NEW CHURCH LIFE
Vol. XVII, No. 1
PHILADELPHIA, JANUARY, 1897=127. Whole No. 195.
Editorial. 1897
NOTES.
"QUESTIONS and Answers" opens this month as a department of the paper, which it is hoped will not lack for material. Requests for exposition of passages should be accompanied, when possible, by indication of points needing to be cleared up. To secure attention in the current number they should reach the Editor not later than the 20th of the month.
Title Unspecified 1897
IT is due as well to the readers of the Life as to the compiler, to call attention to the unique value of the "Annals of the New Church," begun in the December number. In this series Professor Odhner-so far as we know the only specialist in New Church history-possesses us with the results of his zealous labors of the past twelve years. As stated in the first instalment, the series consists of a consecutive outline of all the occurrences and items which go to make up New Church history. That history has thus far been unwritten, but in these Annals we have the skeleton of the ampler and more finished work which now seems to be among the not too remote possibilities of the future. Interesting as the Annals must be to every lover of the New Church, to the student they would seem to be indispensable. Our regret is that, owing to limitations of our space, many months-even years-must elapse before we can expect to see the work completed.
Title Unspecified 1897
ANOTHER feature introduced with the present number, likely to run through about twelve months, is the publication of Swedenborg's "Diseases of the Fibres," now first done into English, by Charles Louis Olds, M. D. The appearance of this important but hitherto untranslated treatise on the origin and nature of disease, will be a gratification, not only to New Church physicians and physiologists, but also to all lovers of science who, for inspiration and instruction, are glad to sit at the feet of the master who has clothed with living philosophy the dry bones of the old science.
Title Unspecified 1897
IN view of the numerous possible contingencies that of late have confronted our country in her foreign relations, in connection with which such opposite views have found champions, fresh interest attaches to the question:
Should one defend his country, even when it is in the wrong? The answer should be affirmative. The ties of country are obligations of the weightiest sort, for by them are represented, on the civil plane, the Divine beneficence and authority, and they are binding so long as man voluntarily remains under their protection. He dare not ignore the civil law as controlling his civil actions, and therefore if his country goes to war, as in peace; he is not free to withhold his civil support. As to the moral right or wrong of the question involved in the war he has nothing to decide; than belongs to the rulers who, under Providence, are placed in authority; and since they have such opportunities and qualifications for deciding such questions as the private citizen cannot have, he has only to obey. If, however, he have convictions so strong as to make such co-operation in the war a violation of conscience, and thus a menace to his spiritual life, his alternative is to change his country for one in which the standards of right and wrong prevailing in the administration accord more with his own principles. But so long as he remains a citizen of a country he must be loyal.
Title Unspecified 1897
A MAN'S country may do a wrong-may pass and execute an evil law; but he must not on that account diminish his loyalty. If the body is sick, every member in it suffers, but they still continue to be members in the body, and in proportion as each performs its function faithfully it contributes to the return of health. The aggregate tendency of the parts toward health constitutes the recuperative power of the whole. But it is by each keeping within its own function that the restoration will come. When the individual citizen leaves his own use in order to reform the body politic, by resisting such laws as he cannot approve, he subtracts his share of restorative influence and becomes a disturber and obstructionist. There are certain civil functions that are especially concerned with remedial action, but in case these are not properly administered the remedy will have to be worked out in natural ways, and this will be done-under Providence-much sooner if self-will and self-intelligence are kept subordinate to loyalty. But this is difficult in a democracy, where the individual is indoctrinated with the idea that he is responsible for both the laws and their administration. Under much conditions even the disorderly efforts of irresponsible individuals are made Providential use of-agitators do seem to bring about good results; but this line of thought opens up deep and complex questions of permission and of comparative evils, of real and seeming good, not suitable for discussion here. Suffice it to repeat that it is the duty of the citizen to support his country taken as a unit, to obey her every law that does not actually violate his conscience, and to be content and. trust in Providence as the real Ruler over things civil as well of things spiritual.
Title Unspecified 1897
LAST month one editorial note treated of natural affections and the necessity for not giving way to them without scrutiny of their quality. From a suggestion received it seems that it may be well to be somewhat more explicit as to what was meant. It was not meant that the feelings of natural grief must be always stifled or natural indignation crushed out. We on earth live in the natural degree, and live natural life. He who would cultivate an external such, as accompanies the purely spiritual life of heaven will fall into phantasies Indeed, the angels themselves, have times of grief as well as of indignation, on account of evils which appear. A reasonable indulgence of natural emotion is not in frequently the best means for relieving tension and restoring equilibrium to a disturbed mind. But it must be borne in mind that self-control and supervision of one's delights and emotions must not be relaxed to the point of calling all those feelings necessarily good which come spontaneously or which we find ourselves ready to justify; and, further, we are not to take Old Church sentiments for our standards. For an example, in literature, and in the world generally, the vindictiveness which prompts to what is called a suitable revenge for a great wrong (an instance occurs in Ben Hur) is often regarded as a legitimate affection, and is treated in a way calculated to enlist sympathy for the avenger of wrong. The tendency to that soul-destroyer, Revenge, is common to most of us, and sympathy with its manifestations nourishes its growth in ourselves. The prevailing sentiments of the Christian world cannot be accepted as standards; nor can the impulses of the undisciplined natural mind.
JUDGMENT FROM JUSTICE. 1897
"Judge just judgment" (John vii, 14).
ALL who are within the pale of society wish to be thought men of judgment and justice; many believe themselves sincerely desirous of judging wisely and justly; but only the few who love justice for its own sake are really seekers for it; those few never fail to find it, yet often the way seems hard owing to the opposition of the natural man.
The faculty of judgment is what makes man human, and to grow in judgment is to become more fully man. But without justice judgment is nothing but a shadow, for, according to a heavenly standard, justice is the end to which judgment is the means. "Justice is predicated of the exercise of good, judgment of the instruction of truth" (A. C. 2372). The instruction of truth leads to the exercise of good-that is, when man receives and follows the Truth, the LORD flows in with good and becomes the All-in-all of man's life. Thus the way of man to God is by the exercise of judgment; the way of God to man is by the imparting of justice. Every seeker for God desires to follow the LORD'S injunction, "Judge just judgment"-desires that in him may be fulfilled the Divine saying, "Mercy and Truth are met together, Justice and Peace kiss each other" (Ps. lxxxv, 10). To such an end all things of man's life are providentially ordered so that they serve as so many lessons in the school of experience by which man may acquire the faculty of judgment, and thereby become a receptacle of justice from the LORD.
But this holy aspiration for judgment for the sake of justice does not come from the unregenerated natural man, for the affections of this part of man's mind desire not just judgment, but that travesty of judgment which consists of mere persuasions and fallacies that favor natural cupidities.
The principles which guide to the formation of a judgment which shall accord with justice, and which teach how to remove the obstacles in the natural man, are to be found in the laws of Order relating to Use. Use is the very embodiment of justice, that is, of good or charity. Justice is as the soul, judgment the form, and use the body of charity. When man places himself in the order of use, he comes into correspondence with heaven which then flows in into this its own form of Use.
The faculty of judgment is given man in order that he may perform uses; hence the exercise of judgment makes one with the performance of use, and both increase together; and in the same proportion the love of use flows in from the LORD, and this in essence is justice. For instance, take
Judgment of Character,
a most important and most frequently exercised form of judgment. Experience in use teaches man more or less practical judgment to guide him in his dealings with the neighbor, and with the increase of judgment comes greater efficiency in use; and, vice versa, skill in use brings perception of what will further use, and what will protect it, namely, judgment; for it is to promote and protect use that judgment of the neighbor is required. The neighbor's ability and disposition, on the one hand to perform his own use and thereby to cooperate with use in others, or on the other hand to go outside of his own use and so invade that of others, these must determine our attitude and conduct toward him. This necessitates judging of his character so far as to estimate his probable line of conduct; although the spiritual internal of that conduct we may not judge. The external quality of a man appears and may be judged; not so his internal quality,-except by the LORD. Judgment of even the external must be just.
The LORD endows with a true judgment him whose end is good. Where use is the end, internal life from heaven will inflow and, co-operating with the external things of science and experience-of modes and means-which belong, to this world, will develop the true judgment which makes one with justice. But where there is not genuine but only external love of use, only external truths, such as appear in the light of this world, enter; and these, although in form adapted to receive the spiritual love of use breathing the spirit of justice, may also be as readily bent to selfish loves, which extinguish justice and with it judgment. Hence, if a man, in discharging the duties of his occupation in life, love only the wealth, reputation, and worldly comforts they bring him, he is not taught by the performance of uses, true judgment, but only a counterfeit of it, which is effective only in bringing him the natural goods which represent heaven, not the spirit of justice which is the very life of heaven itself. Such a man, however, really desires neither heaven nor justice, however much he may persuade himself to the contrary, and his judgment is merely natural.
Judgment which is merely natural, and therefore not really deserving of the name, is distinguished by a lack of charity and of the spirit of use. It does not confine itself to the requirements of use, but forms its conclusions (and is willing to enforce them) in every occurrence that may excite its natural affections; it cannot persuade itself that the world will move aright unless it passes upon any and everything coming under its observation. Astute only as to external things, and ignorant of what good is, it regards human character from without and not from within, from faith alone and not from charity. Stupid in its self-conceit it concedes to the analysis of human character not one tithe of the application and study which would be required to attain proficiency in the most external accomplishment. The sage Dogberry's remarkable proposition that "reading and writing come by nature" is well-matched by the assumption of the natural man in its readiness to undertake, without training or other qualifications,-the analysis of human character with its complex and subtle elements. From a single trait of character, observed in the neighbor, such a judgment rashly jumps to a sweeping conclusion as to his capacity for use, or as to his general moral quality, ignoring the lessons of experience as to the deceptiveness of appearances; and it makes scant allowance for conflicting elements in the same character; and for the sake of so-called consistency often sweeps away the record of goods done, on the discovery of some unsuspected fault.
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Natural judgment manifests the Ishmael state, harsh, condemnatory, arrogating to itself such an insight as really can proceed only from spiritual illustration in use; it interprets character from evils rather than from its goods; or, under the inspiration of merely natural good, shows itself blind, biased, susceptible to the flattery of worldly blandishments, interpreting everything favorably, in a spirit of undiscriminating, self-satisfied good nature. It dares even to exceed the judgment of character as to natural proclivities and faculties, and presumes to fix the spiritual lot of the neighbor, in heaven or hell. Such is the judgment which is developed in man's early states, and will be confirmed in his later ones if he does not repent of his inborn spirit of injustice and pride-does not become humble to learn obedience to the truth which points out the path of duty that leads to justice and charity.
Just judgment of the neighbor involves a great deal. He who attains it comes into these blessings: he learns to regard the neighbor from use and not from person; and use as coming from the LORD and not from man; thus he looks away from earth to heaven. He learns trust in the Divine government and administration of use, not only with himself but with all-thus he perceives that the LORD'S Divine is what makes the Church and its use,-not its human constituency. Thus he leans on the LORD and learns content and humility. He learns also mercy, patience, self-restraint, faithfulness, and loyalty to the good and true and to those in whom these appear. He resists enmity, envy, revenge, jealousy, and every affection and act which might obscure the neighbor's real quality and capacity for use. The neighbor's defects he ignores, or if use requires him to notice them he distinguishes in his mind the person from the evil, not reflecting on the latter after the necessity has passed. In short, he is raised by the LORD'S mercy above the sphere and excitation of evils into the serenity, power, and peace of the Truth, which in its government ever regards only eternal ends, and yet ever condescends to the temporal ends in which men are and elevates those to itself.
Should not recurrence to these well-known but pregnant truths, and the hope of such a state at some time prevailing in the Church, be enough to stimulate to new and greater sacrifices of the old natural life which ever strives to defeat justice in judgment?
CONCEIT. Rev. ALFRED ACTON 1897
A SERMON
"He detracteth not with his tongue, he doeth not to his companion, evil, and ignominy he putteth not upon his neighbor;" or, as it might also be translated, "He goeth not about with slander upon his tongue, he doeth not evil to his companion, and shame he putteth not upon his neighbor."-Psalm xv, 31.
THE fifteenth Psalm, as has been shown in former discourses, treats of the New Church of the LORD, that perfect Church, the crowning work of the ages, to which the LORD appears as the Divine Good, or JEHOVAH present in His Own Divine Human. Hence it is entitled "A Psalm of David," a teaching concerning the LORD'S appearance as the Divine Man. In the first two verses of this Psalm we are taught that He is present with the Church-i. e., with those who receive Him-as the Divine Good, such as was revealed to the Most Ancient Church, and as the Divine Truth, such as was revealed to the Ancient Church, but in a human form manifest to all, thus as a perfect and entire Man, doing justice and speaking the truth. "O LORD, who shall abide in Thy tent, who shall dwell in the Mountain of Thy Holiness? He that walketh entire and doeth justice and speaketh the truth in his heart."
This appearance of the LORD to His New Church as the Entire and Perfect Man makes that Church an Entire and Perfect Church; for as a man's quality is determined from his idea of God, so the quality of a church is determined from the revelation of the LORD to that church, thus from its doctrines and teachings concerning the LORD. The LORD and the teaching concerning Him make the life and soul of the Church. The New Church is, therefore, a perfect Church; and the man of that Church is a perfect man-perfect even as the LORD is perfect; perfect, not from himself; but from the LORD'S perfection; perfect because he receives the Divine Good in and by the Divine Truth, because he sees and worships the perfect LORD, and, led by Him, walks entire in all his ways, doing deeds of justice and speaking words of truth.
This, however, is said only of the man who is truly of the New Church, who follows not his own counsel, but from love, confirmed by many combats, suffers the LORD to rule and guide him. Only such men are truly of the Church.
They who are members of the New Church-who receive and believe the doctrines of that Church-are not thereby rendered entire and perfect men, but the LORD has placed no limit to their attainment of Heavenly perfection. In revealing Himself, and in leading them to see that revelation, He has done his part and His work; they must do their part and their work by receiving Him. Were we naturally inclined to be recipients of the Lord--were our mind so open to Him that His presence, in the inmost of our life, would shed glory and light in that mind-then were the perfection of Heavenly Life easy of attainment. But this is not the case. From hereditary evil and of our own will we are turned from the LORD, and seek rather the gratification of the desires of the body and the attainment of wholly selfish ends. By nature we are as stagnant pools, surrounded by dense woods, in which fierce wild animals roam, and into which the light of the sun cannot enter; or as a garden filled and choked with thistles and thorns and poisonous herbs, in which no good and useful plant can grow and flourish before the noxious plants have been removed. Our mind is open below, but closed above; open to every call of the world and self, but closed to the LORD and His Divine Voice. Such is man by nature, or of himself. That he may be changed the door above to the LORD must be opened-that door at which the LORD ever stands, and knocking, knocking, urges that He may be received, and may enter in and sup with us and we with Him. That door is opened when man begins to be affected by the truths he has learned, to such an extent that be wills them to guide and fashion his life-that he wills to forsake his evils and follow the truth; in a word, when he begins to shun evils as contrary to and as sins against the Truth of the LORD. So far as man does this the door to the LORD is opened, and the LORD, entering with His Justice and Truth, forms man an image of Himself, a doer of justice and a speaker of truth.
This doctrine as to the manner in which, and in which alone, the LORD is received by man, is contained in the first word of the verse before us. In the Hebrew the first word is [Aleph Lamech]-"not."
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After saying that he that walketh entire shall abide in the Tabernacle of JEHOVAH and dwell in the mountain of His holiness, the Psalm continues, "Not he hath detracted with his tongue (Lo ragat at heshono); not he hath done to his companion evil (Lo asah lerehahoo ra-a); and shame not he hath placed upon his neighbor (we cherpa, lo nasa at kerovo). Thus the first teaching of this verse is that man becomes entire, doing justice and speaking the truth, so far as he does not slander with his tongue or do evil to his companion, or put shame on his neighbor.
From the natural in which man lives before regeneration, he regards himself as the centre of his world-that is, he regards those around him from the standpoint of their service to him in the securing of his desires, and their actions from the standpoint of his own intelligence. At home, in the school, in the world, in social and in business life, he is the centre to which all points should flow, and if he is slighted or neglected, or his gifts and abilities (real or supposed) passed by, he attributes this not to any unworthiness or unimportance of himself; but to the neglect, envy, jealousy, blindness, or lack of appreciation on the part of others, and hence he feels sore and distressed. Although from teaching and experience he may know that he is not of such greatness or importance-although from teaching and experience which have made, as it were a second nature with him, he may scarcely know that he thinks himself so great and important, yet such is the truth of the matter; for the proprium or self-love of man acknowledges no good, except itself and what subserves itself. This each one can see if only he examines the cause of his elation when in favor and praise from others, and of his dejection and sorrow at real or apparent slight or neglect, and if he further examines his attitude to those who favor him, and to those who neglect him. Indeed, when we bring ourselves to this work of self-examination we are astounded, even terrified at the reckless assumption of superiority over others-even though they be the wisest of men-to which our unchecked presumption would lead us.
It is this evil of self-sufficiency and conceit which we are taught in the words of our text must be first' shunned that man may become an Entire Man of the Church. This evil is the result of all scandalous speech and thought against the neighbor.
The companion and the neighbor are primarily those with whom man is associated in the Church, so far as they love the goods and truths of the Church. It is said that the entire man detracteth or slandereth not with his tongue, and doeth no evil to his neighbor, nor putteth shame upon him; and this is the case, because such a man regards his neighbor not from that neighbor's attitude to himself, but from his attitude to the Church. Thus, whether he himself thereby benefits or not, he wills, nevertheless, to do no evil to the neighbor in word or in deed, to put no shame or reproach upon him; his delight is to see him grow in usefulness in the Church, to see him happy and content; his faults he does not care to dwell on, but is ever in the will to excuse them, and to look at the goods. Thus he regards the neighbor with all his faults, from his good, from his love to the Church. Not so the natural man. He looks at the neighbor, not from that neighbor's love to the Church, but from his attitude to himself; thus his will is to do evil to the neighbor, and to do good to him- himself (and of course to the neighbor also so far as this is doing good to himself); to make the neighbor a reproach and himself honored. He is not in the delight of the neighbor's prosperity and happiness in the Church, nor does he will that honor and love to be shown him. Hence arises slanders and backbiting, and by these not only open defamation is meant, for caution and prudence withhold from these, but also useless and needless talk and gossip concerning the neighbor's evils, in which those evils are dwelt on, distorted, and so far magnified as to cloud over and belittle his goods, and thus injure his name and fame and usefulness in the Church. With the natural man the neighbor's evils are not regarded from his goods, but his goods are viewed in the light of his evils.
It is from the state of evil described before, namely conceit of the proprium, that we so often find ourselves ready to criticise and find fault with those who do not favor us or our ideas-whose success and honor diminish our own-that we so often find covert delight in thinking and talking of the neighbor's faults and in listening to tales thereon, in which delight is too often the desire that what we say and hear may be true, a desire that is father to the thought. Within all is the proprium-the will that none shall receive or deserve honor and praise above us-that the neighbor's name and fame and understanding and wisdom maybe diminished that our own name and fame and our own understanding and wisdom may shine more brightly.
It is this evil will to the neighbor which we must shun, because it is an evil; and we must shun it, not by forcing ourselves to think well of him-for that is impossible while evil remains within-but by refusing to dwell in the delight of seeing his faults-by ceasing to will him evil, to injure him whether openly or in our hearts. He detracteth not with his tongue, he doeth not to his companion evil, and ignominy he putteth not upon his neighbor. This is the natural sense of these words.
There is a more interior manifestation of the conceit of the proprium in its attitude to the goods and truths of the Church.
Every man of the Church has the truth of the Church-for this comes by an external way, that is, by the senses-and within the truth is good. But the good does not affect man until evils which oppose have been removed, thus until the mind is open to the LORD, and His truth rules from within as well as from without. By the truth which he has, man is associated with his fellow-members of the Church, and with the angels of heaven; for truth, and thought concerning truth, brings the presence of those who are in truth. Hence truth is called in the Word "a companion," [Hebrew] (re-a), from the root [Hebrew] (ra-ah), "to associate with any one." But Good is called a neighbor [Hebrew] (ka-rov), from [Hebrew] (ka-rav), "to draw near;" because good with man draws him near and conjoins him with the men of the Church and with the angels of heaven. By truth man can enter and receive the light of Heaven; by Good he is open to its heat.
It is this Truth and Good-the companion and neighbor of man-which the entire man "detracteth not with his tongue," that is to say, with the thought of his love; for the tongue signifies thought from affection. The tongue serves a double use in the body, that is, it ministers to the lungs, and hence serves for the expression of speech, and also, as an organ of taste it ministers to nutrition, and hence to the heart and its blood. The heart is the life or good, the lungs the thought or truth. Thus the tongue signifies speech or expression of the life's love and affection. When it is used for the expression of truth, then signifies the affection of truth from the heart; but when it is used for slander and lies then it signifies falsity from evil love.
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From his heart the entire man acknowledges that he is nothing but evil, that of himself he would at once rush into hell; the thought of his heart is true thought, which slanders not. Hence he receives and welcomes the truth of the Word as his associate and companion, it is ever with him in all his deeds, and the false suggestions of the evil loves, which strive to do evil and violence to that truth, to pervert and twist it that it may be cast off or made of none effect-be rejects, for he doeth not evil to his companions. Thus he honors and receives as his nearest neighbor the good within Truth, rejecting every evil which rising up makes good a shame and a reproach, a mock and a vain thing; for evil does this to good, since it acknowledges no real thing but itself and all that serves itself. He putteth not shame upon his neighbor.
Probably few, if any, of the members of the New Church do evil to truth or make good a reproach, in their conscious life; if violence is done to truth man is apt to deceive himself with the thought that such is his understanding of the truth, and if any good of the Church is made a reproach, he says that in his opinion it is not a good. But it is not of the conscious thought (which is external) that the LORD here teaches us, but of the unconscious thought, the innermost thought of man, the thought of his heart, of his love, of his life, thought which appears fully to him only when he examines himself. Evil, and the false with which it covers and defends itself, scandalizes everything of the Church, it violates its truths and mocks its good; for the proprium of man is sufficient unto itself; it asks for no advice, seeks no counsel; all that does not serve itself it regards with proud and supercilious contempt. It hides itself in the truth and makes that truth a handmaid; it operates in good, and makes good a slave.
It is of supreme, yea of eternal importance, for us, as men of the Church, to clearly understand this teaching, that we may know, in some degree, our attitude to the Good and Truth of the Church. Hearing the truth so often, accustoming ourselves to think of it as the truth, we may easily deceive ourselves with the persuasion that we accept it from the heart; but let each one well and thoughtfully consider that so long as he is ruled by the proprium-that is, so long as that proprium is not shunned, so long is the truth of the Church violated and its good contemned. We are taught that such as have been of the Church and acknowledged its truths and done its goods, and yet have not shunned the evils of the proprium, when they enter the other world live for some time the life of the Church as they were accustomed to do on earth. After a time, finding that Heaven is not given them, they become indignant and finally demand it. They are then told that none can enter Heaven except those who have shunned the leadings and conceits of their evil loves, thus with whom the Kingdom of Heaven is. Then they soon throw off the garb of external profession and belief with which they had so long deceived even themselves, and the nature of their true thought from affection becomes manifest in slanders and calumnies; they do evil to the truth, put scorn on the good; and they would actually do this to those who are in good and truth did not the LORD prevent them. Such is the state of all who have and believe the Good and Truth of the Church and do not cast out the evil of the proprium. Let each one beware lest he be such. This is the spiritual sense of the words: He detracteth not with his tongue, he doeth not to his companion evil, and ignominy he putteth not upon his neighbor.
There is a still more interior manifestation of the conceit of the proprium, in slander and blasphemy of the LORD, the shunning of which is described in the celestial sense of these words.
The innermost conatus of man's proprium, the full range of its conceit, is to dethrone the LORD and to rule over the souls, the thoughts, and the wills of men. Though all can know from doctrine that such is the nature of their proprium, and may, indeed, in their intellectual thought have no other idea than that they acknowledge this, yet none but the celestial can see in themselves the interiorly malignant quality of their proprium, and this because the celestial are in interior humility, from which they perceive and know that they are nothing but evil, and hence in everything of their proprium they see and interiorly perceive nothing but evil. To the spiritual and to the natural-that is, to those who are not in such interior humility-the inner and diabolical nature of their proprium is not revealed as it is in itself, but only in its manifestation in hatred to the neighbor, or, also combat and strife against the Church. Were it otherwise they would immediately succumb-their state of humility could not sustain or resist the insinuations and attacks of interior conceit against the LORD. Only the celestial, only those who perceive the Lord as the All-Good whom they love, and themselves as the all-evil which they loathe, can see and resist the supreme conceit which dwells deeply hidden in the heart of man,-can face those crafty and malignant devils who, hidden in the recesses of man's proprium, urge him to hatred of the neighbor and of the Church. The celestial see in their proprium-in themselves-the desire to ascribe the Goods and Truths which they have to themselves, and not to the LORD; to take to themselves the LORD'S glory and honor; and should they listen to such desires, should they fall prey to them, the most direful profanation would result-celestial Truth would be defiled and celestial love blasphemed-the LORD who is with them the companion and neighbor would be hated and become to them a reproach. But when the conceit of the proprium suggest these desires the entire man of the Church does not listen; from the perception of his love as to their quality, he shuns and rejects them. He detracteth not with his tongue, he doeth not to his companion evil, and ignominy he putteth not upon his neighbor.
These three senses, the celestial, spiritual, and natural, make one, describing the nature of the proprium in its inner and outer manifestations. They who shun that proprium in its scandalous and uncharitable thoughts against the neighbor, and who do this from not willing to hurt him, are, according to their capacity, entire men doing justice and speaking the truth from the heart. They who examine more interiorly and see and shun in the proprium the hatred and contempt in which the Church is held, they also in their degree are entire men, doing justice and speaking the truth. But they who, from their love to the LORD and perception of His Goodness, can see still more interiorly the nature of their proprium that it despises and blasphemes their LORD, and who altogether reject their proprium, are truly the entire men of the Church, to whom the LORD appears in His Glory, and who are as children led by Him, from Him loving justice, and from Him speaking the Truth in their heart.
All, the natural, the spiritual, and the celestial, are of the Church of the LORD, for THEY WHO LOVE THE NEIGHBOR AND GOD WILL BE OF THAT CHURCH.
There is one thing which is necessary to the spiritual progress of all three classes-the shunning of evils, and hence the implantation of humility; for when man shuns evils he shuns himself and becomes humble before God and man; and the LORD eaters with humility, and this brings us again to that truth with which we started out-that the LORD appearing Entire to His Church, places no limit to man's reception of Him.
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Man must do his work by removing the evils which obstruct. LET HIM RESIST EVILS in intention ONLY ONCE A WEEK; OR TWICE A MONTH, AND HE WILL PERCEIVE THE CHANGE (Doct. of Life, 97).
Such is the interior understanding of these words: He detracteth not with his tongue, he doeth not to his companion evil, and ignominy he putteth not upon his neighbor.
CHALDEA AND BABYLONIA. 1897
III.
THE CHURCH.
THE Ancient Church, like every Church established by the LORD, was at first one and undivided. Men differed, indeed, as to doctrinals, or minor points of faith, but they all agreed on the two essentials of the Church, that God is One, and that charity is the life of faith. In the course of time, however, heresies sprang up which at first divided the Church, and finally destroyed it. But like the Christian Church, which, although divided on many points of faith, is nevertheless united on this, that God is not One, and that faith alone saves, so in later times the various branches of the Ancient Church, though similarly divided on minor points, all believed in a multitude of gods, and virtually that faith in these saved. Some, indeed, were profaners of a more interior kind than others; but, as they all had originally the same revelation, the perversions of this revelation have a certain resemblance to each other; so that whatever the minor differences may have been, we find that under a variety of disguises is concealed the same general belief.
The theologies of the ancient nations are now called mythologies, because they are regarded as so many forms of nature-worship, in which each god is supposed to be some power in nature personified; and the stories woven around these supposed imaginary deities are called fables or myths. And as there is some resemblance between these myths and certain stories in the Word, the latter has been regarded in the same light. Materialism leads to such conclusions-indeed, must lead to such. From nature only nature can be seen. That the Word is the Divine Truth, and that the so-called mythologies are so many modifications and distortions of the Divine Truth, can only be seen from revelation, and can never be discovered in any other way.
As all the myths are the embodiments of the conceptions of spiritual things of the ancients, and as these were all originally derived from the same source, it is to be expected that there should be a certain general resemblance between them. Thus it happened that each nation had sun-gods and moon-gods, gods of the earth, of the sea, etc.; for all knew once that the sun represents love, the moon faith, the earth the Church, and so on. In our own Word the LORD is called "a Sun," "the Bright and Morning Star." That these and the like correspondential expressions, when the knowledges of the meaning were lost, were supposed to refer to so many separate deities, and finally as the powers of nature personified, cannot be denied. But idolatry and nature-worship arose when the Church had perished; they are the results of the perversion of spiritual things.
Now, the science of correspondences was known and cultivated more or less in all the branches of the Ancient Church, and each nation clothed its knowledges of spiritual things in forms agreeable to its own genius. They spoke and wrote in correspondences, and we are taught that "it was a common thing with them to introduce things, as it were, discoursing with each other, as wisdom, intelligence, the sciences, and the like, and also to give them names, whereby such things were signified" (A. C. 4442). Such is the language of our own Word, in which every historical personage, place, and event represents something of the LORD and of the Church.
Some of the stories that have come down to us from these ancient times are simple, others are very elaborate; but there is little doubt but that the groundwork of most of them, if not all, originated in the best period of the Ancient Church. How much these stories have suffered through modifications and additions in later times may yet be discovered when more and older inscriptions come to light. But of those that have been found some are plainly from the Ancient Word. Thus a Chaldean version of the Flood has survived, which in its general outlines agrees with the account in Genesis, differing, however, considerably in details; particularly in this that it is throughout polytheistic. Unfortunately the tablets are badly broken, so that part of the story is lost; but what there is of it is an interesting confirmation of the teaching that the nations of the Ancient Church had a Word from which Moses copied the first chapters of Genesis. The following is an extract of the story as now known:
"At that time the heavens above named not a name, nor did the earth below record one; yea the ocean was their creator, the flood of the deep (Tiamat) was she who bore them. Their waters were embosomed in one place, and the clouds [?] were not collected, the plant was still ungrown. . . . Then the gods were made; Lakhum and Lakhamu issued forth first. They grew up . . . next were made the host of heaven, . . . the stations of the great gods, even the stars, fixing the places of the principal stars, . . . at that time the gods in their assembly created . . . they caused the living beings to come forth, the cattle of the field, and the creeping thing" (By-Paths of Bible Knowledge, "Assyria," p. 80-81).
Comparing this account, even in its fragmentary condition, with the account in Genesis, we find that, with the exception that the former ascribes the work of Creation to a number of gods, the events follow in nearly the same order. As the story of the Creation describes the progressive work of regeneration, both accounts begin with the description of the state of "vacuity, emptiness, and darkness of man," which precedes regeneration (A. C. 7), after which follow the successive states of love and faith from exterior to interior (A. C. 8-12).
The Chaldean account has it that Tiamat gave birth to heaven and earth. This must be a changed version of the original story; for Tiamat is generally called the enemy of the gods, indeed the Dragon, the Great Serpent of the Chaldean mythology; so that she must here stand for "the Abyss" in Genesis, which represents the lusts of the unregenerate man, and the falses thence arising. That anything good could arise out of such material can scarcely be conceived, except perhaps in the sense of one succeeding the other; as we sometimes say, that "order arose out of chaos," by which no one means to convey the idea that chaos produced, or could possibly produce, order.
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Another interesting illustration of the fact that the Ancient Chaldeans had the Word, is a cylinder of very ancient Babylonian workmanship, on which the story of the Fall is represented. A man and a woman sitting on either side of a fir or pine-tree, stretch out their bands for the cones. A large serpent rearing itself up the ground behind the woman completes the story.
There is also a lengthy account of the Deluge; the general outlines of which are similar to the account in our Word. The gods Anu, Bel, Ninib and others in council, decide upon the destruction of mankind for their wickedness. Ea, the god of wisdom, makes the decision known to Hasisadra (the Noah of the Chaldeans), ordering him to build a ship. Hasisadra did as commanded, built the ship (dimensions not known), divided it into compartments, and pitched it with bitumen from within and without. But whereas Noah takes only his wife, his sons, and sons' wives with him, Hasisadra takes all his servants, male and female, and all his nearest relations, and confides the ship to a pilot. Then Raman, the God of Thunder, causes the great black clouds to rise; the God of Pestilence lets loose the whirlwinds; Ninib makes the canals to overflow; and the Anunaki, Spirits of Earth, bring up the floods from the depths of the earth, which quakes at their violence; similarly as in Genesis: "the fountains of the deep were disrupted, and the cataracts of heaven were opened."
The Chaldean account differs in this, that the rain stopped on the seventh day, whereas in Genesis it continued forty days and forty nights; but as both numbers signify what is full or complete, the meaning of both is essentially the same. Like the Ark, the ship landed on a mountain in the Land of Nizir, east of Mesopotamia. Hasisadra sent out in succession a dove, a swallow, and a raven. Noah, on the other hand, sent out the raven first, and then the dove. Here again the Chaldean account must have been changed, judging from the explanation in the work, the Arcana Coelestia, n. 864-90. According to the explanation in that work, the sending out of the raven and the dove implied successive explorations as to the state of receptivity with the man of the Church. The sending forth of the raven signifies that falses still occasioned disturbances, so as to prevent the reception of goods and truths. The dove going out and returning implies that at first there was no reception; and it was not until several changes of state had taken place that the dove ceased to return. From this explanation it would seem that the Chaldean account has the order reversed. Further discoveries may perhaps bring to light a different version of the story. Still, however much the account may have been changed, its origin cannot be mistaken.
