign to Great Britain.
Such things should not find a place in the New Church, and we cannot but express regret and surprise that they should have occurred in a country which is noted for its generous hospitality to all foreigners of merit, and the throne of which has been occupied by foreign-born monarchs. And, having taken upon ourselves to remark on this subject, we may add that in our view of ecclesiastical affairs, there seems to be a strange inconsistency in the act of elevating one who is supposed to be unfitted for the presidency of a Church meeting to the permanent occupancy of the highest ministerial office of the Church.
We observe that the Conference after laboring with the Creed for some years, has been unable to reach a satisfactory conclusion. We sympathize heartily with those of our friends in the Conference who think that enough has been done to show that the time has not arrived for undertaking the work of formulating a new creed, or, we may add, for adding another to the creeds now in use, and to the concise statements of Doctrine found in the Writings. It is a. very difficult thing, perhaps it is not a possible thing, for any body of men to produce a condensed statement of the belief of the New Church that shall be generally acceptable. Of course the attempt to produce such a work cannot but be very useful to those who seriously engage in it; and in this view of the case we should be glad to see large, permanent Committees on the Creed appointed, both in the Conference and in the General Convention of the Church in this country.
We note with pleasure the Report and Resolution on the New Church Orphanage, and hope that the recommendation of the Conference, that regular collections be made throughout the Church for the support of this object, will lend to an extension of the work, and to its establishment as a permanent use, recognized and sustained by all the members of the Church.
With no less pleasure do we refer to the appointment of a competent committee to consider the desirability of a revision of the text and translation of the New Testament in relation to the Writings of the New Church. From this Committee, together with the Committee on the translation of the Writings, appointed by the Swedenborg Society, we may expect good work, and a great improvement in the text of our English translations of the Writings and of the Word in the Writings.
So far as we are able to judge from the unusually full account in the Morning Light of the evening meetings held during the Session of Conference, we think that they must have been greatly enjoyed by those who could attend them; and that they must have been as useful as enjoyable. The subjects as presented by the various speakers appear to have been carefully prepared, and though necessarily brief, are to be regarded more in the light of studies than of speeches on particular topics.
And, in concluding our brief notice of the late session of the Conference, we may be pardoned for expressing our belief, that useful and necessary as were the business meetings of the body, they cannot be supposed to come into comparison, for far-reaching use and solid effect, with these evening gatherings and their well-prepared presentations of the Truth, on topics of general and permanent spiritual interest to all men of the Church.
The New-Church Review.
THE NEW-CHURCH REVIEW. Published Quarterly. Chicago, Fairbanks, Palmer & Co.
THREE numbers of this quarterly publication are before us. We were prepared to welcome the appearance of The New-Church Review, as the representative of a distinct phase of thought in the Church, and as a tangible evidence of the greater freedom that is beginning to prevail among its members. And now we are glad that our welcome can be extended to so scholarly, well-conducted, and well-clad a co-laborer in the field of New Church literature. We cordially hope that the New-Church Review may meet with abundant success, and may more than fulfill the promise of use, which the three numbers before us bear on their face, and utter by their contents. The evidence of intellectual growth in the Church, afforded by the number of its periodical publications, and even by a certain demand for more, is very cheering, and full of hope. There is study of the Doctrines, there is thought from such study, and the will and the freedom of utterance are not wanting. The time was, in the history of the New Church, a time not so far removed as to be lost to the memory of many now living, when much effort was directed to the suppression of divergent thought and differing judgment in respect to the things of the order and doctrine of the Church. There seemed to be a disposition to cultivate peace, external peace, at the expense of freedom, and to avoid the collisions of opposing views, as hindrances to progress. But we have been learning better things. Peace and harmony are not to be attained by a repression of thought, nor by a sealing of the lips, but by a grateful and orderly use of the larger freedom that has come to the man of the Church in consequence of the Last Judgment and the Second Advent of the LORD. And together with the perception of this truth,--possibly as opening the way for its perception,--internal variations in the Church have slowly been assuming the form of external varieties.
Reasonable men, noting these changes, and reflecting on their probable causes, have become convinced of the duty, as well as the necessity, of acknowledging the actual existence of such varieties of form in the Church, and of admitting the right and order of their existence. We are taught in the Doctrines that such varieties exist in the heavens; that they have existed in the Ancient Churches, and that they will exist in the New Church. In proportion as this teaching is seen, and the fact to which it points is acknowledged, as, to a certain extent, is the case at the present time, in that proportion do the men of the Church come more openly into freedom, and into the conviction that any violence done to the neighbors spiritual liberty is contrary to Divine Order. Such a state of thought may indeed advance slowly, since old ideas are hard to dislodge, and old habits are tenacious, in the degree of their unreason; but, inasmuch as a change has actually come, we may with all confidence expect a fuller light in the growing liberty of the Church, as it progresses in the true order of harmony in variety.
Holding this view of the present situation of things in the New Church in this country, we do not believe that we are outrunning probabilities, when we express the conviction that we are not likely to witness a renewal of the attempt of a part of the Church to govern the whole body, or even to speak for the whole body. Among the signs of this change we reckon the practical abandonment of the purpose to establish a weekly paper, to be managed and controlled by a few as the organ of the general body of the Church. The failure of the plan lay hidden in its conception, and might have been foreseen, had any true ideas concerning the real unity of the New Church prevailed at the time when the New Jerusalem Messenger was adopted by the General Convention. In view of the actual composition of this body, one of two things was inevitable. As the organ of the general body, such a paper either would become a receptacle for all sorts of opinions, and a vehicle of all sorts of notions, with but a nominal and very general editorial control; or, it would fall entirely into the hands of the few who had its practical management, and thus would imperceptibly glide into partisan grooves, and become, in fact, the organ of a party in the Church. The former result has at times appeared, the latter has of late come to pass. This, we have said, was inevitable, because in a body constituted like the Convention, of diverse elements, it was not possible for the Editor of the Paper to meet the views of all who claimed, and not without some show of justice claimed, a place for their opinions in the organ of the whole body. It is not strange, therefore, but quite natural, that the editorial management of the Messenger has been gradually appropriated by the few who have taken as intelligent, practical, end perhaps official interest in its policy and prosperity.
And we hope soon to see this paper relieved from its false position; and appear, not as the Organ of the General Convention, but, as the Organ of the Board of Publication.
Every true use is in the human form; and each human form has a certain individuality. The more distinct and pronounced the individuality of a use, the more distinct in appearance and operation is the human form of such a use. Distinctiveness and individuality imply the pervading presence and power of principle and purpose, and the determination of these into ultimate forms. The principle of a true use is a good; its purpose is a. good, and its ultimate is a good in form. In the heavens all good uses are from the LORD who is Divine Good, and are determined into angelic forms greater and less, perfectly distinct the one from the other, as a man is distinct from his fellow-man. Such a distinctiveness, even to the least particular of form and appearance, conveys to angelic minds no suggestion of antagonism or opposition; on the contrary, it is to them a very evidence of heavenly harmony and brotherhood; because in its perfection lies the perfection of heavenly conjunction and union. An application of this truth to the various Church publications, which are uses in the human form, will express the ground of our conviction that the usefulness of these publications will be proportionate to the distinctiveness of their form, and the individuality of their conduct, provided these conditions proceed from a clear recognition of the distinct character of the New Church, and a rational reception of the Divine Revelation made for the establishment of the New Church. We cannot do general things, but we can do particular things under general principles, and by the application of laws derived from general laws. The general use of publications issuing from the New Church is an obvious one. The LORD has Divinely illustrated this use in the Writings written by Him through Swedenborg, and published in books. It is the work of the printer and publisher of the Church to continue and extend the operation of this most general use of New Church publication, whilst periodicals and books have their sphere of operation in all the particular forms of the general use. They are to take from the infinite treasury of Divine Truth provided by the LORD the things of doctrine in particular, and to explain and illustrate them so that they may be still further prepared for reception and application to life. And, in the performance of this duty, if it be freely and rationally entered into, will be found the fullest scope for the development of that harmony in variety of this great use, of which we have spoken. The New Church is instituted among men by Doctrine Divinely revealed out of the Word, and accommodated to their understandings. This Doctrine can be received, and will be received by all who are in any states of preparation for its reception. But these states differ as men differ.
Some are prepared by genius, by education, by mental form and habit, or by some other formative condition of human existence, to seek and to receive gladly one doctrine, and others another doctrine, and this with endless variety. By means of the one and the other there is provided a door of entrance for still other doctrines of the Church, and for their reception by the mind according to its affirmative quality, as well as according to the nature and quantity of its scientific and cognitional preparation to entertain the holy things so introduced. And, since human minds, from their very nature, and under spiritual influx, will unconsciously group themselves according to intellectual and voluntary similitudes, there must arise from these groupings among us differing spheres and phases of thought concerning doctrine and its applications. All of these, as they appear, should be recognized and respected for the sake of human freedom and rationality; but, they should be regarded with favor and love only in proportion to the purity of their descent from the Divine Truth revealed by the LORD. To this criterion of judgment they must needs be subjected, and, indeed, ever more rigidly as they appear in more distinct forms of utterance and advocacy, and take to themselves shapes in the freer intellectual atmosphere of our day. Some judgments will be formulated according to purely rational considerations; others from conjectures and observations as to practical results and effects, and others again, according to rational and practical views combined. In any case, if truth, and the good or use of truth, be the end in view, all such judgments, which are but careful examinations in the light of Divine Doctrine of the things produced by the human intellect, must enure to the real benefit of the members of the Church. If justice be done,--and justice is use performed according to the truth,--the true man of the Church will view with gladness, rather than with regret and annoyance, any dismemberment of his theories and opinions. Criticism, exercised in this spirit of justice, is never personal, and never contemptuous; neither is it directed against any particular doctrinal leaning or lore; it deals solely with the true or false conception and understanding of a doctrine, and with its light or wrong applications. In the New Church there is a standard of judgment, not of human erection, but of Divine gift and revelation, This standard, from its origin eternally certain and infallible, is the Divine shining of the light from the LORD present in the Word, and from this light alone we can receive light for light in our understandings. A man can take nothing, except it be given from heaven (John iii. 27). And from God out of heaven, this light now descends to men as a Divine Doctrine, which is the LORD Himself speaking to those who are to be of His New Church, and telling them in language accommodated to their understandings, what they need to know, to think and to believe, in order that His will may be done on earth as in heaven.
And His will is all good, which can only be done according to the truth taught in that Doctrine which is the spiritual sense of His Word, and in which He nor appears to teach us plainly of the Father. As New Churchmen, we can know no other law, and can acknowledge no other authorship, and thence no other authority of truth, by which it is possible for us to be released from our natural judgment according to appearances, and to come into a spiritual state of just judgment.
We have spoken of The New-Church Review as representing a distinct phase of thought in the New Church, and we may now add, that whilst it leaves us in no uncertainty as to its purpose of occupying a sort of middle ground between the New Church and outside religious thought and culture, the Review fairly recognizes the position and policy of other publications of the Church, and freely advocates in word and deed the charity of candid criticism. This so fully accords with our judgment, and is so much to our liking, that we have very carefully read the critique of the WORDS, in the second number of the Review. This critique is so fairly put, and is so new in its fairness and kindly tone towards our SERIAL, that we are all the more disposed to accept the strictures on our shortcomings as lessons, by which to profit in the future. And get, in the interest of the truth, and of the fairness of criticism, advocated by the Review, we feel bound to take note of some of its positions.
Of the treatise on the State of the Christian World (see WORDS FOR THE NEW CHURCH, vol. i. p. 77), the Review remarks (p. 148): We meet one of the distinctive positions of the Academy in the here almost continuous, emphatic, and unsparing denunciation of the Christian Church as distinct from the New Jerusalem, even in its visible or organized outline, and in the disparaging outlook for the future of Christian nations here presented.
Having introduced the subject, the Review continues:
The paper like its companions is largely composed of citations from Swedenborg, but it is clear that here the citations are made rather to maintain a position already taken than to find just what position is to be taken in the matter of the relation of the New Church to the Old. We make this criticism not because of the severity, or as some have termed it, the want of charity, of the writers of the WORDS, in handling the existing Churches of Christendom, but because they seem to us to have been only severe, without any of that qualifying or temperate consideration which the Writings always bestow together with their severest censure.
And further along, on p. 149, we have this language:
But most of all are we to beware of the disposition to expose and denounce the evils and falses of Christendom, for the mere purpose of denunciation [the italics are not ours], that is, without a definite aim to accomplish some good by so doing. If the WORDS in this, its description of the state of Christendom, could go straight into the pulpits of our neighbor denominations and utter those terrible anathemas, which, we admit, are straight from the Writings [these italics are ours], honestly and boldly in the face of this our every-day American Society), our fellow-citizens and constant companions and partners in all the ordinary avocations of use and study in this world, we would be far more hopeful of good resulting, and would esteem the charity of the net much higher than is the ease when, in pages entitled WORDS FOR THE NEW CHURCH, and addressed almost exclusively to New-Church readers, these dreary and fatal portraitures of our fellow-men are dwelt upon at such length and with such emphasis.
We have read and re-read this remarkable criticism in order to discover therein we have erred, and at every reading this one thing has become more clear to us, that the New-Church Review is blindly unconscious of the fact that its animadversions are on the Writings of the LORD, from which the description of the state of Christendom has been transferred to the WORDS. If what the reviewer calls denunciations and anathemas, are straight from the Writings, then they are from the Writings, then they are from the LORD, for the Writings are His. As New Churchmen we have no other responsibility in the matter than to receive them as Divine Revelations concerning the state of the Old Church, or of the Christian World, which is the subject of the treatise under consideration. Our reviewer does surely not mean to maintain that these denunciations are made in the Writings for the mere purpose of denunciation, that is, without a definite aim to accomplish some good. And, if our not carrying these denunciations straight into the pulpits of our neighbor denominations affords a just ground for a low estimate of our charity, and for hopelessness as to any good resulting from our act, we shall be glad to have our reviewer show cause why this criticism does not apply in a pre-eminent degree to the Writings of the Church, straight from which we have drawn our terrible anathemas.
It seems to be quite clear to the reviewer, that here [in the treatise on the State of the Christian World] the citations are made rather to maintain a position already taken, than to find just what position is to be taken in the matter of the relation of the New Church to the Old. We were not aware that our treatise was written for the purpose of finding what position we ought to take in the matter of the relation of the New Church to the Old; and so we fail to see any rational ground for the criticism that we have not done what we had not proposed doing. Our purpose was to set forth the teachings of the Divine Revelations of the LORD in respect to the State of the Christian World.
This is so clearly stated in the treatise from the beginning to the end, that we may be pardoned for the intimation that the reviewer brings to our recollection the Rev. Sydney Smiths well-known advice to a young critic, not to read the book he was about to review, lest he should lose his impartiality. But, we have fallen under the censure of The New-Church Review, because we have not treated of a matter which it was not our purpose to consider, because we have not tried to discover what we had already found, and because we have cited the Doctrines in support of a position already taken. Does the Review really mean what it appears to say? It seems to say, that instead of publishing a treatise on a subject we had studied, and in regard to which we were prepared to say some things, we ought to have written and published a treatise in order to find just what position is to be taken in another matter. It seems to say, that a writer is deserving of adverse criticism who sets forth a position already taken, and who maintains his position by citing the sources of his knowledges of the subject, and giving to his work the support of the highest authorities to which he can appeal. Where do we learn any thing really true and worthy of all acceptance, concerning the New Church, concerning the Old Church, and concerning the State of the Christian World, if not in the Writings of the New Church, which contain the LORDS Divine Revelations to us on these very subjects? What would the New-Church Review say to a critique of the sermon of a New Church minister, such as this for example: It is clear that this preacher in his discourse has made his citations from the Word and Writing, rather to maintain a position already taken (in other words, a conviction already formed concerning the truth of the doctrine that he is inculcating), than to find out just what the truth is, and what he ought to say to his hearers?
In respect to the definite aim of doing some good, by a treatise on the State of the Christian World, since what we have said is straight from the Writings, and not our own, we may well be content to think that as our aim has been to tell the truth, and, as human souls are saved by the truth, thee some men may receive a benefit from what we have written. Even the Review virtually admits this when it says (p. 148): It is not safe for a man to ignore his own evils or to refuse to examine himself; neither is it safe for the New Churchman to ignore the direful falsities that exist in the Christian World, or to think that it is more charitable to overlook them as not existing, or to suppose the New Church truth can find entrance wherever these opposing falses exist. No, it is not safe to ignore these things. Neither is it safe for the New Churchman to ignore the existence within himself of many opposing falses, of many sensual fallacies, of very much that is altogether unregenerate, and of the great danger to his spiritual life arising from the seductive appearances of charity and external benevolence in the world around him.
Let him beware how he closes his eyes to the peril that lies in the existence of all these states with him; which states are so many open doors to his life inviting the entrance of infesting and destructive spheres coming from the evils and falses of the consummated Church. Such infesting influences are more powerfully operative within the lines of the professing New Church of this our day than they have ever been before this time. From them, without doubt, comes the threatened wiping out of the distinctive mark of the existence of the New Church in the denial of the distinctive character of the Sacramental sign of initiation into this Church. If this sign, which is Baptism, have precisely the same signification and effect, whether administered by a dead Church or by the living Church, how can it be made to appear that there is any difference between a dead faith and a living faith, or any distinction between a man spiritually dead and a man spiritually living? This effort to introduce the worship of the Old Church into the New Church; to lure the New Church by specious ratiocinations concerning freedom, and charity, into the acceptance of that which is an introduction into the faith in three Gods, as a full equivalent for the introduction into the faith in the One God, the LORD JESUS CHRIST, can come from no other source than from the infesting sphere of the Draconic spirits of the consummated Church, who are inflamed with hatred and breathing vengeance against the woman who has given birth to the male child. And let no one suppose this to be the last, or even the worst of the infestetions flowing from this Draconic sphere; infestations which are so plainly predicted in the Apocalypse, and so certain to come to the New Church On account of her Doctrine. (A. R. 558-560.) And how, we ask, can the men of the New Church on earth be guarded from that conjunction of thought with the thought of such Draconic spirits in the World of Spirits, whereby infestation is effected, except by the very teachings of the Word and its Spiritual Doctrine, nom stigmatized as denunciations, and anathemas, from which alone they can learn and come to see rationally, why the faith of the New Church cannot by any means be together with the faith of the former Church, and that, if they are together, such a collision and conflict will ensue, that every thing of the Church with man will perish? (B. E. 102.) Does the Review believe that the men of the New Church have advanced beyond cite need and use of this Divine teaching? If such be not its belief, what is meant by the following language: If it [the WORDS] cannot utter its invectives where they will be heard to some useful result, it seems hardly necessary to rehearse them at all; or at least other topics would seem to be abundant, which could be pleasing and more edifying to a well-disposed New Churchman than this of the infernal falsities and hopeless depravity of his next-door neighbors (p. 149).
We had always supposed that nothing could be more pleasing to a well-disposed New Churchman than to read what it has pleased the LORD to reveal, and that nothing could be more really edifying to him than to be made well acquainted with the true nature and effect of the infernal falsities homing from the evils of his proprium; just such falsities from evils as have caused the hopeless depravity of his next-door neighbors. How is a man to be spiritually edified, that is, built up, except by coming to know and acknowledge his evils, and shunning them as sins against God?
But, our reviewer, whilst yielding what we claim, namely, that our denunciations of the Old Church are straight from the Writings, would have us carry the olive-branch and the sword together, as the Writings ever do. If there is any force in this suggestion, and if it has any bearing on the line of our argument, these are to be sought in the fact that we have advanced the teachings of the Writings on the subject under consideration, that is, the State of the Christian World, without seeking to weaken the force of these teachings, and to deprive them of their point, by introducing other things from the same source, which may cause the matter to appear to some persons in a light different from that presented in the WORDS. It is true that we have not weakened the force of these teachings, and even had we been so minded, we should not have known how to set about it. We know of no modifications of the doctrine set forth in our SERIAL on the State of the Christian World other than such as will add a tenfold force and point to what has been said. Let any one study closely the prophetical Books of the Word in the light of their internal sense, and he will be satisfied of the moderation of our presentation of the subject. We are aware that many will receive this statement with incredulity, but we simply affirm what we do know, and what others may know if they will search the Scriptures. And so, when we are exhorted to carry the olive-branch and the sword together, it seems to us almost as if we were asked to tamper with the truth, which is straight from the Writings, and which is the LORDS Truth, proceeding from His Divine Good. Every truth of the LORD is both a sword and an olive-branch, proceeding from His Love, filled full of His Love, and bearing His message of Divine Good to all men, as well to the evil as to the good. His Good and His Truth are one; the Divine Sword is also the Divine Olive-Branch. By the LORDS hand the sword is wielded to conquer evils and falses, and after conquest to bring freedom, peace, and joy to man. The work of the sword is to save those who can be saved, in the heavens, and to subdue and keep in order those who cannot be saved; in the hells. The sword is the truth of faith combating, and the olive-branch is the truth of faith after combat, and both proceed from Infinite Good, or Love and Mercy, to perform their Divine uses in the salvation of the human race.
We cannot substitute the one for the other. Our reviewer seeks to do this for us, but we cannot follow him. We cannot close our eyes to the light from the LORD, which teaches us to recognize Infinite Love in all the wrath and vengeance of Sacred Scripture, as in all the direful evils permitted to exist in the human race. And so we cannot with our critic, flee into the warm and tender shelter of a certain Doctrine concerning the LORDS Providence over those who are taught the doctrine of faith alone, which is found in A. E. 233. If we were seeking such a shelter we could only find it in this passage with our eyes closed, and should be precisely where the reviewer actually is, without any shelter from the LORDS Truth, or from what he regards as our denunciatory use of it. And, what is the shelter that he fancies he has found? Only this, that but very few of those who are taught the doctrine of faith alone receive it; and when they hear it taught, they think that a life according to Gods commandments in the Word is thereby meant. And further on, in the Divine Providence, n. 258, he reads, that in all the Churches where that religion [the religion of faith without charity] is received, it is taught that there is no salvation unless a man examines himself, sees his sins, acknowledges them, repents, desists from them, and enters into a new life. Of course these things are true, and are to be well considered. But, do they teach that all those who do not receive the doctrine of faith alone, but think that by what they hear on that subject, a life according to Gods commandments in the Word is meant, do actually live according tot hose commandments? It is said in A. E. 233, that all who are saved are kept by the LORD in this state of thought and faith, and after their departure out of the world are instructed in truths, because they possess the capacity of receiving instruction ; but it is not said that all who do not receive the doctrine of faith alone are saved; but that those among them are saved whose faith and life are from the Word; sec the sentence in A. E. 233, immediately preceding the teaching cited by the Review. The same observations hold good in respect to the instruction in the Divine Providence, n. 258; it is not there taught that those who believe that there is no salvation without a good life, are saved, but that although the religion of faith alone is received, yet the goods of charity, which are good works, are everywhere taught; and that this (teaching) is of the LORDS Providence, lest the common people should thereby (by the religion of faith alone) be seduced. (See the same number near the end.) All who are thus preserved from confirmation in the doctrine of faith separate from charity may be saved, if they will to be saved. But surely, no one will affirm that this providential guarding of the common people from the seductions of a false faith is at the same time a safeguard against all evils, and against the consequences of the prevalence with them of the loves of self and the world.
The LORD guards and protects all His creatures against falsities and evils, and this to the utmost extent compatible with human freedom and rationality, to the end that they may be saved; and yet, no one is saved who does not himself will and do to be saved. We fail to find in the teaching cited by the Review any warrant for the assertion that the remains of vital good animates vast numbers of those Christians, and preserves them as subjects of salvation. Such remains do exist, but that they exist with vast numbers, so as to animate them, is nowhere taught; nor is it anywhere taught that remains of good save man,--but remains of good vivified. It may be well to place in contrast with the inferences of our reviewer the teaching of the Word of the LORD, in Ezekiel xxii., as spiritually opened in the Summary Exposition of the Internal Sense of the Prophets and Psalms. It is this:
Concerning the Church which adulterates the truths and goods of doctrine; that it approaches nearer to the end; that they thereby destroy truths and goods; that they have been guilty of various adulterations of truth and good; that they are destroyed; that falses and evils of every kind are commingled with truths and goods; that the truth of the Word has been adulterated; that its good has also been adulterated; in like manner the rest which, although they are falses and evils, have been made to appear as truths and goods; that not anything is left; that they will perish in hell.
We come now to a short paragraph in the Review before us, which in the general sweep of its putting forth seems to cover so much, and yet so completely fails to cover anything, that we have been undecided whether to reproduce it without comment, or to add a reply as brief as we can make it. The concluding sentence of the paragraph has determined us to adopt the latter course. The Review asks: How then are we to regard these hideous portraitures of a dead religion, that Swedenborg does undoubtedly draw and impute to the present state of Christendom? The reply of the Review to this important and difficult question is as follows:
We will answer this by the same principle in which we find a solution of the other vexed questions of the Academy, that, for instance, of the authority of the Writings. It is, in a word, in the doctrine of use that these difficult questions will find their answers. There was a Divine Use in revealing the fact that the Church is at an end, and that the prevalent doctrine of Christianity is utterly perverted and closed up as a channel of Divine Grace.
Who that believes in the LORD and His Revelation can possibly doubt that there is a Divine Use in whatever the LORD says and does?
And of course, there was a Divine Use in Swedenborgs drawing these hideous portraitures. But a Divine Use is an infinite and eternal use, or good; for every use is a good, and every Divine Use is a Divine Good; and all Divine Good is the very heart and life of the Word, which is Divine Truth. Where then are these hideous portraitures in the Divine form of their Divine Use, if not in the Word, which is the LORD? And who has drawn them thence, and caused them to be written in the books of the Church, if not the LORD? Let the Review search the Scriptures, and it will find that all these things were revealed by the LORD through the Prophets, before the Christian Church came into existence, and again, in the Apocalypse while the Christian Church was yet in its beginnings. This is true beyond all controversy. Now, let us substitute the real truth for the appearance, as expressed in the difficult question Propounded by the Review; it will read thus: How then are we to regard these hideous portraitures of a dead religion, that the LORD has undoubtedly given us in the prophetical books of the Old and New Testament, and that He has undoubtedly drawn therefrom for the use of the New Church through Swedenborg, and imputed to the present state of Christendom? Our reviewer finds a solution of the question as he has put it,--in the doctrine of use. We fully agree with him. Does he agree with us in finding the same solution for the question, as we have put it? Whether or not he accept our formulation of the question, it is Divinely true that the things written by Swedenborg concerning the Christian Church are contained in the literal sense of the prophetical books of the Word, and in view of this undeniable fact, we may well inquire, what sort of justifying unction the Review is prepared to lay to its soul for finding fault with the WORDS, because of its publishing the very teachings of the LORD, revealed in His Word and Doctrine, concerning the State of the Christian World? And not this alone nor chiefly, but another thing of infinitely more consequence than anything that may be done or left undone by the WORDS, how will the Review answer to itself for calling these teachings its [i. e. the WORDS] invectives, when they are the LORDS; and for virtually saying of the LORD, that if He cannot utter his invectives where they will be heard to some useful result, it seems hardly necessary to rehearse them at all?
But, let us pass on to the Reviews application of the doctrine of use in the solution of the question in its reference to us of the New Church. It is this: This was not to enable us to judge of others, for that alone the Searcher of Hearts can do; but to judge of ourselves and know whether or not we are fit candidates for a New Jerusalem, and whether we are of those who can say Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the LORD. (New-Church Review, p. 151.)
When the Searcher of Hearts reveals to men His judgments of the states of those who compose the Christian World in its consummation, and when men implicitly and reverently receive this revelation, and speak of it to their brethren, are they judging others, or are they speaking the words of God, so that others may even of themselves judge what is right? And what is the right judgment that men are to form concerning themselves, first and last? Surely the Review cannot have reflected upon the statement, that men are to judge of themselves and know whether they are fit candidates for a New Jerusalem, etc. (p. 151). The New Jerusalem is the LORDS heaven on earth, and who but the LORD alone can judge of the fitness of any one for the Church and Heaven? (A. R. 495; A. C. 2284; C. L. 523, etc.) The angels know that it is of the Divine Mercy alone that they are in heaven, and that of themselves they are fit candidates only for hell, from which they are withheld by the LORD in every moment of their existence. The application of the teachings of the Word and doctrine concerning the evil states of men is the very reverse of the one suggested by the Review. These teachings are given in order that we may examine ourselves, and know that of ourselves we are nothing but evil, for until we know something of this and acknowledge it, our regeneration is not possible. Let us hear the Doctrine of the Church:
It was shown to me by living experience that a man and a spirit, yea an angel, regarded in himself, that is, as to his entire proprium, is the vilest excrement; and that, if left to himself, he would breathe only hatreds, revenges, cruelties, and the foulest adulteries, etc.... These things are of faith, namely, that a man is nothing but evil, and that all good is from the LORD; wherefore man must not only know these things, but also acknowledge and believe them; if he does not acknowledge and believe them in the life of the body, in the other life they are shown to him to the life.A. C. 987, also 1694.
Have we not here the true application of the doctrine of use to the matter under consideration? The LORD reveals the infernal states of the men of the former Church, in order that we may know what has brought that Church to its consummation, and why He had to come again to establish a New Church; and likewise in order that we may know ourselves, and the evils which rule in and over us, and which we are to shun as sins against God, in order that He may come and make His abode with us in the thing from Himself, in which He can establish the Church anew, and by which He can withhold us from hell, and gift us with salvation. The man who knows himself to be a fit candidate for a New Jerusalem, does not know himself to be in hell. We may know whether we receive and acknowledge the Doctrine of the New Jerusalem, and whether we have a pleasure and delight in the things of the New Jerusalem, and also, whether we are in the effort to do them,
--but our fitness for the New Jerusalem is known to the LORD, and to the LORD alone,--and is certainly with us only in the degree in which from the very heart we know ourselves to be evil and altogether unfit and unworthy for heaven, into which we can come by the Divine Mercy alone. But even as we are penning these words we are moved to think that our reviewer must certainly know and acknowledge the truths we have here presented, and that, probably, he was so enveloped in a sphere of natural charity and pity when he wrote the passage under consideration, as to have his mental vision closed to the plain teachings of the Church concerning the use of all Divine Revelations of the evil and false states of men. We are glad that we can leave this part of his work with the hope that the suggested doubt may be the fact.
In the treatment of the Doctrine of the Second Advent of the LORD, as this Doctrine is presented in WORDS FOR THE NEW CHURCH, The New-Church Review follows the peculiar method of criticism exhibited in dealing with the treatise on the State of the Christian World. It is something like this: What you have said on the subject immediately in hand is true enough, but you have failed in not having treated of another topic. We have called this a peculiar method of criticism, not because it is peculiar to the Review, but because it is a singular sort of judgment, quite frequently resorted to when one feels called upon to express a judgment and is in perplexity as to what the judgment ought to be; or when one does not wish to meet an issue squarely. The method is certainly uncritical, and to many minds very misleading. Uncritical, because avoiding examination of the avowed purpose or object of the work under judgment, and misleading, because by introducing an issue not designed to be met by the work, the thought of the reader is turned away from the line of the argument before him to a consideration of other things more or less foreign to the immediate issue. Let us devote a few moments to the example of this sort of criticism furnished by the Review. The subject of the paper in the WORDS now discussed is the Second Advent of the LORD, considered as His Coming a second time to effect the redemption of mankind; and not His perpetual presence, or His Coming to save those among men who will receive Him, and who will follow Him in the regeneration. The LORDS Coming to effect the liberation of the human race from the overwhelming power of the hells, to restore the heavens to order, and to establish His Church anew is one thing, and the LORDS Coming to save those whom He has redeemed or liberated, and who receive and acknowledge Him, is another thing. By the former, he performs His purely Divine work of Redemption, which no New Churchman ought to confound with the Divine work of Salvation, performed by the LORD with the co-operation of man.
The latter follows upon the former. Salvation is made possible by Redemption,--but Salvation is not Redemption, nor is Redemption Salvation. Now let the reader note this language of the Review:
At the same time that we think the Academy has not said a word too much in enforcing this important doctrine [the Second Advent of the LORD], we feel that it has nevertheless left a part of the same doctrine in undue obscurity, and thus possibly opened the way to some future heresy, which, like all heresies, will owe its origin to a one-sided presentment of a truth (p. 152).
Here it is: The Academy has not said a word too much on an important doctrine, but it has left a part of the same doctrine in undue obscurity,--and has thus provided the possible germ of a future heresy. The fact is, that the teaching of the Academy in this matter is directed against an actually existing mischievous error, if not a heresy, which is presented by the Review before us in a somewhat more than germinal form. The LORD is both Redeemer and Savior, and it is a mischievous error or a heresy, if the word must be used, to confound His Work as Redeemer with His Work as Savior. Our reviewer says: Unquestionably the Coming of the LORD is an event which must have its subjective as well as its objective fulfillment; and again: The essential Advent of the LORD in its practical or moral aspect is His Coming into the heart and life by a mans adoption of the good and truth afforded by means of the exterior Coming or new revelation (p. 152). What does our critic mean by the subjective and objective fulfillment of the Coming of the LORD? Understood in the light of our second excerpt, the objective? fulfillment of the Coming of the LORD would seem to mean His exterior Coming, or a new revelation; and the subjective fulfillment, mans salvation by means of the former. In other words, the LORD became the Redeemer, in order that He might become the Savior of mankind. But His purely Divine work of Redemption was subjective and also objective, and so likewise is the Divine work of Salvation,--subjective and objective. The introduction of these terms does not seem to bring light into the question; since Redemption is a complete work, and Salvation is also a complete work in the regeneration of a man, and both have their internal or spiritual, and their external or natural aspects. But, perhaps, our reviewer has not sufficiently reflected on the teaching that the LORD at His Second Coming did again what He had done at His First Coming; that He effected a Judgment in the World of Spirits, subjugated the Hells, restored the Heavens to order, and established the Church anew on earth by immediate revelation from Himself.
To draw away the mind from this doctrine, by speaking of it as one-sided, only a half-truth, taken for a whole truth, or what is the same, being used to the exclusion of the other half (p. 154), is to do far more than open the may to some future heresy; it is to teach a heresy. The advent of the LORD is both Redemption and Salvation: it is also Revelation, Reformation, and Regeneration, etc.,--and to teach that to limit ones self to a, consideration of the one or the other of these great doctrines is to take a half-truth for a whole truth, etc., this certainly if not a heresy, is at least a very loose may of thinking and of writing. Before men can be saved, they must be redeemed; before they can receive their Savior, they must know their Redeemer, and acknowledge Him in His Coming, so that they may receive what His Coming brings to them. In other words, when the LORD has come to men in His own way of accommodation to their states, and when they know Him, and receive Him in this may, then can He enter into their mind and life, so, as to effect a conjunction with them, but not before. A truth is a Divine Truth in the mind of a man, and to the mind of man when in that mind it is connected with and derived from the LORD. If so be, thee, that it can be established that the Second Coming of the LORD is at this day so immediate revelation of Divine Truth from Him, as is expressly taught in Heaven and Hell, n. 1, will not this as a cause or means, as the only cause or means, form with the man who honestly receives it a state of mind to which there may be a spiritual or internal Coming of the LORD? When the man in whom this mental preparation exists, hears or reads the doctrine in which the LORDS Coming is clearly presented, will he not be disposed to heed as well as to hear that doctrine as a teachings from the LORD to him? Now, whilst the Review appears to grant all this, it nevertheless sees a danger in the way,lest men may deceive themselves in thinking that they receive the LORD in His Coming when they merely accept these books [the books of the New Church] as His Revelation, and treat them as so many scientifics or things of the memory only, without apprehending them in the life. (p. 163.) Assuredly there is this danger; but, as is so often shown in these very Revelations, the same danger exists in respect to the Divine Word in the Letter, as well as in respect to the Divine Word in the Spirit, and yet, we have never heard it urged as an objection to the doctrine that the Sacred Scriptures contain the Word in which the LORD reveals Himself and comes to men, that there is danger lest men may deceive themselves in thinking that they receive the LORD in His Coming when they merely accept these books [of the Word] as His revelation, and treat them as so many scientifics of things of the memory only, without apprehending them in the life. The danger truly does exist, and not only this danger, but many other dangers arising from the perverse and perverted states of men. And one of these dangers is well illustrated by the Reviews mode of treating the various subjects selected from the WORDS for criticism.