It is not unlikely, that as the Church became corrupt, the Word was lost, else it would be difficult to account for the fact that several of the nations of the Ancient Church forgot the very name of the God of that Church. Such we are taught was the case with Hebrews and with the Egyptians (A. C. 7194, 7097); and such was no doubt the case with Chaldeans. Their knowledge of the account concerning the Creation, the Fall, and the Flood must have come to them by tradition, in which case the account was liable to suffer changes; and not only that-stories would become confounded with each other. This last has evidently happened to the stories of Noah and Chanoch. Of the latter we read: "And Chanoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him" (Gen. v. 24). And the explanation of this verse is as follows: "The Church Chanoch made doctrine from the things revealed to and perceived by the Most Ancient Church; and although this doctrine was of no use at that time, it was preserved for posterity, which is signified by 'Chanoch was nor, for God took him'" (A. C. 464). Now all this is ascribed to Hasisadra. The tablet on the Flood relates that Hasisadra was commanded to take all the sacred writings and bury them in Sippar, the City of the Sun, to save them from destruction during the Flood. And the account closes with the statement that after the Flood Hasisadra was "raised to be equal with the gods, [and] shall dwell in the distant land, by the mouth of the rivers." Clearly the burying of the sacred writings near Babylon is the Babylonian way of describing Chanoch's work; and Hasisadra's translation to "the distant land, by the mouth of the rivers," is another way of saying that "he was not, for God took him."
There must also have been in the Ancient Word a story similar to that of the birth and miraculous preservation of Moses; for one of the ancient Babylonian kings is made to tell such a story of himself. He begins by telling that his mother, a princess, gave him birth in a hiding place, and continues in these words: "She placed me in a basket of rushes; with bitumen the doors of my ark she closed. She launched me on the river, which drowned me not. The river bore me along, to Akki, the water-carrier, it brought me. Akki, the water-carrier, in the tenderness of his heart lifted me up. Akki, the water-carrier, as his own child, brought me up. Akki, the water-carrier, made me his gardener, and in my gardenership the goddess Ishtar loved me."
Thus the decipherment of the cuneiform inscriptions has brought to light so much interesting information, illustrative of the teaching that the Ancient Word was also among the Chaldeans, and possibly also among the Babylonians, before they became so corrupt-as they are described in the Word. Our attention will next be called to the peculiar form of idolatry which prevailed among the Chaldeans and Babylonians, by which they perverted the goods and truths of the Church, and thus the Church with them.
DISEASES OF THE FIBERS. 1897
(This treatise constitutes Part III of a work which is commonly known as Volume III of the Economy of the Animal Kingdom, but which seems to have been included by Swedenborg himself in the Animal Kingdom. (See Documents concerning Swedenborg, vol. III, pp. 866 and 925.) Part I treats of the Fibre (as constituting the brains and thence the whole body); Part II treats of the Arachnoid Membrane and its functions.)
CHAPTER I.
All diseases in the animal body are diseases of the fibres.
370. There are diseases of the solid parts, and also of the fluid parts; the solid parts are the bones, cartilages, tendons, cuticles, membranes, yea, the blood-vessels themselves, as also the fibres regarded as to their tunics. The fluid parts are humors of diverse kinds, as the gastric juices, the salivas, the pancreatic juices, biles, chyles, lymph of the thoracic duct, milks, the genital fluid [genitura]; in general the red blood with its serum, the purer blood or nerve juice, and the purest blood, or the first essence of the blood. But whether the part be solid or fluid, or soft, still it pertains to the fibre; for there is nothing in the universal body but the simple fibre (see Chap. XXIV, of The Fibre). From it is derived the composite or medullary and nerve fibre; from this indeed is derived the blood-vessel, which is a fibre of the third order (Chap. XXII, of The Fibre), and besides the fibres and vessels, there is nothing substantial that begins, excites, and determines the very form itself (Chat. XXIV, of The Fibre).
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Moreover the fibre is not regarded as a fibre, nor is it without its own fluid or blood; for the containant and the contained make common cause. From these things it follows that the diseases of the fibres in a broad sense embrace all diseases, in general and in particular, or the pathology both of the body and of the mind.
CHAPTER II.
The diseases of the body, the passions of the animu, and the changes of state of the mind [mens], are of the fibres in general.
371. The ultimate fibres are the blood-vessels; the mediate fibres are the nerves and medullary fibres; the first fibres are the simple fibres, which are the beginnings of the rest. There is red blood in the ultimate fibres or vessels; there is purer blood in the mediate fibres, and there is purest blood in the first or simple fibre. There are, therefore, diseases of the blood-vessels, or of the red blood; diseases of the mediate fibres, or of the purer blood; and diseases of the simple fibres, or of the purest blood.
372. The diseases of the red blood are properly diseases, and indeed are diseases of the body; they flow for the most part from the red blood itself and from its defect [vitium] and malignity; thence the other humors derive their defect; likewise the glands, muscles, viscera, the vessels themselves, and finally the nerves. There are many kinds of diseases of the body, and innumerable species, which are here to be treated of.
For these a remedy is prepared from drugs, wherefore from the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms, similarly from moderate food Or diet; from exercise and rest, sleep, moderate temperature of the air, and tranquillity of the animus;* likewise from other discovered means, which purify the blood, emend and renew it.
* In order to avoid confusion between the Latin words animus and mens, the former has been carried over into the English, and the latter rendered mind throughout the treatise [Tr.].
373. The diseases of the purer blood, or nerve-juice, are not diseases of the body, but properly of the animus, and are called sicknesses, passions, as also affections of the animus. For the nerve-juice, that is to say, that which runs through the medullary and also the nerve fibre, is the same as the animal spirit,* which rules not only in the nerves of the body, but also in the medullary substance of the cerebrum, cerebellum, medulla oblongata and medulla spinalis, as also it permeates the median cortical glands, which taken together constitute the common sensory: therefore from the vitiated state' of the spirits arise sicknesses, which do not immediately affect the body, but the animus of the body; such are angers, furies, hatreds, species of ludicrous pride, melancholies, inconstancies of the affections, impatiencies, frensies, timidities, excessive ardor and too great remission of the concupiscences; infirmity of the imagination, deficiency of the memory, finally the loss of it; and many things which are of the cerebrum and are attributed to the heart. Nevertheless they inflow into the body, as the purer blood into the red, and the fibres into the blood-vessels, and thus cause diseases.
For these a remedy is also prepared from drugs, which purify and restore the blood; and especially from agreeable and convivial companionship and society; and also from moral philosophy. But it is to be ascertained whether these sicknesses arise from a defect of the red blood or some disease of the body, or from causes of their own, or from a perverted state of the intellectual mind.
* See "Posthumous Tracts," under Animal Spirit, note, Chap. VI.
374. Diseases of the put-eat blood are not sicknesses of the animus, but properly of the intellectual mind, the part of which is perceiving, thinking, judging, and willing; which faculties do not pertain to the animus, but to the sphere which is above the animus in man; it is otherwise in brute animals. These are not properly diseases which are of the body, nor sicknesses and passions, which are of the animus, but rather affections of the mind, and perversions of its state, as are the various loves of self, vain ambitious, misanthropy, hatreds, inordinate desires for what is wrong, whence are malices and insanities, of which there are many species; imbecility, as also too great a fire of thinking, of judging, and of originating phantasies thence; yea also stupidity and many others; which stream forth from a preconception of false principles concerning the connection and order of causes and ends, by obsequiousness and connivance toward the animus and its unrestrained cupidities, and especially from the banishment of conscience; thence are evils themselves, vices and prevarications, which lay waste and destroy their whole republic.
For the purest blood, or the first essence of the blood which determines the simple fibre, is not the animal spirit, but the external form of the soul [anima]: from this essential and its fibre the cortical substance is excited, in which substance our rational mind lodges [hospitatur], for it is its substantial form, or the first organic form of the soul, undoubtedly prepared from the simple fibres; and as many as are such substances, so many are the little brains, and so many the little internal sensories; therefore, according as the internal state of this substance is changed, so also is the state of our rational mind changed, which if it be perverted, hallucinations and insanities thence burst forth.
For these a medicine is prepared from the same remedies, which emend the animal spirit and the sickness of the animus; then also from this that the mind suffer itself to be informed by masters of sounder judgment; thus from natural as also revealed theology; especially that it may curb and check its animus and impetus, and itself lay claim to its own right and its own liberty.
375. But it is to be well discerned and judged which are diseases of the body, which of the animus, and which of the mind; for often one so inflows into the other as to counterfeit it, as though they always exist together. THE DISEASES OF THE BODY are all those which arise from causes which act in the blood vessels or within the blood-vessels, and which act outside the nerve and medullary fibres yet into them; consequently also outside the cortical glands but into them; finally outside and into the organic forms excited by these fibres.
THE SICKNESSES OF THE ANIMUS are all those which arise from causes which act in the nerve or medullary fibres or within them; and which act outside the simple fibres yet into them, consequently also within the cortical glands, but into them. For, according to the description of the cortical gland in Transaction II, it is a small ventricle, a likeness of the heart, or a follicle, which passes through the midst of a gland, and is continued into a fibre or its canal. Around this follicle is the body of the gland woven together from the simple fibres. Wherefore, when the purer blood passes through this follicle, it is said to act within the gland, but into it-that is, into the simple fibres; then outside of and into the organic forms excited by the simple fibres.
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The perverse changes of state of the intellectual mind arise from causes which act in the simple fibres, and within the simple fibres, as also those which act outside the substances or forms of the soul, yet into them, therefore in the cortical glands, which are the first or external organic forms of the soul.
376. From these things it may appear that there are yet diseases of a higher degree; for the soul is above our intellectual mind, and the intellectual mind is the external form of its soul, which is the internal or inmost and supreme form of its own system. But diseases are not predicable of the soul, neither are sicknesses or affections, but rather guilt, wherefore also essential changes of state. But because the soul has been properly said to be above the simple fibre, hence its guilt can be allotted no place among the diseases of the fibres.
CHAPTER III.
On the influx and correspondence of the sicknesses of the body, animus, and mind.
377. No one, I believe, doubts that our intellectual mind, that is to say, its thought, will, love, and desires, inflow into the animus and its imagination, whence cupidities are excited; and that these inflow into the sensations of the body, the features, the actions, and delights; for he who reflects a little upon those things which exist in himself perceives that the universal corporeal system is so connected that that which is superior and interior acts into that which is inferior and exterior, and vice versa. This experience alone more than sufficiently proves, for the mind often so operates into the body that it renders the blood turbid and dark; just as when the mind desires some end, if it fails in attainment, the animus becomes so angry, inflamed, and furious that the blood grows hot, and the bile is expelled from its cyst, and a fever seizes upon the viscera; yea, even to that extent that the small intestines are twisted into a knot. Consequently there is a perpetual influx and a perpetual correspondence; yea, as often as they do not correspond a combat is excited, whence is disharmony, which is the cause of many sicknesses and diseases; but to treat of this influx is the work of an entire volume.
378. All diseases of the body, how many soever there be, acknowledge a certain corresponding sickness in the animus, and to this a corresponding affection or change of state in the mind. But although they correspond, still they are not to be similarly denominated; as are neither diseases themselves, which are called diseases in the body; namely, sicknesses and passions in the animus, changes or perverse states in the mind, and guilt in the soul. Pain itself, which is in the body, is called anxiety in the animus, evil conscience in the mind, and hell in the soul. Bilious fevers in the body are wraths, furies, ragings in the animus, and burning hatred in the mind; the one also excites the other. Paralysis in the body corresponds to rage in the animus, and fluctuation of the will, and indeterminateness in the mind. So also with the rest, but ability is not granted to give the correspondences of all diseases before the nature of each one is explored. Of correspondences and their application you will see wonderful things in their own Treatises.
379. Such is the correspondence of diseases as is that of the grosser, purer and purest blood; or as is that of the blood-vessels, nerve fibres, and simple fibres; as is that of the heart, cerebrum, and cortical substance (Chapter XXIII, of The Fibre), for these are forms which mutually succeed each other. Like as they mutually correspond, so also they mutually inflow, act, and suffer. From this it clearly appears how many divisions are required for science and the medical art, that it, the medical art, may be most perfect.
ANNALS OF THE NEW CHURCH. 1897
(Continued.)
EMANUEL SWEDENBORG.
II.
1710.
September.-Enters upon his first foreign journey, traveling from Gottenburg by sea to London, where he remains until the autumn of 1712. On his way he was four times in danger of his life (Doc. II, 3).
October 13th.-London. Third letter to Eric Benzelius: describes his scientific studies and pursuits; speaks of the dissensions between the Anglican and Presbyterian Churches in London, and dedicates some Latin verses to the Swedish poetess, Mrs. Brenner, whom he called "the Sappho of our age" (Doc. I, 206), London, as it was at this period, described in Al. V, 513). This poem was afterwards published in the appendix to an edition of her own poems, and bears the title:
"Ad Sophiam Elisebet Brenneriam, unicam oetatis nostroe camenam, cum carmina sua de novo caneret" (D. II, pp. 4to). A copy of the original is preserved in the Library of the Academy of the New Church.
1711.
April 30th.-London. Fourth letter to Eric Benzelius: relates much news of scientific and literary interest; speaks of learning various trades from mechanics, with whom he lodges, and makes some observations on subjects of astronomy (Doc. I, 209).
August-Receives letter from Professor Elvius, of Upsala, with a request for information on certain astronomical questions, on behalf of the "Literary Society" of Upsala (Doc. I, 212). This Society, of which Emanuel Swedberg appears to have been a member, was the forerunner of the "Academy of Sciences" in Stockholm.
1712.
January-London. Fifth letter to Eric Benzelius: has acquired the arts of engraving and making scientific instruments of brass, and has made much progress in the studies of Astronomy, Algebra, and higher Geometry; has discovered a new method of finding the longitude, by means of the moon, and has made several other astronomical inventions; complains of inconveniences resulting from the very short allowance on which he is kept by his father (Doc. I, 216).
August 15th-London. Sixth letter to Eric Benzelius: discourses on scientific and literary topics; has made the acquaintance of many learned men, but his new discoveries have not met with much encouragement in England. Exhausted by too close scientific studies, he seeks recreation in the cultivation of poetry (Doc. I, 221).
After a visit to the University of Oxford, he left England sometime in the autumn, and traveled to Holland, where he visited the principal towns (Doc. II, 4).
1713.
January-June.-Emanuel Swedberg in Holland; visited Leyden, where he learned the art of glass-grinding, and Utrecht, where he attended the International Congress, which settled the war of the Spanish succession (Doc. II, 4).
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July-Arrived in Paris, where he fell ill, recovering after six weeks.
August 9th.-Paris. Seventh letter to Eric Benzelius: mentions his illness; describes his meeting with famous men, such as De La Hire, Warrignon, and the Abbe Bignon (Doc. I, 225).
1714.
After a sojourn in Paris of nearly a year, he traveled to Hamburg, and thence to Pommerania, where he remained a whole year.
September 8th.-Rostock. Eighth letter to Eric Benzelius: states that he is occupying his time in the work of collecting his various papers, and communicates a long list of new mechanical inventions, which he has made; he is also bringing his poetical efforts into order; suggests the establishment of a "Society for Learning and Science" in Sweden, and makes some observations on the disturbed political situation (Doc. I, 229).
1715.
April 4th.-Greifswalde, Pommerania. Ninth letter to Eric Benzelius: describes an air pump, and some other machines, which he has invented; considers Greifswalde "quite a paltry university" (Doc. I, 233).
While here he publishes a little work of Latin poetry, entitled
"Camena Borea cum Heroum et Heroidum factis ludens; sive Fabella Ovidianis similes cum variis nominibus scriptoe" Greifswalde, 112 pp. l6mo. (See Doc. II, 886.)
During Emanuel's sojourn at Greifawalde, King Charles XII escaped from his prison in Turkey and arrived at the city of Stralsund, then belonging to Sweden. Here the king was before long besieged by the united armies of Russia, Poland, and Prussia. Escaping from the immediate neighborhood of the scene of war, Emanuel obtains passage home in a yacht, arriving in Sweden after an absence of more than four years (Doc. II, 4).
August 9th.-Brunsho. Tenth letter to Eric Benzelius: describes various new and important inventions, and the plan of an astronomical observatory of his own on the mountain of Kinnekulle, near his home (Doc. I, 236).
November 21st.-Stockholm. Eleventh letter to Eric Benzelius: has been on a visit to Upsala; finds the capital greatly excited over the uncertain whereabouts of King Charles (Doc. I, 238).
December-Stockholm. Twelfth letter to Eric Benzelius: is engaged in the preparation of a scientific Magazine (the Daedalus Hyperboreus); pleads for intercession with his father, by Benzelius; communicates the latest news from Stralsund, whence the king is supposed to have escaped (Doc. I, 239).
December 7th.-Letter of Polheim to Emanuel Swedberg, expressing gratification at the intended publication of a scientific journal, and promising his co-operation (Doc. I, 241).
December 10th.-Letter of Polheim to Eric Benzelius, praising Emanuel Swedberg's talents, and expressing interest in his undertakings (Doc. I, 243).
December 19th.-Letter of Polheim to Emanuel Swedberg, inviting him to Stjernsund for conference on mechanical subjects (Doc. I, 245).
1716.
January.-Upsala. Em. Swedberg publishes the first number of his scientific journal. It is entitled:
"Daedalus Hyperboreus, eller ndgra nya Mathematiska och Physikaliska Fiirs5k och Anmerkningar, som Welborne Herr Assessor Pdlheimer och andre Sinrike Swerige hafwa gjordt oeh nu tid efter annan til almen nytto lemna. ("The Northern Drndalus, or Some new Mathematical and Physical Experiments and Observations, made by the well-born Assessor Polheim, and other ingenious men in Sweden, and now from time to time to be made public for the general benefit"). Upsala, 1716-1718, six numbers, making in all 154 pp. 4to.
For a description of this work, of which a complete copy is preserved in the Library of the Academy, see Documents, Vol. II, page 888.
During the same year Em. Swedberg publishes two short collections of Latin poems, under the titles:
"Ludus Heliconius, sive Carmina Miseellanea, quae variis in locis cecinit Em. Swedberg." Skara, 16 pp. 4to.
"Cantus Sapphicus in carissimi Parentis Doct. Jesperi Swedbergii, Episcopi Scarensis reverendissimi Diem natalem." Skara, 1716.
Selections from these poems have been translated by Mr. S. Stockwell, and published in I. 1844, pp. 147 and 195.
February 14th-Skalwicke. Thirteenth letter to Eric Benzelius: deals mostly with matters connected with the journal; proposes the establishment of a Professorship in Mechanics, at Upsala (Doc. I, 247).
March 4th.-Brunsbo. Fourteenth letter to Eric Benzelius: contains further suggestions anent the proposed Chair in Mechanics (Doc. I, 249).
March 20th.-Brunsbo. Fifteenth letter to Eric Benzelius: speaks of the proposed Professorship as a joke, but thinks it highly desirable, even though impossible at the present time (Doc. I, 253).
April.-Brunsbo. Sixteenth letter to Eric Benzelius: treats of a plan for the establishment of an observatory in Upsala, and of various minor matters (Doc. I, 258).
June 12th.-Brunsbo. Seventeenth letter to Eric Benzelius: speaks of Sweden as being now in the last agony of death; makes arrangements for the further publication of the Daedelus (Doc. I, 261).
June 26th.-Brunsbo. Eighteenth letter to Eric Benzelius: contains various literary and political observations (Doc. I, 264).
September 4th-Brunsbo. Nineteenth letter to Eric Benzelius: treats of the Daedalus, and relates some current gossip about the King (Doc. I, 266).
December 6th.-Lund. Letter of Polheim to the King, recommending Emanuel Swedberg for the office of assessor in the Royal College of Mines (New Church Life [L, 1896, p. 151).
December 10th.-Lund. Royal warrant appointing Em. Swedberg assessor extraordinary in the College of Mines, and assistant to Councillor Polheim (L. 1896, p. 152).
December 18th.-Lund. Letter of Charles XII to the College of Mines, announcing Em. Swedberg's appointment (Doc. I, 401).
December (end of the month).-Carlskrona. Twentieth letter to Eric Benzelius: describes the favor of the King, and his appointment to office; the unsuccessful effort of an enemy to injure him; the interest of the King in the Daedalus, and a plan to build sluices and locks at the falls of Trolibtittan, to connect the Baltic with the North Sea by means of a canal (Doc. I, 273).
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1717.
January 23d.-Gottenburg. Twenty-first letter of Emanuel Swedberg to Eric Benzelius: treats chiefly of the Daedalus, and of the proposed observatory in Upsala (Doc. I, 276).
February 23d.-Stjernesund. Twenty-second letter to Erie Benzelius: Emanuel, now at the home of Polheim; encloses MS. of Daedalus, part V; reports some scientific anecdotes, related to him by the King; has been to Uddevalla, near Gottenburg, to study the process of manufacturing salt, in which the King is interested (Doc. I, 277).
March 24th.-Stockholm. Emanuel on a visit to the capital; writes his twenty-third letter to Eric Benzelius: treats chiefly of matters relating to the Daedalus (Doc. I, 280).
March 27th.-Emanuel in Stockholm; receives a letter from Polheim, whose daughters, Maria and Emerentia, he is requested to meet on their visit to the capital (Doc. 1, 281).
April 3d.-Letter to Emanuel Swedberg from Polheim, who reports that the King is desiring their return to his headquarters in Lund (Doc. I, 282).
April 4th.-Stockholm. Emanuel's twenty-fourth letter to Eric Benzelius: treats of the Dccdalus; states his intention of leaving for Lund in a fortnight (Doc. I, 282).
April 6th-Emanuel takes the oath of office at the Royal College of Mines in Stockholm (Doc. I, 402).
April 17th.-Emanuel is granted leave of absence, sine die, from the College of Mines, in order to accompany Polheim to Carlscrona, and thence to Lund, where they are to join the King (Doc. 1, 403).
While in Stockholm, he published, anonymously, a short treatise, containing "Information concerning the manufacture of tin at Stjernesund:" Underrattelse om thet fortenta Stjernesunds Arbete, thess bruk ock fortening (Stockholm, Werner, 4 pp., 4to. See Doc. II, 889; A. L. [copy of the original in the Academy's Library]).
June 26th.-Lund. Emanuel's twenty-fifth letter to Eric Benzelius: mentions his recent visit to Upsala; states that he arrived in Lund at the end of May; has presented Daedalus No. V to the King, who is much, pleased; the prospects of establishing salt works, and of completing the canal appear good; speaks of the great penetration of the King, who has invented a new duodecimal system of counting; expects to leave in eight days (Doc. I, 284).
December.-Brunsbo. Twenty-sixth letter to Eric Benzelius: has been in Uddevalla and Stromstad, to select suitable places for the proposed salt works; also in Cariscrona, whence he has returned to his father's home in Brunsbo (Doc. I, 286).
During this year he wrote the following six papers, which have not yet been published:
Om Nyttan af ett Astronomiskt observatorium i Sverige (on the use of instituting an astronomical observatory in Sweden; with a plan by which this may be carried out). MS. 4 pp.
De Causis Rerum (on the causes of things). MS. 4 pp.
En Ny Theorie om jordens afstannande (a new theory concerning the decreasing motion of the earth). MS. 38 pp.
Om Sattet for Handelns och
Manufacturernas uphjelpande (on the mode of assisting the recovery of commerce and manufactures). MS. 6 pp.
Memorial om Saltsjuderiens inrattning i Sverige (a memorial on the establishment of saltworks in Sweden). MS. 4 pp.
Om Eldens och fargornas Natur (on the nature of fire and colors). MS. 6 pp.
(For particulars concerning these papers, see Doc. II, pp. 890-892.)
1718.
January 7th.-Brunsbo. Twenty-seventh letter to Eric Benzelius: encloses a paper, in which he has developed the King's new system of calculation (Doc. I, 288).
January 14th.-Brunsbo. Twenty-eighth letter to Eric Benzelius: sends the MS. of an Algebra, in the Swedish language, and arranges for its publication; discusses salt and hot springs; describes his father's successful audience with the King (Doc. I, 290).
January 21st.-Brunsbo. Twenty-ninth letter to Benzelius: declines, with thanks, a suggestion that he become a professor at the University of Upsala; thinks he can be of more practical usefulness to his country in his present position; intends to devote himself to mechanics and chemistry, of which the members of the College of Mines have but little knowledge; desires to leave the old, beaten track, and to develop something new in science; explains his reasons for pushing the establishment of salt works; states that his father had told the King "a number of wholesome truths;" will proceed to Orebro and Starbo, next day" (Doc. I, 293).
January 30th.-Starbo. Thirtieth letter to Benzelius: describes a paper, in which he has proved the round form of the particles of air and water; gives further reasons for declining a professorship in Upsala; criticises the innovations in the currency, and the new and unjust taxes imposed by the King (Doc. I, 296).
(To be continued.)
General Church. C. TH. ODHNER 1897
REPORT BY THE SECRETARY.
November-December, 1896=127.
A NEW GENERAL TREASURER.
As the most important recent occurrence in the work of the General Church, we must record the resignation of Mr. Walter D. Uptegraff, of Pittsburgh, from the office of General Treasurer, and the appointment of Mr. Charles D. Weirbach, of Allentown, as his successor. The great distance between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh proved to be too serious an obstacle in the way of that full and frequent communication which is necessary between the officers of the Church. Mr. Uptegraff's zealous and efficient services in perfecting the financial organization of our body will be warmly remembered by the Church. All remittances and financial communications should now be addressed to Mr. Charles D. Weirbach, 708 North Sixth Street, Allentown, Pa.
Our new Treasurer has appointed Mr. Reuben Walker Local Treasurer in Philadelphia, and Mr. Gustave Glebe to fill the same office in Huntingdon Valley, as successor to Mr. Rudolph Potts, who has removed to Bridgeport, Conn.
12
MINISTERIAL VISITS.
Since our last report the following circles have received regular monthly visits: Allentown, twice from' the Secretary; Bridgeport, twice from the same; Brooklyn, once from the Secretary and once from the Rev. Alfred Acton; Greenford, twice from the Rev. Andrew Czerny; and Scranton, twice from the Secretary. The Sacrament of the Holy Supper has been administered once to each of the circles mentioned. Erie, on December 2nd to 7th, was visited by the Rev. J. E. Bowers, who preached and administered the Holy Communion to that promising circle. Mr. Bowers has lately spent above two months in evangelistic work in Ohio, West Virginia, Indiana, Michigan, and New York.
A NEW METHOD OF DOCTRINAL STUDY
has been adopted by the circles in Scranton and Allentown. The visiting minister each month assigns a particular lesson in the Word and the Writings to each member who desires to participate in the course of study. At the next visit an informal examination is held, when the circle as a whole enjoys the results of the study and thought of each individual. By this method the members "have something to do" during the intervals between the visits, some definite subject of thought and, investigation upon which to concentrate effort which otherwise might never have been made. It also affords abundant subjects for doctrinal conversation in the homes during the month, and gives rise to many interesting questions for elucidation, and, if needed, correction by the priest during his next visit.
BRIDGEPORT
A NEW and hopeful development may be reported from this populous and enterprising city of Connecticut. For several years the General Church has been represented there by a single individual, a Swedish New-churchman, whose wife and children, together with a friend, were baptized in June, 1896. Some effort to discover other New Church people in the city had often been suggested, but was not attempted until November 8th, when the Secretary delivered a public lecture-previously advertised-on Emanuel Swedenborg and the General Doctrines of the New Church. The attendance, as had been expected, was quite small, but very appreciative, the reason for which became apparent after the lecture, when a number of persons remained behind to introduce themselves as isolated receivers of the Heavenly Doctrines. None of them had known of one another, though residents of Bridgeport for many years. It was an hour of spiritual recognition and mutual rejoicing. Names and addresses were exchanged, and a general desire expressed for continued and regular New Church services, the lecturer promising to come again on the first Sunday in December. During the succeeding month the newly-found friends-now unexpectedly reinforced by one of our Philadelphia members-cultivated the acquaintance of one another, and many happy evenings were spent in doctrinal conversation and in practicing the music for the coming services (according to the Philadelphia liturgy).
At our next meeting, on December 6th, public worship was conducted in the morning (for the first time in Bridgeport), and a sermon delivered on The Incarnation of the LORD. Fifteen persons attended. In the evening a lecture was given on The Resurrection and the Spiritual World. A number of inquiring strangers were present; many questions were asked, and some of the Writings were bought. The circle in Bridgeport now numbers eleven adults, with eight children. All appear anxious and open for further guidance into the interior things of Doctrine and life, and look to the General Church for spiritual assistance. Monthly visits have been arranged for.
COLCHESTER, ENGLAND.
The members of the General Church will be encouraged by the following news, contained in a recent letter, from which we take the liberty to quote: "With regard to the Church in Colchester, I think it can safely be said that the outlook is decidedly hopeful. Since you were here a man with his wife and two children have been baptized; also a young gentleman. In addition to this I have a young brother, who now regularly attends the services, and a son of our employer is getting interested, and both will soon, we have reason to hope, come entirely into the Church. Of course, the crying need of the Society is a resident pastor, and we do earnestly hope the way will soon be opened for one to come amongst us; meanwhile, we are receiving much benefit from the priests in London. . . . We are just finishing Bishop Benade's Conversations on Education, from which we have derived incalculable benefit and delight. Next Sunday we expect Mr. Bostock with us again, and in the evening he purposes holding a class on this work."
Beside the visits from Mr. Bostock, the Church in Colchester enjoys occasional visits from the Rev. Messrs. Tilson and Ottley.
THE CALENDAR.
The Calendar for the daily reading of the Word, in its literal and internal senses, for the year 1897, has been published for the General Church by the Academy Book Room, as may be seen from its special announcement. Several new and valuable features have been introduced. For the compilation the Church is indebted to the Rev. Alfred Acton, who has been assisted in this work by Candidates Klein, Stebbing, and Cowley. It is earnestly to be hoped that the interest of the Church in this important use may not be allowed to decrease. The spiritual benefits which have resulted from this long-continued, systematic, and choral reading of the Revelations-this simultaneous inbreathing of the air of Heaven-are incalculable.
THE DIRECTORY.
The fate of the Directory, is still, as it were, "trembling in the balance," though the response to our appeal in its behalf has not been without some encouragement. The united effort to accomplish this very general and ultimate use will be even more valuable to the Church than the Directory itself, at this critical period, when the tendency to individualism and congregationalism is strongly infesting the Church. Instead of strengthening the particular Churches, the tendency is to weaken, nay destroy them, by weakening the central and general uses, and the general sphere of the Church as a whole, from which the particular centres, as organs in one general body, derive their whole coherence, strength, and life.
Respectfully submitted,
C. TH. ODHNER,
Secretary.
DECEMBER 22d, 1896.
Title Unspecified S. M. WARREN 1897
TRUE CHRISTIAN RELIGION, n. 12. EDITOR OF NEW CHURCH LIFE:-The remarkable error of what has passed for translation of the closing word of T. C. R. n. 12, in the New York edition of that work-justly criticised in the last number of the Life, p. 188-appears to be substantially a survival from the first English translation.
13
The New York edition, if I mistake not, was a stereotyped reprint of the then current English edition; as was the first edition, I think, of all the works published by the American Swedenborg Printing and Publishing Society. In the earliest English edition, dated London, 1781, Swedenborg's simple words "non deest supellex" are interpreted to mean "let him prudently choose the safe side of the question." In the London Swedenborg Society's edition of 1858 and 1868, the mere form of the original translation is changed to "for this is at least the safer side," as it stands in the New York edition. That any translator could have carelessly given such a turn to so simple Latin words is curious; but that a reviser should retain and repeat the error while taking the trouble to change the form of words, is stranger still-unless we assume that he revised without looking at the original. Altogether, such an incident gives great cause of thankfulness that with so imperfect means the Divine Providence has caused the Writings to be given us in our vernacular so nearly free from substantial and hurtful errors. Yours truly,
S. M. WARREN.
Notes and Reviews. 1897
THE Angel of the State, or, The Kindergarten in the Education of the Citizen. A Study of Pestalozzi, Froebel, and Swedenborg, by the Rev. Frank Sewall, has been received, but we cannot give it suitable notice in this number.
Title Unspecified 1897
A Book of Doctrine. Containing Summaries of Doctrine from the Writings of the Church, is now ready and for sale at the Academy Book Room. Space will not permit of a review of this important work until next month. Those who appreciate the value of having all the summary statements of doctrine contained in the Writings in compact form, will welcome this addition to the Academy's publications. See the Book Room notice on the last page.
Title Unspecified 1897
A SOMEWHAT inaccurate account of the Huntingdon Valley settlement of the Philadelphia Particular Church of the Academy, is copied by the Messenger (December 16th) from the Philadelphia Record of recent date. The roseate-spectacled reporter rather anticipates when he says that an "electric light plant furnishes illumination for all the inhabitants." Moreover "Bethayres" is not the name of the settlement, but of the station on the Bound Brook Railroad, a mile and a half from the settlement. The latter is not yet christened.
Title Unspecified 1897
THE Mirror of Truth, for December, quotes the Rev. S. C. Eby as saying: "Swedenborg never asks any one to believe the things he wrote concerning the spiritual world on his mere assertion; he never seeks to argue about them or to prove them. He simply relates his experiences, and leaves the relations entirely to the reason and the judgment of the reader."
To this it might be added that Swedenborg, while constantly using the syllogistic or logical form, really addresses the final appeal to that higher rationality called perception, which arises only from the state affirmative of truth. Thus he continually adduces in support of his statements of doctrine that those things are true because they have been told him out of heaven, or by the angels-evidence which would hardly carry weight at the bar of man natural rational. A higher source than reason must he sought for the light which opens the faculties interior to the sensual and reveals the glories of the New Jerusalem.
Title Unspecified 1897
ISOLATED receivers of the Heavenly Doctrines have been provided for by the formation of "The Society of Isolated Receivers of the Heavenly Doctrines of the New Church in the United States." In the Messenger of October 28th (p. 355) appears an announcement to the above effect, by the Rev. Wm. H. Alden, Chairman, outlining a form of application for membership. This involves a declaration of acceptance of "the essential doctrines of the New Church, viz.: That there is one God, the Lord Jesus Christ, and that saving faith is to believe in Him and to live a life according to the Ten Commandments." It is intended from time to time to send general addresses to the members for information and encouragement. In the same journal (issue of November 9th) Mr. Alden reports eighteen members (representing thirteen States) and publishes letters from some of them appreciative of this opportunity of companionship and association in the privileges of the Church. Mr. Alden's address is 2129 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia.