This one danger arises from the natural unwillingness of men to face a direct issue, or, after having admitted the existence of an issue, to meet its logical consequences. The doctrine of authority in the New Church, or of the infallibility of the Writings, is contained in and flows immediately from the doctrine of the Second Advent of the LORD. We have made an issue on this doctrine, as on the doctrine concerning the State of the Christian World. The Review, in its unwillingness to meet these issues, in the one case, seeks to weaken the force of our position, which it admits to be straight from the Writings; in other words, it seeks to weaken the force of the teaching of the LORD by suggesting a Divine Use of the doctrine, which diverts the mind from the Divine Use revealed by the doctrine itself. The doctrine of the Word in the Prophets and in the Apocalypse, concerning the State of the Old Church, is revealed in order thee that state may be known in its causes and in its effects, which exist in the whole Christian World, and also in ourselves, to the end that we may come out of the Old Church, and be guarded against its after-infestations; and not, in order that we may know whether or not we are fit candidates for a New Jerusalem (p. 152). And when required to meet the other issue, the Review grants the importance of the doctrine of the Second Advent, but immediately introduces the matter of its subjective and objective fulfillment. That this is an incorrect presentment of the works of Redemption and Salvation involved in the Advent of the LORD may be evident from these summary teachings in the Brief Continuation to the Coronis, xxiii. to xxx.:
The particulars of Redemption, by which alone salvation is effected, which was accomplished by JEHOVAH GOD, who is our LORD JESUS CHRIST: That the First of Redemption was the total subjugation of the hells. That the Second of Redemption was the separation of the evil from the good, and the casting of the evil into hell, and the raising of the good into heaven. And afterwards the arrangement into order of all in hell, and the arrangement into order of all in heaven. and at the same time then instruction concerning the truths will belong to faith, and in the goods of charity. And thus the Establishment of a new Church. That the final and efficient cause of Redemption was the regeneration of man, and thereby his salvation. That since the LORD atone is the Redeemer, He alone is also the Regenerator, and therefore the Savior.
Then follow summaries concerning the First Advent, the establishment of the Christian Church, its heresies, desolation, and affliction, and, from xxxv. to xxxix., these teachings:
Since the LORD foresaw these things, therefore in order that man might be saved, He promised that He would again come into the world, and accomplish Redemption, and thus establish the New Church, which shall be the truly Christian Church.
That the LORD Himself foretold His Second Coming, and that the Apostles frequently prophesied it, and John openly in the Apocalypse. In like manner of the New Church, which is meant by the New Jerusalem in the Apocalypse. That this Second Redemption is effected in a similar manner as the first, which was spoken of above. That the Regeneration and thence the Salvation of the men of the Church, is also its final and efficient cause.
If the reader will carefully consider these teachings, we do not doubt that he will see that the doctrine of the LORDS Second Coming to redeem men must be studied separately from the doctrine of the LORDS Second Advent to save men, in order that a clear idea of the one and of the other may be obtained. And he will also see that the Reviews suggestion as to the danger of dwelling on the one aspect of the doctrine to the exclusion of the other, means really a danger of dwelling on one doctrine to the exclusion of another doctrine, and is quite as applicable to any nod every other doctrine of the Church, and to the letter of the Word itself, as it is to the doctrine of the Second Advent. After such a confounding of the things presented in the WORDS, with others not presented and not intended to be considered, we are not surprised to find the Review altogether astray when it comes to treat of the direct and legitimate outcome of the doctrine of the Second Advent. Speaking of the rather hackneyed topic of authority in the New Church, or the so-called doctrine of infallibility, as pressed by the Academy, it says (p. 154): Perhaps we can best give our own judgment of the matter by saying that we do not find fault so much with
any thing that the writers here under discussion have urged, as with the fact of their urging the point at all as one of theory and not of practice. Our critic does not take the pains to produce any evidence of the fact that we have urged the point as one of theory and not of practice. He asserts this to be the fact, not on the ground of anything contained in our argument, but on the ground of his not being aware that a single practical difficulty or danger has arisen in the history of the New Church doctrine or practice out of the acceptance or the non-acceptance of the idea of infallibility of the Writings of Swedenborg as sources of Doctrine. Suppose this were historically true, how would it prove that we were urging the point in question as one of theory and not of practice? From what follows upon this very singular mode of establishing an asserted fact, we conclude that the writer means to say, that the infallibility of the Writings of Swedenborg is practically acknowledged by New Churchmen, and that it is useless, or worse than useless, to present it as a doctrine to be rationally seen and acknowledged.
If this is what he
means, we shall not at present attempt to disturb the complacency with which he seems to view the alleged practice of the Church in acting according to an idea not understood, nor rationally accepted as the truth of the LORD, but shall simply remark that he is widely astray in respect to the practical difficulties and dangers in the History of the New Church, etc. As we hope to be able to show in a future number of the WORDS, many if not most of the conflicts and disagreements in the Church have in past times arisen from a practical divergence on the issue indicated, even whilst it may be the fact that the decisions or conduct of the Church have not diverged on the idea of infallibility of the Writings as an issue until within late years. Indeed, if there be one fact underlying the historical movement of the Church more clear than another, it is that the conflicts in the decisions and conduct of the Church, originating in antagonism of view on the subject of this doctrine, have been the very cause to which it owes its prominence at the present day. The practice of the Church has forced the doctrine to the font as a theory, or as a question of Divine Truth. And the very practical point in it all is whether it is a Divine Truth; and if it is, whether a clear, rational conviction of this truth is not of supreme import in the determination of the Churchs action. To speak of the discussion of infallibility as something purely theoretical or abstract (New-Church Review, p. 154, is as much as to say that the question whether the truths of the Writings for the New Church are the LORDS Truths or Swedenborgs truths, in other words, whether they are Divine or human is a merely abstract or theoretical question, of no practical force or value. These things may rest in such a form in the mind of our reviewer; the true doctrine of the LORDS Second Advent may be to him nothing more than a theory or an abstraction. We, for our part, are accustomed to look upon all the teachings of the Church as intensely practical, as the Doctrines of life given by the LORD for the salvation of men at this day; and it is in this sense that the doctrine of the infallibility of the Writings is discussed by us. We think that New Churchmen ought to have a rational conception of the true nature of the Revelations contained in the books provided for the use of the New Church. Some men may be content to pass through life without knowing, or seeking to know, a reason for the faith that is in them; but of such there ought to be few in that Church which the LORD is now establishing by His appearing in the Word, and by His opening the Word to the understandings of men. But that the reviewer is not willing to be reckoned in this class of persons, in spite of his regarding the discussion of the idea of infallibility as theoretical and not practical, he presently makes evident enough. After admitting that the doctrine of infallibility has a strong presumption in its favor, he suddenly casts off the robe of the judge, and, seizing the warriors sword, plunges into the very thick of the fight, in order to show how this doctrine may be carried so far as to render the Writings themselves infallibly contradictory.
This charge looks very formidable, but we have tried in vain to discover hem, either theoretically or practically, an infallible teaching can become infallibly contradictory We admit the contradictoriness of the thing as it stands, but confess that an infallible contradictoriness doth greatly puzzle our understanding. But one thing certainly we do learn from the charge. We learn what is the real attitude of The New-Church Review towards the doctrine of infallibility. In the estimation of the Review this doctrine has a strong presumption in its favor,--that is to say, there are strong reasons for supposing it to be true, but there is not sufficient evidence to establish in the mind a conviction of its Divine Truth. And so the Review stands on middle or neutral ground, on which doubts and uncertainties are wont to play their distracting games; and this will of course account for the strange idea that a doctrine may be held to be so infallibly true that it becomes infallibly false. We have been accustomed to predicate infallibility only of what is Divine; and how what is Divine do be carried so far as to become Divinely not Divine is a puzzle the solution of which we willingly leave to The New-Church Review. But our critic makes some points in support of his strange position that we must notice. He says (p. 155) that the Writings themselves are made infallibly contradictory, when they are placed on a level with the literal Scriptures as being equally Divine and equally holy with them, because this would contradict the doctrine that the Divine Truth is in the letter of the Word in its fullness, its holiness, and its power. (T. C. R. 214.) We answer from the LORDS own teaching of Swedenborg, whilst he was reading these words in Exodus xxx. 29: And thou shalt sanctify them, and they shall be holy of holies. After an explanation and illustration of the spiritual meaning of these words, we read:
He who is intelligent, may know from these things, that the Word is most holy, and that its literal sense is holy from its internal sense; but that separated from that (sense) it is not holy; for that sense separated from the internal, is like the external of man separated from his internal, which is an image of no life; and it is like the rind of a tree, of a flower, of a fruit, or of a seed, without their interiors; and like a foundation without a house; wherefore, they who lay stress on the letter of the Word alone, and have not doctrine, or do not procure to themselves doctrine from the Word suitable to its internal sense, may be drawn into any heresies whatsoever; thence it is, that the Word is called from such, a Book of Heresies. Doctrine itself from the Word ought altogether to give light before and to lend; the internal sense teaches this doctrine itself, and he who knows this doctrine, has the internal sense of the Word.A. C. 10,276.
And now, since it is from the Spiritual sense that the Word is Divinely inspired, and holy in every syllable (T. C. R. 200), we can see and understand that in the further teaching (T. C. R. 214) That Divine Truth in the sense of the letter of the Word is in its fullness, its holiness, and its power, this is predicated of the Divine Truth of the internal or spiritual sense which is contained within the sense of the letter of the Word. The letter of the Word has no fullness of itself, but from the presence of the Divine Truth in all its proceeding from Divine Good from first to last; the letter of the Word has no holiness of itself but from the indwelling spirit of the Word; and the letter of the Word has no power of itself, but from the operation of the Divine life of the Word, which is in all the internal sense of it. But, this internal sense of the Word is one with the doctrine of the New Jerusalem now revealed by the LORD out of the Word, by an immediate revelation which is His Second Advent in the World. A revelation immediate from the LORD is a Divine Revelation, and a Divine Revelation is infallible. And this immediate, Divine, and infallible Revelation is contained in the books written by the LORD through Swedenborg. This is the doctrine of infallibility, simply stated, which gives the entire authorship of the Writing to the LORD, and leaves to Swedenborg the instrumental service of bringing to men what the LORD has given and sent to them by him. And in this Divine authorship of the Writing rests their Divine authority.
Is it not about time that New Churchmen should cease from efforts such as we are considering, to separate the external of the Word from that doctrine in which its internal appears, nay, in which the LORD appears, who is the very internal and inmost of the Word? There is in such efforts a strong and by no means agreeable resemblance to that Judaic form of idolatry which was permitted to exist until the period of the consummation of the former Christian Church, for the sake of the preservation of the letter of the Word. But now that the mere semblance of the Jewish Church has come to its final end in the vastation of the Christian Church, the custody of the Word in the letter is transferred to the New Church, in which its sanctity shall be guarded not by those who swear by the gold of the Temple, but by those who swear by the Temple, and by Him that inhabiteth it. (Matt. xxiii. 16, 21.) As it is the internal sense from which the literal sense derives its holiness, so shall the literal sense be preserved inviolable by the deer, rational, and living conception and application of its holy internal sense, which the LORD in His Divine Mercy has given in forms accommodated to human understandings and needs in the revelations contained in the Writings of Swedenborg. Such is the doctrine of the Church, as we read in T. C. R. 207:
That the science of correspondences, by which the spiritual sense is given is at this day revealed, is because now the Divine Truths of the Church are coming into the light, and it is of these that the spiritual sense of the Word consists; and when these are in man, the sense of the letter of the Word cannot be perverted; for the sense of the letter of the Word can be turned hither and thither, but if it be turned to the false, then its internal holiness perishes, and with this its external holiness, but if it be turned to the Truth, then it [that holiness] remains.
The WORDS has affirmed its position on this subject so often and in such various modes, that we cannot otherwise than be amazed that The New-Church Review should seek to make a point against us in a manner so unguarded as to declare, that to allow the saying, that the LORD wrote the Doctrines through Swedenborg to convey the impression that Swedenborg, was inspired in the same manner as were the penmen of the letter of the Word, contradicts the teaching in T. C. R. 779, that since the LORD cannot manifest Himself in person and nevertheless has foretold that He would come and establish a New Church which is the New Jerusalem, it follows that He will do so by means of a man who can not only receive these Doctrines in his understanding, but also publish them by the press. The contradiction is self-evident. We are in full agreement with the reviewer. We have never asserted that Swedenborg was inspired in the same manner as were the penmen of the letter of the Word. The reviewer has undoubtedly read the leading works and articles written to sustain the doctrine of the infallibility of the Writings, and therefore knows full well that we hold Swedenborgs inspiration to have been very different from the inspiration of the penmen of the letter of the Word. The LORD filled him with His Spirit, and he wrote from immediate inspiration from the LORD Himself; whilst the penmen of the letter of the Word, such as the prophets, by whom the word was written, wrote as a spirit from the Divine dictated, for the very words, which they should write, were enunciated into their ears; with them there was truth mediately proceeding from the Divine, that is, through heaven, but not therefore the truth which proceeded immediately from the Divine, for they had not perception what the single things signified in the internal sense. (A. C. 7055.)
And so whilst we stand on common ground with the Review, in respect to the fact of a great difference between the inspiration of Swedenborg and that of the penmen of the letter of the Word, we move in opposite directions when we come to define the nature of the difference and the consequential results of the same. The Review seems to imagine that it is not in the power of the LORD, when He reveals Truth from Himself, to make a human understanding or rationality with all thereto belonging, as perfect a medium for the transmission of Divine and infallible truth as a human sensual, which is to be reached and dictated to by intermediary spirits.
We are curious to know the grounds on which such a notion finds a resting-place. The idea itself seems to indicate a new and strange view of the order of the Divine operations with man, as well as of the order of the operations of human minds.
In order to show that the immediate inspiration of Swedenborg was of a quality to produce results less perfect, and less to be relied upon as Divine and infallible teachings than the inspiration of the penmen of the letter of the Word, the Review reasons after this manner (p. 155):
If Swedenborg received these Doctrines in his understanding, he either gave them to us as he understood them, or in a merely mechanical manner. If his understanding were wholly passive, and he a mere unintellectual penman of the revealed truth, then the Writings were either produced as was the letter of the Word, through the prophets and the evangelists, or else as the only other alternative, the LORD Himself wrote those words, clothing Himself with the personality of Swedenborg in order to do so, which again contradicts the statement quoted above, that the LORD cannot come again in person. If then the Writings are neither the LORDS Coming in person, whether His own or Swedenborgs, nor a mechanical writing from inspiration as was that of the writers of the letter of the Word, then the Doctrines must have been given us through Swedenborgs understanding of them and according to his understanding of them, else why does it follow (sequitur), or why is it necessary that the New Church be established by means of a man who can receive these Doctrines in his understanding?
The writer of this curious specimen of reasoning seems to imagine that inspiration consists solely in a mechanical writing from dictate, such as was that of the prophets. Now, we are distinctly taught in A. C. 9094, that inspiration is not dictation, but influx from the Divine; when it comes from the Divine, this passes through heaven, and there is celestial and spiritual; but when it comes into the world it becomes something mundane, within which those things are; thence it appears, whence is the Divine and where is the Divine in the Word; and what inspiration is. Inspiration is a Divine operation, a coming or proceeding of the Spirit of Truth from the Divine Good, and like all Divine operations it is of degrees, celestial, spiritual, and natural, and finally mundane. The letter of the Word was dictated to natural men by spirits, who were inspired from the LORD, and who spoke from His spirit, and thus, properly speaking, it was not an inspiration of these natural men, but of the spirits, who told them from the LORD what to write. That this was so is emphatically stated in H. H. 254, as well as in other places in the Writings. Now, the same Word, which was given by dictate to men from Divinely inspired spirits, was also given to the angels of the three heavens, by influx into the minds of celestial, spiritual, and natural angels, and by these it was accommodated to the states of the angels of those heavens.
And thence it is that our Word is also the Word of the angels, although presented in different forms, when in adaptation to the states of angels, and when in corresponding adaptation to the states of men on the earth.
If, then, inspiration is influx and not dictation, in the ordinary sense of the latter term, we should be pleased to have The New-Church Review explain how and why it was impossible for the LORD to so elevate the understanding of Swedenborg into the very light of heaven, as by immediate influx to cause him not only to understand the spiritual sense of the Word, which is the Doctrine of the New Church, but also to cause him to write it for the good of all Christians, just as he was given to understand it, and just as the LORD purposed that it should be written? Of course it is true that Swedenborg gave to us the Doctrines as he understood them; this is distinctly taught, and sufficiently evident,--but how does it thence follow that they are not the LORDS Doctrines, formulated for the use of the New Church in a manner as perfectly Divine as when formulated in the letter of the Word by the agency of spirits through natural men on earth? Is Divine Truth accommodated by the LORD to human understandings, any less the Divine Truth than when accommodated by the LORD to the sensual conditions of thought? The question answers itself. The one Revelation was immediate from the LORD to the human instrument by whom it was given to the world; and the other Revelation was mediate through spirits, by whom it was dictated to the men who were to write the books of the Word. Our reviewers alternative is simply preposterous. When it is said in T. C. R. 779, that since the LORD cannot manifest Himself in Person, by this is meant that since He cannot appear in his glorified Human to any man unless the eyes of his spirit be first opened, and this opening cannot be effected in any that are in evils and the falses thence,therefore he will appear in the Word, which is from Him and is thus Himself (T. C. R. 777.) His appearance to Swedenborg, His calling him and preparing him for his mission, His opening to him the Word, His introduction of him into the Spiritual World, and His filling him with His spirit, to teach from Him the Doctrines of the New Church by the Word (T. C. R. 779),all these things do not in any sense, form, or manner involve the LORDS clothing Himself with the personality of Swedenborg in order to produce the Writings of the New Church. (The New-Church Review, p. 155). But they do involve of necessity the LORDS preparation and employment of Swedenborg to be the instrument of the immediate revelation of Divine Truth from Himself out of the Word, which is His Second Advent.
Finally, asks our reviewer in all soberness, is there any truth or any doctrine strictly infallible except that which is not only Divine, but infinite because Divine? And having asked this question, will the reviewer tell us whether he believes fully and without qualification that the truth or doctrine of the New Church is Divine? If he does, how is it possible for him to justify the second clause of his interrogatory; can any other than the Divine mind itself intelligently see or recognize the infallibility of Divine Truth? Does not the reviewer see that the postulate of his interrogatory necessitates the conclusion, that no other than the Divine mind itself can intelligently see or recognize a truth to be Divine? The LORD is Divine Truth itself; can no human or finite mind intelligently see or recognize Him? And the Word, is it impossible for the man of the Church intelligently to see or recognize that it is Divine Truth, and that it is infallible? What source and what basis for a rational faith in the LORD, in His Word, and in His doctrine from the Word is there left to us if this be not so? But, argues our reviewer, we may with all propriety call a truth infallible, and if in so doing we only compel the entire submission of our will to what is to us a Divine Law, its infallibility will doubtless be of great benefit and help to ourselves; but it is not always so with our defining what shall be infallible for another. It is rather difficult to see the application of this to the subject, namely, the infallible nature of the Divine Revelations made by the LORD through Swedenborg. The question is not, are our conceptions of the truths revealed infallible? but, are those truths themselves infallible? Is what we are trying to learn and to understand Divine and infallible truth, or is it only a human and fallible conception and presentation of truth? No one has ever claimed, as far as we know, that his understanding of the doctrine is in every case, or in any case, infallible (p. 156); only this, that Swedenborg received infallible doctrine in his understanding, and gave it to us (p 156),--a print, our reviewer gravely tells us, he is not prepared to dispute; after having led the simple-minded reader to believe that he really means what he says on p. 155,-- If then the Writings are neither the LORDS Coming in person, whether His own or Swedenborgs, nor a mechanical writing from inspiration as was that of the writers of the letter of the Word, then the Doctrines must have been given us through Swedenborgs understanding of them, and according to his understanding of them, else why does it follow [sequitur] or why is it necessary that the New Church be established by means of a man who call receive these Doctrines in his understanding? Of the many doctrines of infallible truth that we should like to commend to the careful study of our friends of The New-Church Review we must content ourselves with citing but two. In A. C. 3712 we are taught:
Divine Doctrine is Divine Truth, and Divine Truth is the whole Word of the LORD; Divine Doctrine itself is the Word in the supreme sense in which it treats solely of the LORD; Divine Doctrine thence is the Word in the internal sense in which it treats of the kingdom of the LORD in the heavens and in the earths; Divine Doctrine is also the Word in the literal sense, in which it treats of those things which are in the world and upon the earths; but because the literal sense contains within itself the internal sense, and this the supreme, and altogether corresponds by representatives and significatives, therefore also doctrine thence is Divine.
And in Arcana Celestia, n. 9280, it is stated:
He (the natural man) knows not that the Word is Divine from the Spiritual Sense, which does not appear in the letter, but still is in the letter, and that this sense is presented in heaven, when man reads it holily, and that in this sense it treats of the LORD and His kingdom. These Divine things are those from which the Word is Divine, and through which sanctity inflows by heaven from the LORD even into the literal sense, and into the letter itself. (See also S. S. 18-25.)
The Brain.
THE BRAIN CONSIDERED ANATOMICALLY, PHYSIOLOGICALLY, AND PHILOSOPHICALLY; by EMANUEL SWEDENBORG; Edited, Translated, and Annotated by R. L. TAFEL, A. M. PH.D. In Four Volumes. Volume I., THE CEREBRUM AND ITS PARTS. Published by James Speirs, London, 1882.
THE LORD is the Divinely perfect man; and since He created the universe from Himself, every object is, as it were, a mirror, reflecting, according to its reception, a more or less complete human image. These reflections ascend by successive degrees, from the crudest mirrorings in the mineral kingdom, to vegetable forms, then to animal, and finally to man, the image and likeness of his Maker.
To see and to comprehend these images is to comprehend the unity of nature, and is to perceive therein the quality and attributes of the human form; and hence to contribute to the conception of a just idea of the Divine Human of the LORD. A just conception of the Divine Human is an essential to true worship and to true conjunction with the LORD.
It is to further this desideratum that the Writings of the Church are so rich in truths concerning the human, and concerning the correspondences between the human spiritual and the human natural.
But in order to clearly understand these truths, it is necessary that the New Churchman should learn something of the structure and functions of the body, as well as something of its relations with the outer world.
For without such knowledges many of the statements in the Writings, having no appropriate, scientific ultimates in the memory, produce only a general, and hence only a vague, impression on the mind.
If, however, the New Churchman consults the literature of the day, be finds but little to satisfy him. Standard works teem with facts, but so adverse to the new revelations are the theories adduced, that he often looks is vain for that which he seeks.
Where should he turn, then, but to the philosophical works of Swedenborg, who, in His preparation for His Divine mission, was led to explore the mysteries of nature, that he might possess knowledges in accord with the mysteries of the spiritual world. Swedenborg studied the universe in all its aspects, in order to discover those occult laws which as he saw are common to both animate and inanimate creation. Having deduced these laws, constructed therewith a gigantic system of philosophy expressing the harmony of things and the proper relation of man to the world about him. Many of the philosophical works of Swedenborg have been published and translated into English, and from these much practical knowledge may be derived. But his theories in reference to the brain and other parts of the nervous system are not fully deducible from their fragmentary presentation in those of his scientific works which have been hitherto printed. We therefore hail with delight the issue of the first volume of those manuscripts on the brain, that for years have remained undisturbed in the library at Stockholm, but that of late, in the Providence of the LORD, have been brought forth from their seclusion and photolithographed, and now translated for the English reader.
The New Churchman may possess himself of this new work, and may derive from it many important scientific truths, by means of which he can see in clearer light the correspondences given us in the Writings.
The volume before us is a handsomely printed book, convenient in size, and contains about eight hundred pages. It is neatly bound, but one cover is sadly marred with a profile which, with upturned eyes and simpering smile, looks lore like a caricature than it does like the genial face of Swedenborg.
Examining the book, we find it full of enjoyable and instructive reading. The preface by Dr. Tafel is excellent. Then follows a list of authorities quoted by author and editor. Next succeeds the table of contents. After a brief introduction, the author proceeds to expound his system of philosophy,--a system so unique that it but repeats itself in every distinct subject handled. As one reads of the motions of the brain, of the functions of its membranes, or of its composition, one might imagine he was reading an extension of the physiology of the Animal Kingdom or of the Economy, or of the teachings of the Principia.
And indeed he is reading of the application of principles that from their universality concern man, as they do the world of which he is a part. And this universal adaptation, varied only by the nature of the subject, is an indisputable proof of the truth of these principles.
Chapter I. treats of the Cerebrum, its Fabric, Motion, and Function in general; Chapter II., of the Motion of the Brain coincident with Respiration; Chapter III., of the Cranium and its Bones; Chapters IV. and V., of the Dura Mater and its Sinuses; Chapter VI., of the Arteries and Veins; Chapter VII., of the Pia Mater; and Chapters VIII. to XV., of the Corpus Callosum, Fornix, Ventricles, Ganglia, and Choroid Plexuses. Six hundred pages.
Then follow Editorial Notes, comprising more than one hundred pages.
The plan adopted by the author was to quote freely from standard writers upon the subject to be considered, and then to proceed to his analyses. The editor has extended the plan by adding numerous excerpts from modern sources. His object in making such an innovation is, as he expresses it in the preface, to show that though Swedenborgs references are old, they are nevertheless perfectly trustworthy. The discoveries of these men, far from consisting of fallacious, vague, and empty speculations, will forever continue to be of practical use to posterity. (Swedenborg in his Economy of the Animal Kingdom. Quoted also by Dr. Tafel in the preface to the work under review.)
It is the fashion to-day to reject the Aristotelian teaching that the body is made of fibres, and to accept instead the notion that all tissues spring from cells. Swedenborg, however, declares that the body is a weaving of fibres, varying from the circumflexions of the most simple fibre to the angularities of the very bones themselves.
The Most Simple Fibre is formed of the purest substances of nature, and is so impressed by the Soul, or by the Deity through the Soul (see Economy, vol, ii, p. 218), that it is the form of forms. By combination and circumflexion it forms nerve-fibres, which latter, extending to the skin, and there in glandules not unlike their cortical beginnings in the brains. From these glandules new fibres proceed, called corporeal, which, together with the nerves and Most Simple Fibre, construct first blood-vessels, then muscles, and finally the remaining tissues and organs. There is, then, nothing in the human organism which is not in essence the Simple Fibre; and as this fibre is the immediate viceregent of the Soul, it represents the Will. Thus is the beautiful truth illustrated, that the Will is the entire man.
The Most Simple Fibre is not of earth, according to Aristotle (see Swedenborgs De Anima, p. 5), but it is of a celestial nature, essence, sad form. Hence it is immortal. It is the natural covering of the Soul. That there is a distinction between natural and material, we can see from Apocalypse Explained, 1131, 1207.
The highest weavings of the Most Simple Fibre are the interiors of the cortical glands, which exist in a threefold form, the external of which constitutes the visible, gray substance of the brains. From these glands proceed fibres, which, inmostly are the fibrill of the Most Simple Fibre, but which externally, by the circumflexion and combination of the fibrill, present themselves as the white or medullated substance of the brains. From the brains descend fibres to all parts of the body, by means of which, as has been already intimated, the various organs are constructed.
When the body is developed it is a sensory organism, responsive to impressions from all planes of nature from without, and to all demands of the Soul from within. As the Will is in its beginnings in the cortical glands and derivatively inmostly in every fibre and every organ, it imparts to each organ its functional activity and its ability to perform its uses. It is use which accounts for what is generally termed affinity. The blood flows in a common stream through its vessels, offering its treasures as it moves along; but as it enters an organ, only such of its ingredients are attracted as are required for the individual needs of the organ. The rest is rejected and permitted to pass on.
There are two brains, a cerebrum and a cerebellum. The former is the seat of voluntary action; the latter, of involuntary. The former controls the ultimate borders of the body, the muscles, skin, and the special senses; the latter, the interior parts, the viscera, blood-vessels, etc. The latter is controlled by nature; that is, it is governed by the LORD through celestial angels, and quietly works for mans sustenance and well-being, never interfering mid his pleasure, but still conscious of his thoughts and intentions, and ever striving to regulate and harmonize the various parts of the human mechanism by distributing nervous fluid uniformly, and by storing up a supply in organs impoverished by an exacting cerebrum. How fibres proceed from these two brains and blend in plexuses and nerve-cords throughout the organism, from the interior of the cerebrum to the very feet, how the cerebellum, watchful of its master, the cerebrum, quietly sends fibrill into every secret recess of the voluntary brain to act there as ministering angels, as the Writings teach, may be learned by a perusal of this great work of Swedenborgs which we are considering.
By nature Swedenborg does not mean the same as the materialist does; for he says the cerebellum acts from the necessity of order, of love, and of equity or justice flowing thence and thus from nature (p. 80).
And again, the life under whose auspices nature sets is infinitely superior in wisdom to our inmost sensitive life. (Animal Kingdom, vol. n. p. 338.) By nature, then, he means what he afterwards termed the influx of celestial angels into mans involuntary. (A. C. 4326.)
As the body has its heart, by means of which vitalizing red blood is distributed to all parts; so the brain has its hearts, the little cortical glands, which possess blood, composed of pure and purest natural substances, that the most refined elements of the body may be sustained, and, indeed, that life may be imparted to the red blood itself and hence to the coarsest fabrics of the body. The purest blood is the blood of the simple fibre, so agile, so quick with the bidding of the soul, as to be omnipresent, as it sere, in its system. The next in purity is the animal spirit, which, formed in the cortical glands by the marrying of the purest blood with ethereal food brought to the corcula by the corporeal fibres of the blood-vessels, courses through the nerve-fibres and out from the brain into the spinal column and into the nerves of spinal and common sensation. A large number of these cortical glands, not needed in volition and thought, or in superintending the operations of the body as a sensory organism, is devoted to the production of a pure lymph-blood. The animal spirit is sent through tubules, which unite to form the corpus callosum, and thence into the fornix, from which it proceeds into the lateral ventricles of the brain. Here the spirit meets with a lymph distilled from the red blood in the choroid plexus. The two marry, and thus wedded, are sent into the third ventricle. Next they are forced through the infundibulum and pituitary gland into the jugular vein, from which they are poured into the subclavian vein to proceed to the heart, there to serve as an essence for the red blood.
That the brains may impart life to the body below, they possess an inherent mobility. Each cortical gland, separated by its own envelopment, the mater piissima, and yet held in common bond with the rest by the pia mater, acts independently and still in harmony with the common motion.
This common motion is synchronous with that of the lungs. And as the pulmonary motion reaches every part of the body, each organ receives interiorly through its nerves the brain-motion, and exteriorly the pulmonary motion, uniting it in common ties with the rest of the organism.
Agreeably to the brain-motion, the cerebrum is so constructed that it may expand and contract, and that its different parts may work severally and collectively in the performance of their functions. Therefore the brain presents curvatures where motion is greatest, and centres where motion is least. By the attachments and free surfaces of its enveloping membranes, especially of the dura mater, it is enabled to expand until the resisting membranes urge a contraction.
As the cranial bones were made subservient to their noble contents, they are wonderfully adapted by position and shape not only to protect the brains but also to favor their essential motions.
The book before us is devoted to an elaboration of these theories, and to a description of the structures by means of which they are carried into effect. Subsequent volumes will extend the subject, and will also consider psychology and likewise mental diseases.
Much that we have said will sound strange to the modern physiologist, and the question presses for answer, is it true? That in the main it is true, cannot be denied by any one who accepts the teachings of the New Church. Whether or not every particular statement in the book is unqualifiedly correct can only be determined by a careful and impartial investigation.
In pursuing such a course, it must be remembered that before committing himself to any subordinate theory, Swedenborg established indisputably certain general laws, which were fundamental in every variety of scientific investigation. So complete was his deduction of these rules, so aptly did they fit when applied to new discoveries, that he seemed to accept them as axiomatic. It often happened, then, that his conclusions, although rational deductions from admitted laws, outstripped the knowledges of the day, and so were without confirmation in facts. Several such instances are observed in the work under consideration (see pages 741, 744, 747, etc.), and other instances may be noticed in the treatise on the Generative Organs, as well as elsewhere. But to the philosophic mind these conclusions no more admit of dispute than did the rational assertion of the astronomer, who, reasoning from known truths, declared that there must be an undiscovered planet in a certain place in the heavens. And subsequent telescopic observations confirmed this assertion.
The doctrines which Swedenborg constantly used were the Doctrines of Forms, of Order and Degrees, of Series, of Influx, of Correspondence, and of Use.
The New Churchman has a twofold reason for accepting these, both because they are self-evident, and because they belong also to the theology of the Church, and so are true. The theories of Swedenborgs book, examined in the light of these several doctrines, bear the most careful scrutiny. We have space so to consider but a few of these theories. If matter exists in forms, order and degrees, these forms must vary with the degree; and as, mathematically considered, the circular is more active than the angular, and the spiral more than the circular, and as angular and circular forms plainly belong to visible nature, it is a logical conclusion that invisible forms possess the most active curvation, namely, the spiral.
If the purest parts of the brain are thus exquisitely formed and are unceasingly active, and if nutrition and power lie in the circulating blood of the body, these higher forms must also possess a blood after their own kind, by which they can send forth their mandates and by which they can receive nutritive material from their own planes of matter. Swedenborgs purer bloods, then, are a logical necessity of his universal philosophy, and he was literally driven to the search for the means to such an end. And how stupendous are the results of this inquiry! Harvey discovered the circulation of the red blood, and the world honors him; but the discoverer of a more wonderful fact the world rejects as a visionary and a mysticist. The science of to-day knows of no cerebral fluid but a lubricating lymph, and yet, as Dr. Tafel says, the more thoughtful physiologists feel the necessity of admitting the existence of some nervous force analogous to that of the animal spirits (p. 730). And then he quotes from Todd to the effect that the nervous force is polar, resembling electricity, but differing from it in some important particulars. Even more to the point is the remark of Dr. Tilt:
Nervous congestion is as admissible as blood congestion; the nervous fluid is too subtle to be seen or felt, but from the effects it produces, the mind can deduce the fact that it may be too abundant in some one place. (Change of Life.)
Indeed, so naturally is the mind led to the admission of such a fluid that scientists, when not directly under the influence of a materialistic physiology, accept its existence and reason therefrom as from an admitted premise. Thus, Prof. Hirschfelder says:
For the purpose of illustration we may consider the nervous power to be a fluid, the nervous fibres tubes conveying this fluid, etc. (Medical News, November, 1882.)
The doctrine of use is the containant of all the other doctrines. Use determines what a thing is in itself, or in its own form; what it is in series with other things, and what are its relations to things prior and posterior. Use is the end or life of a thing manifest in an ultimate form. Hence if we know the nature and quality of an organ, we may infer its use; and, vice versa, if we know its use, we may infer its quality.
Order taught Swedenborg that the brain as prior to the heart and lungs cannot be subservient to the latter in its motions. And then, viewing the brain as to its uses, he was enabled to account for many peculiarities, which, to the uneducated, appear accidental and meaningless. He saw in the loose attachment of the dura mater, in the numerous redulpications of the pia mater, and in the convolutions of the brain, means adapted for an end, which end was motion. He noticed that the torcular Herophili, where the large sinuses meet, is generally situated a little to the right of the median line.
Searching for the use of this seeming anomaly, he found that it was to enable the right or larger hemisphere of the cerebellum to push a greater volume of blood into the jugular vein than it could do if the torcular was symmetrically arranged. And extending the use, he determined that it was one of the offices of the cerebellum to stimulate the heart to act by pushing into the right auricle a volume of blood, which is impressed with the causal motion of the brains. So, in the chain of causes, the brains move the heart and the heart, the body.
It is delightful to follow Swedenborg, and to observe how nicely he utilizes every variation in shape and every deviation from common rules. The doctrine of use is his guide, and this opens his mind to the reception of truth, enabling him to unlock many of natures mysteries. For use is according to correspondences, and man thinks justly when he thinks according to correspondences. (A. C. 9300.) We might follow him as he points intelligently to the Chain and Bond of Uses, designating for us the manner in which growth progresses from the initial brain to the fully developed human body,--how circle of activity succeeds upon circle,--how the souls commands become converted into a motion of the highest fluids, this into less complex movements, and finally into the corresponding corporeal use or act. We might refer to the reasons why the cranial bones are arched and uneven, why the membranes are fastened in some places and free to more in others, why the cerebral arteries are so tortuous, why the venous sinuses are of different shapes and contain different sorts of blood, why the various viscera of the body are not symmetrically arranged as to sides of the body, and why the cerebrum, ganglia, and cerebellum are so peculiarly located, but this is not the place for so elaborate an inquiry. We must hurry on to other topics relating to the theories of the work.