Title Unspecified 1897
THE New Church Standard for November follows up the editorial teaching of the previous number, on the true order of government in the Church as prescribed by the Writings-by treating of subordination in the Priesthood; and it points out that the disorder of the present procedure in the Church is permitted probably because greater external order would not be well for the Church before rejecting the false teaching of the Old Church, that man makes the Church. Consideration of another reason for non-growth of the Church, viz.: Its attitude on the subject of Conjugial Love, is promised for the next number. A timely sermon on "Home Life" (I and my house, we will serve the Lord, Josh. xxiv, 15) describes the traits proper to a true home life, teaching finally that the LORD, not man, makes the true home for him; so far as a man ceases to "be with himself" and abides with God, he receives a true home which will invest him with its external representative. The article on "The Last Judgment" (II) describes the state of the Church and its consummation, and the Last Judgment as the final act of preparation for the morning of a new day. It shows that the good of the present day is merely natural good, because emanating from faith alone, which prevails when "worldly, corporeal, and earthly things are loved more than things spiritual, celestial, and Divine." In conclusion the article proposes next to take up the beginning, ending, and Judgment of the Most Ancient Church. "An Erroneous Note to 'The Spiritual Diary'" maintains the incorrectness of the translator's note in the English edition to the effect that Swedenborg made a mistake in no. 5089, in referring to the Psalms a passage concerning the serpent that lifted up its head and, drank of the river. "The Opening of the Winter Season, Burton Road, Brixton"-very interesting-is followed by a critical Hebrew note, and by "Notes and Comments" which department contains an exposition of the spirit of agnosticism that makes the modern university a very seed-bed of infidelity and spiritual destructiveness.
POEMS OF THE FUTURE LIFE. 1897
THE LOVER'S YEAR BOOK OF POETRY. Third series, comprising POEMS OF THE OTHER LIFE. By Horace Parker Chandler, Vol. I, January to June, $1.25, Vol. II, July to December, $1.25. Roberts Brothers, Boston.
This beautifully printed collection of three hundred and sixty-five poems, all touching on the future life, which Mr. Chandler has been at great pains to gather together from many sources, is one likely to interest every reader, whatever his creed. The self-satisfied atheist may indeed peruse these poems with a pitying smile, ascribing their origin to the weak and childish "credulity of the vulgar," from which he prides himself on being emancipated, but the hopeful and unperverted mind will welcome them as a good gift, and he through them the more confirmed in a trusting faith in the realities of eternal life.
14
And, while comparatively few of them will altogether satisfy the New Church reader, he will be pleased to see in them unmistakable evidence of how many in the world to-day know and he will pleased to see in them unmistakable evidence of how many in the world to-day know and believe that
"---death is the gate
That opens to a grander fate,
The coming of a former state,
Of youth and beauty, love and joy." (Vol. 1, p. 210.)
Many of these poems breathe a simple and beautiful trusting spirit, and even in those where reference is made to the "long sleep," where life is described as "an ended song,' and death as a gliding "into the silent starless night," there is a glimmering of the real truth. The perception of the truth in some is remarkably clear, as in the following by Friedrich Ruckert (Vol 1, page 25):
"This the soul's body is-the form it wove and wears,
Wherein to spirit-eyes soul unto soul appears.
That body glimmers now through this gross veil of earth,
And when it falls away, shall in full light come forth."
"Our bodies are the shadows of our souls,
And shadow only melts because of light,
As melts at morn the memory of the night,
When God the golden hour of day enrolls."
And in this, from a sonnet by Ernest Warburton Shurtleff (Vol. II, page 242):
"Our bodies are shadows of our souls,
And shadow only melts because of light,
As melts at morn the memory of the night,
When God the golden hour of day enrolls."
And even in the somewhat lighter vein of the following, by William Cosmo Monkhouse (Vol. II, page 148), the existence of a spiritual body is not less clearly seen:
"So we must part, my body, you and I,
Who've spent so many pleasant years together.
'Tis sorry work to lose your company,
Who clove to me so close, whate'er the weather,
From winter unto winter, wet or dry;
But you have reached the limit of your tether,
And I must journey on my way alone,
And leave you quietly beneath a stone."
The reader is not seldom led to think that this or that poet must have rend the Writings. But we are perhaps too prone to attribute the truth we see in the world's literature to the influence of the New Church, forgetful that the idea of a God and a future life is imprinted on, the soul of every creature from his birth, and that throughout Christendom the letter of the
Word is a light Divine before the eyes of the simple in heart. Even where this light of revelation has not existed, or penetrated only with the dimness of a distant star, the visions of poets and the dreams of sages have uncovered truth invisible to the common eye. From the Book of the Dead to Socrates and his guiding "divine voice," to the "integer vitae scelerisque purus" of Horace, on down to this day of myriad volumes, the springs of true thoughts have never failed utterly in the earth.
The following, however, which is supposed to be one line of Walt Whitman's poem (!) "Assurances," (Vol. II, page 223), seems to point as to its very phraseology to Swedenborg:
"I do not doubt interiors have their interiors, and exteriors have their exteriors, and that the eyesight has another eyesight, and the hearing another hearing, and the voice another voice."
Of the poems of this notable collection, the truest in idea are not always the most perfect in form, but in the following from Sir Edwin Arnold (Vol. II, page 132), a perception of what death really is and an unusual felicity of expression are harmoniously joined:
"Sweet friends! What the woman have
For its last bed of the grave
Is but a hut which I am quitting;
Is a garment no more fitting;
Is a cage from which at last,
Like a hawk, my soul has passed.
Love the inmate, not the room-
The wearer, not the garb-the plume
Of the falcon, not the bars
Which kept him from those splendid stars"
The longest poem in the book, "The Other Life," by Anna Collier Lee (Vol. II, page 233), is also the most remarkable for its true and vividly-particular description of heavenly landscape. No one but a reader of the Writings could possibly have written this pleasing poem. The term "nunc licet" occurs in it several times; we are told of "things heard and seen," of a "three-fold heaven," of a golden age; stones are said to be truths, birds are thoughts, garments are "truths received and loved," "thought from love brings presence," etc.-all pointing to the one source of such information. From this and a number of other poems, particularly some of the anonymous, very interesting quotations might be made if space permitted.
The Church is indebted to the editor, whose wide research and careful selection have resulted in this interesting and useful book. L. P.
Questions and Answers. CHAS. SINES 1897
THE TRINITY: FREE-WILL: TEMPTATION.
To THE EDITOR.-Dear Sir: Will you please explain the following verses; and if you can, answer the following question:
[Passages] Matt. iii, 17; xxvii, 46; Luke i, 35.
Why does one person obey the LORD and the other disobey Him?
I will be pleased to see the explanation and answer to the above in the New Church Life.
CHAS. SINES.
POMONA, ATLANTIC Co., N. J., Dec. 24th, 1896.
REPLY.
THE texts referred to rend as follows (the order being changed for purposes of treatment). In absence of any particular points of inquiry a general synopsis is about all that can be given:
"[And Jesus, when He was baptized, went up straight-way out of the water: and lo, the heavens were opened unto Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon Him (v. 16)].
1. "And lo, a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom lam well pleased" (Matth. iii, 17).
2. "The angel answering said unto her, The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee; wherefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God" (Luke i, 35).
3. "And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" (Matt. xxvii, 46).
The first and second of the above I have grouped together because they are intimately related, as treating, universally, of the Divine Trinity, of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The third is more particular as hearing upon the culmination of the LORD'S temptations, which were but means to Glorification, by which the Trinity became fully manifested to men and angels; involving also Redemption of the human race.
15
The voice of JEHOVAH or the FATHER, proclaiming JESUS as His Son, teaches that the human assumed on earth, though clothed in a finite form and nature, which was prone to sin-was nevertheless as to its soul or essential life, Divine, because conceived from the Divine. The second text contains similar teaching. The Trinity thus revealed consists, first, in the Father, the Supreme and invisible Divine, which transcends all human reception or even thought; second, in the Son, the Divine Human, or the Divine accommodated to human reception; and third, the Holy Spirit, or the operation of the Divine in the Human, revealing out of the Human the Divine Love in its clothing of Divine Truth, and inspiring with good and truth thence derived all who receive.
This regenerating influence, which was the very fruition of the Divine end in the LORD'S Coming, was represented by the dove seen descending, and signified by the Holy Spirit (Divine Truth), descending upon Mary (the Church) and by the Power of the Most High (Divine Good) which overshadowed her. From the Infinite Union of Divine Good and Divine Truth in the LORD, proceeds the heavenly marriage of good and truth which makes the Church; from which Divine seed-when received by the Church-is born the LORD within man-the Son of God. A dove represents the celestial-spiritual things of regeneration; spiritual, because it is by obeying the spiritual laws of charity that man is capable of reciprocating with the LORD by actually participating with Him, as it were, in the things of life. If there were not this appearance that man can from himself join in the LORD'S doing, there could be no faculty of free choice and free action, and hence no reception of the celestial of love from the LORD and life thence. The spiritual things of faith and charity with man prepare the way for the entrance of the celestial of love from the LORD, whence results the heavenly marriage in man-regeneration, salvation, and life eternal. But faith does not open the way to the reception of love except love from the LORD be in it, which is when He is acknowledged, and the appearance of power from self put away. Only those who from love hear the voice of the Divine, from love acknowledge the beloved Son and receive the Holy Spirit.
Such as from affection can be led by truth to good, are represented by Mary, who as a virgin is the Church' not yet united to the LORD-those who are not of the Church but capable of becoming so. With these the descent of the Divine Truth and Good is followed by Glorification of the human; they are led out of the appearance that good and truth are their own, and thus out of earthly conceptions of the LORD as a mortal man, and made to see that He is Divine, the All of love and wisdom and of life. This involves resisting the loves of self-will and self-intelligence, and a complete surrender of the life to the guidance of the Divine Will.
In order to make this possible, the LORD in His Divine Human, in which He had been from eternity, took on a finite human with its appearances of self- wisdom and self righteousness. He overcame the natural love of these, and by putting off every prompting of the flesh which made them seem real-every impulse to act therefrom-He removed every obstacle to the entrance of the Divine Will even until it became wholly His will. Thus what was finite and mortal was removed and the Divine Soul descended into its own perfectly prepared Habitation-the LORD came "suddenly to His Temple," "the Day-spring from on High visited us." Thus when men had about destroyed the human faculty of receiving life by the Truth, He restored it and became the Only MAN on earth, even as He had always been the Divine Man of heaven: "No one hath ascended up to heaven but He that came down from heaven;" "As the Father hath life in Himself so hath He given the Son to have life in Himself." Thus was humanity restored to earth by the Divine Humanity; "All power is given unto Me in heaven and on earth;" and men were thereby saved-"No one is able to pluck them out of My Father's hand, land My Father are One;" "For God so loved the world that His Only begotten Son He gave, that every one who believeth in Him might not perish but have life eternal."
We now come to the third text, the cry from the Cross. The putting off of the evil loves of the natural man-the giving up of its life-is painful. When the hells excite those loves they communicate their infernal delight; but if the delights are rejected, the evil loves crucified,-the bells suffer, and they communicate their suffering to the man in whom the loves reside; and this continues even until the loves by which they have entrance to him are broken, rendered lifeless, and thus removed. These are the pains of temptation, the torment of hell received and perceived. The victory and removal of evil is effected by the LORD alone, hence man cannot foresee the end, for he can only obey the truth, and this from an affection which by degrees is purified by the LORD even until man ceases to combat from self-will and self-intelligence. When he sees that his own strength is nothing he comes into despair, for the sense of internal freedom and delight is lost in the death-throes of the natural man. Then when nothing more of his proprium, or self-hood, opposes, the Divine flows in, removes evil, and elevates and conjoins man to Itself.
Temptation is grievous according to the quality of spiritual love of truth from which the combat is waged and which hence suffers assault. The more interior the love the deeper the opposing hell which assaults and the more grievous the pain. The LORD'S love was the Infinite love of saving the human race, and as every love of hell opposes this He was compelled to endure the combined assaults and to feel the concentrated torment of all the hells. What wonder, then, that in that bitter hour, and the frightful pangs and horrors that seemed overwhelming His natural man-left alone to battle with Divine heroism for the creatures of His love- what wonder that from His anguished lips broke forth the cry, "My God! My God! Why hast Thou forsaken Me?" Only when temptation proceeds even to despair, is the victory left wholly to the Divine and thereby made final. The LORD alone has a proprium made Divine,-thus self existent, perfect, infinite.
As to your question, why one man obeys the LORD and another disobeys, the answer in each case is, simply because he wants to. Man is given the absolute power to will to obey, or not. You cannot analyze the will itself, because it is above the understanding. It is enough that man is given the truth to save him and the free choice and the power to obey it. The propensity to excuse one's self for wrong-doing may tempt one at times to go astray into fallacious ideas as to alleged overwhelming hereditary or other influences, but to confirm these is dangerous.
In conclusion, let me say that discovering the harmony of these passages has given me much pleasure; if it shall have made that harmony clear to you I shall he doubly repaid. If needed further explanation will be gladly given.
THE EDITOR
16
LIFE OF THE NEW CHURCH. 1897
NEW CHURCH LIFE.
PUBLISHED MONTHLY BY THE ACADEMY OF THE NEW CHURCH.
TERMS:-One Dollar per annum, payable in advance.
FOUR SHILLINGS IN GREAT BRITAIN.
ADDRESS all communications for publication to the Editor, the Rev. George G. Starkey, Huntingdon Valley, Montgomery Co., Pa.
Address all business communications to Academy Book Room, Cart Hj. Asplundh, Manager, No. 1521 Wallace Street, Philadelphia. Pa.
Subscriptions also received through the following agents:
UNITED STATES.
Chicago, Ill., Mr. A. B. Nelson, Chicago Agent of Academy Book Room, No. 565 west Superior Street.
Denver, Col., Mr. Geo. W. Tyler, Denver Agent of Academy Book Room, No. 544 South Thirteenth Street.
Pittsburgh, Pa., Mr. W. Rott, Pittsburgh Agent of Academy Book Room, 4726 Wallingford Street.
CANADA.
Toronto, Ont., Mr. R. Carswell, No. 47 Elm Grove.
Waterloo. Mr. Rudolf Roschman.
GREAT BRITAIN.
Mr. Wiebe Posthuma, Agent for Great Britain, of Academy Book Room, Burton Road, Brixton, London. S. W.
PHILADELPHIA, JANUARY, 1897=127.
CONTENTS. PAGE
EDITORIAL: Notes 1
Judgment from Justice 2
Conceit (a Sermon) 3
Chaldee and Babylonia, III 6
Diseases of the Fibres, I-III, 7
Annals of the New Church 9
THE GENERAL CHURCH:
Secretary's Report 11
True Christian Religion, n. 12, 12
NOTES AND REVIEWS 13
Poems of the Future Life 13
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 14
LIFE OF THE NEW CHURCH 16
BIRTH AND MARRIAGES 16
ACADEMY BOOK ROOM 16
THE ACADEMY OF THE NEW CHURCH.
THE Christmas celebration of the Philadelphia Schools of the Academy took place in the hall on North Street, December 24th, at 4.30 P. M. Bishop Benade delivered a most elevating and admirably accommodated address to the children, on the Birth of the LORD. There were the usual features of offerings by the children, representations of scenes relating to the occasion, and simple but beautiful decorations-the inscriptions being all in English. After the service social festivity prevailed.
ON Christmas Day, at 10.30 A. M., the Holy Supper was ad ministered by Bishop Benade, Pastor Odhner assisting.
THE Christmas celebration of the primary school in Huntingdon Valley (December 23d), though very simple, contained some new features. After the singing of "We are Watching, We are Waiting," Bishop Pendleton's explanatory remarks concerning, watching and waiting for the LORD were followed by an exposition of the natural sense of the Annunciation to the Shepherds. The well-known "Who is He?" from the "Hosanna," was sung as a solo, with responsive chorus. After the children had brought their offerings, they marched around the room singing "Hark! the Herald Angels Sing," clapping hands in accompaniment, representative of a joyful state. Cake and fruit were then distributed. Bishop Pendleton made concluding remarks, expressing thankfulness for the faithfulness, obedience, and diligence of the pupils, for the earnest performance of duty by the teachers, and for the cooperation of parents.
ON Christmas Day a special Service was held at 11 A. M.
REPORT FROM CHICAGO-GLENVIEW.
SUNDAY church services have been held continuously through the summer at Glenview, but were discontinued in the city during the months of June, July, and August.
During the vacation of the pastor, the society had the pleasure of hearing sermons by the Reverend Messrs. Bostock, Odhner, Synnestvedt, and W. H. Acton. The social life during the past summer was unusually pleasant, owing largely to the presence of a number of friends from other church centres. No less than twenty-six friends visited us through the summer. They came from England, Canada, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Georgia, California, and Central Illinois.
The regular church work in Chicago and Glenview commenced on the first Sunday in October, and the doctrinal classes on the following Tuesday and Wednesday evenings. In the city the doctrinal class is preceded by a general supper and followed by practice to singing. The subject of the doctrinal studies is the LORD'S Glorification. The uniform attendance of almost all the members at every meeting attests the interest taken in this profound study, and is a tribute to the way in which it is expounded.
The singing practice is conducted by Mr. George A. Blackman, a son of Prof. O. Blackman. This is Mr. Blackman's first experience as a conductor of music, and he is putting much enthusiasm into his work. Besides the church music, selected choruses from the oratorios are being attempted. As Mr. Blackman intends making music his profession, it is hoped that this experience will teach him patience and thus compensate for what he sometimes has to endure.
The Glenview the "Friday class" is still continued. After a general supper, a lecture is given, by one of the laymen, which is followed by the singing practice.
THE day school here is now under the control of the local Church of the Academy, the pastor, of course, having charge of it. Rev. W. H. Acton, former head-master of the School, has been engaged as the pastor's assistant.
Two honored and earnest Newchurchmen passed into the spiritual world from here this month-Mr. A. J. Gowenlock and Mr. E. R. Burnham. Rev. Mr. Pendleton conducted the service at Mr. Gowenlock's burial, on Sunday, December 6th, and on the following Wednesday he assisted at the memorial service for Mr. Burnham, with the Rev. Mr. Mercer and Rev. Mr. King. Mr. Burnham often attended church in Glenview, while visiting with his son, Mr. Hugh L. Burnham.
CANADA.
Berlin.-OWING to partial dissatisfaction in the Berlin Church of the Academy, Bishop Benade requested them to choose a pastor, which was done last November, the choice falling on the Rev. J. E. Rosenqvist; recognized and approved by the Bishop, November 30th. Pastoral duties were assumed by Mr. Rosenqvist, on December 3d. He was appointed also Superintendent of the School in connection with that Church. On December 6th, after the sermon, the Pastor made an address in which were set forth the duties of the Pastor to the Society, of the Society to the Pastor, and of each mutually, or in common.
On December 11th the new Pastor and his wife invited the members to a social; toasts, speeches, and dancing were much enjoyed.
ON December 13th, Rev. F. E. Waelchli preached in German on the subject of Conjugial Love (text C. L., n. 83).
ON December 23d services for offerings were held; among the many brought was a beautiful Academy flag. The regular Christmas Service was held on Christmas Day, 9.45 A. M.
CHURCH AT LARGE.
ENGLAND.
London.-MORNING LIGHT, of October 24th, describes an interesting occasion of the 15th inst. [ult] in the Anerley School-room, when a farewell meeting was held in behalf of Mr. Cawsey on his setting out for Luabo, (Africa), on the Zambesi. Mr. L. P. Ford explained that Mr. Cawsey is to act as Plant Propagator and Instructor of the natives in connection with railway and other enterprises for the development of the country, and at the same time he will act as a "Pioneer Missionary Agent" for disseminating the truths of the New Church. Mr. Cawsey seemed deeply moved by the warm words of encouragement he received at the meeting and by the responsibilities connected with his mission.
AUSTRIA.
PROF. H. Schwing, one of our most active and energetic workers among the Germans, has moved from Dresden, Germany, where he has resided for some time, to Vienna, Austria, where he has immediately begun "an active campaign" along missionary lines. In Dresden a small circle has been formed, and at Vienna a plan has been entered upon whereby the field there is to be supplied regularly with German literature from America.-Messenger.
JUST PUBLISHED. 1897
A BOOK OF DOCTRINE, containing Summaries of Doctrine from the Writings of the Church. 320 pages. Price, including postage: Bound in cloth, 75 cents; half leather, $1.00 printed on extra quality paper, bound in brown, flexible morocco, round corners, gilt edge, $2.00.
CALENDAR of Daily Lessons from the Word and the Writings of the Church. For use in Private Worship. Published for the General Church of the Advent of the Lord. Price, 10 cents.
THE SPIRITUAL LIFE, AND THE WORD OF GOD, and GOD, PROVIDENCE, AND CREATION (extracted from Apocalypse Explained), are the titles of two works which have just been published in Pocket Editions and tastily bound in cloth, gilt top. Price, 30 cents each; in paper, 18 cents each, including postage.
ACADEMY BOOK ROOM,
1821 Wallace Street,
Philadelphia.
Title Unspecified 1897
17
NEW CHURCH LIFE
Vol. XVII, No. 2. PHILADELPHIA, FEBRUARY, 1897=127. Whole No. 196.
Editorial. 1897
NOTES.
OWING to unusual conditions, the editor regretfully defers till next month, replies to several interesting questions received.
Title Unspecified 1897
WHETHER man's habit of conforming to order arise from affections internal or merely external, will be apt to appear when trials and infestations assail. Happy the man-or the Church-which in time of commoval seeks the calming and restorative guidance and control of the truth, applied according to human knowledge, perception, and strength. Not the unerrancy of judgment, but the love of justice, is what brings about that internal order which under Divine guidance will at last appear even in the external. Order is justice.
RESPONSIBILITY IN EDUCATION. 1897
THE December editorial, "Education and Freedom," dealt with the formation and development of free-will in man, as being a work purely Divine, in which the only human element that enters is the co-operation of the man himself. It maintained, therefore, that man's final lot is determined solely by his own internal choice of good or evil, and not at all by the good or evil presented from without, called "environment."
Yet this does not mean that the human educator has nothing to do; nor that in education, as in all other uses, man is not to exercise all the faculties, energy, and ability given him; for they are given him for that purpose. True, the LORD alone educates men; yet in part of the work He uses man, for He does not work without means. Were it otherwise there would be no other operation in creation than the immediate operation from the Divine, thus no co-operation or reciprocal action by man, and consequently no appearance of life in created subjects-no human beings. But the LORD does give life and power to man to exercise in all appearance as of himself, and through the appearance works out His own real ends. For this exercise man is responsible.
Therefore, the teaching referred to, that the human educator effects nothing from himself, does not mean that he effects nothing-only that the effects are the LORD'S, and not his own. It means that the external conditions he apparently provides are really provided by the LORD, and serve uses far above his ken, and above-possibly opposite to-his own intention and design. Nevertheless, if his inmost end be good, so long as he follows the Light he has, his ends are overruled by Providence for good, and he, and they, and all results thence, are secure, for they are imperceptibly led to the Real itself.
Man, of himself, is powerless, either to thwart or to promote the ends of Providence; but it is his privilege to come of his own free motion into the sphere of their beneficent sway, and thus to work with God. The appearances in which he works become real appearances in so far as they become of the Divine Order, thus infilled with life and efficiency from the Divine. In proportion as man comes into Order, which is when Divine Truth rules with him, the defects and fallacies of his judgment, and the perverseness and weakness of his will, are gradually bent and conformed to the Divine End and Will. It is because such a conformity has been effected with the angels that their work is always effective and enduring-it is wrought in God. To man is open the same way of ensuring his work.
Man's responsibility consists in this, that he conform Divine Order. His responsibility therefore lies in the natural plane, and has to do with the natural world, for there Divine Order has placed him.
The educator's responsibility has to do with the formation of external character, for that-differently from internal character-is derived from the things of this world.
Character, Internal and External.
External character consists of the natural affections and thoughts which-with the actions arising from them-make up natural life. Internal character consists of spiritual affections and thoughts, and the capacity for these, operating upon the natural, opens it to the reception of life, first natural and then spiritual life. Yet the opening and reception of spiritual life, being not on the natural, but on the spiritual plane, is above man's consciousness; it takes place in so far as the external character, when matured, is brought-by the man's own action in the natural plane-into order; which is effected by the operation of Divine Truth from within, and the co-operation of man from without, removing evil natural affections and confirming good ones, and initiating them into the service of the internal. The earthly educator has only to do with equipping the future man for that co-operation, by so shaping external conditions that the natural vessels which are to introduce to the spiritual shall be developed according to the LORD'S own order. But his efforts are all from without, and effect nothing without the education from within.
The formation of internal character, or of the internal man, can be entrusted to no less than angelic care, for only angels are in such order as to employ only methods that shall correspond to the LORD'S Own End and Operation, whereby the Divine Educator rules in man's inmost-the very presence of God with him, whence is his free-will. Parents and educators have a share in introducing the child to natural existence; but only as a preparation for spiritual existence; into this he is introduced by angels in proportion as he freely chooses it; but in all and above all is the LORD Himself, operating without any intermediation directly in His Own Tabernacle of holiness in man's inmost, blessing him with freedom of choice in spiritual things.
All that human or angelic educators do is to provide planes receptive of life from the LORD; or rather, the LORD establishes the planes and sets His creatures as husbandmen to till them as fields into which he insinuates the seed of life.
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The angelic work, which deals with the pure spiritual substances of good and truth (and their embodiment in the spirit) is above our natural thought. But man's work is within our comprehension-yet not unless we have some perception of spiritual influx of life into the work; for man deals with nature, and nature is dead unless it be made alive by the spiritual.
Man's spiritual mind and his natural mind, like his body, are developed from seed which, though invisible, contain wonderful rudimentary forms, and these can be developed into vessels recipient of life. In the body the vessels recipient of life are called organs and fluids, but in the mind they are called affections and thoughts. The bodily process of receiving life can be understood only when the spiritual process is acknowledged, from which it proceeds, and which it represents or presents visibly to view.
Education Threefold.
There is required, then, a knowledge of the three fields of operation in which the LORD uses finite instrumentalities to supply the material out of which His influx of life may clothe itself in forms recipient of life. There is the body, which is to be nourished and trained by earthly guardians; there is the spiritual mind, which is to be nourished and trained in the things of real life - the goods and truths of heaven-by angels; and there is, intermediate between these, the natural mind which is the seat of conscious, earthly life, with its natural feelings, thoughts, and impulse to action. This mind partakes of both worlds, for it animates the body through which the man (or child) looks toward the world, and at the same time receives form and life from the spiritual mind, whereby the man may be enlightened spiritually and look to heaven. In the development of the natural mind, then-or in the formation of external character-both men and angels operate, the former visibly, the latter invisibly, and in large part by the further mediation of spirits. Thus does the LORD operate by means, Who, nevertheless, in all and above all, operates immediately from Himself into every particular of His work.
It should be understood that the spiritual mind is really opened only by regeneration, thus in adult life; but in its beginnings it constitutes a channel of influx and a basis for angelic operation upon the external mind, during the development thereof.
The responsibility of the educator in the education of the natural mind may be illustrated by that of the parent for the development of the natural body. If the parents observe the laws of health as to their own bodies, and as to that of the child when born, they can, do no more. It is known that they have no control over the particular form of that body, either before or after birth; that is determined by laws and conditions interior to the scope of their consciousness or volition. Even so, all the educator can do is to supply external food and surroundings for the mind; the assimilation and appropriation of them will depend upon hidden causes, chief among which are hereditary bent on the one part, and the LORD'S Providential operation in man's interiors on the other part, and the activity of the rudimentary will. Nevertheless nothing is clearer than the duty of the parent and educator to do their utmost in what is given them to do within their field.
To illustrate the part that is played by the environment thrown around the child by education, take the scaffolding of a building; it appears to determine the shape of the structure, but that form really originates in the brain of the architect, and his thought is present in the form of the scaffolding itself.
In putting up the scaffold the workman must be directed by some one more or less conversant with the architect's plan; even so the angelic educators have their part in the natural education of the child; and they may be said to have a peculiar interest in that work, since the natural character itself is like a scaffold in the formation of the spiritual or internal character, which is their especial work. But to consider this phase of the subject requires the introduction of more particulars.
Opening the Organic Forms of Life.
We know that the reception of life, whether it be on the plane of the body, or of the natural mind, or of the spiritual mind, takes place by the formation, and afterward by the opening, of recipient vessels, which in each case are formed of the substances proper to their plane. The bodily vessels of the coarser sort are visible, as the nerves, the blood-vessels, the blood itself, the viscera, the muscles, etc.; but the finer ones, which carry the purer fluids, and those fluids themselves can be seen only by the eye of reason.
This rational sight alone can discern the vessels of the mind. These are affections, or forms which when vivified become affections. Concerning, these forms it is sufficient to know that they are internally adapted to receive the influx of life or affection, and externally adapted to receive the influx of sensual impressions from without, which impressions are scientifics or knowledges. The vessels of the mind are opened or become active when in them there is a meeting of spiritual life from within and sensual impressions from without. Thus are the organic vessels of life in the external opened, and thus the external comes into natural life and activity.
To illustrate the double process involved in the opening of the organic vessels of the natural by the senses, take the sense of sight. The real seat of the faculty of sight lies not in the eye, but in the affection of seeing, which affection is given man that he may be introduced into the faculty of understanding, to which it corresponds. The development of this general affection proceeds according to the education of the sight, the many objects of which call forth or open the particular affections contained within the general. Because these particulars vary with different children, from heredity, it follows that one child will like one object of sight which another might not notice; and so the same environment develops different children differently; their organic vessels have a difference of form and arrangement. It is for the educator to co-operate in opening the organic forms of the natural mind by seeing to it that the impressions entering through the senses be such as to insinuate right and orderly scientifics, suitable to the better class of affections in general, and adapted in particular to the indicated genius of the child.
In Arcana Celestia, n. 1563, it is said that the organic vessels of the external man are opened through the medium of the senses by scientifics and cognitions, and also by pleasures and delights. Scientifics are the impressions made upon the memory through the senses, awakening the latent forms of affection; which awakening causes delight, for all delight is the activity of affection. Now since the natural mind of man by inheritance contains many perverted forms, and since the world contains many evil things to match, it follows that
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"Such scientifics will insinuate themselves as cannot agree with spiritual truths, and that such pleasures and delights will insinuate themselves as cannot agree with celestial good; as is the case with all those that respect corporeal, worldly, and terrestrial things as an end; for whilst such things are regarded as ends they draw the external man outwards and downwards, and thus remove it from the internal" (A. C. 1663).
There are some scientifics which initiate man into uses-uses to the Church, to the neighbor, and to self for the sake of others. These tend to open not only the external man, but also the internal. But there are also scientifics which serve no other use than to do evil, such as to deceive, to gain the goods of others without rendering an equivalent, to secure safety in violating the spirit of the law, by observing its letter; or even to teach man forms of open immorality, irreligion, and crime. All such knowledges are plainly incapable of being conjoined to the internal. Such things may, indeed, perform a use when good and true things have first been well in-rooted, by arousing repugnance and resistance; but if rudely thrust in upon tender, unfortified states they injure innocence and interfere with influx from the internal. They regard self and the world exclusively.
This brings us to the angelic part in education. It is evident that there must be a certain order of development of the affections, an adaptation to states, just as the tender seedling requires different care from the robust, well-developed plant. To this end man should study order and the constitution of the human mind from infancy upward; nevertheless his best efforts would be defeated, by the prevalence of disorder in the world and the fearful state of the human will, were it not that the same angelic care which arouses and insinuates good natural affections-when correspondent impressions from without are received by the child or man-operates also to protect everything good which has been implanted, and this by wonderful methods of order taught from the LORD. These goods they store up in the interiors of the natural mind, the lower parts of which are later to be brought into order through that seat of angelic operation in that mind. Thus what man is able to do from without small compared with what the angels do from within. Yet both are as nothing to what the LORD does immediately.
But after all has been done for the child by angels or men, he himself must decide whether he will confirm the good he has been taught and reject the evil, or whether he will still prefer his own leading, and so turn from the LORD. It is by his conscious, voluntary course in the natural alone that the internal mind can be opened, and the vessels stored there by the angels become active, living affections of spiritual life. This is his to choose, and no advantages or disadvantages of education can remove the responsibility. The brightest gem may be lost in the mire; and, on the other hand, out of the foulest waters may rise the lily of regeneration. The educator must not be too much cast down by sin of omission or commission on his part: the doctrine of Providence and Free Will offers healing consolation. He is responsible only for the results to his own soul, and the way of repentance is always open. But while the work is before him let him take heed and watch, and study the Divine Law in humility and prayer. "For it must needs be that offenses come; but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh."
At another time something may be said in particular touching the work of insinuation of scientifics by delight, and also concerning possible sources of danger therein.
CONDEMNING THE PROPRIUM 1897
(This sermon is the fourth of a series by the Rev. Alfred Acton (begun in the November Life), expounding the Fifteenth Psalm.)
Contemned in his eyes is the reprobate; but those that fear the LORD he honoreth; he sweareth to afflict himself, and changeth not.-Psalm xv, 4.
"THE essence of charity toward the neighbor is the affection of good and of truth, and the acknowledgment of self that it is evil and false; yea, the neighbor is good and truth itself, and to be affected with these is to have charity. . . . He therefore who has charity toward the neighbor, is affected with good and truth because they are from the LORD, and holds in aversion the evil and false, because these are from self; and when he does this he is in humiliation from acknowledgment, and when he is in humiliation he is in a State of reception of good and truth from the LORD" (A. C. 4956).
IN the verse preceding this we are taught that if we would be men of the Church we must not will evil or shame to the neighbor, to the Good and Truth of the Church, to the LORD. In this verse we are taught the result of such shunning, which is that man has enlightenment as to the relation of Good to Evil, and of those who are in good to those who are in evil. This enlightenment, or opening of the spiritual sight, which is the sight of his interior understanding and his interior will, is signified by "in his eyes."
When man shuns-and as man shuns-the evils of the proprium which point to self, and against the neighbor and God, when he "detracteth not with his tongue, and doeth not to his companion evil, nor putteth reproach upon his neighbor," then is his spiritual sight opened to the truth that the wickedness is to be contemned and despised and the Good honored, and so far opened that that he no longer sees it as a mere teaching or doctrinal which is to be obeyed, but as a truth of his heart and life, which he obeys from love: "Contemned in his eyes is the reprobate, but they that fear the LORD he honoreth, he sweareth to afflict himself and changeth not."