Swedenborg has a strong claim upon scientists and lovers of learning. So soon as a writer is publicly announced, it is at once asked, Who is he? what right has he to claim authority in scientific matters? When his credentials are shown, he is at once accepted as worthy of confidence. What are the answers to these questions as directed to Swedenborg? Dr. Tafel, in his interesting preface to the volume under review, calls our attention to no less than eighteen discoveries in which Swedenborg anticipated modern claimants for renown!
If we compare Swedenborgs discoveries with those of recent times, we shall be struck with the coincidence of facts deduced by him from rational inquiry and facts obtained by experimentation. Thus, by logical sequence, he determined that there are certain foramina in the ventricles. Modern investigators have discovered them by careful dissections.
Consistently with his theories, the articles penetrate into the minute spherules of the cortical substance. No one in his day ever saw these tiny endings; but lately Bevan Lewis has established that a small capillary either passes across the nerve-cell or runs with a gentle curve along the perivascular space. (See Dr. Tafels foot-note, p. 422.) The same is true of his assignment of functions to the choroid plexuses, cortical glands, etc.
But despite these coincidences, there is frequently the widest difference between his theories and those of modern writers. Which are to be believed? Surely the weight of evidence is in favor of the theories which led to the anticipation of facts.
Our author, then, is sustained by rational inquiry, and by the agreement of his theories with the results of modern experimentation.
Let us now inquire somewhat minutely into the relations which his views hear to the latest anatomical and physiological discoveries. And as this leads us in the same line of investigation pursued by the editor, much that we shall have to say applies to his foot-notes and appended annotations.
More minute studies of the structure of the brain have necessitated changes in some of the technical terms. Thus, the geminum semicirculare centrum is now the inner capsule. What was formerly regarded as constituting the corpora striata and optici thalami is now divided into two portions. And the striata themselves are separated, each into a lenticular nucleus and a caudate nucleus.
These and several other differences have been carefully noted by the editor so as to prevent their confusing the reader. But in identifying the centrum ovale and the modern term, corona radiata, Dr. Tafel may, possibly, mislead. Quite likely by the first expression Swedenborg referred to the very fibres which nowadays are fancifully compared to a radiated crown. But Vieussens by centrum ovale meant more than this; for he included therein the callosal fibres. And, moreover, the centrum ovale is now regarded as composed likewise of Meynerts so-called system of association; that is, of commissural fibres, which unite different parts of the same hemisphere. So if the reader will bear in mind that Dr. Tafels synonymizing of ovale and corona is only applicable so far as the radiating fibres are concerned, he will not be misled or confused.
Since Swedenborgs doctrines teach that the brains move, it is quite natural that he should also define the directions of this motion and the axes, poles, etc., incident thereto. There is no conflict concerning this matter; for most modern writers, believing that the brains move subject to the heart or lungs or both, have not entertained the thought that possibly these motions may originate in the cerebrum. If, however, we grant the primal activity of the brains, Swedenborgs mathematical conclusions become self-evident.
But, thanks to the energy of Dr. Tafel, the reader is presented with no exhaustive annotation on this subject, which fully confirms Swedenborg. All of the facts deduced are in favor of the views of the book under review, though their respective authors employed them for quite a different purpose.
Dr. Tafel, among other evidence, introduces an experiment of Ecker, who tied all the arteries going to the brains, whereupon the movements of the latter, so far from subsiding, as they would if dependent upon the heart, became even more distinct. But as Salath arrived by a similar experimentation at an opposite conclusion, Dr. Tafel prefers relying on common sense argument. Inasmuch, he writes, as the arteries convey the motion of the heart, these vessels from their own energy can introduce into the brain only the pulsatile motion of the heart, and not a motion synchronous with the lungs. It follows, therefore, that if there is a motion in the brain synchronous with that of respiration, it cannot be conveyed there by the arteries, because they do not convey that motion. He then goes on to prove the synchronism of brain and lung movements, and finally the face that the brain moves anteriorly to the lungs, and hence independently.
It is not possible to demonstrate the existence of the finer elements of the animal-spirit. Swedenborg himself says in this connection: although the eye does not see this, reason acknowledges it. Shall we, therefore, forever remain outside, deprived of the hope of knowledge, especially as its existence is confirmed by everything which we have to say respecting the various members of this same laboratory (meaning the ventricles), among which, when they are taken altogether, there exists a certain continuous nexus of causes? (pp. 497, 498.)
We have already seen that Swedenborgs logic led him to search for a pure blood, an animal spirit, and hero he asserts the existence of such a fluid, and claims that the channels for its flow are in the nerve-fibrils, as well as in the corpus callosum and fornix, etc. The nexus of causes by which this theory is rendered certain is well shown by Dr. Tafel in his elaborate annotation on The Chemical Laboratory of the Brain. In this he proves that the corpus callosum is connected with the cortical glands, and does not seed fibres out of the brain into the body. He proves that the fornix is intimately associated with the callosum, and strives to show that it communicates with the latter. He demonstrates unequivocally that the choroid plexuses secrete a dewy moisture, and that the fundamental tissue of these plexuses originates from the fibri of the fornix. Here, then, is the meeting-ground of the animal spirit and the moisture derived from the red blood through the plexuses.
Still further, he confirms from authoritative anatomists that the cerebral ventricles possess just such communicating foramina as Swedenborg described, and that the fluid of the ventricles must be moved in the directions designated. But Swedenborg claims that there is more than one cerebral fluid. In this same annotation, and also in that on the dura mater, Dr. Tafel presents us with ample proof of this last claim. One of these fluids is now known as the cerebro-spinal fluid. That it courses through spaces between the brain membranes is admitted; but that it penetrates all the ventricles is contrary to the theories of the book under notice. It belongs to the fourth ventricle, but not to the others. Its detention from the other ventricles is accomplished by the valve of Vieussens. Though contrary to modern views, the truth of this assertion is established by Dr. Tafel in a most masterly manner. He takes admitted facts in anatomy, pathology and chemistry, and makes them prove conclusively that Swedenborgs position is correct.
But we cannot quite agree with Swedenborg and with Dr. Tafel in all of the details concerning this subject of the cerebral fluids.
In defense of the position that the fibres of the corpus callosum are not inrooted in the substance near the division of the hemisphere, nor in that which occupies the fore part of the brain, Dr. Tafel quotes from Solly, and writes as follows:
In a drawing Solly shows that the fibres proceed from the interior portion of the upper lobes, and not from that which is nearest to the central fissure and hence to the falx cerebri; and in the description of his drawing, calling attention to this fact, he says, it will be seen that these fibres ascend to the convolutions above the mesial line, i.e. above the mesial or middle line of the hemispheres themselves (p. 737).
From this it appears, Dr. Tafel adds, that the fibres which enter from the middle and anterior lobes are derived from the interior convolutions of the cerebrum, or from those which are in the mesial line of the hemispheres, and not from those which are nearest to the great fissure, and hence to the falx cerebri (p. 738).
By the mesial line Solly means a line between the two hemispheres. (Sollys The Human Brain, p. 250.) By above the mesial line he evidently means above a line drawn antero-posteriorly through the inter-hemispherical portion of the corpus callosum. We fail, therefore, to see the force of Dr. Tafels conclusion. Certain we are that his quotation from Solly does not sustain Swedenborg; for Solly says very plainly that the corpus callosum is a body consisting of fibres of medullary neurine, the extremities of which are everywhere in contact with the internal or central surface of the cincritious layer which forms the convolutions of the hemispheres. (The Human Brain, p. 250.)
Morton, who quotes extensively from Solly, had no idea that the anterior lobes did not communicate directly with the callosum; for quoting, he says: the fibres of the corpus callosum establish a communication between the cineritious neurine of the whole convoluted surface of both sides of the cerebrum. (Human Anatomy, 1849.)
Dalton teaches that the callosum communicates with all parts except the anterior of the temporal lobes, which are connected by the anterior commissure. Luys in a recent popular work, the Brain and its Functions (Appletons Scientific Series), figures the fibres of the callosum as U-shaped cords, yoking symmetrical parts even from one lateral man of the longitudinal fissure to the other. And Azoux in his magnificent model of the brain enlarged, exhibits fibres winding from the callosal body between the hemispheres to every conceivable portion of the lobes. Broadbent derives some fibres from the margin of the longitudinal fissure; although, like Burdach, he thinks that many of the gyri have no association with the callosum. Meynert, however, disputes Burdach. And, strange to say, Dr. Tafel quotes this from Meynert (p. 446), and yet ignores it in his argument.
But even if we admit that Broadbent and Burdach are correct, neither of them lends any support to the assumption that Dr. Tafel makes. The cut of the corpus callosum in Solly does seem to represent the fibres as extending more towards the interior lobes than towards the overlying lobes. But this, we think, is a defect inherent in such a flat drawing. And we believe that it was to prevent such a misconception that Solly remarked in his explanation, it will be seen that these fibres ascend to the convolutions above the mesial line as well as, he might have added, to those lying more laterally. According to Swedenborg, the callosal fibres are limited in their distribution, because their main function is restricted to the ventricles. The anterior lobes are supposed to be so busily occupied in intellection and volition that they have no influence over the ventricles, and hence do not communicate with them. That the front portion of the brain has to do with thinking and willing is scarcely to be denied. It has become axiomatic to gauge a mans mental power by the height and fullness of his forehead. So we are disposed to agree with Swedenborg in his assignment of function to the anterior lobes. But we do not see that this function need be disturbed by the admission of callosal fibres. The will and understanding occupy the whole brain. Hence we find that all the cortical glands are associated by a maze of fibres, that convolutions anterior, posterior, and lateral are associated by bundles of commissural fibres, and so the brain becomes a unit. That one part has an especial office, different from that of another, is quite true. (Compare here De Anima, p. 40.)
But each part, in imitation of the oneness of action of the heavens to which the brains correspond, is connected with every other part and lends collateral aid. It seems to us that since the propulsion of the ventricular blood into the pituitary body is no involuntary act, superintended by the cerebellum, fibres ought to extend from the voluntary districts to these ventricles to convey the mandates of the will. In this way can there be a particular ruling of the cerebrum over the cerebellum in keeping with the admitted fact that there is a general ruling of the cerebrum. Possibly, then, it may be necessary for a moiety of the animal spirit of the region of volition to mingle with that from the posterior lobes in the ventricles. But Swedenborg assigns more than one function to the corpus callosum. He says it serves for the propagation of sensation, namely, of the impressions of the senses of touch, smell, taste, hearing, and especially of sight. It contributes therefore its share to every function of the cerebrum (p. 450). Can it do this if it does not communicate with every function? Swedenborg seems to teach that such communication is indirect; anatomy proves that it is direct.
That the regions of the cortex not devoted to intellection have, nevertheless, at least an obscure consciousness, is admitted by Swedenborg. These regions, he says, have a lesser faculty of expansion, consequently a lesser faculty of changing states; the changes producing thoughts. It cannot be denied that sensations reach even thither, yet our mind does not become conscious of them to the same degree as it does in the anterior part of the cerebrum (p. 60). So we are inclined to believe the anterior lobes hare some effect on the ventricles, though their main duty is quite foreign to the work of elaborating the pure blood.
On page 708, among his notes, Dr. Tafel writes: Is Swedenborg wrong in attributing to the dura mater qualities resulting from the possession of muscular power? This he writes after admitting that, according to the universal testimony of modern science, the dura mater is void of genuine muscular fibres. So far as the function ascribed to this membrane is concerned, it is not in the least affected by Swedenborgs erroneous notion that the membrane contained fibres not unlike muscular. But we do not consider it quite accurate to state that the dura has the qualities of muscular power. Muscles act by a contraction of their peculiar cells, not by elasticity; the dura mater after being expanded by the outpushing brain, contracts solely by its elasticity. It is more analogous, then, in this respect, to yellow elastic tissue than to muscular.
It is a general doctrine of Swedenborg that when blood-vessels enter an organ, the heart loses, in a measure at least, its control over them and they come under the sway of the recipient organ. Thus is each organ supreme in its own sphere,a truly angelic principle.
So complete is this surrender of the heart to the brains, that, according to Swedenborg, the blood-vessels entering the cranial cavity are stripped of their muscular coating, lest they should subject the rational mind to the empire of the heart (p. 376). To sustain the author here the editor quotes from Burdach and Quain. Burdach says: The arteries give up their sheaths and acquire a peculiar character; for they, together with their annular, muscular fibres, lose every vestige of a proper or independent irritability by becoming thin-coated,--and become thin-coated is more literal (und werden dnn wandig). Quain says that the muscular coat of intra-cranial arteries is thinner than it is elsewhere (pp. 318, 362).
It stands to reason, says Dr. Tafel, that when an artery loses its annular, muscular fibres, or when its muscular coating becomes thinner, every vestige of its independent irritability, as Burdach says, is lost (p. 319).
All recent writers, however, are adverse to such a conclusion as Dr. Tafel drams from Burdach. Many physiologists, seemingly taking it for granted that the cerebral arteries have a muscular coat, make no mention of the matter. Others, as Beck in Germany and Quain in England, merely speak of the arteries as thinner than elsewhere. (See, for instance, Darling and Ramneys Anatomy, which is a compilation from standard works from Wilson to Gray.)
We think, then, that it would be more impartial to admit that Swedenborg was mistaken as to the anatomical fact. But, reasoning correctly from the exalted functions of the brain, he was unquestionably right in asserting that, so far as the hearts influence is concerned, the cerebral vessels are stripped of their muscular coating. For though Boerhaave, from whom Swedenborg quotes, was in error in declaring that the carotids put off their muscular coating, the most careful observers fail to find the muscular development common to small arteries elsewhere; on the contrary, they find that all the coats grow thinner and thinner, and hence the vessels become more and more subservient to the independent motions of the brains. And, further, after the carotid and vertebral arteries enter the skull, they become remarkably tortuous, the reason of which is that they may be, in a measure, deprived of the direct force of the hearts beat and may come calmly and respectfully to the gates of their mistress, the brain.
Dr. Tafels remarks on the corpora quadrigemina (p. 765 et seq.) are very interesting. He shows that though modern writers deny that the process from the cerebellum to the cerebrum goes to the corpora quadrigemina, get Meynert declares that there certainly exists a process of the corpus quadrigeminum tot he cerebellum. The import of this admission will be apparent presently.
Modern writers agree with Swedenborg that these corpora are concerned in the adjusting of the eyes to the state of the objects of sight. But the former locate this function solely in the corpora quadrigemina; the latter thinks that its true origin is in the cerebellum, which sends fibres to the corpora and thence, along with the optic nerves, to the eyes (p. 642).
Now, this association of the two brains must be admitted; for in no other say can be explained the references in the Writings to the influence of the cerebellum on facial expression, and also the reference to the fact that the angels in the province of the cerebellum perceive every thought and desire of those in the province of the cerebrum. (See A. C. 3251, 4326; S. D. 3860; and compare Worship and Love of God, pp. 224-6.)
In the Most Ancient Church this association was most intimate; and it is quite probable that when the miraculous separation of will and understanding took place, essential anatomical changes occurred in the region of the corpora quadrigemina, just as they are stated to have occurred in the anatomy of the facial muscles.
But as the involuntary, though ostensibly subservient to the voluntary, still performs a regulative function all over the human organism (A. C. 9683), there must be communicating fibres from the seat of the involuntary will, namely, the cerebellum, with the cerebrum, with the senses, and with the face. We are, therefore, glad to see Meynerts declaration, though we would reverse the direction of the fibres alluded to. And, further, we are inclined to the belief that anatomists upon more careful investigation, will modify their denial of the connection of cerebellum fibres with the corpora quadrigemina.
Concerning the functions of the other ganglia, corpora striata, optic thalami, thalami, etc., Swedenborgs declarations are consistent and conclusive.
No one nowadays agrees with Descartes, that the pineal gland is the seat of the soul; yet in striving to assign a function to this body, physiologists are no nearer the truth than was he who would squeeze the soul into the space of one-third of an inch. Swedenborg enlarging upon Magendie, makes this gland keep guard over the third ventricle and regulate the dispensing of the inflowing lymph. He also attributes to it some influence over the organs of vision. The first of these functions Cruveilhier denies; but Dr. Tafel is rejoinder confirms Swedenborg by referring to the expansion and contraction of the brains, which must be continued into the pineal gland and so give it motion. Recent authors differ widely as to the function of the striata and the thalami. Few, however, question that the former have to do with motion; though Flint denies that they have anything to do with smell. Dr. Tafel in this connection sustains Swedenborg by references to Mayo and to Meynert, who are, therefore, at variance with Flint.
Dalton ascribes both a sensory and a volitional function to these corpora. Wundt declares that the striata stand in the same relation to the sense of smell that the quadrigemina do to vision. And Turner asserts that the striata give origin to the middle roots of the olfactory peduncle.
The statement of Swedenborg that the thalami are subservient to motion as well as to sensation is not accepted. But Flint observes: the extirpation of one optic thalamus is followed by enfeeblement of the muscles of the opposite lateral half of the body, without actual paralysis. When both have bean removed, there is general debility of the muscular system. (Text-Book of Physiology, p. 721. See also Nothnagel in Virchows Archiv, Bd. lxii.)
That the thalami are placed over the sense of sight is scarcely doubted by any one, says Dr. Tafel. Flint doubts it, declaring that they are only beds, thalami. But Quain, and also Meynert, quoted by Dr. Tafel, and likewise Luys, Hammond, Charcot, and Hugenin, fully confirm it. Webber asserts that if hemorrhage occurs into the posterior third of the thalamus disturbed vision sometimes results. And this is the portion in which Hugenin locates the external root of the optic nerve. If a nerve-root begins in a ganglion, certainly that ganglion is more than a mere bed for the nerve.*
* The mere fact that the thalamal root of the optic nerve has been found diseased without co-existing disturbances of vision is not conclusive evidence that the thalamus has nothing to do with the sense of sight. The remaining roots may have vicariously assumed the function of the first.