The word here translated "reprobate" is from a Hebrew root meaning to reject, repudiate, despise, so that, literally, it means a vile outcast, one who is despicable, worthy of every contempt. Who is it that is so vile as to merit and receive the contempt of all good men? Surely no true Christian will affirm that any man is meant, when the LORD Himself teaches that no one, not even our haters, are to be despised. His words to His Church are, "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you, that ye may he the children of your Father which is in Heaven."
If, then, it is not any man who is here meant by reprobate," what is it? What is so vile as to be utterly contemned and rejected by the entire man of the Church? Yea, contemned and rejected in the light and enlightenment which the LORD gives him? Can we imagine anything more vile than our own proprium? or more accursed than the conceits of our proprium? or more worthy of being a despised outcast than the overwhelming desires and aspirations of our own proprium? Surely not. If we could see ourselves as we really are, in the unchecked desires of our will and life, what evils would we not see? what vile and filthy thought and lust would we not encounter?
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We know and see this as a doctrinal statement, but when we are in thought from affection, thought concerning ourselves individually and alone, we care to see little of it; and yet if we would be frank and honest with ourselves, we could easily see from what we do know of our own loves, how unbounded is their evil, how insatiable is their greed. It is the proprium-the proprium which is within us-which is the reprobate, the vile and despicable outcast, whom we are commanded to contemn, and whom the man of the Church sees to be contemptible from the light which is given him in the shunning of evils against the LORD and the neighbor. Men are to direct all their contempt to themselves; this they are taught. Their inclination is to contemn others-to honor themselves.
Since man is thus nothing but evil, it follows that no man, or company of men, is meant by "those that fear the LORD." Man does not and cannot have holy fear of the LORD. Without truths, thus without revelation from the LORD, he could not know that there is a God, and that He is to be loved and worshiped; and without Good, which the LORD gives to all who receive Him, he could still less love the LORD, worship Him, and hold Him in holy fear. He might, indeed, fear Him, merely lest otherwise it be ill with him in this world or in the world to come; but without the reception of Good from the LORD, he could not fear Him with holy fear-fear to transgress His commands because they are loved. It is only the Good and Truth which come from the LORD which fear Him, and these are what the man of the Church is to honor. This is a reason why "those that fear the LORD" is in the plural, but "reprobate" is in the singular. The words of the text might therefore be read, "Contemned in his eyes is his own proprium, but the Good and Truth which are from the LORD and by which the LORD is feared, he honoreth."
The Goods and Truths which are from the LORD are honored, and the LORD is feared and worshiped, when man condemns and contemns his own proprium-that proprium which, as a serpent, raises up its crafty head, and persuades man that he is wise and good. It must be utterly despised and rejected. Man must know that he is not wise, before he can honor wisdom; he must know that he is not good, before he can honor Good itself. This knowledge and the reception and acknowledgment of it demands conflict; for the proprium does not so readily submit itself, and the devils of hell residing therein do not so easily give up their prey; and the conflict causes pain-it causes sorrow and grief-it causes affliction. But pain and grief and affliction must not deter us from the combat, nay, we must willingly and freely submit to them. They are felt not by the spiritual man within, but by the proprium without, and this proprium must be afflicted, must be fought, yea, with sword and lash, until it is subdued.
The conceit of the proprium brings man into trouble and anxiety when those conceits are not satisfied, when man does not get what he wants. The merely natural man blames others for this and fosters envy and discontent, but the spiritual man boldly faces the true issue; he looks within himself for the cause of his grief, and condemns the proprium which suggests it; he fears not to cause himself pain and humiliation, but manfully meets his evils, acknowledges them, and by combat rejects them. Nor does he stop by reason of the pain, nor waver because of the bitterness of the conflict. He goes on, and he must go on, and confirm himself in his self-affliction freely administered, until the proprium is slave and subject, and no longer lord and master. This is what is meant by the words "He sweareth to afflict himself, and changeth not."
By such affliction humility is implanted, and in humility the LORD enters, and gives charity and love toward the neighbor; a love which is so important to the life of the spiritual man that without it there is no life and no LORD, for his life is to be a true son of his Father in Heaven, and a true brother to the children of that Father; a love so important that without it there can be no conscience and no perception, for conscience is a fear lest the neighbor be injured and perception rests upon this; a love by which is manifest contempt of self and honor of the LORD. It is this contempt and this honor which give the key to true love toward the neighbor.
With the unregenerate man self is honored-the LORD contemned. In all his actions and thoughts self, and the prosperity of self, is the first, and is pre-eminently the neighbor; and from self the various degrees of neighborship are derived. Charity with him begins at home. His family, his particular circle of friends, his party, are held above the country; his own county above the Church, his own Church above the LORD, and the LORD, in his estimation, is the last to be served, and to be worshiped only for the sake of the first, which is self.
With regeneration this order is reversed, for man then no longer acts from his own proprium, but from the heavenly proprium born of his new will. He no longer looks to self in all things; the ends of his life are changed; the first become last and the last first. With him the LORD is the centre, and from the LORD the various degrees of neighborship are derived. The Church is above the country because it leads to Him; the country above his fellow, because it consults the good of many, and his fellow above himself, who is last, to be considered only for the sake of the others.
This entire reversal of life cannot be effected without conflict against self-the proprium which impels us to love our friends and those who favor us, more than the Church and the LORD. In our relations to our fellow-man we must check self, cast it down from its high place, and receive and honor the LORD. Unswerving and relentless self-affliction are necessary.
The love of self centres in self; the LORD'S love goes forth to all with Divine Wisdom and Mercy, which seek the good of all, even of those who reject Him. If man receive and honor the LORD the LORD'S love becoming active in him, will cause, with him, a love for all-a well-wishing and a well-doing to all; so that from his heart he will will eternal blessedness to all, and, as far as possible, also temporal happiness.
"When man feels or perceives with himself, that he thinks well concerning the LORD, and that he thinks well concerning the neighbor, and wills to perform good offices to him for no gain or honor to himself, and when he feels that he pities him who is in calamity, and still more him who is in error as to the doctrine of faith, then he can know that with himself he has internals by which the LORD operates" (A. C. 1102).
The celestial are especially of such a character; and so great is their desire for the good of all, that as soon as a man, even the worst, enters the other world, they at once surround him with their kind and gracious offices, willing that he should be a partaker of their joy. Such is the picture of the perfect man of the Church, and to that perfection we are to aspire, not, however, in a positive way by our own efforts to attain it, but by shunning what opposes-hatred, fraud, revenge, deceit, and exultation against the neighbor, adultery with-his wife, and devices for his ruin.
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Thus only can man's life be reversed and an internal state of good-will to his fellowman be established within him.
But although all are to be loved in this way, still not all can be honored or held as spiritual friends-i. e., friends with whom there is communion of soul-nor can the external and internal benefits of honor and friendship be extended to all. The truth is, that no man must be honored, but the LORD alone, for He alone is worthy, and man so far as the LORD is in him. Thus the person is eliminated-we must not love the person, the man, but the Good and Truth-i. e., the LORD-which is in the man, and from and according to the presence of that Good and Truth, the man himself; then man is not affected and influenced by the person of his friend, but by the Good which is with him, and by his love for that Good, and thus for that man he testifies and makes manifest his love to the LORD. The LORD teaches this when He says: "Ye are my friends if ye do whatsoever I command you." If we are thus friends of the LORD then are we brethren to those whom He calls friends, bound together by common love to Him.
This seeking and cultivation of honor and friendship with those who are in the Good and Truth of the LORD fosters no spiritual pride and conceit with man, although like every good it can be so abused; but with the upright it rather fosters humble prayer that we may look to the LORD and love and honor that which is from Him; it fosters trust and confidence in our friends and brethren and results in that interior delight of brotherly love which is described by the Psalmist, "How good and how lovely it is for brethren to dwell together in unity." Such friendship and love is not of the person, but of the LORD as manifested in the attitude, the words, and the deeds of that person. This is taught by the LORD when He said to those on His right hand that they had succored Him when He was in distress, and added, "Inasmuch as ye have done unto one of the least of these, my brethren, ye have done to Me."
This love of the LORD present in the neighbor does not necessarily imply close personal friendship with that neighbor, for dispositions, circumstances, and many external things may prevent; but it does imply interior respect and honor, trust, and confidence toward him, which are greater in proportion as greater uses are sincerely performed by him. Still less does such friendship imply judgment of the neighbor's interior character; this the LORD alone knows and into it we have no right to inquire-it is love and friendship for that of the LORD and the Church which his attitude manifests in him, and thence friendship for him. If that manifestation proves to be a mere external cover for evils the friendship ceases, for the LORD is loved above the person.
But it is wholly different with those who enter into friendship with the man without respect to the Good and Truth which he has. I speak only of internal friendship, for there is an external friendship which is of the person only and is entered into for the sake of various merely external pleasures, necessities, and uses. This does not hurt. Internal friendship is friendship of love with the internal as well as the external of a man. When such friendship is entered into with the man himself then there is danger. The proprium seeks this friendship, for it points to itself. It is pleasing to the self-love of the natural man to love those who are near to us, who benefit us, and whose love flatters our self-esteem. The natural man is satisfied with the pleasures of such friendship, for they are smooth and soothing and flattering. It binds man to man, and not to the LORD in man; for the person is the object of love and not the LORD in the person; hence it binds man to man's evils, and when these become manifest it is only with difficulty and pain that the bonds are broken, for in such friendship man is continually affected by the person.
To enter into the friendship of love with a man-that is, to love a man's interiors-implies judgment as to his interior character, which is both impossible and wrong. But to love the LORD-that is, Good and Truth in man-implies no such judgment; it is interior love of the man if he has made such Good and Truth of his life, and a separation from the man if they are not of his life. Thus, as has been said, when the Good and Truth are not apparent, when the neighbor's attitude is dangerous to the Church, or the community, the friendship of the good for that man ceases, and indeed gives place to the appearance of the opposite. For the attitude of the man of the Church is one of love to the LORD and to the Goods and Truths of His Church, an attitude of rejection and contempt toward the evils of his own proprium; and to all evils, because they are the delight of his proprium; whenever evil attacks and threatens to destroy what is loved he resists with ardor and zeal. This resistance takes place in the external man, and during the combat anger and even contempt become apparent, in the strong zeal for the protection of Good and Truth and the subjugation of evils and falses which infest, and for the punishment and chastisement of the man who identifies himself with such evils and falses. Compassion for the consequent sufferings of the man, pity for his misfortunes, are absent, for man is then held by the LORD in the truth that unless the evil are met and their influences destroyed, harm is done to the Church or to the community. Such compassion is of man's proprium, from which he regards the LORD last and self first, from which he esteems the pleasures and amenities of friendship to be above the good of the Church or of the community, which ever insinuates falacious notions that blind the eyes to evil itself and lend man to form judgment as to internal character and motive.
Such insinuations so pleasant, so smooth and easy to the natural man, who loves ease and comfort above all things, and dreads disturbance, must be resisted; they are not of Heaven. Man must resist them though it give pain, keeping ever before him that the LORD alone is to be loved and evil-that is, himself-to be rejected and contemned; and in the anguish to his natural feelings which ensue he must ever confirm himself in this truth and waver not. "Contemned in his eyes is the reprobate, but they that fear the LORD he honoreth. He sweareth to afflict himself, and changeth not." There is no contempt for any man, no judgment as to any man's character, but only zeal, yea, burning and fiery zeal, against speech and actions which threaten to injure that which is loved, a resistance to the proprium which sympathizes.
And when the combat is over, and the evil and hurt resisted and thrown back, then the flame and anger of zeal disappear, and man returns again into the state of charity which is in the internal, and then as far as possible wills well to him by whom evil and hurt have come, and from willing well does well. He seeks and wills his true welfare, and rejoices with him if by repentance and reformation that welfare is secured.
But those who have formed a friendship of love with one by whom evil to the country or disturbance to the Church comes have a still harder combat to undergo. They are affected and influenced by the man, and the combat becomes one, not between natural feeling and sympathy and love to the LORD and His Church, but between internal love of the man and love to the LORD and His Church.
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In such a combat many succumb, and, blinded and led astray by personal feelings, come into obscurity as to the Good and Truth of the Church and of the community,-as to the true welfare of men, whether in the world or in the Church. Their charity and compassion are spurious, and do not regard their fellows' eternal welfare, but rather the smooth and easy continuance of their friendship. It is charity and compassion for one's own proprium, and has not the neighbor interiorly in view. Therefore are we taught so emphatically not to enter into friendships of love.
There is one thing, however, which we must ever guard against, and that is, lest we allow personal feelings of envy or hatred to enter into our thoughts or dealings with those whose actions have wrought evil to the Society. It is so easy to hide these evils of the proprium under the guise of righteous action and just punishment, that we may well examine ourselves and see that all such evils be put down and contemned; otherwise there is external enmity to the enemy, but internal sympathy. The person is hated, but the evil is loved, for the proprium from which hate springs loves all evil. As we are taught not to love the man, but the Good and Truth in the man, so we must infer that the man must not be hated or contemned, but the evil which is in the man, and which makes one with the evil within ourselves. If man, therefore, shuns and contemns his own proprium and honors the LORD, so will he resist all evil which threatens what is of the LORD; but so far as man does not shun and contemn his own proprium, so far he loves and encourages all evils which tend to destroy the Church and Heaven, howsoever apparent the contrary may be. It is by shunning ill-will against the neighbor that the LORD gives us light to see how vile is our proprium, to reject and contemn it, and with it all sympathy for evil,-to honor the LORD and from the heart to love the neighbor. Thus only can we receive the LORD in this His Church-thus only can we open ourselves ever more fully to His Divine Presence and from Him become of the Church.
They who love the neighbor and God will be of the Church of the LORD. Of such men only is it said, "Contemned in his eyes in the reprobate; but those who fear the LORD he honoreth; he sweareth to afflict himself and changeth not." Some examine the truths of the Church as to whether they be so-they search into them, and have delight in so doing; as in this truth that the proprium is to be contemned and the LORD honored; they inquire and discuss with themselves in what this consists, and they examine the various aspects for which it can be viewed, but they go no further, and thus they close the door to wisdom and remain on the threshold of mere understanding. Such are in the state of faith alone, and we are of their number, when we are in Faith alone.
But those who are in the affection of Good go further; they receive the truths in the heart, and thus they open the door to wisdom, and with enlightened minds see beyond the broad field of wisdom in life leading even to the LORD.
My brethren, let us pray and work, that we be of these latter, that the truths of the Church may enter into our life, and we may see in them the LORD Himself leading and guiding even to Himself.
The LORD grant that we may so far submit ourselves to His ever-urging presence as to shun what opposes His entrance; that we may receive and love and honor Him above all and loathe and contemn ourselves; that we may dwell together in His Church and in His Heaven as brethren in the LORD.-Amen.
CHALDEA AND BABYLONIA. 1897
IV.
OTHER GODS.
"Thou shalt have no other Gods before My Faces."
THE perverted state of the Churches called Chalden and Babylonia, as it is revealed in the Writings, has been described. It now remains to show how that state ultimated itself in Lower Mesopotamia, from the earliest historic times down to the destruction of the City of Babylon.
Whether the worship called Chalden differed from Babel, in its external form, is not known. It is supposed there was little if any difference, as in both the same gods were worshiped; with this difference, however, that Chaldea paid higher honors to Sin, the Moon-god, whilst Babel regarded him as inferior to Samas, the Sun-god. Now this preference given to one of these gods over the other, trivial as it may seem, marks the essential difference between the two religions. "The Moon," we are taught, signifies faith, and "the Sun," love; and faith has reference to truths, and love to good. And, as stated on a former occasion, both forms of worship were holy in externals, but internally profane. Chalden was defiled by the profanation of truths, and Babel by the adulteration of good. That the same gods were worshiped in both does not necessarily imply that the quality of both was the same, even though, as is supposed, the same ceremonials and rituals were employed by both. Ceremonials, rituals, images, and whatever may be used in external worship, have no quality of their own. They may be the means of expressing love to the LORD, and for the spiritual and celestial things of the Church; they may express the good of ignorance, as with the well-disposed Gentiles; or they may stand for the loves of self and of the world, as was the case in Babel and Chaldea. It is the internal of the worshiper which renders them either holy or profane, as is evident from the statement that the very same images which served the men of the Ancient Church to remind them of heavenly things were regarded by their descendants as so many separate gods, and were used in their, idolatrous worship (A. E. 827). Thus Babel gave the preference to Samas, because sun-worship is the external expression of self-worship; and this latter was the internal of the worship called Babel.
Samas seems to have been frequently identified with Bel-Nipru, and is by some held to be the same as Adramelech, mentioned in II Kings xvii, to whom the Sephorvites burned their children.
Bel was universally acknowledged in Mesopotamia. His shrine at Calneh was famous for its wealth and antiquity. In classic times his principal temple was at Babylon; the almost fabulous wealth of that temple in statues and offerings, marks it the first shrine in the kingdom. Bel was the husband of the goddess Beltis whose worship has already been spoken of.
But although made more prominent than any other god, by the priests for unknown reasons, Bel did not occupy the first place in the national pantheon. The chief god was Ra or Il, which latter is the Babylonian reading for El-God. He must have been regarded as an invisible god, for he is seldom invoked, nor are we aware, that the inscriptions ever mention any temples or images of that god.
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All that is definitely known is that he was at the head of the pantheon, which consisted of twelve greater gods, and an innumerable host of inferior deities. It would thus seem that no definite conception was formed of him, no attributes ascribed to him, but that of supreme divinity.
Six of the twelve gods are formed into groups of three each. The first triad consists of Anu, Ea, and Bel. Anu was the god of heaven, Ea of the deep and of wisdom; Bel has already been described as having been regarded identical with Samas, thus a sort of sun- god. But that at times he was regarded as really distinct from Samas there can be no doubt, for frequently both are mentioned in the inscriptions, each forming a member of a different group of deities. Thus Samas is found as a member of the second triad of gods, which consisted of Sin, Samas, and Raman, the gods of the moon, the sun, and of the atmosphere respectively. It is a common occurrence in ancient mythology that the attributes of one god are ascribed to another, which is clear evidence that underlying all ancient mythologies is the idea of One God, which was also known to, and acknowledged by the wise of all ancient nations.
The five remaining gods are said to represent the five planets which are visible to the naked eye, but they were also conceived in the human form, and as possessing various attributes. They were Ninib, Merodach, Nergal, Nebo, and Ishtar. Ninib, the god of war, represents Saturn; Merodach, Jupiter; Nergal, also a god of war and hunting, represents Mars; Nebo, the god of letters, Mercury; and Ishtar, goddess of love and of war, represents Venus.
Of all the gods Merodach seems to have had the most god-like attributes, and of him the Babylonians and Chaldeans seem to have had most need. He was their refuge in times of distress. To him and to Ea, his father, they looked for help. En was able to help them, but for some mysterious reason he was never addressed directly, but always through his son, who acted as intercessor and mediator. En, it seems, was conceived as too exalted a deity to be addressed directly; but his son, Merodach, was always near and ready to intercede for man. The interest taken by these deities in the welfare of the human race, and their constant intervention, is the subject of many inscriptions, usually in the form of dialogues. The following extract is generally quoted to illustrate the belief of the Chaldeans and Babylonians in this miraculous intervention on their behalf. The gods have been implored for help in a certain disease of the head (supposed to be insanity), which was considered one of the most dreaded forms of possession. The text begins as follows:
"The Disease of the Head has issued from the abyss, from the Dwelling of the Lord of the Abyss . . . Merodach has looked on his misery. He has entered the dwelling of his father, En, and has spoken unto him: 'My father, the Disease of the Head has issued from the Abyss.' A second time he has spoken unto him: 'What he must do against it the man knows not. How shall he find healing?' Ea has replied to his son Merodach: My son, how dost thou not know? What should I teach thee? What I know thou also knowest. But come hither my, son Merodach. Take a bucket, fill it with water from the month of the rivers, impart to it thy exalted magic power, sprinkle with it the man, the son of his god, etc.'"
In such and the like offices Merodach is constantly employed. Ann, En, and Merodach were appealed to for help against the assaults of evil spirits, and as all diseases were considered so many forms of possession, they were constantly invoked, but chiefly Merodach.
He seems to have been regarded as nearer and more approachable than any other god. He was the Redeemer and Mediator, the Great God who fought and overcame Mummu Tiamat, the Dragon, the impersonation of evil and disorder. On Chaldean cylinders Tiamat is represented like a griffin, but the Assyrian represented the monster with a lion's head and body, the wings, tail, and claws of a bird, and the forepaws those of a lion. Tiamat and her crew had from the beginning endeavored to overthrow the work of the gods, and was for a long time able to do much mischief; but finally her power grew to such a height, that the gods were compelled to put a stop to it. Merodach was chosen to fight her. The gods themselves equipped him for the combat. The armor consisted of "the beautifully bent bow," a sickle-shaped sword, and the thunderbolts of Raman. The Assyrian tablet referred to represents him hurling the thunderbolts at her.
This myth is too transparent to be misunderstood. Merodach, the Intercessor and Mediator, the Great God who conquered the Dragon, "the Only Begotten," can represent no other than the LORD in the Human. But the account as it stands is incomplete, for although Merodach is constantly engaged in combat with the powers of evil, there is no reference made to his having sustained any suffering or death like the Egyptian god Osiris, who, like him, fought the Great Serpent.
True, the tablet on which the combat is recorded is so much injured that certain parts could not be deciphered, which probably accounts for the omission. The Chaldeans and Babylonians could scarcely have been ignorant of the prophecy that the LORD, at His Coming, would suffer temptations and even death, since it had been revealed to the Ancient Church, from which they received all their information concerning spiritual things. We should, therefore, naturally expect to find some reference to that prophecy, however much it might be veiled in a mythical garb, unless Merodach, like Horns, represents the LORD Victorious, in which case the Suffering LORD would be represented by a separate mythical character, as is the case in the Egyptian mythology. On this point we can only conjecture until a complete account of the Merodach legend is discovered. But the following legend seems to point to this conclusion.
The character whose history seems to supply the omission in the Merodach legend, is Isdubar, the hero-king of Erech. Erech was the Holy City of Chaldea, as Jerusalem was of the Land of Canaan. The Isdubar legend is too long to be quoted here, but the sum and substance of it is that having displeased the goddess Ishtar, she inflicted upon him various kinds of punishment, the last of which was a grievous disease from which Isdubar could only be cured by being washed in "the waters at the mouth of the rivers, in the land of the blessed. The way to it was long, through a vast desert, until he arrived at the Waters of Death, which he had to cross. But Isdubar went thither, though suffering grievously from his malady.
It will be noticed that "the waters at the mouth of the rivers" are again mentioned, and that washing in them is the only remedy for Isdubar's affliction; the same remedy as prescribed against possession by evil spirits. There was, of course, a reason why healing properties were ascribed to these waters, which it is not difficult to see from the following legend concerning Oannes, the God of Revelation. This mythical being half man and half fish, is said to have risen several times from the Persian Gulf, into which the two rivers of Mesopotamia empty. He came to instruct the Chaldeans in all the knowledges necessary for their religious, moral, and civil life.
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Now "waters" signify truths, and "the sea" the Word in the Letter. Thus "the waters at the mouth of the rivers" can signify nothing else than truths from the Word. Isdubar had fought a monstrous lion and a monstrous bull, and had overcome both; in other words, he had conquered infernal falses and evils; he had suffered, and had finally been cleansed from the impurities of the natural man by means of truths from the Word; all of which is plainly a mythical description of what the LORD permitted to take place in His Human. In the Word, too, in several places, healing properties are ascribed to waters, as in II Kings, xv; John v and ix, to the waters of the Jordan, and to the Pools of Bethesda and Siloam.
There is another legend, which seems to treat of the same subject, that of the youthful Dumuzi, the husband of the goddess Ishtar. Dumuzi was king of Erech before Isdubar, but met with an early death. Ishtar's Descent into Arali, the Chaldean under-world, forms the subject of one of the principal myths. After innumerable difficulties, and not until the gods themselves interfere, does she obtain permission from Allat, the Queen of Arali, to sprinkle Dumuzi with "the sacred waters" from the Spring of Life, which restores him to the land of the living.
These two legends seem to supply the part we miss in the Merodach legend.
Thus much about the gods and demi-gods of the Chaldeans and Babylonians.
INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS. 1897
MAN has no inherent "rights," as they are called, but only privileges or duties; for the freedom which he inherits is non-freedom. Why is it then that the Divine Providence guarantees to every soul born the exercise of his concupiscences and phantasies, to some extent? Is not this tantamount to a right? We answer, not in essence, though it may appear the same in effect. The doctrine is clear, that man is not life, but a recipient of life. Even his twin faculties, will and understanding, which are at first but empty vessels, and together with certain latent tendencies, form his sole inheritance, are gifts of Divine mercy. The rights which he has, are not his own, but are given him as his own, in order to constitute him a responsible individual, and for the sake of uses which he is to perform.
Man has a "right" to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," just so far as he is a member of the great human form of use-no further. These rights are only inalienable, because they are of Divine order, and regard the individual as a factor in the Divine order, which provides in all things, good, or use to the neighbor. They are therefore not inherent in the person, and just so far as he turns away from use, or the common good, he alienates himself from the pursuit of his happiness, his liberty, and finally of his life; for the pursuit of his happiness then becomes the depriving of others of theirs. His liberty means their enslavement or injury, and at length his life imperils theirs. Thus as he departs from order he becomes step by step an enemy to the fellow-citizen, the society, and the community, and loses his rights, which we thus see, are not his-not inherent, except so far as he lays hold upon them by appropriating to himself the uses of order to which these rights really belong.
The popular idea of "the rights of man" is a misconception, since it is based upon the appearance that men are born with life, and the necessary conditions of life, inherently within them. It is the Unitarian fallacy that there is a spark of the Divine in every man, which only needs proper conditions to be brought out and perfected. From this fundamental error, springs the false idea of democracy, which is that right originates with the people, and thus that a majority of individuals, by combining the "rights" springing from themselves and their own selfish interests, makes right in the sum, or makes law. But this is one of the greatest of errors, containing as it does the idea that the people can make order, or make laws, which means, when analyzed, that the people can rule God. Yet we know that God is order.
What is in and according to order is free, from the nature of things; because order is such as to agree and conspire together, to cohere at every point. In order, each and every thing agrees with and co-operates with every other thing. But as soon as one thing, or one person, is out of order, resistance begins and increases in proportion to the disorder. To be in the LORD, to be acting from charity, is to be free. "If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed." The Son signifies the Divine Truth, or the Divine Human of the LORD, which is Order itself.
In former times it was presumed that the king was the fountain of law-thus above the law, which was derived solely from his will and his understanding. Then the people (partly through the Reformation and the consequent dissemination of the Word-not to mention the other conditions which preceded and followed the Last Judgment) were restored to the idea that there are rights and laws of order which are above kings, and which kings cannot change. This introduced greater order and freedom into civil life, and led to the foundation of our own country. But as this reform was only external, in place of the falsely assumed Divine rights of kings there was substituted, by many, the equally false assumption of the Divine Rights of the people, which rights were exercised not by all the people, but by a mere majority of them. The people cannot change right into wrong, nor wrong into right, any more than the kings could, as they have to learn at times to their cost. When we see a king trying to do this, or when we see a great mass of people trying to do it, we think it very foolish, yet it is the natural progeny of democracy.
But who, it may be asked, is to be the judge of what is right or wrong? And in the absence of a common standard, clearly seen and acknowledged, this is a potent objection. To the oldchurchman there is no answer but "experience"; custom, which has been found to work well in the long run, is good law. And that which works disadvantage to one party in the long run, is bad law. And so, in the Divine Mercy of the LORD, the natural rational, or the enlightenment of self-interest, helps a blind world to grope its way toward civil justice, and this provides us with a kind of civil order, just as it has done with the healing art, and indeed with all the arts and sciences which go to make up our civilization. But even this natural perception of Order, which the LORD grants especially to judges, legislators, and others, each according to his use, is derived from the influx (through chinks, as it were) of the bright truth of Order itself, which are revealed in such fullness in His Word.
To the Newchurchman therefore can be given the true answer to our question-the WORD is the standard, for the LORD Himself is present therein, and enlightens all who approach Him there with a common light.
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From Him alone can laws be learned according to which legislators are to frame their enactments, to meet the wants of the community as they arise, and according to which judges are to decide which is right and which is wrong of the particular cases which come before them. But to do this they must be God-fearing men, wise, conscientiously seeking the country's good, and skilled in the law. May the LORD bless our land with many such men. If the Church does her duty, she will prepare them. Such a conception of right is impossible to a godless man. H. S.
LOVE IS THE LIFE OF MAN 1897
D. L. W., n. 1-3. THE IMPORTANCE AND USE OF THIS DOCTRINE.
IT is said in the work on "Angelic Wisdom concerning Divine Love and Wisdom," that "LOVE IS THE LIFE OF MAN." This truth is at the present day little known and still less acknowledged; for love is believed to be an affection of the heart excited by that which delights or commands admiration; thus it is believed to be something of the body which might be excited, roused into activity, and thus called into existence by some other body. This is one of the many fallacious appearances of the merely natural man; for it so appears when nothing is known of the spiritual man. But love is not an affection of the heart except by correspondence; by correspondence it is so, for "heart" in the spiritual sense signifies love and therefore corresponds to love.
How different must not the conception of love be, when it is believed that God, the Creator of the Universe, the LORD Himself, is Love Itself? If this be believed and acknowledged; then it will not be difficult to understand that LOVE IS THE VERY LIFE OF MAN, for it is then as plain as the truth that the LORD Alone is the life of every human being. There is indeed no one who does not know that love is, that it is something which in the most obvious manner actuates and rules man: but what this mighty power is is unknown; and as long as it is unknown, it is impossible for man truly to know himself, His Creator, or his neighbor. To know himself is to know his love, his life; and to know his Creator, is to know His Love, and to know his neighbor is to be acquainted with the love which constitutes his very life. If we go through this our earthly life without having acquired the true knowledges of these three things-when opportunity for such acquisition is offered-our earthly life will be a failure more or less, and in the other world we shall be unable to recognize our own selves-we shall fail to know the LORD as He really is, and we shall continue to misjudge the neighbor there as we did here, because we have not learnt to know either of them as to their real life-that is, as to their love. All that we know of them will be founded upon the loose sands of fallacious appearances, which have been regarded by us as the verimost life.
Even experience on the natural plane of life has often shown how misleading it is to judge of a man's real character only by the external appearances which manifest themselves before the eyes of the world. Do we not again and again deceive ourselves? Do we not often judge of our real life from the merely outward effects of the same? Do we not often think that we are good and wise because we have thought, spoken, and acted thus and thus wisely and well on the practical plane of life. And yet afterward we might, through self-examination, find that though our thoughts were not bad, our speech not malicious, and our deeds not evil, still the end from which and for which we thus thought, spoke, and acted was anything but unselfish, thus not good.
In such way we may learn the true quality of our love, which is our life; but if we do not know that that love is our life, we can never know what our life is; for we would then regard effects apart from their source, and it is in this way that effects mislead instead of guiding. But if effects be regarded in connection with the source from which they spring, it is otherwise; for then they reveal the quality of that source; our thoughts, feelings, and actions, traced back to their inmost origin, will reveal the quality of that origin. To judge of a man's life merely from the outwardly visible effects is as unwise as to judge of the quality of the source of a river from the flowing body of water a thousand miles remote from its origin; for, be this origin a lake ever so pure, its waters ever so limpid, still the river which flows from such a source may in the course of its progress become polluted, now by one unclean tributary, now by another; so that at a distance from its origin it will not only present a misleading but a wholly false idea of its source. But if you would know the quality of its source follow it up; follow it through the long winding valley of its course, mount the walls of its cataracts, wade through its tributaries, and at last you shall know of what quality the origin of that river really be.
So if we would know the quality of our own life, let it not be judged by the merely natural appearances which, far removed from their origin, polluted by the many tributaries of heredity and outside pressure, cannot but be deceptive in regard to the quality of the source from which they spring. But follow them up to their source, take your action and find out by what kind of thought it was prompted, examine that thought and look behind it, discern its origin the very end, that internal thought, which is the perception of ends; then you are near to that which constitutes your very life or this inmost thought, which is the perception of ends, is the first effect of your love, which is your very life.
And would we like to know our neighbor truly and justly, let us do likewise. It is said in the Writings that the angels take delight in excusing the shortcomings and evils of others. We can understand how they can do so when we remember that a man's love is his life; then it becomes clear to us that the angels excuse not the evils themselves, not the falses themselves, but are willing to make them of small account, when they find that the man who committed them did so from no evil purpose. When they find that such a man's life, his love, was pure and good-so far as purity and goodness may be predicated of man-they internally rejoice, and do not pay overdue attention to the external manifestations of such a man's life, knowing, as they do, that man himself (if he be really in good) will take notice of the quality of his external acts, and by degrees rectify, reform, and reject such things as are in disagreement with his inmost thought, his perception of ends, which is nearest his very life.
Let us try to do likewise with our neighbor. If we see evils in his external acts, let us be slow to judge of that man's life. Let us excuse them, so far as such excuse will not be likely to harm any one. It is not everybody's business to point out the errors everybody else commits. Let us rather try to find out from what end such and such action proceeded; if he be one of the Church, let us have some confidence in our neighbor's endeavor to see his own evils, and to shun them as if from himself.
And so in regard to the LORD Himself. No one has been, and is more misjudged than He.
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And the reason is that the LORD is not known to be Love Itself, Wisdom Itself. He is judged from the appearance which the stream of His Divine Providence takes in the perverted states of men of all ages. They see Him with their evil eye, they regard Him from the fallacious appearances of permission; they ascribe to Him all manner of evils, because they do not know, and are not willing to know, that the LORD is Love, that the very Esse of the LORD is the Divine Love, which is the heart, the soul, the only life-giving in all creation.