Swedenborg was too conscientious to push the confirmations of his theories beyond known facts into the doubtful realm of probabilities. So we find him expressing himself now and then with some hesitation, observing that confirmations must await a keener knife than has yet been used (p. 642). Still, as we before remarked, his conclusions are so clearly true in rational light that he records them to await, not the rejection of future investigators, but their confirmation (p.383, line 15). Several such confirmations are attempted by Dr. Tafel. For instance, Swedenborg is silent as to how the gross liquid which clogs the brain is collected from the corpus callosum to be conveyed to the nose. If he had been acquainted with the covered bands of Reil, writes Dr. Tafel, he would have no doubt have assigned to these bands this function (p. 145). and then Dr. Tafel proceeds to show from modern discoveries that these bands fulfill every indication of Swedenborgs theory and so tend to establish its truth. Thus we see that, with the exception of a few minor errors, Swedenborgs facts, like his theories, bear the most critical examination.
With the assent of reason and the accord of facts, may not this book offer itself to the New Churchman as useful in his studies of the human form?
So clear is its style, so plain are its analyses, that the merest tyro in anatomy may derive enough information from it to enable him to understand its theories and to draw thence the doctrines inculcated.
The End of the World.
THE END OF THE WORLD. With New Interpretations of History. By WM. H. HOLCOMBE, M. D. Philadelphia, J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1881.
WE rise from the perusal of this book, with the thought: It is a wonderful book; wonderful mainly for the startling clearness with which it presents the truth, but wonderful also for the equally startling way in which it presents some very important errors. It is, beyond question, the strongest work that has yet been put forth by the opponents of the doctrine concerning the Second Advent of the LORD as set forth by the WORDS.
It will, however, go far to check the delusion, which just now seems to be widespread among them, that the Old Church is ready for translation, bodily, into the New. In its treatment of the state of the Christian World this work is more in accord with the WORDS in its strict rendering of the Doctrines of the Church than any other book that has yet emanated from the other side.
With a sweep and sway of truth that carries one on through interest to conviction, it dashes sway the veil of apparent good and truth, which hides the real state of Christendom, and shows in all their enormity the evils and falsities beneath. The book is a terrible arraignment of the state of the consummated Church in the light of its own testimonies. Those of our brethren who have complained of undue severity when the arraignment has been made from the Doctrines, here meet an array of overpowering testimonies that will very seriously change the cause of complaint. In this, the book will render a most important and timely service.
Chapter II., entitled The Dead Church, is especially terrible in its truth. It proceeds to its work in the true way, in the may of the Doctrines, looking at things as they interiorly are, not in the way (so common in the Church) of taking them as they seem. We quote:
Let us not deceive ourselves. Let us rise above all the pretensions and hypocrisies of the age, and above all those self-adulations and mutual congratulations that everywhere prevail, and lot us examine our own hearts and the Church and the world by that Word of God which is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword! (p. 33).
Carrying out this principle, the seven pages that follow are a startling exhibit of the actual state of Christendom, as seen not in what it says but in what it does. It is a powerful piece of writing, which we would like to reproduce to be placed beside the statements from the Doctrines which have appeared in former numbers of the WORDS. Its length, however, forbids. We quote only the authors deductions from these facts:
It is not especially wonderful that these things exist, for most of them hero existed in some form, and in varying intensity, in all ages and countries, but it is exceedingly wonderful and pitiful that they not only exist, but are increasing with fearful rapidity, in our full blaze of scientific and rational light, and in the midst of a Church which has possessed the Word of God, and which has guided the human heart and taught the human understanding for eighteen hundred years (p. 30).
The following is the pointed way in which the author states the principles and causes of this state of things:
The Church as an external organization is responsible for the interpretation of revealed truth. As genuine truth lends to spiritual goodness, so the least corruption or falsification of it leads to a correspondingly inferior degree of good, until at last false doctrines beget false lives. Falsification of doctrine begins always with some evil of life in the men of the Church, who justify, palliate, or confirm their wrong-doing, by a corresponding perversion of truth. Thus the love of spiritual dominion developed the theory of an infallible Church, etc. when a Church has falsified the central doctrines of Divine Truth, it goes on from bad to worse, until it is consummated with great and terrible judgments without and within (p. 15).
Strong, however, as all this is, the author fails to make the strong point that he might make, and that the Doctrines do make, viz., that the consummated Church is manifestly receding farther and farther from the central truths of the True Christian Religion: the acknowledgment of the LORD alone, and of the holiness of the Word. That these Doctrines are less and less professed, any one who takes the pains can verify; as we have repeatedly done within the few years past, in some cases with whole assemblies of orthodox ministers, always failing to get a soulful or hearty response to any distinct statement of these Doctrines. The teaching of the Church, that after the Last Judgment all who do not acknowledge these Doctrines become as Pagans who have no religion (A. R. 750) is fully confirmed by these facts. It is because they do not acknowledge these doctrines, and therefore have no religion, that the fearfully increasing evil and false state of things, recited by our author, exists. We notice, however, a definition of religion which the author appears to have caught from the Old Church thought of the day.
It is, indeed, verbatim that which is just now the popular one: True religion is a vital thing, a life, not a creed or system (p. 13). It would be much better, because more true, to give the definition which the writings give, that religion is a life according to doctrine. (A. R. 823.) It seems unaccountably difficult for some New Churchmen to avoid importing popular one-sided and therefore false ideas from the Old Church, as if they were somehow better than the always clear and exactly true, because Divine, teachings which we find in the New Church. But we should hardly expect our author to take up these false notions while penning his vigorous epitaph on The Dead Church. We should expect him to draw from the New, Divine, Living Church, alone, whatever is to be taught as truth.
For the most part the author does this through the rest of the chapters which treat of the Churches of the past, giving in a more than usually clear and vigorous style the substantial teachings of the Church thereon. But we notice a similar instance of following a popular error of the Old Church on page 72, where he calls the LORD a brother; a thing which the Doctrines expressly forbid. The most objectionable thing we notice in these chapters is the sentence: Bigotry knows but one way to heaven; Truth admits of a thousand (p. 44). Whether the idea which the author intended to convey had the truth in it or not, the words do not convey it to one who does not know our Doctrines, and one who does know them will at once remember that they teach but one may to heaven, that of shunning evils as sins against God! But if the author means that all religions, being based upon the Ten Commandments, contain saving truths, it would have been easy to say so, and thus teach a truth instead of a falsity. But when he says: The medival bigot, the man of intense convictions, is dying out only because the faith of the Church is becoming too feeble to perpetuate the character (p. 45), he very clearly speaks the truth, and interprets this sign of the state of the Church much more correctly than those who take it as an indication that the Old Church is rapidly coming into the New, or that it has, as some suppose, already advanced in its charity beyond most of the professed New Church. That those who have lost the last vestige of truth should also lose all interest in their falsities is natural enough, and that this should be mistaken by the superficial for the genuine charity which is formed only by wishing to do according to the truth may also be understood. (A. C. 8034.) But New Churchmen surely ought to understand their Doctrines well enough to know better than to mistake the liberalism, which exists because it has no truth, and therefore no charity, for that charity which is the better the more careful it is of the truth. It seems to us that the author has lost a fine opportunity to make this point strong and clear to every one who is willing to see it.
Chapters IV. and V., entitled Proofs from the Word, are, in the main, unusually clear and happy illustrations of the subject, and quite convincing to any one who is willing to see the truth. We quote the following from the explanation of the white, red, black, and pale horses of the Apocalypse as a specimen. It is concerning the Black Horse:
This darkened state of the intellect still farther deteriorates the conduct and ideal of Christian life. It invents schemes of redemption and plans of salvation which cheapen and make easy the work of regeneration. A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny is the cry all throughout the Protestant Churches. Bread is the genuine life of God in the soul. Christ is the bread of heaven given for our sustenance. To put a cheap and contemptuous price upon bread (a measure of wheat for a penny) is to proclaim that charity and good works, keeping the commandments, have no importance or power in the work of regeneration (p 123).
Chapters VI. and VII., entitled Proofs from History, are very strong. They are especially so in the amount of proof given from Old Church writers themselves. The citations from Milman, Guizot, St. Hilary, George Macdonald, and others are simply unanswerable. They show especially that the decree of the Council of Nice establishing the tri-personal doctrine of the Trinity was, as the Doctrines teach, the starting-point of downfall with the Christian Church; and that its culmination was in turn begun in the Protestant movement towards the modern so-called plan of salvation, and its attendant falsities of vicarious atonement, solifidianism, predestination, etc., which are shown to be pure inventions of the Protestants, having been utterly unknown to apostolic or Catholic teachings. This confirmation of the teaching (A. E. 684), that there was no truth and good in worship after the Reformation, should not be altogether lost on a certain class of thinkers, even among New Churchmen.
Chapter VIII., entitled The New Heaven and the New Earth, handles the subject quite ably. The mistranslation from which the author has chosen the title of his book, The End of the World, for The Consummation of the Age, is very fully treated The author, however, evidently disagrees with many of his brethren as to the time of the consummation. He thinks it is not yet fully accomplished He looks for terrible dissolutions yet to come.
Wars of vest extent and terrible atrocity will result. Institutions will be overturned Churches will disintegrate Society will be dissolved. Persecutions and tribulations will abound, and mankind will pass through a crisis greater than any which has hitherto overtaken the race (p. 225).
That the Doctrines do teach that the consummation is to go on progressively, even after the Last Judgment, there is no doubt. (See A. E. 624.) But this clearly looks to the spiritual state of man in doctrine and life. And we should hesitate to venture prophecies of external events beyond what the Doctrines teach. We may conjecture many things that may be. But to teach safely we must keep very close to our Doctrines. And we take this occasion to remark that the author of this work, like other New Church writers, does his best and most effective work when he is carefully abiding by the Writings and seeking to render them truly. When he ventures on something new, of his own or anothers invention, he gets poor results both with regard to truth and effectiveness. We notice in this chapter a new expression of his, the Commune of Christ, which he appears to esteem very highly, for he uses it all through the rest of the book. It strikes us as repulsive. The Commune originated as the devils Commune, as the author calls it, and in all our thoughts it is so associated. To associate it in any may with the LORDS New Church seems like profanation. The idea of a Commune in any form is altogether foreign to the teachings of the Church, which, on the contrary, recognize an orderly subordination at the lower to the higher, and an individualization of each ones state, to be held from the LORD forever as His very own, as the true order, prevailing as it does even in the angelic heavens. The author does not seem to look to that leveling and loss of proprietorship which the morbid dreams of some contemplate, still something of the idea will stick to the term; because it was formed in association with that sort of thing; is, in fact, their product and their medium of ultimation in the thought of men, and by the law of spiritual association it will be sure to call up that idea whenever it is used. It is poor economy to try to dispossess the evil spirits of the work of their own creation, when even if we succeed, our capture will serve us but indifferently in comparison with what has been given us by the LORD.
Chapter IX., on The Book Opened, appeals to more on in two conflicting currents: one which seems to recognize that the LORD has made His Second Advent in the truths revealed to the New Church, and that He specially prepared His servant Emanuel Swedenborg for this purpose, as no other man ever was or will be prepared,another that seems to regard his work as a little higher in degree but the same in kind as that of other gifted men, and as only the introduction to the Second Advent and not that Advent itself; as a work to be completed if not surpassed by the works of other men.
In this the author displays his opposition to the Doctrine of the Second Advent as set forth by the WORDS. To illustrate: On one side we find sentences as this:
The spiritual sense of the Word of God was revealed to mankind by the LORD JESUS CHRIST through the agency of Emanuel Swedenborg during a series of years about the middle of the last century.
It is the means of the Second Coming of the LORD.
There seems to be also a recognition of the special preparation of Swedenborg to be that means:
The life and character of Swedenborg were moulded by that special providence which notices the foil of every sparrow (P. 248).
Let us, however, take note or the peculiar terms: Life and character, which may mean what they seem or may not, as they are elsewhere interpreted. The necessity of intromission into the spiritual world as a preparation for the work is very clearly stated:
Intromission into the spiritual world was absolutely necessary for Swedenborg to comprehend the principles which govern the construction of the Word of God, for the key to its spiritual sense is the science of correspondences, or the science of the relation between spiritual and natural things.
The spiritual sense of the Word flows only from the Divine Sphere of the LORD JESUS CHRIST. It fills the heavens with light and could only be revealed to one man who lived simultaneously and consciously in both worlds at the same time, and who could therefore unfold and explain in the material life what he had seen and learned in his interior condition. This accounts for the anomaly, the standing miracle of Swedenborgs psychological state, which such scientists as Maudsley are totally incapable of comprehending. In all this Swedenborg was a passive medium (p. 248-9).
Quite a strong but scarcely a. correct putting of the case. Again, after saying:
The collateral light which Swedenborg throws upon the spiritual world, the nature of the soul, and the philosophy of life here and hereafter is exceedingly interesting and instructive, but it is all subordinate and secondary to the great object of his mission.
The author says:
The man who has revealed the wonders of the spiritual sense of the Word of God may be safely trusted in all minor things (p. 261).
A very right and safe statement, but unfortunately it is nullified by previous statements. For the man who really believes this and is ready to carry it out fully and consistently, accepting these Writings as the Divinely trust worthy and obligatory teachings of the LORD alone, finds himself brought face to face with such statements as this:
Swedenborg received the spiritual sense as every man must do, according to his own spiritual states; and he gave it such ultimate or literal expression as he could, as a new basis for the future faith of the Church. There will no doubt be infinite unfoldings and revealings hereafter in every direction superior and different, but never in contradiction to the fundamental principles laid down under Divine guidance by the Seer of the New Church (p. 255).
And this coming as it does just after it has been said, it is not to be credited for a moment that Swedenborgs statement of the spiritual sense exhausts it or is a finality upon the subject (p. 254), can but come to such a one as the shock of an utterly unwonted and unwelcome line of thought. Not a finality? What more, then, and when, and how, and how to be known and authenticated? Received the spiritual sense as every one must do according to his spiritual state?--is that all of it,as every one must,--nothing different, nothing so utterly unlike every other one as to make it as nothing else ever was or ever will be, the Coming of the LORD, Adventus Domini, but only some of it? A new basis for the future faith of the Church,--is that all? is it not, then, The faith of the New Heavens and the New Church (T. C. R. n. 1)? There will no doubt be infinite unfoldings and revealings hereafter in every direction superior and different? Have we, then, been mistaken in believing this to be the LORDS Coming and the faith of the new heavens and the New Church (yet these are its claims),--and is it only the inferior beginning, to be followed by something superior and different? Is it all a mistake, no imperfection, an uncertainty, at last? Such are the disturbing unsettling imperfection, an uncertainty, at last? Such are the disturbing unsettling questions that on meeting, for the first time, such statements as these must arise in a mind accustomed unhesitatingly to accept the Doctrines for what they claim to be. Especially, when those statements are given out by one acknowledged to be worthy of confidence as a well-informed and true interpreter of the teachings of the Church. The effect of such teachings, if not promptly rejected, must be to loosen the power which the Doctrines as the very truths of the LORD, to be altogether observed and done have the life, and to cause a state of doubt and uncertainty which leads to a looking about for something else as perhaps better and more trustworthy. Such has always been the effect in the Church where these ideas have obtained. It is nothing less than raising again the old question, Art thou He who should come, or look we for another? And what check does the author offer to the mischief thus put a foot? Only that these superior revealings are not to be in contradiction to the fundamental principles laid down in the Writings.
Principles not fundamental may be contradicted then. But who is to judge what these are, and how far we can go on contradicting things claiming to be revealed by the LORD in His Second Coming for our guidance, the author does not say; nor does any one of this class of thinkers. And right here is the fatal point of divergence of those who do not admit that the LORD has made His Second Coming in these truths, and that they are therefore, one and all, to be absolutely observed as such and to be done. It is the breach in the walls of the New Jerusalem left open for its infestation by the influx of all kinds of pretended new things, which are really old as their source,--the consummated Church,--and therefore not true, but fatally misleading. We therefore can but wish that the author had left out of his book this statement of his peculiar views. It was certainly not necessary, and it can contribute nothing to the strength or effectiveness of his books to raise questions that he cannot settle, and that may unsettle all the good his book might do.
In fact, from this point onward the book becomes more and more unsatisfactory. It is more and more filled with ideas that are new and not true. It would seem that the above expression of the authors peculiar views having found ultimation, these views made bold to come out more and more.
In Chapter X., entitled The Judgment and its Effects, we find the authors own opening of the spiritual sense of the Word, instead of that of the LORD in His Second Coming. And in consequence a false rendering is given of the whole teaching concerning the state of the Age and the World. He says:
The spiritual truths of the new life cannot obtain a foothold in the minds and hearts of men until there is a great and general illumination of the interior forms of the human spirit, described as the lightning shining from the east even unto the west. This great illumination comes from the spiritual world. It began about the middle of the last century, when the spiritual sense of the Word was revealed, and has been going on ever since with increasing rapidity. It extends to the whole race, from those whose affections are in the east or nearest to the LORD, to those who are in the uttermost west, or furthest from Him, each man receiving spiritual light according to his capacity and desire (p. 268).
The idea which is here introduced, and which is repeated and woven into all the rest of the book, that the whole world is rapidly receiving light from the spiritual world, not only contradicts and nullifies the authors powerful showing of the corrupted and hopeless state of Christendom outside of the redemption coming from the Doctrines of the New Church, but it is the exact opposite of the teaching which the LORD has given in his revelation of the internal sense of the passage of the Word in question.
Here is what the teachings of the LORD say:
For as the lightning cometh forth from the east, and appeareth even to the west, so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be, signifies that it was with the internal worship of the LORD even as with the lightning, which is instantly dissipated; for by lightning is signified what is of heavenly light, thus what is predicated of love and with, for these are of heavenly light. The East in the supreme sense is the LORD, in the internal it is the good of love, of charity, and of faith from the LORD.But the West in the internal sense is what has set or ceased to be; thus it is non-acknowledgment of the LORD, of the good of love, of charity, and of faith. Thus the lightning which goeth forth from the east and appeareth even to the west, is dissipation.A. C. 3900.
Here we have two opposite renderings of the Word. It is very easy to decide which is the true one, and which resulting doctrine ought to be accepted by New Churchmen. The true teaching is not that a new light is coming into Christendom from the spiritual world to resuscitate it from its dead condition, but that the light which comes by revelation is dissipated by the faithless and loveless slates of men. That the LORD is not coming by an internal influx but by external revelation and preaching thence, is shown by the immediate context: The coming of the LORD ... is His presence in every one as often as the gospel is preached, and what is holy is thought of. Of course the only gospel now to be preached is the gospel revealed by the LORD in His Second Coming. So here disappears in the light of truth a falsity that seems to have somehow been set afloat in the Church, that the LORD is coming by influx to rapidly restore dead Christendom to New Church life. He has come by His teachings to the New Church, and He will restore to life those who receive these teachings obediently, and by means of that reception and obedience, and in no other way. (See A. R. 814.)
The author makes a similar false rendering of the context concerning the carcass and the eagles. He says:
Where the body or carcass is thither will the eagles be gathered together, means that wherever there are dead forms, dead Churches, dead institutions, dead affections, there will be spiritual truths, the eagles gathered over and about them, ready to infuse new life into them all (p. 239).
What the Doctrines say is:
Wheresoever the carcass shall be, thither shall the eagles be gathered together, signifies that confirmations of what is false by means of reasonings will be multiplied in the vastated Church, eagles here meaning reasonings concerning good and truth, that they exist only in so far as they are understood, and through these reasonings confirmations of the evil and the false.A. C. 3900.
The author carries his false exposition all through the chapter, interpreting the changed condition of the times as the result of new light flowing in from the spiritual world. Now every well read New Churchman knows that the Doctrines distinctly teach that while good may flow in by an interior way, truth does not at this day, but only by teaching from revelation. The most that the Doctrines give as a result of the Last Judgment is that man will be in a more free way of thinking, and may become spiritual if he wills to do so. (L. J. 73.) Also that the rational truths of the New Church will help even those in evils and falses to think sanely and to live becomingly. (A. R. 930.) Showing that those who are outside the pale of the New Jerusalem owe all that can ameliorate their thought and life to the fact that these truths are in the world and are taught. How this idea that the LORD is teaching the whole world by influx, instead of by the revelation which He has made for that very purpose, has come to be so widely accepted by New Churchmen without the slightest ground for it in our teachings, is most unaccountable.
The author after a very fine showing of the material advancements of the day, says truly: The things above mentioned and many others, have been undoubtedly preparatory steps (p. 289). But his application of the idea to the phenomenon of Spiritism is not so true. His condemnation of Spiritism as such is true and deserved. But he has again something new that is not true. He calls the influence of good spirits associated with man Spiritualism, and prophesies that it may become an open power, such as that of Spiritism now is (p. 293). The author seems to place great hopes for the world in this teaching of Spiritualism, more, we fear, than in the teachings of the Church. He refers to it several times in the same connection in the course of the work, to say nothing of some remarkable similar theories of his, more fully developed in other publications. These we will review more at length in another place, and perhaps elicit further light on some quite astonishing things only obscurely hinted at, but really contained in germ in this book. Per contra, see on this whole subject A. E. 1173, and De Verbo, 13.
Chapter XI., entitled Confirmations from the Word, in the main handles its subject well. The illustration of the Apocalyptic vision of the star falling from heaven is especially fine. (Rev. viii. 10, 11.) He says:
A star is said to fall from heaven to the earth when a spiritual truth imparted to the Church receives a sensuous or literal interpretation....
The truth that the LORD JESUS CHRIST is the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, in one Divine Person, is a star in heaven. The doctrine that God is a Being in three co-equal and co-substantial Divine Persons, and that JESUS CHRIST is one of those persons, is the same star fallen from heaven (p. 309).
In this style he goes on over the ground of truths corrupted by the consummated Church, making very clear and convincing illustrations. We are, however, sorry to see this fine chapter marred by an explanation of Joel ii. 28, 29, as foretelling the authors favorite scheme of Spiritualism (pp. 322, 323). See, per contra, A. C. 2534, where it is explained to mean the teaching of truths from the Word, also A. R. 8, where it is explained to mean to receive doctrine.
Chapter XII., entitled What Next and Last? we are compelled to pronounce decidedly mixed, very good and very bad. It is so much so that it is very hard to review it fairly. As an attempt to foretell the future beyond what is done in the Doctrines, it must be and ought to be a failure.
He begins the chapter rightly enough by telling us the prediction in Last Judgment, 73, that men will come into greater freedom of thought; also of the little hope of Christendom, and of the greater hope of some far distant nation. (Ib. 74.) Then follow the conjectures that have been offered as to the identity of that nation: Central Africa, Hindostan, and lastly the United States, evidently giving the last the preference, although this country is as plainly a part of Christendom as any other.
Into this country he again brings the lightning influx of truth to enlighten us. He prophesies great material advancement yet to come. Rightly, no doubt; then great conflicts and commotions, civil and social; whether rightly or not is only conjecture. Then the visible New Church gets a hit for casting itself in the moulds and forms of the Old Dispensation, putting its new wine into old bottles; which, however, will ere long break and set it free. Then what social and institutional forms it may take it is useless for us to conjecture. Not at all: The fundamental forms of the Church are clearly given in our Doctrines, and when the Church is ready to conform to them there need be no conjecture as to what they will become.
The author next passes in review the evidences of an increased outside receptively as shown by the favorable reception of the gift books to the clergy. Recent facts have shown that the estimate of the effects from this source has sometimes been overdrawn. He next treats of Gentiles, in the main correctly, saying that the establishment of a new Church is always among Gentiles, while the old slowly decays and perishes in its errors and its obstinacy; that there is a receptive Gentilism among the Catholics; that a Gentilism has been also growing up in Protestant Christendom.
But he fails to bring out that the Doctrines make a distinct class here which they call Pagans who have no religion, (A. R. 750) and that these include all in Christendom who since the establishment of the New Church do not acknowledge the LORD. (T. C. R. 113, 484.) These are not Gentiles in a good sense, nor are they a hopeful element for the Church. And they are evidently now the masses of Christendom. Most of our writers seem not to notice this disposition which the Doctrines make of the non-receptive dead Church, and are of course very much puzzled where to place it, and as to whether it is not still a Christian Church, and its official acts of Christian efficacy. One writer, the Rev. B. P. Barrett, triumphantly asks if the question should be put, What are they? would not New Churchmen at once answer Christian. Some would, no doubt, but the Doctrines do not. They say if they are not New Churchmen regarding the LORD and the Word, they are not Christians, but Pagans with no religion. If New Churchmen understood how our Doctrines settle this question they would not have so much trouble with certain practical questions, as, What is Christian Baptism? etc.
The fondness of our author for putting light by influx in place of revelation comes out also in this chapter. He supposes the Africans are now being so enlightened (p. 336). But readers of the Doctrines will readily recollect that they everywhere speak of the Africans as being taught by revelation. So even they are no exception to the now existing law of life, that men must be taught by revelation. There is no exception recognized as now existing or to exist in the future. The author prophesies that the Churches will be gradually Swedenborgrianized without accepting Swedenborg (p. 337). He does not tell us how he knows this; neither can he. It is not taught.
We here again meet the favorite Spiritualism (p. 340). But among the most audacious things we have seen is the authors explanation of Daniel vii. 5, as applying to modern Spiritism. He goes on to explain what are the three horns of the beast that are plucked up to make way for the horn of Spiritism (pp. 342-3). A fine and plausible piece of writing if we were not compelled to put beside it the LORDS revealed explanation (A. E. 316), which makes it refer not to Spiritism at all, but to the fundamental falsities of the Old Church. Lee us stand by the Doctrines in preference to anything new of our own, however fine.
With what the author says of the successive judgment and consummation of the Old Church (p. 355) we heartily concur, especially as he avowedly draws it from the Apocalypse Explained, 624. Here he abides by the teachings and is right; as any one will be then, and only then.
We confess to an obtuseness in understanding what the author means when he forecasts the burning up of the evil and all evil things with literal fire (p. 358).
He says: It will be spiritual fire materialized into natural fire. But here again he does not tell us where he obtains his information. We question if it would be easy for him to do so. He also tells us another new thing, a most stupendously important thing for us to know, and to know it from good authority, if it is true, and has any, viz.: that the celestial sense of the Word is still to be opened (p. 362). But as he does not tell us how he knows it, and by what authority he affirms it, we must be excused from accepting it at present. It would seem self-evident that when the LORD made His Second Coming in the revelation of the internal sense He gave all that it was possible or wise to give. For ourselves, we believe that the LORD has made His Advent. We do not look for another.
The author forecasts a future holiness state, the spontaneous regeneration without Divine Truth (pp. 366-7). He does not tell us where in the Doctrines this is taught. If he finds any higher state than that forecast in T. C. R. 508, where, the understanding is opened by confirmations of the Doctrinals through rational things into the light in which the angels are, we have failed to find it. All that follows about the re-opening of the celestial degree and its spiritual sight and respiration such as was with the Most Ancient Church is not supported by doctrine. It is a favorite theme with the Author, and he makes much of it. But a little true teaching from the Doctrines will dispel all such visions, and show that man does not come into the spiritual and celestial themselves till after death, because these two are included such concealed in his natural ideas. (T. C. R. 239. Comp. D. P. 34, 41, 172; S. S. 68.) The celestial and spiritual are only opened and formed while man is on earth, but man is not in them. The future Church is not to go back to the state of the antediluvian, the infantile state, but is to advance to the higher, fuller one of rational light and love which belongs to the Crowning Church of mature manhood.
Chapter XIII., entitled The Keys of History, all hinges on the same visionary idea, and is simply mild. Both these chapters had better been left out. They mar the book badly. They are wrong in doctrine, and mischievous in influence. The state they forecast can never be, ought never to be. Men may in the orderly may of instruction and life in the faith of the New Heaven and the New Church become regenerated in this world so as to form and open the spiritual or celestial degree, and after death become angels of the corresponding heavens. And that is all that the doctrine permits us to say. We are told who may become spiritual and who celestial angels (A. C. 6295; A. R. 776, 582; A. E. 827, 902), but nowhere that man is in the celestial degree during this life.
Let us have an end of fantasies and be content to learn and live by our teachings. Only so will they be to us Adventus Domini.
A Stand Against the Academy.
REPORT OF SPECIAL MEETING OF THE MANCHESTER (Peter Street) NEW CHURCH SOCIETY, held October 10th, 1992.
THAT a society should hold a special meeting is not so rare an event as to elicit surprise or comment. That a notice of such a meeting and an abstract of its proceedings should find place in a public journal is not unusual. But that the participators in it should consider it of sufficient importance to warrant an elaborate report and a special publication of the proceedings to be distributed broadcast in the Church naturally excites ones curiosity to know the nature and animus of the meeting. Perhaps the necessity of acquainting the two hundred and twenty-six members of the Peter Street Society who were absent from the meeting of the action of the fifteen members who, as we hear, were present, may give some excuse for the publication of the proceedings; still this reason seems hardly sufficient, and even a careful reading of the formal speeches made by Messrs. Bates, Broadfield, Rev. C. H. Wilkins, and, on invitation of the Chair, by Mr. Jonathan Robinson, fails to clear up the subject.
There is some evidence that these gentlemen were playing the rle of alarmists; and that they were sounding their tocsin.
One gentleman says: Let me define the position I think we have to fear.... We have a right to look closely at these signs when we hear of this new movement in the Church, and to resist anything which appears to have a tendency to break up friendly and kindly relations. (Is it a foreign invasion which they fear?)
Another gentleman says: For these reasons I oppose it most strenuously, viewing it as a doctrine utterly false, and which threatens to divide and even to destroy the Church; and I trust that we shall arouse ourselves to a sense of duty, etc.
A third gentleman fears that he would be turned at once into a radical, with determination to vote for the abolition of ordination altogether right off! (We believe he is the only one among the orators who has been ordained.) Then he tries to be courageous. He speaks of those views which I do trust and believe are almost peculiar to [one man], and will never be permanently adopted ... even by any small proportion of the societies or the ministers of the Church.
A fourth says: I should join as strongly as any one in protest against each views as those attributed to the Academy. Ah! here we have the objective-point of all this movement! The Academy of the New Church is the bte noir of the good people of the Society of Manchester (Peter Street).
Evidently they were frightened from their usual propriety, and, in their excited imaginations, they have endowed the object of their fear with features which do not at all belong to it. Be it our pleasant task to furnish them with a less distorted medium through which they may sec such deformities metamorphosed. As just men, they will be grateful to us for pointing out some errors into which they have fallen-innocently, we hope--about the Academy.
It [the Academy] has at its command three periodicals, WORDS FOR THE NEW CHURCH, New Church Life (American publications), and Morning Light (in England). About one-third of this would be true if they had called the WORDS a serial. See Morning Light, p. 505, for an emphatic denial that it is at the command of the Academy. As regards the Life, while it is conducted by persons in full sympathy with the Academy, this body is not responsible for what may appear in the columns of the paper. The two last-mentioned journals are exceptional, in that they are willing to afford a fair hearing to the Academy as well as to others. The Manchester people would get just as cordial a hearing in the columns of the Life as does the Academy. Was the speaker chagrined because the Academy is not excluded from the columns of these papers?
The same speaker fears that the Academy views would land us in a position almost identical with that of the Roman Catholic Church. Does he see no distinction between looking to the LORD as arbiter of all spiritual matters and choosing a finite man to fill that office? The only alternative to one or both of these is to refer all things spiritual to persons, to multiple Popes.
On page 15 we read: It may be well, therefore, to review briefly some of the points of difference between the Academy and the general body of the Church. Then with an innocent. flourish occurs the following: ... The conclusion is drawn that the books of Swedenborg themselves, not the doctrines only, are the LORDS Second Advent. The expressions are the expressions of the Academy: The BOOKS THEMSELVES constitute the LORDS Coming, the WRITINGS themselves are the LORDS.
Now, as the speaker is showing the points of difference, it is plain that he and the general body of the Church do not believe those statements.
Would that he or they could give us a rational statement of what, in their belief, constitutes the LORDS Second Coming! He appears to think it only necessary to make the statement, The books themselves constitute the LORDS Coming, in order to lay bare its absurdity. So it would, if by the books he meant the paper, press-work, and binding irrespective of their contents. Will he please to tell us where the truths and doctrines of the Church--the LORD in His Second Advent--would be found if the material part of all the books containing them were destroyed? Or has he yet to learn the very general truth, that the containant and the thing contained make a one?
In his estimation, however, it is just as absurd to suppose that the WRITINGS themselves are the LORDS. We may as well let Swedenborg speak on this point:
Do not believe, therefore, that I have taken anything herein from myself, nor from any angel, but from the LORD alone.--Pref. to A. R.
The spiritual sense has for that reason been hitherto unknown; nor could it be made known until genuine truths were revealed by the LORD, for sense is in these.--A. R. 1.
They are not my works but the LORDS works; ... and this is the male child whom the woman brought forth, and whom the dragon willed to devour.A. R. 716.
That such an Immediate Revelation exists at this day, is because that is what is understood by the Advent of the LORD.--H. H. 1.
If the Writings are Swedenborgs and not the LORDS, of course Swedenborg made the revelation; because it is an immediate revelation. But why multiply quotations? As the views of the speaker and of the general body of the Church are directly opposed to the plain declarations of Swedenborg, we leave the reader to place himself on the side which he may elect.
Again, the speaker observes: On this account it is argued ... that they [the Doctrines] contain the spiritual sense of the Word, and not the spiritual sense in part only, but the spiritual sense complete. So argued by whom? Not by the Academy. He continues: For, it is urged, [otherwise] it has only been a partial Coming, and therefore it cannot really be the Advent of the LORD. Again, urged by whom? Not by the Academy. By parity of reasoning the LORDS First Advent must hare been only partial, because all the truth was not then revealed. The Evangelist says: And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. Amen.
But it is curious to see what arguments are urged by the gentleman to controvert the views which he deems to be so false.
I believe you will seek in vain for them in the works of Clowes, Hindmarsh, Noble, Mason, Smithson, and almost all of our lending ministers. Will he please to tell us how many negatives it requires to be equal to one affirmative?
Again, he affirms: Its opinions are very largely based upon the unpublished works of Swedenborg, works left in MS. only, and upon expressions culled from some of the unpublished documents and letters of Swedenborg. New Churchmen should not allow themselves such license with the truth. This speaker refers to the True Christian Religion, n. 779; is not that enough? He makes no attempt to allow that the teachings which we deduce from it is not valid. Let him consider the passages quoted just above from the Apocalypse Revealed and Heaven and Hell. Can any more explicit and emphatic teaching be found on any subject? Since these and many other passages of like import are found in the works published by Swedenborg, and nothing to contradict them, it is entirely legitimate to draw confirmations from MSS. and some works which Swedenborg did not publish, yet to which, we suppose, the gentleman himself would not deny a respectful hearing.
Now, is this the best presentation that he and the body of the Church can make of their side of the question? So it appears. Here is a singular phenomenon. Against the peculiar views of the Academy, which have almost driven them into a panic, these gentlemen have not drawn a statement from letter, manuscript, published or unpublished work to show that those views are not in accord with the spirit and tenor of the Writings of the Church. Perhaps they think that they have found sufficient errors in the Writings to stamp them as finite predictions; or that their own unsupported affirmations will weigh as heavily as any quotation they can bring from the Writings.
The same gentleman thinks the Academys views have a tendency to cramp and narrow the mind of any one who accepts its doctrine. Does he not know that man becomes free only as he acknowledges the truth to be from the LORD alone?
There are other points made by the gentleman upon which we cannot dwell. He sets up one man of straw, and thinks it looks most dangerous and well-nigh blasphemous. Then he sets up another, and thinks it looks like a professor at the very top of a tower of Babel. Evidently he should not indulge himself in looking at such things. But not content with two, he constructs a third man of straw: the teaching of the Academy prevents inspiration. That is what Mr. T. L. Harris, Major Christie, the authors of the End of the Word and of Swedenborg and the New Age, and lay preachers generally complain of. The same teaching is also inimical to those who are in the love of their own intelligence.
But there are two other points which may not be passed over, such as this: You will remember there are expressions in Swedenborgs Writings which seem to say that priests are specially qualified, by virtue of the ordination ceremony, to understand the Word. Yes; they do seem to say so. One of them is found in True Christian Religion, 147:
The reason why enlightenment and instruction are for the clergy especially is because these belong to their office, and inauguration into the ministry brings them with it.