But in the New Church, where this truth has been taught, it is possible to look beyond the external appearances of His Providence, and there see, in some degree at least, what the LORD really means by the permissions, which, without such further knowledge of ends, would seem not only inexplicable but even opposed to the LORD'S Divine Love. The Word in the Letter offers abundant material for the further illustration of this. In order to know the LORD, we must learn to know the quality of His Love; we must learn to know that which He hath revealed about Himself in the Word, in Letter and in Spirit. In these His thoughts are manifested, His affections displayed, His deeds recorded. The Study of the Word is the Study of the LORD Himself; it begins here on earth, but ends not there in the other world. To learn to know His Love, His Life, is a study for time and eternity; and in the same proportion as we truly learn to know Him, in the same measure do we learn from Him to know others, and also our own lives; for from a knowledge of the Creator, those things which are created may be truly known.
Thus we have seen that love is the all of Creation, the LORD Himself; and that hence it is the yen most life of man, the three first effects of which are, first, the internal or inmost thought, which is the perception of ends; second, the less interior thought, and lastly sensation and action. The use of this knowledge may in some degree be comprehended, when we realize that without it we could never have any true knowledge either of God, our neighbor, nor of ourselves; and still such knowledge is necessary for our salvation.
Therefore has this knowledge been given us in the Writings of the Church. Without it the question of life could never be answered; for if it be not known that life is love, one would remain in the false idea that life consists only in feeling, thinking, and acting. Do not animals feel, think, and act? It these were the life of man, in what would he then differ from the brute animals? Man's life is love received from the LORD, and feelings, thoughts, and actions are only the effects of this love.
Is then love from the LORD the life of every man, even the evil? It is. Though man be evil or good, an angel or a devil, there is nothing else that can keep him alive but love received from the LORD. What then is the difference between the life of an angel and a devil,-between a good man and an evil man? The difference is this, that the angel knows and acknowledges that the LORD'S love is his inmost life, and consequently he derives his exterior life, with joy and in freedom, from that source; and knowing this he knows the LORD, and loves the LORD, and thence he knows his neighbor and loves his neighbor, and also to some degree knows himself, namely, that he of himself, as to his own proprium, is nothing but evil. The same is the case with a good or regenerating man in this life; therefore he-like the angels-is happy and contented and strives incessantly to approach nearer and nearer to that Source of life which is the LORD'S Love. And he does this by following the directions which the LORD hath given in the Word.
The devil, on the other hand, scorns the idea that he derives any life from any one but himself. He therefore cannot acknowledge the LORD'S Love as the inmost life in him; he does not know of that love, because he is unwilling to know of it; consequently he does not know the LORD, and, instead of deriving his exterior life from that hidden source of life in his inmost, he perverts the same, as it-despite his opposition-makes its existence known in his exteriors. Nay, he denies even then its existence, and ascribes the source to himself. The heat of that hidden love in him, which inmostly is his life, he turns into hatred, which he terms love; and the light which that heat emanates he turns forthwith into the thick darkness of falsity, which he terms rationality. He does not know the LORD, because he will not know Him, he denies His very existence; he hates Him, so far as an idea of His existence is forced upon Him. He knows not his neighbor, because he has no knowledge of the internal life of others, and his feigned love for him is nothing but hatred, because to such an opposite has he perverted the LORD'S love in himself. He knows not himself, for he denies the evil state of his own proprium and the LORD'S mercy; and he desires nothing more than to be himself, all-sufficient, all-powerful, a god.
Thus it is also with the evil man, the man who is not striving to be regenerated. The LORD is unknown to him, the neighbor is unknown to him-he knows not himself, because he does not know what love is, that it is his very life; he knows not what his life is, that it is his love.
Let this truth be impressed upon every one of the Church, that-love is life and life is love. Let it be borne in mind that the fact that every one's life is inmostly from the LORD does not insure salvation, but that salvation is the result of that love when it is allowed to actuate the whole man, when it is suffered to come forth from the bidden recesses of the soul and make its presence felt and acknowledged in the external man in a word, when it is received and suffered to shed its divine lustre upon the darkness of the natural man and its verdant heat upon the barren fields of the proprium. Then man, like a tree, grows, produces leaves and blossoms, and, lastly, fruits, which in themselves carry new seeds for the reproduction of new plants, new trees, new leaves, new blossoms, and fruits, more excellent as the ages of eternity witness his spiritual growth in love and wisdom produced by means of this truth of Heaven, that Love is life, and thus, "THAT LOVE IS THE LIFE OF MAN." J. E. ROSENQVIST.
ANNALS OF THE NEW CHURCH. 1897
(Continued.)
EMANUEL SWEDENBORG.
1718 [continued].
February.-Starbo. Thirty-first letter to Benzelius: expects to join Polheim at Wenersborg in two weeks, in order to proceed with the work on the canal, after which he will visit Upsala; describes the king's dissatisfaction at the discontinuance of the Daedalus; suggests the establishment of a professorship for the Swedish language at Upsala (Doc. I, 299)
March.-At Upsala, where he publishes the first Swedish work on Algebra, the
Regelkonsten, forfattsd i tio Bocker. Upsala. Werner, 135 pp., l6mo. (A. L. The work described in Doc. II, 892.)
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As a continuation of this work he wrote a manuscript of 169 pages on the subject of higher mathematics, entitled
Geometrica et Algebraica (see Doc. II, 893). He published, also, at the same time,
Forsok att finna ostra och Vestra Lengden igenom Manan (An attempt to find the Longitudes by means of the Moon). Upsala. Werner, 38 pp. 8vo (A. L. See Doc. II, 894).
June (end).-Wenersborg. Thirty-second letter to Benzelius: is daily occupied in building locks at Trollhattan; complains of the small interest generally taken in the cause of science, the prevailing lack of funds, and the tendency of the country towards barbarism; has met Baron Gortz (the king's unworthy favorite and financial adviser, whose measures brought unspeakable misery upon Sweden; he was afterward beheaded) (Doc. I, 300).
July 1st.-Emanuel Swedberg at Stromstad, superintending the, then, stupendous work of transporting a number of warships seventeen miles overland, thereby circumventing the Danish-English fleet, and making possible the campaign of Charles XII against Norway. Swedenborg himself makes no mention of this feat, which, however, is a well-established historical fact (Doc. I, 554).
September l4th.-Wenersborg. Thirty-third letter to Benzelius: has been twice to Wenersborg with the king, who has shown marked favor and grace; looks forward to a command of his own in the building of the canal; mentions that Polheim's eldest daughter has become engaged to Chamberlain Manderstrom, and wonders what people will think, as she had been engaged to him, Emanuel; thinks that the second daughter, Emerentia, is much prettier (Doc. I, 302.)
(The story of Swedenborg's engagement, related in Doc. I, 634; II, 437).
October 2d.-Brunsbo. Thirty-fourth letter to Benzelius: has been here three weeks, and has seen Daelus, part VI, through the press; is experiencing persecution from the members of his family; none of his relations have shown him any kindness, except Eric Benzelius; even his father and stepmother have become estranged from him, through the influence of a brother-in-law; hopes to be able to follow the king in the campaign against Norway (Doc. I, 303; compare I, 162.)
November 30th.-King Charles XII is killed, while besieging the fortress of Frederikshall, in Norway. He is succeeded on the throne by his sister, Ulrica Eleonora. The constitution of Sweden is soon afterward changed from an absolute monarchy to one exceedingly limited. (For biographies of these monarchs, see Doc. I, 602.)
December 8th.-Brunsbo.-Thirty-fifth letter to Eric Benzelius: (Emanuel has not yet heard of the king's death.) Thanks God that he has escaped the Norwegian campaign; will visit Stockholm in a few days; relates the latest news from Norway; will wait with the further publication of the Dedalus, until Charles XII shall provide the means (Doc. I, 305).
During this month he published an interesting little work on the rotation of the earth and the planets- "Om Jordenes och Planetarnas Gang och Stand" Skara. Kjellberg, 40 pp. l6mo. (A. L. See Doc. II, 895).
1719.
February 13th-Emanuel Swedberg in Stockholm; present at the College of Mines.
March 17th.-In Upsala, where, on the coronation-day of Queen Ulrika Eleonora, he publishes a treatise entitled,
"Om Waitnens Hogd, och Forra Werldens starka ebb och Flod " (On the depth of waters, and the strong tides in the primeval world). Upsala. Werner, 16 pp. l6mo (A. L. Doc. II, 895).
April 18th.-Letter from Polheim to Benzelius, from which it appears that Emanuel is still in Upsala, and that he feels estranged from Polheim (perhaps on account of the breaking of the engagement between Emanuel and Emerentia Polheim). The work on the canal has been suspended, owing to the universal poverty in the kingdom (Doc. I, 306, 635).
May 23d.-Bishop Swedberg's wife and children are elevated by the Queen to the rank of nobility; they assume the name "Swedenborg;" Emanuel, as the eldest son, takes his seat in the House of Nobles, as a member of the Swedish Diet (see Tottie II, 273; Doc. I, 469 and especially M, vol. 27, p. 45).
During this month there appeared a second and enlarged edition of his work on "Wattnens Hogd." (Upsala, Werner, 40 pp. A. L.).
This edition is signed by "Emanuel Swedenborg," the former by "Emanuel Swedberg."
June-October.-Swedenborg writes the two following treatises, which have not yet been published:
(1) "Anatomi af var allra finaste natur "(Anatomy of our purest substance, showing that moving and living force consists of tremulations), 48 pp.
(2) "Nya Anledningar til Grufvors igenfinnande" (New directions for discovering metallic veins). 14 pp. (Doc. II, 898).
November 2d.-In Stockholm; submits to the College of Mines a paper on Swedish iron furnaces and their working" (Doc. I, 404).
November 3d.-Stockholm. Thirty-sixth letter to Benzelius: speaks of some new discoveries concerning the earth's approach toward the sun; describes the various new treatises which he has written; deplores the lack of interest in scientific things in the present state of the country (Doc. I, 307).
November 14th.-The Queen instructs the College of Mines to report upon a memorial from Swedenborg, in which he proposes the establishment of a factory for extricating vitriol at the copper mines of Fahlun (Doc. I, 406).
November 26th.-Stockholm. Thirty-seventh letter to Benzelius: contains further discussion of the earth's approach toward the sun; gives reasons for supposing that God and the blessed have their abode in the sun; [repudiates the idea of a material hell-fire, but suggests remorse of conscience in its place; is willing to refer everything to the Word of God; appears discouraged at the reception which his latest works have met, and thinks that Pluto and envy have taken possession of the people (Doc. I, 312).
December 1st.-Stockholm. Thirty-eighth letter to Benzelius: seems to be thoroughly discouraged at his prospects in Sweden, and proposes to seek his fortune abroad (Doc. I, 315).
At this time he publishes two little works:
Underrattelse om Docken, Slysswerken och Saltwerket" (Information concerning docks, canal-locks, and salt works).
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Stockholm. Werner. 8 pp. 4to. A copy of the original in the Forbes' collection, 20 Cooper Union, New York (Doc. II, 896).
"Forslag til wart Mynts och Mals indelning" (Proposal for the regulation of our coinage and measures; introducing a decimal system). Stockholm. Royal Printing Office. 8 pp. 4to (Doc. II, 899)
1720.
January.-Stockholm. Thirty-ninth letter to Benzelius: treats of his new discoveries in cerebral anatomy (Doc. I, 317).
February 24th.-Stockholm. Fortieth letter to Benzelius: deals exclusively with anatomical matters (Doc. I, 318).
February 29th.-Stockholm. Forty-first letter to Benzelius: chiefly anatomical; is much pleased with a favorable review of one of his works in the newly published "Acta Literaria Sueciae" (Doc. I, 320).
March 3d.-Stockholm. Forty-second letter to Benzelius: proposes the establishment of a Mathematical Society, and the institution of a public lottery as a means of raising money for its expenses (Doc. I, 323).
April 12th.-Brunsbo. Forty-third letter to Benzelius: relates a scientific observation about the midnight sun, and its continued reflection in a lake, even after it had set (Doc. I, 324).
Swedenborg is at this time on a visit to his father's home in order to attend the funeral of his stepmother, Sarah Bergia Swedenborg, who died on March 3d (Tottie, II, 278). Concerning Swedenborg's "mothers," in the spiritual world, see S. D. 4181, 4182.
May 2d.-Brunsbo. Forty-fourth letter to Benzelius: is engaged in chemical researches and discoveries (Doc. I, 325).
June.-Skinskatteberg (Swedenborg's mining property in Dalecarlia). Forty-fifth letter to Benzelius: treats of the origin of meteors (Doc. I, 327).
June 19th.-Skinskatteberg. Swedenborg petitions the College of Mines for a regular salary, as assessor extraordinary (Doc. I, 406).
July 9th.-Stockholm. Swedenborg petitions the king (Frederic I, consort and co-regent with Ulrika Eleonora) for appointment to the office of an ordinary assessor in the College of Mines (L. 1896, p. 152).
July 21st.-Additional petition of Bishop Swedberg for his son (L. ibid.).
November 21st-Stockholm. Renewed application by Swedenborg to the king for appointment to ordinary assessorship (L. ibid.).
December 25th.-Swedenborg at Brunsbo attending the wedding of Bishop Swedberg to his third wife, Christina Arethusa (Tottie II, 273).
During this year Swedenborg writes a treatise entitled "Om Wennerns fallande och stigande" (On the rising and falling of Lake Werner), MS. 7 pp. An abstract of this paper was published in Acta Literaria Stsecae for 1720, pp. 111-116 (A. L. Doc. II, 899).
About this time he writes, also, a large work called "Principia Rerum Naturalium ab experimentis et geometrica educta" (First principles of natural things, deduced from experience and geometry) MS. 560 pp. This has never been published (see Doc. II, 899).
(To be continued.)
IN ORDER SEE GOD 1897
"FAMILIARITY breeds contempt" expresses a common tendency to be affected by earthly rather than heavenly attributes in all things human. So external is our unregenerate nature, so directed toward the earth whence it is formed, rather than to the heaven for which it was destined, that the mere personality of the neighbor outweighs his capacity-latent or developed-to become a receptacle of living USE, a dwelling-place and Image of the Most High. Hence in history and in biographies of great men we often find that they were looked upon with contempt by the members of their own households, who were so near to the person that the foibles thereof were able to shut out even the natural and visible use which the man as an instrument performed.
How much harder is it for us, in the natural states which are all too prevalent with us, to recognize spiritual use, and to accord it the honor which belongs to it. How hard to bear in mind that contempt of person is itself contemptible, because it looks away from the LORD in His instruments, and buries its sight in the vile dust, which is the mortal part of man. But the heritage of the New Church brings power to look higher-to see the LORD in His creatures and in the uses He gives them to do, and to follow Him obediently but rationally, in the principles of order He has given-given to the end that men may be free-free to think for themselves, but not from themselves; free to so humiliate the proprium with its disturbing affections and conceits that the TRUTH may enter and make them free indeed. To discern the invisible hand of God in the workings of His visible instrumentalities, comes only by combat, self-compulsion, and finally humility. Then alone can the LORD teach and lead.
G.G.S.
DISEASES OF THE FIBRES. 1897
CHAPTER IV.
The common causes of diseases of the body.
380. THERE are common causes of diseases of the body as well as of sicknesses of the animus, as also of essential changes of state of our rational mind; but I shall treat here only of the causes of diseases of the body.
381. All things which change a better state of the blood into a worse one are causes of diseases of the body. When the blood is changed, all the humors which come from the blood as from its storehouse and seminary, are also changed; and with the blood and humors, the vessels, and single fabrics of the vessels and fibres, consequently also the members and viscera, are changed, and finally the entire corporeal system.
38l 1/2. The first, principal, and most common cause of diseases of the body is the food itself-that is to say nourishment from dry and liquid substances. There are aliments which refresh the blood, renovate it, and after being dissolved, restore it in turn to the circulation; and especially do they supply those elements which enter into the chyle, and constitute the serum, by which the blood is redintegrated. On the quantity, quality, and distribution of the food depends the temperature of the blood. An excessive amount of even the better kind of food, or intemperance, does harm. The quality of all foods and drinks is different, the one is suitable, the other is unsuitable, according to the nature of one's blood and body. Distribution, which is of the greatest consequence, demands that a greater or less amount of this or that kind of food be employed in the use of renewing the blood.
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Therefore the most common cause of disease is the quantity of food badly distributed as to quality. But the special causes of this misfortune are as many as the kinds of food and the natures of those eating.
382. What effect the food eaten produces, the alvine excretions show, and also those of the bladder, or the urine, the pulsation of the arteries, the respiration of the lungs, the changes of the animus, and the disturbances which happen to the viscera. The specific and individual signs exceed numbers.
383. The secondary and more remote cause of the diseases of the body is the subtile aliment which, too minute to be apparent to the senses, is allured by the respirations of the lungs, and by the cuticles from the circumfluent air, and immediately introduced into the capillary veins; this aliment is as well dry as liquid, and abides in the air. For there are nitres, urinous products, sulphurs, dews, waters, and essential juices, whence come the odors with which the air is filled. Experiments teach that aerial nitre and also pestiferous vapors are present in the blood. For water itself, when the hands or face are wet, is at one time imbibed even to dryness, at another time repelled; so that our corporeal system is as the system of the atmospheric world, which at one time impregnates itself with vapors, but at another clears itself from them by rains. The pores themselves are opened and closed according to the indigence of the red blood and according to the state of the purer blood. So great an abundance of these aliments is insinuated by the pores that very often they may exceed the amount of food taken through the gullet; as the examples of those, who have lived for a long time without food or drink, teach, and of brute animals which pass much time with this food alone. The temperature of the blood also depends upon the quantity, quality, and economical distribution of this aliment; but neither quantity, quality, nor distribution of this nourishment depends upon our own choice; the impulse and moving cause is remote from the senses, and for the most part is governed by a certain science of which we know nothing; but it is distributed more prudently by this means than are the foods round about, appreciable to the senses, dispensed by us; which, of our own accord, are thrust through the fauces into our stomach without discrimination.
384. What effect these aliments produce is observed by the pulse, respiration, affections of the brain, quantity and quality of the sweat; for there are passages of excretion from the arteries just as there are of degintition by the veins; moreover, this may also be observed from the digestion, sleep, wakefulness, and from other signs as yet unknown.
385. The third, still more remote, cause of diseases of the body is that insensible respiration called Sanctorian, by which means the aliment is derived not as before from the air, but from the ether, nor is it taken immediately into the veins or the red blood, but by certain fibres toward the cortex of the brain. Concerning these things, compare Chap. ix, on The Fibre, and Treatise iv, on The Animal Spirit, where the corporeal fibres are treated of. From the cortex of the brain this ethereal food is insinuated into the purer blood for the purpose of renewing the animal spirits, and thus into the medullary fibres, and by these it is derived mediately into the blood; for as does the red blood so also does the purer blood by its little months and organs, rejoice to be refreshed; which is set forth in a sufficiently clear light by the experience of ages, and especially by that of our own. Upon the quantity, quality, and economy of these elements depend the nature and condition of the purer blood or our animal spirits; which, because they inflow into the red blood and constitute its principal essence, if they become malignant, cannot but act as the roots of diseases of the body.
386. One among the many common causes of diseases of the body, which is also to be noted, is the sickness of the animus, which depends upon the recently mentioned nutrition, as upon an external cause; its internal cause also is given, viz.: the state of the mind itself, which also excites and moves the animus as though it were its servant, to perform what it wills and desires; but this is the supreme and most remote cause of the diseases of the body; for it is altogether in the light of experience that the blood of the body is stirred up by a disturbed mind; in fact, often to such a degree that from too great a desire for the accomplishment of an end, when we lose hope by its overthrow, we are precipitated headlong into passions of the animus, and thence into diseases of the body; yea, into death.
387. These four principal and common causes of diseases of the body, which have been recounted, are also the same by means of which we exist and subsist, that is, by means of which we live in the body, and also the same by which we die; so that the causes of corporeal life are also the very causes of diseases, and likewise of death. For we live upon aliments taken from the earth, the air, and the ether, but the quantity of these aliments, wrongly distributed as to quality, is the veriest cause of diseases, or the cause that we daily draw near to death. Ignorance of the quality of the nourishment, and of our constitution, and of the art of distributing-that is to say, that the quantity and quality respectively may be distributed according to the constitution of the receiving body, as also that these may be relinquished to our will and its desires-effect, that the same things which are causes of life are the causes of the destruction of life. Similarly, the affections of our animus and mind; for as many as are the desires and lusts so many are the heats and excitements of life; but immoderate excitation or extent of these desires which tend toward depraved things and are inimical to us-that is, of poor quality, badly distributed-similarly shows that they may be the causes of our destruction or death. As abuse or quantity injures, so also does defect or paucity. It is the nature of Nature that the causes of life are the causes of diseases, and consequently the causes of death; that is to say, that opposites and contraries are within each single cause and each single subject in potency, whence is impulse; for every created essence has a tendency to change, privation, and destruction.
388. The outmost of all causes which produce diseases is that which acts outside the blood-vessels but upon them, and consequently outside the organic forms excited by the blood-vessels, but upon them, that is, with the outmost surface of the body; as are violent blows, contusions, and wounds, whence result copious emissions of blood; luxations, contorsions, or injuries inflicted upon the members, the organs, the head, etc. These are accidental and voluntary. They are ACCIDENTAL when they do not occur with foresight, but unexpectedly, as the fall of a house, a ball projected from a sling or a gun, a tile slipping from the roof upon the head, and like misfortunes. They are VOLUNTARY when anyone lifts his hand against himself, desires and invites death, yea, even if he invite diseases. There are also causes MEDIATE between the accidental and the voluntary, as in duels, battles, and perils on land and sea.
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389. As there are outmost causes of diseases, so also are there inmost causes, which are the chief of all, or the causes of causes, and the veriest essentials; these because they are not voluntary or of the mind, but above the voluntary of the mind, are called CONTINGENT CAUSES, for they come from another source, nor are we conscious whence they come, wherefore we attribute them to
fortune, fate, or Providence; as, that we meet with this or that peril to life, and diseases thence arise, that is to say, we meet by chance with those causes which are outmost, as just recounted, or with noxious food, or we come into places where are poisonous and deadly vapors, and into disturbances of the animus, and into desires and immoderate fires of the mind, and into innumerable similar things, or into all the causes of diseases.
But since there is no such thing as mere accident, neither is there fortune or luck; and since there is a series and chain of contingent causes from the first, (and the first causes in the animal body arise from the soul, and hence also do the contingent causes of diseases) which thus necessarily flow forth from the soul as from their own fountain and its change of state; such therefore as is the soul, or in such manner as it receives the influx of life from a supreme spiritual form, such is the contingency which inflows into the series of our life. But of these things in the Treatise on Providence.
390. Such is the series of essential causes of life, diseases, and death, from the inmost or contingent cause through intermediate causes to the outmost. Moreover, the causes of diseases are mediate, ultimate, innate, and acquired. Essential causes concern the rise of diseases, mediate causes the progression, but the ultimate the effect; the innate causes are hereditary, the acquired are adscititious.
391. The mediate causes are those which impede the progress of the causes of life from its first origin to its effect. For there are causes which wholly obstruct the progress of aliments, as well the terrestrial as the aerial and etherial, as do the disturbances of the animus and mind, which are the heats of life, whence are diseases. Sleep, watching, action, quiet, the intercourse of society, business, and many things promote progress, but if these are not turned into their natural order of progression, diseases arise, the causes of which are called mediate among those which give rise to diseases and show their effect. For diseases flow from an excess of sleep, watching, action, quiet, or from privation of them, and also the privation of business by which we are excited.
392. The ULTIMATE CAUSES are those which restrain or altogether impede the EFFECT. The effects are the discharges of faces, urine, sweat, Sanctorian breathing, the exercise of venery, haemorrhoidal flux, menses, saliva, and many others; if these be impeded, diseases ensue. For in all causes there is a certain series from the beginning to the end; thus also in the causes of life, of diseases, and of death; if the origin fail, the progression and effect fall into nothing; if the effect fails, the course and progression from origin to effect provided by nature also fails. Now because the effect is ultimate in the series of causes, these causes therefore are called ultimate.
393. The INNATE CAUSES are hereditary, or those derived from the parents; the adnate causes are those which Proceed from the life, and assume a nature as if they were innate; they are otherwise called adscititious; from these they allot their heirs. But these cannot properly be called the causes of diseases, for they are only the dispositions for receiving diseases of this or that kind or species; for subjects are universally of various kinds: the blood of no one is altogether similar to that of another, as neither are the animus and mind, whence we are, the one more quickly inclined to take disease, the other more slowly. It is innate with all, as also we derive universally from our parents, that we must perish and die; consequently with age we advance into sicknesses or infirmities, of which the complement and ultimate boundary of the sum of the sicknesses is the death of the body.
394. Thus we have arranged the causes of diseases into their classes; for without a distinct knowledge of causes, there is no such thing as a distinct, still less a true science and art of healing. Every disease can be reduced, as I believe, to some class of those previously determined, but perhaps recapitulation will aid. There are PRINCIPAL or ESSENTIAL causes of diseases, which are many, one, however, succeeding another. The FIRST or INMOST is called the CONTINGENT; the SECOND, which flows forth from the state of the mind and animus, follows this; the THIRD is from the use of etherial aliments; the FOURTH from the aerial, the FIFTH from terrestrial; the OUTMOST causes are those which act extrinsically into the forms of the body. Since these are the essential causes, it follows that there are also ACCIDENTAL causes, that is to say, all those which arise from essentials, as those from a vitiated state of the humors, which take their origin from the blood. Philosophically speaking, all diseases are accidental except that first cause which is called the inmost; but we shall pass over these subtilities. The causes enumerated are those which give rise to diseases; following these are the MEDIATE causes which inhibit PROGRESS, and the ULTIMATE which inhibit the EFFECT of the natural causes of life. Indeed the INNATE and ADNATE CAUSES are not active but passive, thus properly they are the states recipient of causes; for where there is an active there will be a passive.
Notes and Reviews. 1897
A CHART OF DOCTRINE.
A BOOK of Doctrine, Containing Summaries of Doctrine from the Writings of the Church (pp. 320). Academy Book Room, Philadelphia.
The real value of this book will be appreciated by those who realize that knowledge, to be available and potent, must be systematized. Order effects all things. Truth is effective in the mind only when it introduces order there, and to that end it must enter according to order; indeed, without order there is no truth, for out of place and sequence a truth is either an appearance, a fallacy, or even a falsity. But when truth is arranged in order, with singulars under particulars, and these under generals, with universals running through and governing the whole, then all truths lead in a superhuman order, and by an irresistible conatus and power, up to the Supreme Source whence they flow and derive life.
There is no other way so well adapted to storing the mind with those general truths which initiate it into orderly modes of thought as to study the summaries of doctrine presented in the Writings; for thus the mental sight can rise above the appearances and fallacies peculiar to a contracted view, and look abroad and discern something of the proportion and sequence of the Divine teachings, can compare, reflect, and digest, and thus become more rational, receptive, and illuminated.
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Such considerations suggest the capacity for use afforded in this Book of Doctrine, which "has been prepared in order that the entire Doctrine and Theology of the New Church might be put together in a summary form, for the uses of reading, study, and instruction" (Preface).
Formal instruction in Doctrine may be divided into two classes: that which is imparted and received in a scientific and intellectual sphere, as in systematic Doctrinal teaching; and that which is conveyed in part by the medium of symbolic or ritualistic forms, as in worship, wherein the affections are more directly appealed to, with regard to life. Not only in the former is system (another name for order) necessary, but in worship also there must be a sequence of truths presented, if symbols are to have meaning and the affections be directed to efficient results. Hence the advantage of a variety of liturgical forms and materials from which to arrange services with a living variety and capacity to express special lines of religious thought and feeling. To the priest who, laboring in such a direction, seeks to follow the orderly lines laid down in the Doctrines, a work which-like the present one-successfully attempts to lay before the reader in summary form "the entire Doctrine and Theology of the New Church," needs hardly an advocate.
On the other hand, the value of the work for purposes of study appeals to the student with equal force, inasmuch as it lays before him in a general view the principal works of the Writings, individually and in comparison with each other, teaching him to study them with discriminating regard to their respective fields and scope.
And for the general reader and attendant at worship, frequent use of the book is calculated to imbue the mind with orderly forms of thought based on general truths, implanted in the memory according to a Divinely established order, facilitating the acquiring and arranging of particular truths, with consequent growth and enlightenment.
As to the plan of the book: it contains an outline of each of those of the Writings which present their contents in the form of general propositions, grouped in chapters severally devoted to various subjects, but expanded in the main body of the text. Most of the Writings are of this class, the True Christian. Religion being a type. The exceptions are: Heaven and Hell, The Heavenly Doctrine, the works which expound the internal sense of the Word, and some of the smaller books, none of which are adapted to summarizing. Nevertheless, in this book it is as if the contents of the Writings were brought together in one view, with this advantage, that each section within the chapters is introduced by a universal proposition, culled with care and discrimination from the text, and illuminating the subject.
Chapter I collates the various statements of the Writings concerning the Faith of the New Church, affording an opportunity for acquiring a full and definite grasp of this fundamental of belief. Chapter II gives the Commandments (the translation following Swedenborg) in the literal and spiritual senses. Then follow the summaries of the following works: The Summary [or "Brief"] Exposition, The True Christian Religion, Coronis, The Four Doctrines, Canons, The Last Judgment, Intercourse of the Soul and Body, Divine Love and Wisdom, Divine Providence, Conjugial Love, and Charity. These occupy thirteen chapters. The next two comprise all the important summaries of doctrine contained in the Arcana Coelestia and in the Apocalypse Explained; and the book concludes with two chapters consisting of very instructive compilations on the subjects of Conscience and Perception. A carefully prepared index of subjects adds materially to the usefulness of the work.
The subjects of the summaries from the Arcana are as follows: 1. The Celestial Man, the Spiritual Man, and the Dead Man. 2. Vastation. 3. The Spiritual World. 4. Appearances. 5. Appearance of Truth. 6. Fallacies of the Senses. 7. Why the LORD was willing to be born on our earth and not on any other. 8. The Conjunction of the Angelic Societies in Heaven. 9. The Internal of the Word, of the Church, and of Worship. The summaries from the Apocalypse Explained comprise: 1. Doctrine. 2. The Divine Power. 3. The Laws of the Divine Providence. 4. The Understanding and Will. 5. Nature. 6. The Omnipresence and Omniscience of God. 7. The Divine Love. 8. The Divine Wisdom. I. The Formation of Man in the Womb. II. Conjunction of the Body and Spirit of Man. III. No Angel or Spirit not Born a Man. IV. Conjunction Reciprocal. V. Love and Wisdom in Charity and Faith. VI. The LORD Animates all Things even to Ultimates.
Beside the exegetical works, Heaven and Hell and the Heavenly Doctrine are omitted. The only summary of these two that could be given would be a list of the titles of the chapters, unless one were to be prepared from the body of the text, a work which would require very much time and study. Indeed we are informed that quite a number of manuscript pages had been prepared on a summary of Heaven and Hell, but that the magnitude of the work, and other exigencies, led to a relinquishment of the plan. It is to be hoped that in some future edition the work may be enriched by an outline of the teachings concerning the other world; though, of course, this does now appear in general form in various parts of the book.
Although not so stated in the preface, the translation seems to have been done afresh or carefully revised, and we are pleased to note a softening of the rigid literalness of form that has marked previous translations of the Academy. Signs are not wanting of a reaction to a wholesome middle course between the two extremes- on the one hand of looseness of rendering which subordinates fidelity to the original to literary canons or mere individual tastes (from which the Academy must be exonerated), and on the other, a rather blind subserviency to the Latin idiom. Since language primarily regards ideas it would seem that that translation of the Writings will be best which furnishes the closest equivalent of thought with the least departure from the form of the original; which clothes the idea at once accurately and becomingly. Among some awkward literalities done away with we note the conspicuous absence of the propositional "That which introduces so many statements in the Writings, but which when transferred to the English loses its peculiar force and appropriateness. Among some minor points of question we would put in a plea for the use of the active word "meant" to translate "intellegitur," rather than the passive "it is understood."
The general appearance of the book would not discredit one higher priced. The paper is good and the type large and clear, important features where liturgical use is contemplated. The latter consideration accounts for the apparent superabundance of punctuation marks, introduced to facilitate unisonal reading.
We are convinced that the value of this unpretentious book will become more and more manifest to the Church as it comes into actual use.
G. G. S.
32
LIFE OF THE NEW CHURCH. 1897
NEW CHURCH LIFE.
PUBLISHED MONTHLY BY THE ACADEMY OF THE NEW CHURCH.
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ADDRESS all communications for publication to the Editor, the Rev. George G. Starkey, Huntingdon Valley, Montgomery Co., Pa.
Address all business communications to Academy Book Room, Cart Hj. Asplundh, Manager, No. 1521 Wallace Street, Philadelphia. Pa.
Subscriptions also received through the following agents:
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CANADA.
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GREAT BRITAIN.
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PHILADELPHIA, FEBRUARY, 1897=127.
CONTENTS. PAGE
EDITORIAL Notes 17
Responsibility in Education 17
THE SERMON: Condemning the Proprium (Ps. xi, 4) 19
Chaldea and Babylonia. 22
Individual Rights 24
Love is the Life of Man 16
ANNALS OF THE NEW CHURCH 25
In Order See God 25
Diseases of the Fibre., Chap. IV 28
NOTES AND REVIEWS: A Chart of Doctrine, 30
LIFE OF THE NEW CHURCH 32
BIRTHS, MARRIAGES, AND DEATH 32
ACADEMY BOOK ROOM 32
THE ACADEMY OF THE NEW CHURCH.
Philadelphia.-BISHOP Benade, having accepted the resignation of Bishop Pendleton as Principal of the Theological School, has himself taken charge, the change to go into effect on February 1st.
ON the evening of December 2d, the branch of the Particular Church in Philadelphia which worships in the city met at the call of the Chancellor to take action on the question of having an Assistant Pastor to relieve Bishop Pendleton as to that feature of his pastoral duties. The congregation favored relieving Mr. Pendleton, and indicated Minister Acton as their preference for the position of Assistant Pastor. That gentleman subsequently accepted the Bishop's nomination.
ON January 10th, Bishop Benade, assisted by Bishop Pendleton, ordained Minister Alfred Acton into the Pastoral Degree of the Priesthood; and on the 11th the latter took formal charge of the congregation worshiping in Philadelphia.
AT a social held on January 22d, Bishop and Mrs. Benade assisted Mr. Acton in receiving.
Doctrinal Classes (at which the doctrine or charity is taken up), and Singing Classes are held on Wednesday evenings.
Huntingdon Valley.-ON January 11th, the regular monthly Church business meeting occurred for the reception of contributions to the various church uses.
ON January 23d, that branch of the congregation of the Particular Church of the Academy which worships in Huntingdon Valley, at a formal meeting, decided to withdraw from the Particular Church, in order to form a similar independent organization in Huntingdon Valley. Both congregations are now large enough to be self-supporting, and self-government-that is, each having its resident Pastor-seems to be the condition not only most convenient, but most natural and conducive to growth. Accordingly a paper was drawn up signed by the members, to be presented to the Chancellor. Bishop Pendleton had previously resigned the Pastorate of the Philadelphia Church.
Glenview.-CHRISTMAS was celebrated here in the same manner as last year, this having now become a custom. It seemed that the very absence of novelty brought a more internal appreciation of the great event which was celebrated, a more humble and earnest desire to share in the blessings made possible by the LORD'S Coming.
The Holy Supper was administered on the Sunday between Christmas and New Year, the whole Society partaking of it together at Glenview.
School re-opened January 11th. Miss Augusta Pendleton has returned to assume the duties of lady teacher. Miss Jessie Carpenter will assist her with the little ones. There are now twenty-four scholars in the school.
On January 13th, instead of the usual doctrinal class, the Pastor, the Rev. N. D. Pendleton, discussed informally the aims of New Church Education and the necessity of co-operation between parents and teachers, if the work is to be successful; and the danger to the child if the parental authority is antagonistic to the school authority. He pointed out that so long as the parents and the school have the same ends in view, for the children, there need be no concessions made to secure harmony; and that there will be no real cause for conflict between them. It is only where the parents have other aims for their children than those of the school that real difficulty will arise, and the use of New Church Education be threatened. When parents want their children educated for the world rather than for the Church, then, Mr. Pendleton said, he for one did not care to spend his time any longer teaching in the school, for such an education can be obtained elsewhere. The school will always be more or less imperfect, and subject to criticism, as is every school in the land if one gets in a critical mood. But he urged all those who had at heart the welfare of the school and desired its presence here never to put the school upon the defensive. The school will need all her friends to defend her. She will be attacked enough from without, and if her friends also attack her she cannot long stand.
Mr. Pendleton said that if one truth more than another could be said to be the motto of the New Church, he would say it was this one, "Shun evils as sins," for the New Church is the only Church which makes this the essential of Salvation. This truth should be taught the children in school and at home, and thus instilled true morality, which is to shun evils, not merely avoiding but overcoming them. It is understood that children cannot shun evils, but they should be taught to try, for when they grow up their Spiritual life depends upon it.
A. E. N.
CANADA.
Berlin.-The Berlin Society of the Academy held a very pleasant social on New Year's Eve, for the purpose of seeing the Old Year out and the New Year in.
ON Monday, January 4th, the Berlin School of the Academy reopened with the following staff of teachers: Rev. J. E. Rosenqvist, Superintendent; Rev. F. E. Waelchli, Headmaster; Miss Annie Moir, teacher in the Primary, and also other departments Miss Emma Roschman, Sewing-teacher and assistant to Miss Moir. The sessions of the school are now from 8.30 A. M. to 11.30 A. M. and from 1.30 P. M. to 3.30 P. M., instead of as before from 8.30 A. M. to 12.30 P. M. The Superintendent teaches only during morning sessions, and not at all on Fridays. The school opened with 27 pupils.
THE GENERAL CHURCH.
Pittsburgh.-THE Holy Supper was administered on Christmas Eve, and services were also held on Christmas Day at the usual hour; the sermon was specially adapted to the comprehension of children.
A New Year's Eve party was given at "Oak Nest," for the young people. A very pleasant time was spent, and the New Year was seen safely in.
Ohio.-AT Middleport, on December 28th, the marriage of the Rev. Charles E. Doering and Miss Lucy M. Cooper was solemnized by the Rev. Homer Synnestvedt, of Huntingdon Valley, Pa. After the ceremony at the church a reception was given at the residence of the bride's parents.
During Pastor Synnestvedt's brief visit to Middleport, he administered the Holy Supper and baptized the infant son of Mr. U. S. Grant, of Pomeroy.
At a social gathering on Sunday evening, Mr. Synnestvedt "offered the Society kind words of congratulation and encouragement, inspiring to perseverance, hope, and trust. The remainder of the evening was devoted to the performance of two plays, and to singing and general social intercourse. A universal wish to follow up those theatrical successes was one of the new and cheerful signs of expansion and development in our social diversions" (Communication from Candidate R. H. Keep).
NEW CHURCH LIFE. 1897
Bound copies of New Church Life for 1896 are now ready.
Price to non-subscribers, $1.50; to subscribers, $1.25, or 75 cents when complete, well-preserved sets are returned in exchange.
By mail, 20 cents additional.
Earlier volumes, except Vol. 1, obtainable on same conditions.
JUST PUBLISHED.
A BOOK OF DOCTRINE, containing Summaries of Doctrine from the Writings of the Church. 320 pp. Price, including postage: Bound in cloth, 7.5 cents; half-leather, $1.00; printed on extra quality paper, hound in brown, flexible morocco, round corners, gilt edge, $2.00.
IT is of grave concern to man's spiritual life that he should not lightly doubt, still less reject, what he has once believed from conscience, thus from affection. In the faith of every man there is something of fallacy arising from something spurious in the conscience, something of merely natural loves. "Few genuine truths appertain to man, even within the Church, and still fewer to man without the Church, and hence the affections of genuine truth are rarely found" (A. C. 3986). But these spurious affections and ideas, with a sincere man, the LORD uses and does not break, because without such appearances of truth man could not be introduced into what is more genuine of faith and love. By such appearances the LORD speaks to man, and affects him with something of charity and faith; wholly to discredit them is to risk his spiritual life. In the midst of the defilements of the proprium the LORD preserves alive the germs of a genuine affection if man do not destroy it by willfulness and self-leading. Hence we are taught in the Arcana Coelestia that to extinguish that "which by introduction from conceived principles is believed by the proprium to be truth and yet is not truth," before regarding it with "full intuition" ("insight" or "view") brings "damnation, for it is a rejection of the very truth of faith itself: for what has been made of any one's faith, although it were not true, ought not to be rejected unless by a full intuition; if it be rejected sooner the first initiament of his spiritual life is extirpated" (9039). The tares cannot be separated from the wheat until the harvest is ripe.-i. e., till the LORD'S good time, but man must have a faith.
There is a wide distinction, however, between faith which has been made of the conscience, and thus inseated in the mind and love, and that which has been embraced persuasively-that is, from without, by things worldly, as gain, friendship, authority, etc. Because these two faiths may be alike in form it must he left for the man himself to consider as to which he is in; while the LORD alone knows which.
Title Unspecified 1897
VERY different from doubting the truths of faith is the habit of reflecting upon them, for this is strongly enjoined in the Writings; it is the means of making faith genuine. The doctrine of faith itself effects nothing with man unless he reflects (S. D. 737); but when he reflects on the knowledges of the Word which are in his memory--that is, directs his thoughts to them, the light of heaven inflowing through the interior mind, and reflected back upon it from those knowledges, gives man a mental view of his own thoughts, affections, and delights, and thus, viewed in that interior light, their quality may be discerned. Without knowledges from revealed truth there would be nothing in man's mind to retain that heavenly light, but it would flow through and be lost to him; and his thought, springing from merely natural loves, directed only to their delights, would regard them only in persuasive light, as being good because delightful, and in the mists of this phantasy heavenly light would be swallowed up, its presence being not even suspected by man.
Only that is retained and appropriated by man which he perceives and feels as his own; hence the necessity for reflecting upon the truths of faith. The directing of the thought to them-the choosing to think of them-determines the affections to them. The affections themselves are afterward purified through the increasing order of the natural mind brought about by the influx of truth referred to, and by the power of the good within the truth. Thus alone are evil loves uncovered and their phantasies dissipated, leaving them naked to the blaze of truth, which to them is as a parching, scorching blast-although to the germs of heavenly affections in the mind it is as genial warmth. To learn and reflect upon the truths of faith is to come into the stream at Providence; it is like exposing plants to the sunlight and dews of heaven.
Title Unspecified 1897
TIMES of combat and temptation, when principles of order, of faith and of life, are assaulted, test the quality of a man's faith and that of the affections on which it is founded. Natural affections may cause him to doubt what he has believed, to distrust man's ability to see truth at all, and thus to question the LORD'S Providence, and His power to lead him even by truth not wholly genuine. On the other hand, another class of affections may impel him to close his mind to reflection, to merely defend and confirm fallacies which in a more open state of mind might, by the very fermentation of combat, be brought to light and dissipated. But if he be interiorly humble, he will neither recede from his faith nor be self-confident in it, but will acknowledge his own inability to guide himself and will look to the LORD, and then those things which are in his mind and I form his thought will be illuminated by the LORD, and he will be led to see truth and receive good in that measure of which he is capable. But let him hold fast to that which he has, until he is given to see something better. If he be sincere in that, changes that come-as they will come-will be progress in faith, not receding.
Title Unspecified 1897
COMBAT and temptation bring greater freedom, because they are the result of a nearer approach of the LORD with the truth of faith and the good of love, and this approach disturbs the reign of cupidities and phantasies, and makes it possible or man both to see and to follow the truth. This is true of the individual and of that greater man, the Church. Temptations come only when the LORD has prepared the way for spiritual advance, and stands ready-with Divine power-to enable man to take the necessary steps. There would be no disturbance in the mind if there were no disorderly elements there; but such exist with every one. If, however, they have not been made of the will or life and confirmed, they will be cast out; otherwise the man, or the Church, which appropriates them, will be rejected with them.
34
In the end disorder will not prevail, for the good of the Church cannot perish, being protected by the LORD, and good is Order.
Good is the essence of Order. If good exist in the Church, or in the man of the Church, that good will-must come out into some form, which, however imperfect, can be bent by the LORD to good and made of order. Hence if one's brethren in the Church go off into what seems to him disorder, in the belief that they still seek the good of the Church-spiritual uses of charity-he ought to be not only content but glad to leave them in freedom to do so in their own way.
But can he believe that they do regard and seek good? Judge not. If belief in principles once embraced with affection should not lightly be rejected, may the teaching not be extended to faith once placed in the men who have held those principles? If brethren in a Church which regards charity as essential, separate on account of differences of view, whether as to principles or the application of principles, and even if the differences seem to arise from something of merely natural affections, and to be of evil, on one part or the other, or on both-charity will prevail, and the Church not be interiorly divided. The development and multiplication of goods, with their respective doctrinals, brings, not division or weakness, but greater distinctness and perfection.
Good is "the mark and essential of the Church." Its presence having been believed in should not be brought into doubt merely by obscuring disturbances in the external.
Separation means greater freedom to each one to believe and act according to his conscience; and if we have that as essential to the real good of the Church; and if we are content to accept the increased responsibility which comes with greater freedom, and to devote ourselves to uses of life, then will we be sharers in the greater good which is to come to the Church through the new movement.
CHURCH'S TRUE SAFETY. Rev. Alfred Acton 1897
(This sermon is the fifth of a series by the Rev. Alfred Acton (begun in the November Life), expounding the Fifteenth Psalm; preached during the winter of 1895-6.)
His silver he giveth not into usury, and a gift against the innocent he accepteth not (Psalm xv, 5).
IN the strict literal sense of these words we are shown the perfect Jew in his observance of two of the Mosaic laws, "Thou shalt not lend upon usury to thy brother; usury of silver, usury of victuals, usury of anything that is lent upon usury" (Deut. xxiii, 19), and "Thou shalt not accept a gift, for the gift blindeth the wise and perverteth the words of the just" (x, 23, 8).
The first of these laws, that respecting usury, is no longer binding upon the men of the Church. Its natural use in checking the avaricious rapacity of the Jews, that the form of a Church maybe kept among them, is fulfilled. The spiritual sense of the law is now revealed, and this we are to observe; but the natural law is left to our choice to do or not as is seen fit. But the second law is still binding upon us, for it is an indispensable law of justice and uprightness. "Thou shalt not take a gift [or bribe] for it blindeth the wise and perverteth the words of the just."
In the broad, literal sense, these two laws, which are obeyed by the entire man of the Church, teach us to shun oppression against the neighbor and unjust gains at his expense, thought concerning the neighbor and treatment of him influenced not by justice, but by his wealth or poverty, his influence or impotence,-to shun these evils that we may deal well with him from justice and judgment. With those who do this from the Word, it is well; they will be of the Church of the LORD, for they observe the ultimate of spiritual laws laid down and now revealed for angels of the highest heaven, and for men that they may become such angels, that they may interiorly love the neighbor and God, and be of the Church of the LORD.
This verse contains the final description of the man who walketh entire, loving justice and speaking the truth in his heart; and herein we are taught the final state of man's regeneration, the inmost state of the Celestial man-the state of shunning evils and doing good, not from any hope of reward, not from any thought of merit, but from love to the LORD and His laws. In the letter there seems to be little, if any, progressive order in this Psalm in the recital of the various attributes of the entire man. He detracteth not with his tongue, doeth no evil to his neighbor, he contemneth the reprobate, and honoreth the LORD; he giveth not his silver into usury, and accepteth no gift against the innocent. In the internal sense,' however, the order of states here described reveals a perfect picture presenting more and more interior views of the Celestial man and of the progression of regeneration.
First, the shunning of evils against the neighbor, the Church, the LORD. He detracteth not with his tongue nor doeth evil to his neighbor. Then, the recognition of the proprium as evil and the rejection of that proprium. He contemneth the reprobate and honoreth the LORD. And finally, when the proprium is thus rejected, perception from love, that the LORD above is Good and to Him alone are to be attributed the glory and the honor and the gain of the upright; and with this perception the doing of good not from any hope of reward but solely from love. His silver he giveth not into usury. Such a man shall never be commoved.
To "give silver into usury" signifies to give or teach truth for the sake of the reward of gain or honor thereby accruing to self; for a usurer or money-lender gives his money with the end of gain in the shape of interest. This teaching of the text applies particularly to the priesthood, since to the priesthood belongs the office of teaching truth; and in such application we have the whole essence of the life of the Church.
The priesthood is the internal of the Church, by which and through which the LORD establishes the Church with men. The state of the Church is according to the state of the priesthood of that Church. If such priesthood, or rather those who perform the office of such priesthood, "give not their silver into usury," then the Church "shall not be commoved to eternity." And, by an opposite application of the text, if the priests give their "silver into usury"-i. e., teach and lead the men of the Church, not from the genuine love of the salvation of souls, but from ambitions ends of honor, of dignity, of gain-then the Church will be commoved and utterly destroyed. Let us examine this teaching more closely.
As you all know, evil priests may teach and preach the genuine truths of the Word with fire and fervor and zeal, although the end with them is self-aggrandizement and self-enrichment; sometimes indeed they can teach better than priests who are in the genuine love of their use, so powerful is the incentive of worldly loves. But from whence comes the illustration or enlightenment by which they are thus enabled to see truths and to teach them?
35
All illustration comes from Heaven and flows into interiors and thence into exteriors according as these have been prepared by scientifics. With evil priests the interiors are closed to Heaven and to illustration thence, for even in the zealous exercise of their function they are surrounded by the evil spirits of their loves. Their illustration comes indeed from Heaven, for only from that source can truth be seen, but it comes only in an external way, through the sphere of the good with whom they are associated. With the good the angels are present, and in the reflected light of the good, evil priests see truth. This illustration is only external; it enlightens merely the doctrinals stored up in the memory; it gives no interior preception, no interior guidance as to the performance of the duties of the priesthood, no interior perception as to the conservation of the good of the Church-which is the salvation of man. It gives merely an external sight of truths, within which is darkness and heresy. With a priesthood having such illustration, a Church may indeed grow for a time in the external knowledge of truth, but it cannot be led onward to the interior perception of truth by which the LORD becomes more manifest to man; and hence heresies insidious and unseen at first- but heresies nevertheless-will creep in and finally destroy even all external growth. The good-the simple-are kept by the LORD in a state receptive of genuine truths, but they are so kept only that with them may be formed the nucleus of a New Church.
By an evil priesthood, a priesthood which sells its office, which subserves the Church to self-interest,- the interiors of the Church are destroyed, a gift is accepted as the price for the condemnation of the innocent; the love of honor, of dignity, of gain is held superior to, and against, the good of the Church and the salvation of men; and by such usurious treason against the Church its innocent are destroyed. From such a cause has come the destruction of the former. Churches-a destruction which shall never overtake this New Church of the LORD, for it is written, "It shall not be commoved to eternity."
Thus we arrive at the conclusion, that by an evil priesthood the Church may be temporarily preserved-but it cannot grow internally. This teaching appears to be dangerously near to the heresy that the growth of the Church proceeds step by step with the regeneration of its priests; and it is apparently near such heresy. There is but a hairsbreadth between them; but the hairsbreadth is a gulf; it is the marking line between truth and falsity. The heresy is the perversion of the truth. The truth is, that interior illustration cannot be given to an evil priest. But it does not follow from this that the degree of a priest's illustration is an index to' the progress of his regeneration. An evil priest has no perception of interior truths, because with such a priest there is no plane on which the angels can meet and enlighten him in his office; but with a priesthood which has the love of the salvation of souls-of the preservation of the truth and order of the Church for that end-that love, in whatever degree it may be present, is a plane into which Heaven can inflow, in which the LORD can be present, and can give more and more interior illustration to the man in his office as priest according to the needs of the Church, so that the Church, taught and led by her priesthood, can grow and prosper and not be commoved to eternity.
The words of the text, therefore, teach us the duty of the priest of the New Church; to shun the appropriation to self of the glory and dignity and gain which come from his high and holy office; to reject these as the motive and end of his work, lest the good, the interior growth of the Church, be injured, and, as far as his will and intentions are concerned, the Church itself be confounded and destroyed. The Church will not perish, but he himself will be destroyed on the jagged rock of his own falses, and sink forever into the mire of his evil loves. Let him not, therefore, give his silver into usury nor receive a gift to destroy the innocent.
This duty on the part of the priest points out a corresponding duty on the part of the layman-the duty of trust and confidence in the priesthood. Let him know and steadfastly bear in mind that the LORD has called men to the priesthood, and that the LORD will not suffer His truth to be sold for a price nor the good of His Church destroyed for a gift. He Himself has promised that the New Church, the Crown of Churches, shall not be commoved to eternity; and from His Divine Wisdom, in the operations of His Divine Providence, He has provided the means for her establishment and ever-increasing growth. He has established the Priesthood by which the Church may be ruled; He has called men to that office, and he has done this solely with the end that the Church may endure and prosper to eternity.
It is the duty of the layman, in trusting the LORD I and His Divine means for the establishment of this New Church, to trust the nests, and especially to trust the head of the priesthood, whom the LORD has chosen that to him pre-eminently the priesthood may be adjoined and illustration given for the guidance of the Church. Such trust is indeed the manifestation of trust in the LORD, and in the reality and quality of the Church-of belief in His Promise and His Power to fulfill that promise. Such trust involves an affirmative attitude to the teachings of the priesthood, a willingness to receive those teachings, a humble acknowledgment that the priesthood is in superior illustration and that one's self needs constant instruction; it involves an avoidance of criticism of priestly actions, of meddlesomeness and interference with priestly functions. In a word) it involves the avoidance of that carping spirit which continually assumes that it knows more than all others.
Let us see what it is which causes distrust in the priesthood in man, whether priest or layman-for priests equally with laymen may be guilty of this. It must be apparent to you all that it arises from one cause, and from one cause only, the fear lest the Church be used for selfish ends-the priesthood become a fulcrum, by which the priest may elevate himself to honor and dignity, and may cast down such as oppose him.
From what does this fear arise? With whom does it exist? With the humble? With the spiritual? No! A thousand times No! The spiritual man recognizes and believes in the LORD as the Head of the Church, continually guarding her; he recognizes that he has neither the right, nor the illustration which accompanies the right, to rule the Church, to decide for her good; he recognizes that the LORD has given this office and its responsibilities to the ruler of the Church, and to him has also given the needful illustration. It is then the natural man, and the natural of man, with whom is constant distrust of the priesthood, constant fears lest its power be abused, and constant anticipation of such abuse. The reason is that the natural continually inclines to do the very thing it fears-to use the Church for the sake of self; to do its truths and observe its goods for some selfish ends; to perform the uses of charity for the sake of gain. It is this evil in the natural man which is treated of in these closing words of the fifteenth Psalm; this evil is therein shown as to its essence, and we are taught and warned to shun it.
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Let us then pause here to consider this new phase of our subject.
It was said that "not giving silver into usury" signifies not teaching truths for the sake of gain. This is applied to the Priesthood, but viewed in a wider-embracing application-an application to every man whether he externally teach truth or not-these words signify, not doing good or observing charity for the sake of reward. This good or charity is signified by "silver." It may be wondered why this is so, since "silver" is always said to signify truth. The reason shall be told. The good which is done for the sake of reward is not good, but only the truth of the memory in act-that is, truth alone without good, but which appears as good, yea, as true Christian good. This is what is here signified by silver, and this is the reason why that word is used, and not gold, or some other word signifying good. The good which is done from any motive of self, is not good, but truth, within which is the evil of merit. Such evil destroys all interior good, shuts up the spiritual man, and opens more and more the broad avenue of the natural man, which leads to hell; it destroys all trust in the LORD, and implants internal denial of Him, of His Church, and of His Truth; a denial which may or may not be seen by the man himself; it is the "gift," flattering and soothing the proprium that is accepted, that the innocent may be destroyed. The "innocent" is the acknowledgment that one's self is altogether unworthy and the LORD alone, good.
The entire man of the Church giveth not his silver into usury-he loves the neighbor and God freely and from the heart, rejecting and loathing selfish ends in such love; and hence he accepteth no gift from the innocent, but preserves internal humility as the prize of his life. He is ever willing that the goods and truths, with their joy and peace, which the LORD has given to him, may also be shared with his neighbor. He wills his brother's happiness, and does all in his power to promote that happiness; and this, not from any hope of thereby receiving respect, friendship, honor, or gain in this world, or salvation in the other world; but from charity itself, from love so to act; and in the love and in the act is given the perception that self would do the opposite and merit no reward, but rather all manner of affliction. Hence such a man has genuine and humble worship of the LORD as alone good.
In a society of such men,-which is an angelic society- each one thus loving the others, each one being willing and ever ready to perform kind offices to the others, each one loving to do uses for the sake of uses and from the love of uses, is a centre from which go forth on every, side uses and their delights, as the rays from a sun giving joy and recreation to all around; and in proportion to the quality of these uses which go forth, the LORD inflows and gives increased ability to perform, and increased delight in performing. To these He also adjoins external rewards, which are honors and gains; but these rewards are not regarded as ends and incentives, but as free gifts of a Loving Father, and as means to the doing of His Will. Such a society is like a healthy body in which each organ is a centre for the performance of uses to the whole, in that performance receiving its strength, its ability, and its health and delight.
How is this with the natural man? With him the proprium rules, and this delights only in the uses to itself; in gains, rewards, honors, flatteries, in everything which tends to elevate self and to feed self-complacency. Such a man may indeed perform uses, do the truths commanded in the Church, but not from love of them. With him the proprium spreads forth its net on every side, and beneath every act of use and charity stretches forth a claw to grasp gain, honor, glory, fame, the ends of its ambition; it opens wide its mouth to seize these as dainty morsels, rolls them upon its tongue as the daintiest of the foods, and moved by their sweetness, goes forth to continue uses for fresh and greater gains, to further feed and swell self-conceit. In a society of such, which is an infernal society, each one is a centre striving to suck in all the delights, all the uses of the others, and giving nothing iv return. They are like unhealthy organs in the human body, which feed on the other organs and destroy the whole body.
It is between these two states that we must choose. We are born into the latter, we must be reborn into the former.
We are ruled by the proprium, and the proprium is nothing but evil-yea, nothing but evil. How often has this truth been preached from this pulpit! how often is it taught in the Writings of the Church; how often has it been heard and read, with pain or pleasure-with anxiety or comfort, with indifference or interest according to our state! and yet it has been neither taught nor received once too often; for the whole life of regeneration consists in incorporating this knowledge into our life, in perceiving it from the heart. We are variously affected by h when heard, but it does not thereby enter into the life, nor does acknowledgment of it constitute perception and reception. We must go forth with this truth and suffer it to enter our life by the only possible port of entrance-the rejection of self and selfish ends.
The proprium is everywhere present in every act in every thought, hidden and disguised at times, but ever and anon coming to the surface. We learn to do the truths of the Church, and suddenly our eyes are opened to find that external considerations have largely guided us, that we have been affected and delighted by gain or hope of gain-gain either from Heaven or from the World, and not by the truth itself. When in quiet communion with our own heart (the neighbor and the sphere of his approval or disapproval being not present), how often do we think of the LORD and the Church, or is there delight in such thoughts?-how often of sinful pleasures and selfish hopes? Yea when we desist from evil; how often are we humble? how often elated? In every action of our life, whether we seem to strive for heaven or not, we constantly see selfish ends, glory, honor, respect, praise, reward-before our eyes. Even in the life of regeneration we are impelled by self-approbation-by hope of reward hereafter-of recognition of our deeds by our fellow-men. In whatever duty we justly perform, in whatever act of love or charity we do, we see self cropping up; and self-satisfaction, constantly reminding us of our own deeds, fills our heart with delight, and a feeling of superiority over our brethren, and this spurs us on.
This is our nature. We know it, we see it-for truth is strong-but how are we to shun it? How are we to learn to act uprightly, to shun evil against the neighbor, the Church, and the LORD, to distrust self and honor the LORD, to do this not for self-reward or from spiritual pride, but with the acknowledgment of our own evil, of the LORD'S Goodness? Did the answer rest with us-did the means depend on us-then were we without hope of salvation. Of ourselves we cannot resist ourselves; the proprium cannot eject itself. But the LORD gives the answer, and leads us into the way even when we know not, yea when we are unwilling.
The answer is given in the truth with which man must begin regeneration.
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Shun evils as sins against God and do this as if from yourself, but believing that the LORD alone does it. This is the first of regeneration. It is first in end, and its realization in the perception that the LORD alone is good, man nothing but evil-is the last in time. When man comes to this he is perfect, he is entire, he is regenerate.
Man starts on the way to heaven with this truth, he is glad and happy, he delights in his uses in the Church, and he believes he is in the right way. He sees not the hidden self within. But then comes that fall; the devils, entering into and stirring up his evil loves, excite unholy delights, and he sees, actually sees how far from heaven he really is-how near to hell. This is the means provided by the LORD, it is wonderful in our eyes. He has permitted evils thus to tempt man, that in the resistance man may see how evil he is-that his only safety consists in clinging to the truths which he has learned-that what he does and what he thinks beyond those truths, is clouded and evil.
The LORD sometimes permits the devils to go further and lead man into the actual commission of evil of which he may have thought himself incapable; this brings him into sad states, in which he thinks, "Oh, that I could have done this; that I were once more pure."
And if this is not sufficient, then still further are the devils permitted to go, and bring man into trouble and disgrace with his fellow-man. All this is permitted and continues until man no longer wonders how he could have done evil, no longer wishes for former innocence, but acknowledges that he could, and of himself, do the worst evils, and of himself was and never will be aught but evil. It is permitted with the sole end that the first of regeneration may be accomplished in its last, the heart-felt acknowledgment that the proprium is evil and nothing but evil. And when man is weary with the storms and buffetings of evil loves, when, even though but for a short time, he somewhat realizes how near to evil-to hell-he is; then he is humble and prays for strength.
And what a comfort then, to the weary and despairing soul, is the truth that man is nothing but evil, the LORD alone good. With that truth he can rest in the LORD as in a father, and trust in Him. And thus resting and thus trusting, he can receive remains of good from Him by which he can again go forth prepared to sustain the conflict, to bear the further revelation of his own evil state. And so to the end of regeneration, until his eyes are fully opened and the truth shines as in clear day-THE LORD IS GOOD AND MERCIFUL. By these means, though he know it not, is man gradually, very gradually, weaned from the proprium, and led to love and do the truths of the Church, not for any reward, but solely from love, to realize that the LORD alone acts, and that he, even in obeying the LORD, is nothing but evil, and the LORD, present with him, Good.
Let the knowledge of this, the end and use of temptations, comfort and sustain every upright man in his own trials and temptations; let him reflect carefully upon it, when the despairing that comes to him, that temptations are constant-ever recurring-with no seeming hope of ever ceasing. By these alone can he learn to love the neighbor and God and be of the Church of the LORD, can he learn to be one in that heavenly choir wherein each is a centre for the sake of the others, who giveth not his silver to usury, wherein, with each one, interior good has not been destroyed by ideas of reward. A gift against the innocent he has not accepted.
It is this state of supreme trust in the LORD and distrust of self; which is demanded in the Church; not for the Church's sake but for the sake of a man's life in the Church. If in his individual life he do not have as his end the acknowledgment that all power is of the LORD,-if as a consequence he love the Church and its truths for some gain or reward by which he is affected, he will find lurking within doubt as to the truth, denial of the LORD, doubt as to the Church and its Priesthood, and hence all manner of conceits as to himself, and these doubts and denials will come forth as soon as the reward which affected him with delight, ceases, though the truth will remain the same.
As in his individual life, so in his life as a member of the Church, man must begin with the acknowledgment I that though the Church is ruled and ordered as if by men, still the LORD alone rules and ordains her. And we may grow in this acknowledgment, the Church is permitted to go through trials and temptations in which her very existence seems in jeopardy, so that the well-disposed can see and at length perceive that the LORD alone guides the Church, and that when men's conceits interfere evil is done and harm ensues. This I state of acknowledgment is the basis and foundation of I trust in the priesthood of the Church, in the LORD as the Divine Chooser of that priesthood. If a man have not this trust, the Church will indeed grow and prosper, for is it not so written? The priesthood will be established and be surely illustrated that the Divine Truth I may be taught and men led to heaven; but that man will not grow with it, for such distrust closes the mind to the truths which the LORD gives His Church by and through the priesthood.
To the end that the Church may grow among us, let I me exhort you to steadfastly persevere in the shunning of evils as sins against the LORD, in the knowledge and acknowledgment that all power for good is from the LORD, and in trust in Him and His Divine means for governing and guarding His New Church-the crowning work of the ages.-Amen.
CHALDEA AND BABYLONIA. 1897
(Continued.)
V.
"There shall not be found in thee that divineth divinations, and is given to augury, and is a witch, or an enchanter" (Deut. xviii).
So long as the Church is in the good of charity and in the truths of faith, men do not seek communication with the inhabitants of the other world. If such an intercourse is conducive to their spiritual welfare, the LORD opens heaven to them, and men speak with angels and good spirits as with their brethren in the world, by whom they are beloved, and whom they join when they leave this world. Such was the case in the Ancient Church. But when men turned away from the good of charity heaven was closed, and intercourse with the other world became dangerous; for evil spirits only then came to men, who seduced them into various forms of perversions of the Divine Order. This was the reason why the above-quoted command was given to the Sons of Israel.
Intercourse with the inhabitants of the other world was effected by means of the representatives and significatives of the Church, at first in an orderly way; but when men began to pervert the truths of the Church and therewith its goods, order was destroyed. But men had learned that in correspondences was power; and this knowledge they began to abuse.
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Magic was the result. For we are taught that "magic is nothing else than a perversion of order, especially is it the abuse of correspondences. . . . When man believes that all things are of blind influx, and that if anything comes forth which is determined it is of his own prudence, he perverts order, for he applies the things of order to himself. . . . All who have firmly impressed on themselves that all things are of their own prudence, and nothing of the Divine Providence, in the other life are very prone to magic" (A. C. 6692).
This passage gives the essence of all the teaching on magic, from which the true nature of that art may appear. Hence it happens that when a Church draws toward its end, this art begins to prevail, because it is one of the means by which the hells effect the spiritual-and, as far as permitted, the physical-destruction of the men of the Church.
In Chaldea and Babylonia magicians abounded. The priests and the learned were skilled in this, as well as in the kindred arts of sorcery and conjuring. The common people believed in their skill, sought their help in every kind of trouble and misfortune, and feared them on account of their power to do harm; particularly the sorcerers, who were known or believed to use their power mostly for evil purposes. They were believed to be able to bring disease, misfortune, and even death, upon whomsoever they chose; and this "by a look, by uttering certain words, by drinks made of herbs prepared under certain conditions and ceremonies;" and all this with the co-operation of evil spirits.
Modern writers on the subject are greatly amused at what they are pleased to call the simplicity of these people in allowing themselves to be frightened by imaginary fears, for which they can see no other reason than their ignorance "of the laws of physical nature." But in this case they are sadly mistaken. Certain passages in the Spiritual Diary show conclusively that persons' fear of sorcerers and magicians in ancient times was by no means groundless; for even in comparatively recent times, when the science of Correspondences had become an unknown science, almost incredible effects were produced by magic. Thus we read of a certain spirit who, during his life on earth, had killed two persons by magic; and of a witch who understood fourteen different magical arts by which she allured men to adultery (S. D. 4496, 4501). From these facts it naturally follows that at a time when men were versed in the science of Correspondences and had open intercourse with evil spirits, their power to do harm was certainly not less. The skill possessed by the Egyptian magician is well known from the account of the miracles described in the Book of Exodus.
How general the practice of magic and sorcery was at that time in Lower Mesopotamia is apparent from the constant reference to magic in the inscriptions, and the numerous formulas used in magic incantations and conjurations, which have been discovered in the ruins of temples and palaces. These documents show that the Chaldeans and Babylonians believed themselves to have been surrounded by evil spirits, and whatsoever ills or misfortunes happened to them to have been directly caused by them. Ignorant as they were of the knowledges of spiritual things, except in a perverted form, it is not surprising to learn that, although they knew that spirits were present with man, they were ignorant of the fact that evil spirits have no power, except in so far as man yields to them, and by, doing so removes himself from the protection of angels and good spirits.
Still less surprising is it that in seeking help and protection against the assaults of evil spirits they should resort to means which were as bad as the evil itself. Thus the means employed to ward off these assaults were charms, incantations, and conjurations, or invocations, directed to one class of evil spirits and against another class. Firm in the belief that all ills, whether physical or mental, were caused by evil spirits, the only way to cure them was to drive or break the power of those who caused them.