The seeming here is very strong. Again:
It was shown above, that that Divine virtue which is meant by the operation of the Holy Spirit, with the clergy is especially enlightenment and instruction. But in addition to these two there are two intermediate ones, which are perception and disposition; wherefore there are four, which with the clergy follow in order: Enlightenment, Perception, Disposition, and Instruction--T. C. R. 166.
If these are seeming teachings, whet would be unqualified statements?
The other point is contained in the following:
Now I find that, in regard to the idea of a Trine in the Ministry, it is built, as is the Academys doctrine of the inspiration of Swedenborg, upon a scrap of paper,--a letter which Swedenborg wrote to the Swedish Universities of Upsal, Lund, and Abo.
With this may be coupled the reverend gentlemans views, as follows:
The address did meddle a little with what I regard as the very stupid distinction in the ministerial order to which reference has been made ... minister, pastor, and pastor in general.
As the oratorical efforts of both these gentlemen were applauded by the assembly, and as a vote, That a report of the meeting be printed and issued under the direction of the Committee, was carried unanimously, it would seem as if the New Church Society of Manchester (or at least the fifteen members present) were in accord with the views above expressed concerning the subject of Order in the Ministry, and concerning the teachings of the Doctrines thereon. We are willing to believe that the fifteen members present did not fully and fairly represent the Society, and that the truer and better thought of that body has yet to find utterance.
Let any tolerably rational man read the exposition concerning the Priesthood, as represented by Aaron, the sons of Aaron, and the Levites; and we opine that he will hesitate before hazarding the statement that the doctrine of the Trine in the Ministry is based upon a scrap, of paper.
Then let him read n. 17 of the Coronis and he will find this emphatic teaching:
It is a well known truth, that, in order to give perfection to anything, there must be a TRINE in just order, one under another, and that there must be communication between the members of the Trine, and that such a Trine constitutes one thing.... Such a Trine is man; his supreme part is the head his middle part the body, and his lowest part the feet and the soles of the feet. Every kingdom in this respect is like a man, in like manner in the Church, there must be a mitred prelate, parish priests, and curates under them. (From translation published in London.)
If he remain in doubt, let him reed--like a man in earnest to know the truth--the following numbers: D. L. W. 173-236; A. C. 3691, 9825, 5114, 10,181; S. S. 6; H. H. 33-39; T. C. R. 24, 32, 33, 34, 42, 15, 76, 195, 210-214, 370, 395, 603, 608, 609, 618, 677, 687, 712, 713, and 777. If now he be simply silenced, and desire modern indorsement of this doctrine, let him refer to the minutes of the last session of the Convention in this country. Or, he may examine, on p. 11 of the brochure before us, a quotation from WORDS FOR THE NEW CHURCH. Let him change the word recommended to adopted, so that it may be a correct quotation, and he will see that the most general body of the New Church in America has cordially indorsed that doctrine of a Trine in the Ministry; and that it is a part of the organic law of that body.
But as we Americans may justly be considered foreigners, and an erratic sort of people, let him return to the laud of tradition; and, that there may be no caviling on the score of locality, respectability, or authority, let him scan the minutes of the English Conference? At the session held in 1815, in the Temple of the Society of Manchester (Peter Street).
At that session Robert Hindmarsh was unanimously chosen President. In His Rise and Progress of the New Jerusalem Church, p. 238, we find the following:
The proposition, recommending a TRINE, or THREEFOLD ORDER, in the Ministry, having been maturely weighed, and found to be in agreement with the Divine institution of the Representative Church, in which there were one High Priest, his sons, and the Levites; and with the example held out by our LORD in the appointment of the twelve apostles, seventy disciples, over whom He was himself the Head; and also with the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg, in which it is declared, that, in order to the perfection of anything, there must be a Trine; it was Resolved Unanimously, That the office of the Ministry in the New Church be formed into a TRINE or Threefold order; by which is understood, that there shall be three degrees of Ministers, answering to the three heavens;
to the three constituent parts in man,--the head, the body, and the feet; and to the three degrees of life in each.
This we find confirmed by referring to the officially published proceedings.
If the gentleman thinks these expressions too antiquated, let him cast his eyes down the vista of years to 1823. At a session of Conference held at Waterloo Road, London,
The Conference proceeded to the consideration of the best mode of ordering the Ministry; when it was
Resolved, That this Conference considers it to be agreeable to Divine Order, that the persons officiating in holy things be arranged in three degrees, such being the order that obtains in the heavens, which consists of three,a third, a middle, and a first; and in man, who consists of three constituent parts, the head, the body, and the feet; in each of which also, there are three degrees of life.
If not too weary, we hope the gentleman will accompany us to another session of Conference, seven years later, at Salford. The same subject was then and there fully and very ably presented. The principal paper was read by the Rev. Mr. Noble. An appendix much longer than the paper was read by Rev. D. Howarth. Their views upon the subject of degrees in the Ministry are summed up in the following sentence:
Here we have the most direct assertion, that the administration of ecclesiastical matters belongs, according to order, to priests and ministers. It is also indicated that there should be ministers of different degrees; for by the superior and inferior rulers, here spoken of as necessary, are meant governors of both classes, both ecclesiastical and civil. And we find in the Coronis (n. 17), and elsewhere, that according to the views of order recommended by E. Swedenborg, the number of degrees in the Ministry should be three.
It would hence appear that whenever the Academical views of a Trine in the Ministry have come before the English Conference for action, the soundness of those views has been recognized, acknowledged, and officially declared. But although thus thrice declared to be the Divinely revealed order according to which the things of the Church are to be administered, it was held by men to be inexpedient and impolitic to adopt it for their government. Hence this doctrine was allowed to so die out of the minds of English New Churchmen, that a reverend gentleman can exclaim, It makes me sick almost, of the thought that I have been ordained at all, when I hear such things broached as were quoted a little time ago with regard to the minister, the pastor, and the pastor in general.
Who may estimate the harm to the Church that has resulted from our brethren choosing to be governed by tradition, policy, and expediency, and not by a Divinely appointed Order, although seen and acknowledged?
In the light of what we have here brought forth, does not that scrap of paper appear wonderful? And yet, we have not shown a tithe of its real dimensions. If the gentleman were at all familiar with the history of the New Church, he would know that the subject of a Trine in the Ministry has been one of earnest discussion in this country as in England for many years. The names of the Rev. Messrs. Noble, Howarth, Mason, Hindmarsh, Wilkes, Weeks, Worcester, Powell, Benade, and among laymen, of Mr. N. F. Cabell and others, will readily occur to the intelligent New Churchman as zealous workers in this domain of the Church. And he ought to know that a closely printed volume of over seven hundred pages was published in 1848 by the Rev. R. De Charms, devoted to a consideration of the doctrine of order in the Church, as applicable to a Trine in the Ministry. The subject is treated almost exhaustively; and it is needless to say that the work exhibits great ability and ripe scholarship. And yet, the doctrine to which these men have devoted so much time and labor is flippantly characterized as stupid by our orator, and even the revered Mr. Noble, who is in danger of having his well-earned laurel-wreath rumpled by the presumptuous hands of Academicians, is found among the teachers of this stupid doctrine.
So much for the scrap of paper. It pleases us that we find ourselves in accord with the speaker on one point. He says: The idea of a Trine in the Ministry is built, as is the Academys doctrine of the inspiration of Swedenborg, upon a scrap of paper. That is to say, the one no more and no less than the other. We congratulate him on being able to accept the situation.
We have thus given, willingly and cordially, to the good people of Manchester (Peter Street) the means of correcting some of their misapprehensions concerning the Academy; and we sincerely hope that our effort will help them to recover from their panic.
Now let us turn for a moment to some other matters, that demand a little notice. One speaker remarks: There is another thing about the action of the Academy. They sometimes use language that seems to me to denote an extraordinary ability to suspend the ordinary rules of charity, when they talk about themselves and their fellow New Churchmen. That is a very pretty way of putting it, but the charge is just as grave as if it had not been couched in such elegant diction. Let us see how the charge is sustained. In their defense of authority they are not always respectful towards traditional authorities.
Well, we do not profess much respect for authorities that are simply traditional; indeed, we plead ignorance as to what they really are.
They are very free in their criticisms of men whom we have always held in honor. Here somebody exhibits an extraordinary ability to suspend the ordinary rules of truthfulness. We do not criticize men at all: but leave that to our brethren. We criticize opinions and principles. Mr. Nobles renown must give may to some of their teachings now. If Mr. Nobles renown rests upon errors misapprehended for truths, why should it not give way? Adventitious bolstering will hardly make it respectable; and if it be genuine, our teachings will but make it the brighter; as indeed has been the case. Mr. Noble would be the last man to repel honorable criticism, of his errors. In the history of the New Church we know of no name that is cherished with warmer or more genuine affection than Mr. Nobles. And indeed there are very few whose opinions deserve n more careful consideration. But when his high character is used to urge and strengthen teachings which contravene true doctrine, it is time to enter a kind but emphatic protest. The tradition of the elders should be taken at its intrinsic worth.
Again: I never read in any work calling itself a New Church periodical [serial?] anything so bitter--I might almost say so malignant--as the attack on Mr. Bruce, a year or two ago, in WORDS FOR THE NEW CHURCH. When we find a reply at our hand more apt and appropriate than any we can frame we avail ourselves of it: They sometimes use language that seems to denote an extraordinary ability to suspend the ordinary rules of charity. Fancy our astonishment when we read this animadversion upon our character as gentlemen and men of charity. How could the gentleman have failed to discover our good-natured efforts to rescue the venerable editor from what seemed to us his false position? We were flattering ourselves that we had made out a clear case. If he chose to don habiliments properly belonging to a character not to be respected he should not complain--nor his friends for him--of the treatment which they naturally invite.
What right had we to suppose that Mr. Bruce would be betrayed into making such a false not to say malignant statement as the following: that the Academy confer degrees only on the condition of their recipients subscribing to the distinguishing article of the Academys creed, and binding themselves to obey the Academys behest? Where is the malignity or bitterness in repelling such a charge? Further, would it not have been very uncharitable in us to have believed that the venerable editor would have erroneously stated that our Chancellor was present at a session of the Convention, when in the same breath he refers to the proceedings of that body for the purpose of sending forth the false impression that the Convention disfellowshiped the Academy?
And still further, could we have supposed that he was ignorant of the status of chartered institutions in this country; or, being ignorant, would have hazarded a statement so opposed to the truth as the one published in the Intellectual Repository? Now, gentlemen of the Manchester New Church Society (Peter Street), we leave these things with you. Every falsity has its own evil. Bitterness and malignity are of evil. The correction of errors--even when done humorously--does not deserve to be characterized as either malignant or bitter.
As we close our notice of this transatlantic waif we are stirred by varied emotions. We are amused, puzzled, and saddened. The eloquence of the several speakers has entertained us. That of the chief orator especially allows us to imagine what might have been the effect upon us could we have listened to the speech itself.
But the puzzling question persistently comes up: What did our brethren of the Manchester Society purpose to effect by giving publicity to that meetings proceedings? We conclude that it is a conundrum, and we give it up. The burden of their efforts appeared to be the threatening dangers arising from the Academy. And yet, on all available occasions, they affect to despise the movement. We have already noticed some expressions to that effect in the brochure before us.
The venerable editor, towards whom we have been charged with having borne ourselves so harshly, in his efforts to sustain his attack upon the Academy says:
The Church has sufficient vitality to free itself from any spurious or parasitic growth. Yet, as Nature sometimes requires assistance, so does the Church. While we pray for the peace of Jerusalem, we may feel it our painful duty to dash the Babylonian little ones against the stones.
In this does any one notice an extraordinary ability to suspend the ordinary rules of charity?
On the same occasion he quotes with unction from a letter by the President of the Convention:
These special forms of thought which grow out of the idiosyncrasies or personal ends [!] of a few minds, and which may seem to those who become absorbed in them to constitute the essential principles of the New Church, are only little eddies in the great current of truth, and which are themselves carried along in it [whatever this may mean].... But the Church is larger than any man or any institution.
Again: Does any one notice here an extraordinary ability to suspend the ordinary rules of charity?
We spoke of being saddened. And it is saddening to see New Churchmen, either from ignorance of the Divine Doctrines which they profess to acknowledge, or from a lack of reverence for and appreciation of their true character, suffering personal considerations, the opinions of men, policy, expediency, and traditional authorities to outweigh their plain teachings, and not content with this, seeking in these things a ground of accusation of their brethren. We are saddened, they ought to be ashamed.
To us in this new country veneration of tradition among New Churchmen is a marvel. We confess to very little patience with it. We may not appreciate the tremendous infestations to which our English brethren are subjected; and the great necessity for such infestations in order to their liberation from conditions antagonistic to the life of the Church. To us it seems impossible that the New Church can have a genuine growth under the over-shadowing tyranny of human TRADITION.
We are aware that we have given more space to the gratuitous report from our Manchester brethren than it intrinsically merits. But notwithstanding their effort to minify the importance of the Academy movement, they evidently intended to throw down the gauntlet, and to champion what they supposed to be the cause of the main body of the Church. In common courtesy we could do no other than lift the glove; not because they have attacked the Academy, but because they have assailed the Truth. We leave it to others to attack persons, and to attribute motives to men. To our Manchester brethren are commend the careful study of the teachings of the LORD in the Writings for the New Church, which we here append:
With the angels there is no such thing as anger, but instead of anger, zeal Anger differs from zeal in this, that there is evil in anger, but good in zeal.... He who is in zeal, intends good to another towards whom he has zeal; wherefore also he who is in zeal can in an instant be in good, and in the very net be good towards others, but not so he who is in anger. Although zeal in the external form appears like anger, still in the internal form it is altogether different.--A. C. 4164.
Divine Truth becomes combating by conjunction with those who are in zeal; they who are in zeal combat, but not from any enmity and hostility, but rather from charity, for zeal differs from anger in this, that zeal has in it the good which is of charity, wherefore when zeal combats, it only removes those who are in the false and evil, to prevent their hurting those who are in good and truth.A. C. 8698.
This zeal is indeed called anger in the Word, ... but it is inwardly nothing but charity, goodness, and clemency; wherefore the zeal which appears as anger does not continue any longer than till the person, against whom it was kindled, changes his mind and turns himself away from evil.--A. E. 693.
The New Church Magazine.
THERE seems to be at present in England something of a systematic attempt to prejudice the Church against the principles and work of the Academy. Scarcely had we received the pamphlet of the Manchester Society, when the New Church Magazine, published in London for the General Conference of the New Church, enters the lists to make another attack. To us at this distance it is source of surprise to see such an interest taken by the English Church in a matter which would seem to be foreign to it. That the Academy is educating young men for the Ministry, that it is conducting schools for New Church children, and that it teaches by its publications the Truth as revealed to its understanding in the Heavenly Doctrines of the New Jerusalem; that it has decided views on most questions and openly avows them,--all this appears to be so much a matter belonging to the Academy itself and only more remotely to the General Church in America and in England, that it seems odd to see Englishmen expending so much energy in assaulting this body.
While it is natural that the work of the Academy should excite some interest with the lovers of the Church, and while it is orderly and natural that the principles underlying its uses should be examined and considered, we should like to know on what principle of order or comity the New Church Magazine, which is the organ of the English Conference, justifies the lending of its pages to an attack upon a body of the New Church in America. The signature to the paper referred to does not relieve the editor of the Magazine from responsibility for the publication. Indeed, the paper in question is of such a character, that nothing but its publication in a respectable magazine can warrant its being noticed at all.
That there are persons fond of collecting and even of manufacturing rumors, current sayings, slanders and calumnies, and of retailing them for the pleasure and delight of others, is a sad consequence of the corruption of the age; that even New Churchmen can be found guilty of such practices is deplorable; but that a magazine: published for a General Conference of the LORDS New Church should print such a production for the instruction of its readers, and should thus voluntarily take part with the writer in doing a work which we abstain from characterizing according to its deserts, is a humiliating spectacle for those who have the good of the Church at heart. We are curious to see in how far the Magazine in this action represents the state and disposition of the English Conference, and we shall follow future developments with some interest.
In the mean time we commend to the careful study of the New Church Magazine and those of its contributors who take pleasure in such works as have called forth this note, the following teachings of the Church:
The proximate sense of the precept: Thou shalt not kill, which is the spiritual moral sense, is, that thou shalt not hate thy brother or thy neighbor, and thence not treat him with contumely and ignominy, for thus thou injurest and killest his fame and honor, from which is his life among his brethren, which is called the civil life; whence he will afterward live in society as it were dead, being numbered among the vile and wicked with whole no one will hold any commerce: this, when it is done from enmity, from hatred, or from revenge, is homicide or murder; for the civil life proceeds, and is estimated by many in the world, in a like degree with the life of the body, and he who kills or destroys it is also guilty before the angels in the heavens, as if he had killed his brother as to the life of the body.A. E. 1012.
We are pleased to be able to append to these remarks an extract from the issue for March 28 of the New-Jerusalem Messenger, a paper which will hardly be regarded as an advocate of the Academy:
In approaching the subject of the Academy, Mr. Rodgers says: Before arriving in this city (Philadelphia) I was in hopes that as it was the headquarters of the Academy, I should have an opportunity of some friendly intercourse with its promoters, and perhaps return home a convert to the new departure. But I found I had miscalculated. I was prepared to alter my opinion of this institution if I could get a reasonable apology for doing so, and I wanted to speak of it in pleasant, not to say charitable, terms. And he expresses confidence in the honesty of the Academy in the following language: I fully believe those who founded this Academy and subscribe to its tenets are honest, determined, and very sincere. But Mr. Rodgers does not inform us why with this charitable predisoposition he had miscalculated. Why did he not call on some of those whom he is about to criticize, especially when he fully believes them honest, determined, and very sincere? We wish that before expressing himself in such positive and condemnatory terms, and in a public letter, he had at least endeavored to make the acquaintance of the Academicians, and had then spoken the matters of his personal observation.
May we be allowed to hope, that there is enough of a truer and better degree of examine charity in the New Church not to suffer this to be a solitary expression of that ordinary sense of decency and propriety, not to speak of common justice, which has been violated by the act of the New Church Magazine in publishing what ought to have been at once sent back to the source or sources from which it came.