Strangest of all, diseases were supposed to be actual obsessions, and not, as is really the case, caused by an influx into the disordered parts of the body. The disease was thus regarded as a being which could enter and take possession of the body; and the latter could not be restored to health unless some spirit or man could be found more powerful than it to force it to leave the man. Accordingly we read of "a spirit of pestilence," "of fever," "of insanity," and the like, who were sometimes even dignified with the title of "god." This last fact reveals the degree of spiritual confusion which prevailed at that time. Men knew no longer the difference between good or evil, or between god and demon. Every being which was more powerful than they, who thus could inflict injury which they were powerless to avert or to return, was held to be a god.
Many are the magic formulas and the directions to magicians which have been preserved. Among these we find the following one, which describes the mode in which the magician proceeded to cure a certain disease: He made an earthen figure of the man, poured a libation of wine over it, and recited a charm. This was an infallible remedy, we are informed. The following is a formula which was to be recited by the conjurer over a person who was supposed to be under an evil spell. The conjurer, of course, accompanied the words with the corresponding actions:
"As this onion is being peeled of its skin, thus shall it be of the spell. The burning fire shalt consume it; it shall no more he planted in a row. . . . The man who has cast the spell, his eldest son, his wife-the spell, the lamentation, the transgression, the written spells, the blasphemies, the sins-the evil which is in my body, in my flesh, in my sores-may they all be destroyed as this onion, and may the burning fire consume them this day I May the evil spell go far away, and may I see the light again!"
Various other objects were used for the like purpose, the destruction of them accompanied with similar conjurations, being supposed to break the power of the spell. It is natural for one who is afflicted to seek relief; but the nature of the help sought and of the means employed is evident from the fact that destruction is invoked not only upon the sorcerer, but even upon his wife and son, who may have been entirely innocent, and even ignorant of the crime attributed to the sorcerer.
One of the most powerful means against spells and evil powers was the wood of the white cedar, clearly used on account of its signification. It was also used in the Israelitish Church for purifying, as in the cleansing of lepers, and in the purifying of houses infected with leprosy (Levit. xv). Cedar wood and hyssop were used in such cases: "the cedar" signifying internal spiritual truth, and "the hyssop" natural truth (A. C. 7819). The same were also used in the preparation of the waters of separation (Numbers xix). Thus the wood of the white cedar, from its correspondence, was used as a means of protection against evil powers.
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Magic, conjurations, and sorcery even, were resorted to in cases of sickness, for sorcerers, although believed to use their skill generally for evil, seem likewise to have been appealed to-most probably in extreme cases only. Fear would no doubt make people hesitate to employ them. But in desperate cases, when all other means had failed to produce the desired result, there were some who, like Saul, resorted to the only hope-as it seemed to them-remaining. They sought the help of evil spirits of one class against evil spirits of another, since having separated themselves from the protecting sphere of the Divine Truth. By profaning the truths of the Church and adulterating its goods they had closed heaven against themselves, so that they could not be governed in any other way, than through spirits. But as all spirits, however evil they may be, are nevertheless governed by the LORD, the LORD so disposes that one class of spirits should defeat the designs of another, so far as is consistent with the preservation of freedom. They are permitted to do evil, but within certain limits; as soon as they transgress these they are punished and if necessary removed.
All the above-mentioned arts are so many forms of perversion of Divine Order, but they had to be permitted for an end-i. e., the spiritual freedom of man.
Intercourse with spirits had also the effect of preserving a knowledge of the life after death. The simple believed in spirits, in simplicity. There are always some of this class, whatever the state of the Church may be. Such are not so hurt by the general state of the Church as to be beyond all hope of salvation. As for the rest, their state was a truly sad one, spending their whole life, as they did, in dread of evil spirits, and in devising means and schemes to defeat their malignant designs. And although there was a belief in gods, the latter were only believed to be a more powerful class of spirits, who were more feared than loved, as they possessed the power to do evil on a greater scale when offended than ordinary spirits. All conception of the true nature of the Divine had utterly perished. Thus much concerning Chaldea and Babylonia.
ANNALS OF THE NEW CHURCH. 1897
(Continued.)
EMANUEL SWEDENBORG.
1721.
January 2d.-Swedenborg still at Brunsbo (Doc. I, 167).
May 21st.-Stockholm; date of a letter by Swedenborg to Jacob a Melle, treating of the fluctuations of the primeval ocean. This letter was published in the Acta Literaria Suecioe for 1721 (see Doc. II, 900).
June.-Swedenborg leaves Stockholm, to enter upon his second foreign journey (Doc. II, 4).
June 30th.-Helsingborg. Before leaving Sweden, he writes to the College of Mines, asking for instructions (Doc. I, 407).
July.-Traveling by way of Copenhagen and Hamburg, he arrives in Amsterdam, where he publishes the following works:
"Prodromus Principiorum Rerum Naturalium sive Novorum Tentaminum Chymiam et Physicam experimentalem geometrice explicandi." (A forerunner of the first principles of natural things, or of new attempts to explain Chemistry and experimental Physics, by means of Geometry.) Amsterdam: John Osterwyk, 119 pp. l6mo, A. L. (This work was translated into English by Mr. C. E. Strutt, and published at London, in 1847, under the title "Some specimens of a Work on the Principles of Chemistry") (Doc. II, 900).
"Nova Observata et Inventa circa Ferrum et Ignem, et praecipue circa naturam Ignis elementarum, una cum nova Camini inventione" (New Observations and Discoveries respecting Iron and Fire, and particularly respecting the elementary nature of Fire; together with a new construction of stoves) Amsterdam: Osterwyk, 56 pp. l6mo, A. L. (This treatise has been incorporated in the English edition of Principles of Chemistry) (Doc. II, 901).
"Methodus Nova inveniendi Longitudines Locorum terra marique ope Lunae" (A new method of finding the longitudes of places, on land or at sea, by means of the moon). Amsterdam: Osterwyk, 29 pp. 8vo (A. L. Doc. II 901).
"Artifica nova mechanica Receptacula Navalia et Aggeres Aquaticos construendi" (A new mechanical plan for constructing Docks and Dykes; and a new mode of discovering the powers of Vessels by the application of mechanical principles). Amsterdam: Osterwyk, 21 pp. 8vo, A. L. (Doc. II, 902).
October 21st.-Amsterdam. Letter by Swedenborg to Ambassador Preis at the Hague, presenting some of the recent publications. (See L. 1896, p. 168.)
November 8th.-Leyden. Second letter to Ambassador Preis, expressing thanks for hospitable reception during a late visit to the Hague (ibid.).
November 29th.-Liege. Date of a letter, containing "New Rules for maintaining Heat in rooms," which Swedenborg sends to Eric Benzelius. The paper was published in the Acta Literaria Suecice, for 1722 (Doc. II, 902).
December 12th.-Liege. Sends some Latin verses to Eric Benzelius: commemorating the treaty of Nystad, between Russia and Sweden (Doc. I, 329).
December 15th.-Liege. Forty-sixth letter to Eric Benzelius: expects to start for Germany on the following day (Doc. I, 330).
December 16th.-Travels to Aix-la-Chapelle, Cologne, and adjacent places, examining mines (Doc. II, 5).
1722.
January-March.-From Cologne Swedenborg travels to Leipzig, where he publishes
"Miscellanea observata circa Res Naturales et proesertim circa Mineralia, Ignem, et Montium Strata" (Miscellaneous observations respecting natural things, and especially respecting Minerals, Fire, and the Strata of mountains). Parts I, III Leipzig. 164 pp. l6mo. (A. L. Doc. II, 902).
Leaving Leipzig he visits all the mines in Saxony, and travels thence to Hamburg, where he publishes Part IV of the Miscellanea Observata (Schiffbeck, near Hamburg. H. Holle, 56 pp. l6mo (A. L.).
From Hamburg he returns to Brunswick and Gosslar, visiting all the mines in the Hartz Mountains; while in this region he is introduced to Duke Rudolph of Brunswick, who becomes his great friend and patron (Doc. I, 616; II, 5).
April 2d.-Brunswick. Writes an elegiac poem, which he publishes under the title: "Fabula de Amore et Metamorphosi Uranies in virum et in famulum Apollinis" (A Fable concerning the Love and Metamorphosis of [the muse] Urania into a man and servant of Apollo; addressed to Count Maurice Wellingk). Schiffbeck. 8pp. 4to (Doc. II, 905).
From Brunswick he returns to Hamburg, and thence by way of Stralsund and Ystad to Stockholm (Doc. II, 5).
July 14th.-Medevi (a summer resort near Lake Wetter, in Sweden).
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Swedenborg addresses a memorial to the king, asking for permission to introduce a new and improved method of extracting copper from ore at the mines of Fahlun (Doc. I, 331).
August 9th.-Stockholm. Forty-seventh letter to Eric Benzelius: treats of the new method of extracting copper; proposes to visit Starbo shortly, and thence Upsala (Doc. I, 331).
October 11th.-Stockholm. Addresses a memorial to the College of Mines respecting the new method of extracting copper (Doc. I, 411).
November 10th.-Reply of the mining authorities of Fahlun to Swedenborg's memorial, conditionally assenting to his proposition (Doc. I, 414).
December 7th.-Stockholm. Swedenborg's reply to the objections and conditions proposed by the mining authorities of Fahlun (Doc. I, 421).
During the latter part of this year he publishes "Oforgripliga Tanckar om Svenska Myntets Fornedring och Forhogning." (Frank views on the fall and rise in the value of Swedish currency). Stockholm: Werner, 20 pp. 4to, A. L. (See Doc. II, 906.)
During the same period he writes the following treatises:
"Expositio Legis Hydrostaticae" (An Exposition of the Law of Hydrostatics, demonstrating the power of the deepest water of the Deluge, and their action on rocks and other Substances at the bottom of the sea). Published in Acta Literaria Sueciae (Doc. II, 905).
"De Magnete et ejus qualitatibus" (Concerning the magnet and its qualities). MS. 229 pp. 4to (Doc. II, 906).
1723.
January (?).-Stockholm. Letter by Swedenborg to his brother-in-law, Lars Benzelstjerna, relating some recent political events (Doc. I, 334).
February 5th.-Stockholm. Date of Swedenborg's "Memorial to the Diet, respecting the state of Swedish Finances," proposing a thorough investigation into the condition of the commerce and the mercantile marine of the country (Dee. I, 471).
February 18th.-Stockholm. Date of Swedenborg's "Memorial to the Diet, proposing to abolish the distinction made in mining districts in favor of copper, to the detriment of iron" (Doc. I, 475).
The College of Mines, in Swedenborg's absence, on May 24th, instructed one of its members to oppose this memorial in the House of nobles (Doc. I, 429).
April 11th.-Stockholm. Date of Swedenborg's "Memorial to the Diet in favor of establishing rolling-mills in Sweden" (Doc. I, 480).
April 11th.-Stockholm. Swedenborg wakes his formal entrance as assessor extraordinary at the College of Mines, with liberty of being present at the sessions, according to his own pleasure (Doc. I, 427).
May 20th.-Stockholm. Date of Swedenborg's "Memorial to the Diet, in favor of encouraging the production of iron in Sweden" (Doc. I, 477).
September 16th.-Stockholm. Swedenborg addresses a letter to the College of Mines, asking for permission to try a new process of making steel, which he had learned from Vienna, before the same privilege be granted to another person (Doc. I, 430).
October 29th.-Stockholm. He applies for a short leave of absence from the college, in order to attend to some personal affairs in the country (Doc. I, 430).
He now went to the iron works at Axmar, of which he was joint owner with his aunt, Brita Behm, in order to erect there a new furnace to replace one which had been destroyed by the Russians in the year 1721 (Doc. I, 431).
December.-Emanuel spends the Christmas at his father's home in Brunsbo (Doc. I, 187).
During this year Swedenborg is occupied in writing a work, "De Genuina Metallorum Tractione" (on the genuine treatment of metals). MS. 1481 pp. (Doc. II, 906).
1724.
February 14th.-Presthyttan, near Axmar. Forty-eighth letter to Eric Benzelius: treats chiefly of business matters, and of his work on the treatment of metals (Doc. I, 335).
April 20th.-Letter of Bishop Swedberg to his son, Jesper Swedenborg, then in North America, informing him of the will of the Bishop's second wife, Sarah Bergia, whereby her property was to be divided equally among all the children of the first marriage (she had no children of her own), while Emanuel was to be nominal owner and executor of the estate at Starbo (Doc. I, 374).
April 28th.-The College of Mines makes application to the king that a regular salary be given to Assessor Swedenborg (Doc. I, 431).
May 18th.-Swedenborg returns to Stockholm (Ibid.). May 26th.-Stockholm. Forty-ninth letter to Eric Benzelius: again refuses to consider a proposed professorship at Upsala; refers to his impediment in speaking (a slight stuttering), and states that he does not possess the "donum docendi" (gift of teaching); refuses to answer the attacks of certain scientific antagonists (Doc. I, 337).
June 16th.-Stockholm. Swedenborg's letter to the College of Mines, expressing gratitude for its favorable proposition to the king in regard to his salary (Doc. I, 432).
July 7th.-Stockholm. Swedenborg's final application to the king for appointment to the office of an ordinary assessor at the College of Mines with a regular salary (L. 1896, p. 153).
July 15th.-Royal warrant, appointing Swedenborg to the desired office, with an annual salary of 800 dalers in silver (about $240.) (L. 1896, p. 153).
July-August.-Swedenborg at Axmar, looking after his share in the iron works (Doc. I, 433).
August 18th.-Stockholm. Swedenborg's letter to Baron Ribbing, President of the College of Mines, in regard to mining affairs (Doc. I, 433).
August 20th.-Stockholm. Fiftieth letter to Eric Benzelius: speaks of having met his brother Jesper and other Swedish travelers, lately returned from the Swedish settlements in Pennsylvania, and the renowned French chemist Reaumur, whom he considers a clever scientific man; will accept the invitation of Sir Hans Sloane to become a corresponding member of the Royal Academy of London (Doc. I, 339).
November 9th.-Begins a lawsuit against his maternal aunt, Brita Behm, who sought to deprive him of the privilege of smelting in common with her at the iron-works of Axmar (Doc. I, 379, 434).
1725.
January-July.--Swedenborg present in Stockholm, attending the College of Mines (Doc. I, 434-436).
February 14th.-Receives a letter from his brother, Jesper, asking for advice, whether to return to America or not (Doc. I, 342)
March 1st.-Swedenborg wins his lawsuit against Brita Behm (Doc. I, 379).
July-October.-Swedenborg absent from Stockholm, on a commission to examine iron works in the mining districts (Doc. I, 436).
41
November-December.-Present in Stockholm at the College of Mines (Ibid.).
During a period, beginning with this year and ending with the year 1733, he wrote the following treatises, hitherto unpublished:
"Adversaria in Principia Rerum Naturalium" (Papers referring to the Principles of Nature). MS. 13 pp.
"Dc Mechanismo animae et corporis" (On the Mechanism of the Soul and the Body). MS. 16 pp.
Generaliter de Motu Elementorum" (Generally, on the Motion of the Elements). MS. 5 pp.
Comparatio Ontologiae et Cosmologiae generalis Dom. Christiani Wolfti, cum Principiis nostris rerum naturalum" (Comparison between the Ontology and Cosmology of Christian Wolf, with Swedenborg's "Principles of Nature"). MS. 49 pp.
Observata in corpore humano" (Anatomical Observations). MS. 6 pp. (All these works described in Doc. II, 907-908).
1726.
January-July.-Swedenborg in Stockholm, at the College of Mines (Doc. I, 437).
May.-Stockholm. Swedenborg's memorial to the king, with a petition to be retained in his present post and status, without change, contrary to the demands of Assessor Swab (L. 1896, p. 166).
June 6th.-Stockholm. Fifty-first letter to Eric Benzelius: criticizes a new English method of finding the longitudes (Doc. I, 344).
July-August.-Swedenborg absent on a commission to adjust some mining difficulties in the provinces (Doc. I, 437).
September-December.-Remains in Stockholm the rest of the year (ibid.).
1727.
January-December.-Swedenborg remains in Stockholm the entire year (Doc. I, 438).
October 24th.-Swedenborg's first letter to his cousin, Abraham D. Schonstrom, deals entirely with family matters (Doc. I, 346).
November 21st.-Second letter to A. D. Schonstrom (Doc. I, 347).
November 27th.-Third letter to A. D. Schonstrom (Doc. I, 348).
During this year the firm of J. and A. Strander, of Amsterdam, published second editions of the following works of Swedenborg:
"Nova Observata et Inventa."
"Prodromus Prineipiorum rerum naturaliurn."
"Methodus Nova inveniendi Len gitudines" (Doc. II, 901).
1728.
January-December.-Swedenborg remains in Stockholm the entire year (Doc. I, 438).
1729.
January-July.-Swedenborg remains in Stockholm (Doc. I, 439).
March 18th.-He receives a letter from his brother-in-law, Pastor Unge, who exhorts him to "muster up courage," and seek a suitable wife (Doc. I, 349).
July-October.-Swedenborg absent on a commission to inspect iron works in Dalecarlia (Doc. I, 439).
October-December-Remains in Stockholm (Ibid.).
December 23d.-Stockholm. Letter by Swedenborg to Brita Brehm, who is threatening him with another lawsuit (Doc. I, 351).
1730.
January-June.-Swedenborg remains in Stockholm (Doc. I, 439).
April 10th.-Letter from Bishop Swedberg, asking Emanuel to write some Latin verses for a new publication (Doc. I, 352).
June 4th.-Royal warrant, granting Swedenborg the full salary of an ordinary assessor (about $375. Doc. I, 439).
July 16th.-Swedenborg leaves Stockholm on a tour to inspect forest lands belonging to iron works in Dalecarlia. Returns to Stockholm in September (Doc. I, 440).
August 18th.-Bishop Swedberg's residence at Brunsbo consumed by fire. The Bishop loses his entire library with many of his manuscripts. It is probable that many letters from Emanuel were destroyed at the time (Doc. I, 353).
September-December.- Swedenborg remains in Stockholm (Doc. I, 440).
1731.
January-August.-Swedenborg remains in Stockholm (Doc. I, 441).
April-May. Absent from the College of Mines on account of illness (ibid.).
July 28th-October 9th.-Traveling in the provinces, inspecting iron works (Ibid.).
October-December.-Remains in Stockholm (Ibid.).
1732.
January-December.-Swedenborg remains in Stockholm the entire year (Doc. I, 441).
1733.
April 12th.-Stockholm. Swedenborg applies to the king for leave of absence from the College, in order to undertake a journey abroad (L. 1896, p. 167).
April 17th.-Royal decree, granting Swedenborg nine months' leave of absence (Doc. I, 442, 443).
May 10th.-Swedenborg leaves Stockholm on his third foreign journey; passes through Linkoping, Grenna, and Jonkoping to Ystad (Doc. II, 6).
May 24th.-Arrives at Stralsund; travels through Meckenburg and Brandenburg to Berlin, where he arrives on June 1st (Doc. II, 9).
June 5th.-Having visited the libraries, museums, and laboratories of Berlin, he leaves for Dresden, where he reads through and corrects his "Principia;" visits the Botanical Garden, attends Catholic worship, and remarks on its blandishments for the external senses; examines glass works, and consults scientific works (Doc. II, 15-38).
July 23d.-Arrives at Prague, in Bohemia (Doc. II, 38).
July 30th.-Visits Carlsbad, and examines the mineral springs (Doc. II, 42).
August 6th.-Visits the mining towns around Carlsbad (Doc. II, 43-68).
August 19th.-Returns to Dresden by way of Prague, and travels thence to Leipzig.
October 5th-Leipzig. Begins the publication of the Principia (Doc. II, 71-73).
He seems to have remained here the rest of the year. The record of his journey is noted in a diary, entitled,
"Itinerarium ex anne, 1733" (Described in Doc. II, 908; translated and published in Doc. II, 6-73).
42
DISEASES OF THE FIBRES. 1897
CHAPTER V
On paralysis and paresis.
395. PARALYSIS arises when the red blood is intercepted or impeded as it inflows into the smallest vessels of the motor fibres of the muscle; but if the animal spirit is intercepted or impeded, as it inflows into the motor fibres of the muscles, apoplexia appears: thus paralysis differs from apoplexia; for the animal spirit and the blood are two principles which actuate the muscle; for the former excites to action, but the latter; restores, whence arises alternate muscular motion; consequently from a deficiency of one or the other, reciprocation perishes; for the spirit is the agent, but the blood the reagent, and the agent does not know its terminus except by its own reagent, by which it is determined into definite motions, and so into alternations of motions.
There are some, yea, very many, who confound the causes of paralysis and apoplexy, for they ascribe to both alike a defect of the nerve-fluid, and of the influx of the blood; but that they differ, and how much they differ, is known to every one; but a distinct knowledge of the causes of both diseases depends upon a distinct knowledge of the muscle and its motor fibres, and of the forces acting in them, also a knowledge of the blood and its vessels, and especially of the nerves and interstices, which pass through the porous compages of the nerve. A muscle cannot succumb to disease unless it be paralytic or apoplectic-that is, deficient in either blood or in animal spirit; for it is well-known that if the artery or nerve of a muscle be cut, its faculty of acting ceases; therefore privation of the blood cannot be the same cause as privation of the spirits; for the blood is in the vessels, but the spirit is in the fibres of the nerves.
396. If the influx of the red blood into the capillary vessels of the motor fibres is not granted as a proximate cause of paralysis, it will be asked in how many ways that blood is intercepted; these modes are, 1. If the arteries inflowing into a muscle, or part of a muscle, are either obstructed, compressed, cut, or become tendinous; that is to say, the somewhat larger or common arteries. 2. If the capillaceous vessels themselves, which encircle the motor fibre, become exsanguinated and coalesce in a hair-like tendenous growth. 3. If the arteries secrete and discharge an abundance of serous humor, and the veins and other ducts formed by nature do not receive and carry it away, then the muscle and its membranes and ligaments become inundated and relaxed; thus not only does the muscle become incapable of acting, but also the more minute vessels cannot admit the blood into them. 4. A similar effect ensues if an abundance of humor flows forth from the nerves through the interstices of the fascicles of the fibres which are more apparent. Concerning which see Chapter X on The Fibre.
397. As regards the first, the arteries ARE OBSTRUCTED from causes in the blood, as if it be dotty [grumosus], full of phlegm, cold, sluggish, filled with bile, concreted into the fibres, destitute of spirit, itself spurious. The arteries are COMPRESSED by ligatures, sitting, neighboring abscesses, fistulas, ulcers, and contorsions of the members. They ARE SEVERED by erosion, ulcers, aneurisms, and violence. THEY BECOME TENDINOUS from privation of the influx of the spirits into the fibres of the muscular tunic, from the privation of the influx of the blood into the other tunics, from the clogging of I the glands in their tunic, and from inaction.
398. As regards the second, those smaller arterioles close up from too much inactivity, from fat, and from the same causes by which the larger become tendinous; also by age they are diminished in size, coalesce, are obliterated, and become lines of a tendinous nature.
399. As concerns the third, a flux of ichor or of serum arises from the gates of evacuation being closed, as between the motor fibres, through the surrounding membrane, the skin, and, indeed, through the bladder and intestines; also from compression of the veins, which ought to absorb; thus if the veins be compressed, obstructed, or become tendinous, a similar effect ensues as if it were the arteries. Thus a muscle, together with its membranes and ligaments, relaxed and becoming flaccid, no longer in itself possesses the power of acting, and, besides the humor, has the effect of impeding the influx of the blood into the vessels of the motor fibres. The same thing takes place if a pure serum, more sluggish [lentius] in its nature, inflows into the same vessels, for this resists the acting of the nerve fibre, but otherwise the blood.
400. As to the fourth: If an opportunity of discharge be denied the humor which flows forth from the intersticts of the fascicles of the nerve, the motor fibres, or the muscle with its membranes, are similarly relaxed and infested with filth; for every humor that is taken away through the interstices of the fascicles, when the nerve is enfeebled bursts forth, and, deprived of its office, is rejected; but it is accumulated in the muscle if an exit be denied it. This humor is carried by a nerve in the region of the cortical substances, for when the arteries are inflamed it is collected in the sulci, or recurving folds of the brain, between the lamellie and the reticular plexuses of the medullary substance, and where the fascicles of the fibres join into a nerve under the dura mater; thus they secrete their lymph in the cerebrum, cerebellum, medulla oblongata, and medulla spinalis, in the nerve itself from the arteries which convey it, and between the fascicles.
401. Hence it follows that the paralyzed muscle is soft and relaxed, as well as cut off from connection with its neighboring parts; hence it is deprived of reactive strength, and thus by no power of the will capable of being raised up, and is without sensation except a mute one, and one caused by pricking with an instrument, and is as dead flesh except the fibre live; it is capable of being resuscitated if this disease does not occupy the primary viscera of life, as the heart, lungs, stomach; it often happens with the intestines, abdomen, bladder, thorax, arms, forearms, loins, feet, neck, and face. When the disease is less severe it is called PARESIS.
402. Paralyses are more universal when the veins affected are nearer to the heart, or when the nerves by which this evil spreads are nearer the brain, or more distant from the muscles. The neighboring muscles feel the paralysis of one muscle, and in their own manner suffer according to their connection, especially the antagonizing muscles. From discoveries made by those skilled in anatomy, it is known where the seat of disease is; thence, and from its causes, it is judged whether it be curable or deadly, and what means are to be employed.
403. If a severer paralysis has persisted for a long time, then the many little arteries remain collapsed, the ligaments of the muscles become too greatly extended, flaccid, partly ruptured, and the membranes more loosed from their flesh; so also the fascicles, and their little tunics and ligaments. Sometimes the larger vessels are injured; hence there are disordered motions, at times convulsions, debility, tremor, shaking, and disobedience to the individual behests of the brain, and many other things.
43
CHURCH OF THE ACADEMY. 1897
THE past few weeks have witnessed important developments in what is known as "The Academy Movement," involving a very considerable withdrawal of members from the Church of the Academy; also a similar withdrawal of members of the General Church of the Advent of the LORD from that body. This action is explained by a grave dissatisfaction with the methods of the Rev. William H. Benade in the government of those churches. The trend of affairs is sufficiently indicated in the following events:
On January 22d the Rev. William F. Pendleton, for-reasons given-including the one just referred to-resigned to Chancellor
Benade the office of Vice-Chancellor of the Church of the Academy and that of Head of the Theological School of the Academy of the New Church. A few days later he formally withdrew from the priesthood and membership of that Church.
On February 6th the Rev. Enoch S. Price, the Rev. Carl Th. Odhner, and the Rev. Homer Synnestvedt, of Huntingdon Valley; the Rev. N. Dandridge Pendleton, of Chicago; and the Rev. Charles F. Doering, of Philadelphia, resigned from the Church of the Academy and from the General Church of the Advent, and from the priesthood in each, on the ground of loss of confidence in the ability of Bishop Benade to so conduct the affairs of those bodies as to conduce to their welfare.
On February 7th almost all of the members of the congregation worshiping in Huntingdon Valley resigned their membership in both of the churches before named, and on February 13th similar action was taken by almost all the members of the Immanuel Church of Chicago and Glenview.
On the latter date the Board of Directors of the Corporation, "The Academy of the New Church," finding that the agitation in the "Church of the Academy" had so seriously affected the schools as practically to interfere with educational uses, resolved that all Schools of the Academy in Philadelphia be declared closed, so to remain until re-opened by act of that Corporation. At this meeting Chancellor Benade was present by invitation, and during the proceedings announced to the Board, addressing the President, Mr. Robert M. Glenn, that he "now withdrew from the office of Chancellor of the Church of the Academy, and declared that office vacant."
MUSHROOM GROWTH. 1897
FROM Mr. Odhner's articles in the Messenger (see February 10th), we learn that once, by a profane mixture of spiritism and magic, the Church came into high royal favor and popularity.
General Church. C. TH. ODHNER 1897
REPORT FOR JANUARY, 1897.
SINCE the report issued in the January number of the Life, the Secretary has visited Bridgeport, Conn., on January 9th, when three children were baptized into the faith of the New Church. The Rev. Alfred Acton, on January 2d, preached to the circle in Brooklyn, and Candidate David Klein visited Allentown on January 9th. Scranton was visited by the Secretary on January 30th.
The proposed publication of the Directory has been given up, a sufficient number of subscribers not having been secured. All moneys, subscribed for this purpose, will be returned to the subscribers by the manager of the Academy Book Rooms.
The undersigned, on February 4th, withdrew from membership in the General Church of the Advent, and, consequently, is no longer Secretary of that body.
Respectfully,
C. TH. ODHNER.
GENERAL CHURCH OF THE NEW JERUSALEM. C. TH. ODHNER 1897
ON February 6th Bishop William F. Pendleton, having withdrawn from the Academy of the New Church, and from the General Church of the Advent of the LORD, formally received the following ministers, at their request, and inaugurated them into the priesthood of a new general body of the New Church, under his episcopal authority. The gentlemen referred to were, the Rev. Enoch S. Price, Rev. Carl Th. Odhner, Rev. Homer Synnestvedt, Rev. N. Dandridge Pendleton, and Rev. Charles F. Doering, formerly of the priesthood of the Church of the Academy and of the General Church of the Advent. The provisional name selected for the new body is, "The General Church of the New Jerusalem."
Title Unspecified 1897
ON the next evening Bishop Pendleton announced to the congregation worshiping at Huntingdon Valley, Pa., at a formal meeting thereof, the action taken the day before, and stated that this step, of inaugurating a new priesthood, was the first step of forming a Church, which would become a complete Church if any laymen should apply for admission and accept its ministrations. In outlining the fundamentals of the body he said, in substance:
"We reject nothing of the principles of the past-those known as the principles of the Academy. I have fought for them for twenty-two years, and still stand upon them. We have been compelled to leave that body not by our own will and seeking. Any change in principles, if it is to come at all, must come in the future. It will not do to change from what we have believed, now while in a state of transition and disturbance.
"The chief change will be one of policy-without that there would be no reason for this movement. The new policy will include two features essential to the life of a Church-Council and Assembly. There is no telling the uses of a general assembly, in bringing the members of the Church together, to consider measures, exchange thoughts, and strengthen each other in the life of the Church. It is worth while for every member of the Church to attend, and to lay up money for that purpose, for the sake of the great use and benefit. They should meet, not to decide doctrine, but to consider measures for the conduct and development of the Church. What is a Church without the free, rational co-operation of its members?
"Without these two things there can hardly be freedom and unitedness, vitality and growth. Without them there can be no Church. Of late they have been practically abandoned in the Academy, with disastrous results. That policy did not minister to freedom. The Church should not be in such a state that the members must be in a condition of self-repression. In the desire to preserve peace and order I have been silent longer than I now think I ought.
44
It is time to have greater freedom."
As to the Form of the body, that would require deliberation. He thought the form of the General Church of the Advent about as near correct as we can expect in this day. There would be a trine in the Clergy-that was the true order; and there would be a Council of the Clergy and a Council of the Laity.
The use of the Church will be that which is proper to every true Church-the building up of spiritual life among men-the teaching and leading men by truths to the good of life. In brief; the uses would be those of Worship and Evangelization, the latter including instruction and education. The speaker mentioned that the College and Boys' School had been closed in the city by the Chancellor, but that the uses would be taken up here in a provisional way, using the Club Building, by permission of the Directors.
Bishop Pendleton then declared the Church open for application to membership, which would consist of individuals. Out of these, societies could be formed. Questioning brought out definitely the fact that the joining was to be by application, and not by selection. The latter practice had obtained in the Academy in the days when the body had to protect itself from hostility, and was well enough then, but it was not necessary nor desirable now.
Finally two papers of resignation were drawn up, one indicating withdrawal from the Academy, and the other from the General Church of the Advent, it being recognized as orderly and desirable that admission to the New Church be preceded by withdrawal from all similar general bodies. These papers were placed conveniently to be signed by all who felt so disposed, and quite a number of signatures were appended that evening.
The Priesthood of the new General Church now includes the following gentlemen: Bishop Pendleton; Pastors Enoch S. Price, C. Th. Odhner, Homer Synnestvedt, N. D. Pendleton, Fred E. Waelchli, and Ellis I. Kirk; Ministers John Stephenson, G. G. Starkey, and Charles E. Doering.
Pending more complete organization, Mr. John A. Wells has been appointed provisional Treasurer, to whom contributions should be sent. Applications for membership or for information, should be sent to the undersigned,
C. TH. ODHNER,
Secretary.
HUNTINGDON VALLEY, PA.,
February 28th, 1897.
Notes and Reviews. 1897
THE long service of the venerable Rev. Thomas Mackereth, whose passing away at Windermere, in his 74th year, is chronicled by Morning Light of January 30th, received appreciative treatment in that journal in an article signed "F. S."
Title Unspecified 1897
THE general sentiment of the New Church in England, toward the late Mr. Richard Gunton, has crystallized into its expression by establishing the Gunton Memorial Fund, to be devoted to pensioning those New Church ministers whose services and worldly situation entitle them to such recognition. This use was one dear to Mr. Gunton; hence the appropriateness of the action reported.
Title Unspecified 1897
THE life and character of the late Rev. George Nelson Smith are made the subject of biographical and eulogistic notice in the Messenger of February 17th. His intellectual and affectional qualities are set forth very fully in the testimony of those who were associated with him in his work. The Rev. L. P. Mercer, who expresses a deep sense of Mr. Smith's mature intelligence and of a great loss to the Church, which had never availed itself of the full use of his peculiar faculties and powers. The quality of these was well indicated in articles, published from time to time, which marked him as a "teacher of teachers." These articles, Mr. Mercer thinks, ought to be gathered into a volume.
Title Unspecified 1897
FROM Morning Light we extract the following: The Rev. H. N. Hutchinson's new work on "Prehistoric Man and Beast" contains the following in reference to the erratics or large boulders to be found scattered over a large part of Europe:
"Emanuel Swedenborg, who in his earlier days was assessor in the School of Mines in Sweden, was probably the first to describe the erratics so conspicuous in that country, and to endeavor to explain them. He put forward the theory that they had been deposited there by a great marine deluge; and thus he also accounts for some of the other phenomena, such as the peculiar ridges of sand and gravel known as Asar (in Scotland as Kames)."
Title Unspecified 1897
THE New Church Magazine for January includes among its contents a Memorial Sermon on the late Richard Gunton,-with a fine portrait,-by the Rev. Joseph Deans; "Thoughts for the New Year on the Purpose of Life," by the Rev. John Martin: "What the New Church Teaches on Death and Resurrection," by the Rev. James F. Buss; "The Two Worlds" (a paper maintaining that the life hereafter will have very much the conditions that obtain here), by Mr. Felix Marsh; "The New Church," by Mr. George Herring; "Exposition of Scripture: Notes on the Miracles; the Leper," by the Rev. I. J. Woodward, and Reviews (including an outline of Mr. George Trowbridge's story," By a Way They Knew Not") and Church news.
Title Unspecified 1897
Or the late Richard Gunton, the Rev. Joseph Deans says that "Mr. Gunton has been the means of inducing more persons to enter the ministry of the New Church than any other member the Church has ever had." Also that "The great aim of Mr. Gunton was to promote the spread of the Doctrines and the extension of the Church." This latter fact should give weight, in the eyes of advocates of the "permeation" idea-to Mr. Gunton's emphatic testimony, after years of enthusiastic and untiring labor, to the fact that the world is not seeking nor appreciative of the Doctrines of the New Church; it does not want them, for the sufficient reason that they condemn the selfishness that prevails, and expose the hollowness of most of its apparent good and wisdom.
Title Unspecified 1897
THE January number of the New Church Review presents so attractive a table of contents that we regret that the time for the arrival of the March number finds us unprepared to do justice to its predecessor. The principal contents are, first, a series of articles on the WORD: "The Word as the Son of Man" (Rev. John Worcester), "The Bible in the Home and in the Public School" (Asa B. Goddard), "The Word and Mankind" (Clarence Lathbury), "The Language of the Word" (Rev. J. B. Werren), "The LORD as the Word" (Rev. James Reed). Other articles are: "The Christ in the Ancient Aryan Beliefs" (J. H. Wilson, C. E.), "Marriage and Chastity" (Rev. William H. Mayhew), "John Watson" ["Ian Maclaren"] (Rev. T. T. Wright), "A Document of 1712," and the usual departments.
Title Unspecified 1897
AT last Swedenborg's "uncharitableness" (1) in laughing (see the candle incident, A. R. 484, T. C. R. 506) has received public treatment. In Morning Light (January 16th) the Rev. J. F. Buss, in his replies to readers, explains that he thinks that Swedenborg went away smiling at the miscarriage of the missile, and he finds nothing "reprehensible, from the standpoint of charity, in such a very good-humored and mild reception of an attempt to inflict serious injury.
45
But he also deprecates any "imitation" of Swedenborg the man as if he were God.
In the next number of Morning Light Mr. T. C. Lowe takes square issue with Mr. Buss. He contends that at the time of the incident Swedenborg was not in a heavenly frame of mind; he translates ridens as "laughing," and would rather have him laugh than do a more internal wrong by only smiling. But Mr. Lowe agrees with Mr. Buss that we should "think less about the man and more and more of the heavenly truths he writes of for our good."
Whatever Mr. Buss thinks of this rejoinder he keeps to himself, but Mr. J. B. Keene, in the number for January 30th, takes up the cudgel, alluding to "the curious state of mind of a Newchurchman who likes apparently to see something wrong about Swedenborg." His own position is that the laughter not only indicated nothing of ridicule or mockery, but 'corresponded exactly to the relation then existing between his state and that of the man who had been collecting passages from the Word in favor of faith alone.'
Neither party in the contention seem to give Swedenborg any credit for a sense of the humor of the situation, which we venture to say will strike a majority of those who read the narration. The sense of humor is really an important faculty, for it involves an ability to be affected by contrasts, and serves as a natural basis on which may be reared a spiritual superstructure-namely spiritual discrimination. We emphatically protest against any misconstruing or ignoring the humor of which the Writings contain a considerable amount.
Questions and Answers.
EDITOR OF NEW CHURCH LIFE:
DEAR SIR:-Owing to my failure to state the points to be cleared up in my former letter, a further explanation of Luke i, 35, is necessary.
(1) How did God assume the humanity by means of the Virgin Mary?
(2) Does that spiritual thing to which a natural thing corresponds perform the same use in the spiritual world that the material thing does in the natural world?
(3) I am an incessant dreamer, and have an idea that if a man understood the science of correspondence he could interpret dreams. Am I right?
I wish here to state that your explanation of Matthew iii, 17 and xxvii, 46, and your answer to my question concerning Free Will, will from now on be of incalculable value to me. Concerning the explanation of the above passages I can now say that I can see obscurely how and why the LORD when He was in the world prayed to the Father as to a distinct Person, while He himself was that Person. Through the above explanation I now know how to handle myself when the hells excite the evil loves within me. Your answer to my question concerning Free Will proves to me that I must believe that when a man disobeys the LORD it is because he wants to disobey Him; or else I must believe the Doctrine of Predestination. God forbid the latter.
CHAS. SINES.
POMONA, ATLANTIC Co., N. J., January 18th, 1897.
REPLY.
FROM another communication I understand that by humanity you refer especially to the body.
The process, as concerns general principles of accommodation and the embodiment of spiritual substance in natural, is quite analogous to that followed in the creation of any man. There are the planes of the mind, corresponding to the planes in the spiritual world, the rudimentary forms of which planes or degrees are established in the descent of the Divine creative sphere in successive order until the beginnings of the ultimate body are made in the womb of the mother and endowed by the paternal element with the faculty of life and is growth, reaction and development. But in the case of an ordinary man the vehicle of this creative sphere is the seed of the human parent; in the case of the LORD it H was the Holy Spirit embosoming the Divine Itself. In what ultimate form or manner that Divine seed was brought in contact with the fertile principle of the Virgin, producing the Immaculate Conception, the Writings do not tell us. Some have thought that in Swedenborg's philosophy of generation hits a fruitful source of speculation, but it is evident that speculation should not approach this holy subject except reverently, setting it apart from those investigations which may be more lightly entered into. The most I can do is to suggest a line of thought which possibly may be useful in connection with the general subject.
To form any idea as to how the Infinite Divine, or Jehovah, could put on a finite body, one must consider also the more important question why He did so? The nature of the body of man, and its functions to the spirit must be understood.
From eternity God is the Divine Man; by putting on a material body He became man in ultimates. What is a man? What makes him human? He is a form receptive of life, and he is human because by the life of nature (which he receives without his volition), he is capable of being initiated, according to his free volition, into the life which is God's.
What is Nature? It is the last or ultimate presentation of the Divine Life, appearing in forms made out of dead matter; thus it is the Divine Life appearing representatively, and teaching representatively concerning Itself. To the Most Ancient Church nature was the ultimate writing of the Word of God; in it they saw God.
What is the body? It is that outermost receptacle of life by which man is capable of perceiving the Divine Life as it appears in nature, in ultimate or representative form. Thus, through the introductory means of natural truths and delights which represent and correspond, he can be affected by spiritual and celestial truths and loves.
What is the mind? It is a twofold organ of thought and of love distinguished into the natural and the spiritual minds. The natural mind is that spiritual organism which rests in the natural body and gives it life, or the faculty of being affected by things of external sense, and of thinking about them and of ultimating them in action. It contains within it the germs of the higher form, the spiritual mind; so that when the natural mind corresponds, natural things serve to receive, contain, and excite into activity germs of spiritual truths and goods which constitute spiritual life, or the very life of heaven, which is of God.
What is the soul? It is the very seat of life, above the conscious life of man or angel-the sanctuary of the Most High, who dwells there in His Own Divine Spiritual and Celestial things, and thence rules all man's life, and thence forms and develops the lower planes in a successively ascending series, which begins with the body. Man's first consciousness is natural,-bodily. God cannot appear there except representatively. But the higher planes exist in order that He may appear to a consciousness adapted to perceive Him in His own Good and Truth.
Thus in the first or natural life of man there is no ability to see God, for God is Spirit.
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The senses of the body do not see God in nature, but the senses of the spirit do see Him there by the medium of the bodily senses, when the spirit is willing to see, and the natural mind is reduced to correspondence and order. It is not necessary hers to go into the doctrine of remains, whereby the willingness of the spirit is made possible, nor into the doctrine of hereditary evil, which involves the possibility of man's being unwilling-closing the upper mind and rendering opaque, and antagonistic and destructive to spiritual life all the things of nature and of the body. It is enough to point out how the body is the instrument and constitutes the plane, by which man is first held in equilibrium between the forces of heaven and those of hell; and how bodily life is either the vestibule by which he may enter and behold God in His Temple, or else the beginning of the way that leads downward, looking only to self and the world. As pointed out heretofore, remains, on the one hand, and perverted hereditary tendencies, on the other, are the opposing elements by which man has free will; and both influences terminate in the bodily plane.
When the Most Ancient Church, with its perception of heavenly things in earthly things, and the Ancient Church, with its knowledges concerning the same, had passed away, the human quality of being able to perceive God in Nature began to pass also, until at last men were become little better than beasts, many were worse. The hells had gained such dominion that equilibrium was destroyed, and the body could no longer be a means of introduction to spiritual life, but only to perverted natural life. Man could no longer be an image of God.
In order to restore the human to earth, the LORD Himself descended to the battle-field of the plane of the human body, sustained the assaults of all the hells, conformed His natural to the Divine Truth in every particular, opened Himself to the Divine Influx and became united with His Own Soul, the Infinite JEHOVAH. Thereby He re-opened and re-established the influx of heaven to men in the body-the earthly body-and restored equilibrium and the possibility of salvation for all who will receive it.
To return to the particular point of the question proposed. Study of the use of the body ought to throw light upon the process of the creation of the body, by which the LORD'S creative sphere, clothing itself with appropriate substances and forms, descends through the planes of the spiritual world and at last fixes itself in a human body, formed out of the ultimate things of nature. This forms the basis of a new existence-a new reception of life. That the LORD does this through the medium of another organism-the human father-using the organic forms of his spiritual and natural structure-(corresponding to the planes of the spiritual world above mentioned) by the seed,-makes it none the less a Divine work.
In creating His Own body (the Incarnation) the Divine must work without any human vehicle such as the seed or offshoot of a finite soul-or, what is the same, a finite love;-for His Love was the Infinite Love of saving human souls, and His understanding was to become the Divine Truth Itself. Therefore He took on a body (which is mere obedience to the soul) from an earthly mother, but the paternal seed was the Over-shadowing Holy Spirit, or Spirit of Holiness, which embosomed the Soul Essential, Divine, the Father.
I shall be glad to consider any particular points that may suggest themselves to you in connection with this most elevating subject.
Title Unspecified 1897
"CORRESPONDENCE is the appearance of the internal in the external and its representation therein" (5423).
The use of a natural thing, like the thing itself, is only representative, and cannot rise above the plane of its representation. But its correspondent use on the higher plane bears the same relation to its subject as does the natural use to its subject. For instance, as bread, which corresponds to good, nourishes the body, so does good, to which it corresponds, nourish the spirit. The correspondence of the thing really springs from the correspondence of the use,-for use is prior to its subjects.
Title Unspecified 1897
There are three sorts of dreams. The first sort comes immediately through heaven from the LORD; such were the prophetical dreams recorded in the Word. The second come through angelic spirits, particularly those above to the right, where are things paradisal: it was thence that the men of the Most Ancient Church had their dreams, which were instructive (A. C. 1122). The third sort come through the spirits who are near when man is asleep, which also are significative. But phantastic dreams have another origin (A. C. 1976).
It seems probable that in the present state of perverted order, a large proportion of dreams are phantastical. I take it that such dreams are blown together by spirits, out of the things of man's memory, without any internal order or coherence; so that although there is, of course, something significative about them, it is of no internal value. I may add that I, too, dream much, almost invariably when I fall asleep; but I pay no attention to the dreams except that their sphere sometimes remains for a time after waking.-EDITOR.
"VALID EVIDENCE AND SOUND REASONING." 1897
EDITOR NEW CHURCH LIFE:
DEAR FRIEND:-In an essay on Darwin's critics, Huxley, writing in 1871, states concisely his reasons for not accepting the Word of God, in these terms. He quotes from Suarez, a Jesuit of the sixteenth century, this line, "Incredibile est, Deum illis verbis ad populum fuisse locutus, quibus deciperetur," which may be freely translated thus: "It is incredible, that God should have spoken such words to the people as would deceive them." This, Huxley remarks, is "a verdict in which, for once, Jesuit casuistry concurs with the healthy moral sense of all mankind." On another page of the essay he says:
"The question whether the earth, and the immediate progenitors of its present living population were made in six natural days or not, is no longer one upon which two opinions can be held. The fact that it did not so come into being stands upon as sound a basis as any fact of history whatever. It is not true that existing plants and animals came into being within three days of the creation of the earth out of nothing, or it is certain that innumerable generations of other plants and animals lived upon the earth before its present population. And when, Sunday after Sunday, men who profess to be our instructors in righteousness read out the statement, 'In six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, in innumerable churches, they are either propagating what they may easily know, and, therefore, are hound to know, to be falsities; or, if they use the words in some non-natural sense, they fall below the moral standard of the much-abused Jesuit."
Further on he says:
"And if any one is able to make good the assertion that his theology rests upon valid evidence and sound reasoning, then it appears to me that such theology will take its place as a part of science."
He proceeds to sum up his case as follows:
"The present antagonism between theology and science does not arise from any assumption by the men of science that all theology must necessarily be excluded from science, but simply because they are unable to allow that reason and morality have two weights and two measures; and that the belief in a proposition, because authority tells you it is true, or because you wish to believe it, which is a high crime and misdemeanor when the subject-matter of reasoning is of one kind, becomes under the alias of "faith" the greatest kind of all virtues, when the subject-matter of reasoning is of another kind."
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Now we know that to believe a thing because the LORD has said it, is the foundation of all wisdom and knowledge, and we believe that the theology of the New Church does, to quote Huxley's words just above, "rest upon valid evidence and sound reasoning," but how ought we to proceed in meeting such arguments as those of the essay in question?
Will the Life please give the proper solution of the difficulty, and help those who are assailed by such questions? EDWARD CRANCH, M. D.
REPLY.
MAY I suggest the question whether, after all, there is much use in meeting such arguments as those cited? It is known from doctrine that he who is in the negative cannot be convinced, for he does not wish to be; he may argue and argue, but he never advances. The desire to submit spiritual things to the test of science and reason is the essence of negation; it does not exist with those who wish to live well, for the LORD gifts such with a light higher and more interior than that of knowledge or reason-namely, the light of perception, or the ability to see truth in its own light. This is the affirmative state-the desire to seek truth from a source higher than one's self; and to this affection, where it exists, there is some hope of appealing by really "valid evidence" and "sound reason."
This state, however, may exist interiorly with him who is exteriorly in a state of doubt; for there are men who doubt before they affirm, as well as those who doubt before they deny (A. C. 2588). Such a man may present arguments similar in form to those of the extracts cited, and yet be sincerely inquiring; but I would suggest that where this is supposed to be the case, it is better to appeal to the affirmative in him, rather than to mere natural reason. Appeal to his perception that there is a God, and that there are such things as good of life and its opposite, and a life hereafter; get him to acknowledge the weakness of human nature and the need of Divine help; also the beauties of heavenly life and the horrors of infernal life; call his attention to the teachings on these subjects contained in the Word, and appeal to his truer rationality by suggesting that with such tangible good to be found in plain sight in Holy Writ, it is hardly profitable to make a stumbling-block of things not understood. Suggest that Divine things in the Word could not appear unveiled without taking away man's freedom by compulsory faith; that spiritual things must appear in another light than natural things; and that the latter can only symbolize and represent the former. Thus you lead up to instruction on the Internal Sense of the Word, and to the presentation of the Writings, which may be pretty safely left to tell their own story. Thus you may lead him to consider whether it is not "a high crime and misdemeanor when the subject-matter is of another sort" (viz., of heavenly nature) to apply to its examination the merely natural faculties of sense and sensual reasoning.
But with the agnostic scientist, however ready he may seem to argue dispassionately, it is hardly profitable to engage; it may prove detrimental, for we are taught that "by disputations the things of faith may be brought into denial" (S. D. 3493); and that "the reasonings of the sensual man, from falsities and for falsities, are in external form entirely alike in appearance as the reasonings of the spiritual man," and that they are powerfully persuasive, "because they are the utmosts of the understanding, and apply to the very senses" (A. E. 658-9). The only escape from their persuasive power is to raise the mind above sensual things; and this is not possible when you meet the sensual man on his own plane. This, however, you must do if you would debate with him; for he refuses to consult any higher light than that of nature (which, nevertheless, illumines only Nature, until rendered transparent by spiritual truth). He clips the wings with which you would soar to view below in clear sunlight the earthly things of science and reason; he compels you to come down to his argumentative level, where he either gropes and grovels, or with owl-like flight views the few things that appear below him, with vision distorted. But what can he offer you there, or you him?
It may be useful to remember that the natural zeal to convince may lead us unawares into the very error of the sensual man himself-the endeavor to enter into things of faith by the disorderly and impracticable way of the scientific and rational-i. e., by demonstration.
If I have not rightly conceived your needs, I trust you will not be discouraged from trying again.-EDITOR.
LUTHER. 1897
MR. William F. Roehner, of Philadelphia, writes for an explanation of the apparent discrepancy in the statements concerning Luther's quality and state in the other life. The True Christian Religion, n. 796, relates how the Reformer, after being vastated as to his persuasive power, came into a state of conversion to the doctrines of the New Church in advance of many others who had confirmed themselves in the same dogma of faith alone. But in the Spiritual Diary, n. 6103-7, he is said to be inclined to excite tumults, by stirring up hypocrites against those who included charity as an essential; to have been among those who wrangle about truths for the sake of self and the love of rule, and who believe they know everything better than any one else; that he had not known what charity was, nor the neighbor; and, finally, that he was a hypocrite.
To this the only reply seems to be that these things are told us of Luther with the end, among others, to give a demonstration of how grave evils may exist with a man in the world, and reappear in the other life, and yet finally be removed, if he have been in some degree internally softened and repentant before death. That this was the case with Luther appears from the explicit statement in The True Christian Religion, n. 137 (which work was written at least four years after the date of the last entry of the Diary). This passage states that Luther had renounced his errors and had been translated among the happy of the New Heaven. The posthumous work on the Last Judgment states that whenever in the world Luther had thought from his own spirit-that is, when he was left in quiet-he had thought about good works and had made them of religion. This of itself would seem to be conclusive as to his interior quality, however covered over by evils of the external man. This fact, coupled with the accounts of his worse states before his vastation, suggests whole volumes of instruction on the danger involved in passing judgment upon internals based upon the externals that appear.
Title Unspecified 1897
REPLY to the question received concerning Swedenborg's use of the term animus in "Diseases of the Fibres," as against his usage elsewhere, will have to be deferred for further study.
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LIFE OF THE NEW CHURCH. 1897
NEW CHURCH LIFE.
PUBLISHED MONTHLY BY THE ACADEMY OF THE NEW CHURCH.
TERMS:-One Dollar per annum, payable in advance.
FOUR SHILLINGS IN GREAT BRITAIN.
ADDRESS all communications for publication to the Editor, the Rev. George G. Starkey, Huntingdon Valley, Montgomery Co., Pa.
Address all business communications to Academy Book Room, Cart Hj. Asplundh, Manager, No. 1521 Wallace Street, Philadelphia. Pa.
Subscriptions also received through the following agents:
UNITED STATES.
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Denver, Col., Mr. Geo. W. Tyler, Denver Agent of Academy Book Room, No. 544 South Thirteenth Street.
Pittsburgh, Pa., Mr. W. Rott, Pittsburgh Agent of Academy Book Room, 4726 Wallingford Street.
CANADA.
Toronto, Ont., Mr. R. Carswell, No. 47 Elm Grove.
Waterloo. Mr. Rudolf Roschman.
GREAT BRITAIN.
Mr. Wiebe Posthuma, Agent for Great Britain, of Academy Book Room, Burton Road, Brixton, London. S. W.
PHILADELPHIA, MARCH, 1897=127.
CONTENTS PAGE
EDITORIAL: 33
THE SERMON: The Church's True Safety 34
Chaldea and Babylonia, V 37
ANNALS OF THE NEW CHURCH 39
Diseases of the Fibres 42
The Church of the Academy 43
A Mushroom Growth 43
THE GENERAL CHURCH 43
COMMUNICATED:
The General Church of the New Jerusalem 43
NOTES AND REVIEWS 44
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 45
LIFE OF THE NEW CHURCH 45
WANTED 48
BIRTHS AND DEATHS 48
THE ACADEMY OF THE NEW CHURCH.
Philadelphia.-ON February 5th Chancellor Benade installed the Rev. Alfred Acton as Pastor of the Particular Church of the Academy in Philadelphia. On the same occasion he announced that the College and Boys' School of the Academy Schools had been suspended, pending reorganization.
ON February 9th the three students attending the Theological School of the Academy in Philadelphia, Messrs E. J. Stebbing, D. H. Klein, and H. B. Cowley, withdrew from the School, and declared in favor of the new movement.
ON February 12th the Rev. Alfred Acton resigned his pastorate of the Particular Church in Philadelphia, and withdrew from the government of Chancellor Benade. As it seemed that the Society was practically disbanded, Mr. Benade requested Mr. Acton to take steps to wind up its affairs.
CONCERNING the action of the Board of Directors in closing the Schools of the Academy, taken on February 13th, and concerning Bishop Benade's vacating the Chancellorship, see page 43 of this number.
ON February 14th, on application of those connected with the new General Church of the New Jerusalem, the Rev. Homer Synnestvedt, acting under the appointment of Bishop Pendleton, conducted services at the residence of a member of the congregation. Since then, by courtesy of the Board of Directors of the Academy, Mr. Synnestvedt conducts services in the Hall of the Schools, on North Street.
Huntingdon Valley.-ON January 31st the congregation in Huntingdon Valley, in a meeting called to consider Bishop Benade's reply to their request to be formed into a Particular Church of the Academy, decided to answer the Bishop that they were not now ready to be formed into a Particular Church. This action was taken in consequence of Bishop Pendleton's announcement that he could not be a candidate for Pastor of the Society under Bishop Benade. He stated that he had resigned every office he had held under that gentleman, and gave his reasons. The meeting expressed full confidence in Mr. Pendleton, and a desire to enjoy his pastoral ministrations.
ON February 6th Bishop Pendleton received five priests, who like himself had withdrawn from Bishop Benade's government, under his episcopal authority, inaugurating a new body, entitled "The General Church of the New Jerusalem." (See further particulars on page 43.)
ON February 7th Bishop Pendleton announced to the congregation the formation of the new "General Church of the New Jerusalem," and outlined its principles (see page 43).
THE week beginning February 15th witnessed the opening of classes in Huntingdon Valley to meet the needs of pupils of the suspended schools, pending a new arrangement. Professor Price is in charge of the Collegiate work, assisted by Professor Odhner and the Rev. Charles E. Daring. The three theological students of the Academy are being instructed by Bishop Pendleton.
IN an informal conversation at the Club House, February 23d, on the occasion of the usual Monday evening for members, Bishop Pendleton gave a quiet but very impressive suggestions for application to present conditions. What the Church needs flow, he said, is rest. It is a time to seek the healing influence of uses, faithfully and diligently performed. Times of commotion are times of night and obscurity as to interior principles. Natural feelings having been aroused are sore, and interfere with illustration. Hence it is not a good time to press for the decision of important questions of principles. But both the spirit and substance of his utterances brought out most unmistakably that the policy was to be one of freedom for individual views and actions, that mutual confidence and co-operation were the only hope of real growth together, and that hence there would be no suppression.
Chicago.-AT a meeting of the Immanuel Church held in Glenview, February 13th, Pastor N. D. Pendleton explained the events which had occurred within the past few weeks connected with the new movement as recorded above and elsewhere in this number, and announced that having withdrawn from the Academy and joined the new movement under Bishop Pendleton, he was not longer pastor of that Particular Church of the Academy. Having listened to the documents in the case, the members-with one exception of one who wished for further deliberation-decided to withdraw from the Academy and join the new Church. Mr. Pendleton was requested to resume charge of the Society pending reorganization. A telegram to the above effect was sent to Bishop Pendleton, signed by all the members taking action. Some of those residing in Chicago were not present.
Everything is moving along as usual now; there has been considerable social life, among the features being a Book Party, a Valentine Party, and a dance on Washington's Birthday.
THE GENERAL CHURCH OF THE ADVENT.
Pittsburgh.-THE Rev. John Stephenson has resigned the pastorate of the Pittsburgh Society. This action had no connection with that of the "new movement," although it is proper to state that since then Mr. Stephenson has become identified with The General Church of the New Jerusalem.
ON February 21st, the society listened to a much enjoyed sermon by the Rev. E. J. E. Schreck, now of Detroit, Michigan. Mr. Schreck is repined to have received a three months' call from the New Church society of the latter place, and to be contemplating again associating himself with the General Convention.
GREAT BRITAIN.
Colchester.-SWEDENBORG'S Birthday was commemorated by the Colchester Society on the evening of January 29th, Mr. and Mrs. G. A. McQueen acting as host and hostess, by appointment of the Pastor. The programme included musical numbers-in response to New Church sentiments and otherwise-responses to the toasts, "Swedenborg the Revelator' (Mr. Appleton), "Swedenborg the Man of Science" (Mr. Gill), and "Swedenborg the Man" (Mr. Godfrey). Mr. Pryke recited the "Ode to Swedenborg," and eight members rendered a double quartette, "Swedenborg's Birthday." Other music, recitations, and games filled out the evening, concluding with the following chorus, sung to the tune of "Auld Lang Syne:"
As New Church friends once more we close
The hour of social life.
But ere our eyelids seek repose
Again our faith we plight.
Then let us join both heart and hand,
Here let us all unite
While firmly by the Truth we stand,
To lead a New Church life.
In connection with the report of the Secretary of the General Church of the Advent published in the January Life, it should he stated that Pastor Robinson still visits the Colchester Society once a month. Mr. Bostock also preaches there once every four weeks, and Mr. Tilson and Mr. Ottley have each made a visit within the past twelve months. The Society feels great need of a school.
WANTED. 1897
SOME one (New Church) to do chamberwork at Cairnwood, Huntingdon Valley, Pa. Please address Mrs. John Pitcairn as soon as possible.
Title Unspecified 1897
49
NEW CHURCH LIFE
Vol. XVII, No. 4
PHILADELPHIA, APRIL, 1897=127
Whole No. 198.
Editorial. 1897
NOTE.
THE announcements of policy that have been made by the new General Church of the New Jerusalem, indicate no radical departure from principles held heretofore by the men who now represent that form of the organized Church; but we note two special features which certainly have been neglected in the more recent pest, and we are glad to look forward to a revival of those two essential elements of Church life,-Council and Assembly.
Title Unspecified 1897
"COUNCIL" we understand to mean all that is involved in the free, rational co-operation of men who are working together for the advancement of the things of doctrine and of life, and who thus compose the Church. In whatever is done by a church the voice of those interested has place in degree and manner according to function. While it is clear that nothing can be accomplished without government and administration of the affairs concerned, it ought to be equally clear that no true government is possible without the free consent of the governed. This necessitates the taking of counsel together. The spiritual objects of church government cannot be attained in any other way. It matters not that this truth may be abused and has been abused by those who, disregarding order, invade the functions of others, and so make their own freedom to consist in taking away the freedom of others: abuse does not take away use, except in regard to those who do this (D. L. W. 331). In so far as a true spirit of council prevails the Church will never be rent by discord or schism. Under it differences of view will result only in uniting the closer on essentials; or, where that proves impossible, it will lead to amicable separations, such as will produce only the greater charity because the greater freedom to ultimate charity according to conscience and judgment.
Title Unspecified 1897
"ASSEMBLY," as applied to the Church, means the coming together at stated times, of the membership thereof, as fully as may be. This principle of practice is believed to be essential to the vitality of a church. The brethren of the church need the strength of the common sphere, the contact of a variety of states of affection and thought, harmonized by a common holy purpose and vivified by personal communication. Without this it is hard to conceive of a real homogeneity and concert of feeling and action-without it the Church will be "general" in name only, and will gradually come to be composed of confederated but practically independent centres, each absorbed in its own local interests and liable to a consequent contraction of views and of sympathies.
Title Unspecified 1897
"THERE are certain objects of thought in which, when man is held in them, or his reflection is detained upon them by spirits, create much annoyance, as especially concerning those things which are his own, and things which are to come, [as] much experience establishes: As often as it was given to think concerning my garden, concerning him who has it, concerning being recalled home, concerning money, concerning the disposition of those who were known to me, what [it was], concerning the things which were to be written, how they would be accepted by men, that they would not be understood, concerning new garments which were to be acquired, and many such things-when I was detained in that reflection for a long time, spirits would immediately throw in inconvenient, annoying, evil things, with confirmations and cupidities: and I observed that when I had not been in the thought of such things for months and years I never had care [about them], still less did they give any annoyance. These are the reflections of thought which, the longer any one is held in them the more he is infested by evil spirits.
"Thence are the melancholies of many, debility of mind and deliriums, as well as insanities and phantasies; for those who are thus held in thought concerning spiritual things, concerning the life after death, concerning misfortunes-then [into such persons] spirits from their proprium infuse many things which are of the memory, and hold them long, even to insanity and phantasy: wherefore they who are in solitude of life easily fall into such things, for they are dissipated by variety and society" (S. D. 3624, 3625).
Title Unspecified 1897
This passage seems to give us insight into the other world and into the causes of much of the narrowness, suspicion, unfriendliness, and cliquishness to which even well-disposed people are at times liable. What a dispeller of such unwholesome mental mists should annual assemblies prove. To those who love the Church and the neighbor, how greatly should such occasions appeal. Society enlarges the range of spiritual associations, stirs the spiritual atmospheres, modifies states, and by actual contact with others conduces to broader conceptions of uses and a livelier sense of charity in the neighbor.
Title Unspecified 1897
IT is to be hoped that the General Assembly in Huntingdon Valley (announced on the last page), may be notable for the fullness of attendance. Questions are to be considered vital to the future of the Church as it exists with us whose loves are determined to certain well-known uses. So long as belief in those uses, and in each other as loving those uses, prevails, the solution of those questions is safe and assured; but in order that the principles of Council and Assembly may be most fully carried out the meeting should he not only representative but as far as possible, general.
"CELESTIAL DEMOCRACY" 1897
THE New Church Messenger (December 2d) takes the surprising position that the government of the celestial heaven is a heavenly democracy. It says, editorially:
" . . . in the higher heavens there is such a common perception of what is righteous that no rulers are required, and the LORD is said to rule.
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To our mind that is pre-eminently a democracy-it is the heavenly form of democracy."
And it quotes from Heaven and Hell:
"Government in the LORD'S celestial kingdom is of the LORD alone. He leads them and teaches them in the affairs of life. The truths which are called truths of judgment are written on their hearts; every one knows, sees, and perceives them" (H. H. 214).
To construe this to mean that every one there acts according to no other order than that existing within himself, seems like ascribing to that heaven not democracy but anarchy. What is Order but Mediation? Immediate influx or government from the LORD could not be received. The very passage cited should dispel the idea, for it reads: "The less wise interrogate the more wise on these points, and the latter the LORD, and receive answers."
It is plain then that government by Divine Truth prevails there, and by mediation, only the form is one suited to the celestial state-it is one not of command, but of instruction. Matters of judgment are not brought into controversy there, but matters of justice relating to life; and these clothe themselves not in the rational and argumentative forms that prevail in the spiritual heaven, but in that interior intellectual form called" perception." They do not discuss abstract propositions of doctrine, but each particular form of actual use presenting itself in the current of their lives calls forth perception applicable to the case-not doctrine stored in the memory; and if the state of wisdom with any one does not suffice to meet a given case, perception teaches him not to try to reach a solution by argumentative process, but by consulting the perception of those wiser ones whose function it is to teach in such cases. Whatever be the common understanding of the word "government," who can doubt that the very essence of government resides with those wiser ones whose teachings, (under the LORD'S Own supervision) direct the affairs of the celestial heavens?
Democracy is defined as "a form of government in which the supreme power is retained and directly exercised by the people," or, where the supreme power is indirectly exercised through representation whereof the delegated authority is periodically renewed. "Collectively, the people regarded as the source of government" (Webster). The contrast is evident.
DEVELOPMENT OF FREEDOM BY SCIENCE AND DELIGHT. 1897
Freedom and Choice.
HUMAN co-operation in the development of childish receptacles of life should ever be guided by the truth that life is free. In order that he may freely receive life the child is to be initiated into freedom. "Whatever man does from freedom according to his thought, is appropriated to him as his and remains" (D. P. 78). In order that what man does may he his own it must be done in freedom, but it must be done according to his thought, or else it is not perceived as his own. At birth the child has no thought, and affection only in rudimentary forms. To develop the thought, according to revealed laws of life and freedom, and thereby to develop freedom and affection, is the educator's work. But since he has only to do with the natural, in which are conflicting loves and hence opposite freedoms, all that he can hope for as a final result is equilibrium, in which there can finally be a choice between freedoms.
True freedom consists in right willing, right thinking, and right doing. Freedom involves unlimited expansiveness of life-of doing what has been made of the love and life, and this is possible only when good is willed and truth is thought and right is done; for whatever runs counter to the LORD'S good runs counter to the flow of the One Only Life, the flow of the Divine Providence-and thus necessarily runs into its own limitation, restriction, and punishment, and into the destruction of its own life or delight. Hence freedom is life, but sin is spiritual suicide. But there is an opposite to true freedom, which, though really it is slavery and death, has an appearance of delight and life, arising from the inherent capacity for the genuine things themselves which resides in the faculties thus abused. Between these two opposite freedoms the child must he taught to discriminate in his thought, so that in after life he may separate them in his affection and life, and by a right choice between them, be purified. His capacity to sense qualities must be developed. Hence education looks to developing thought only for the sake of affection which is the sensitive life, which nevertheless first becomes conscious by and in the thought.
All faculties of perception, whereby discrimination is exercised, are from affection; therefore to train the mind to discriminate is to train it in affection. The origin of the faculty of discrimination lies in the capacity of the child to become a form of love. By affection here only the affection of good is meant, for from good evil can be seen, but from evil good cannot be seen; for without good evil itself seems good because delightful. To the uninstructed child the delights of natural loves all seem good, for it is not yet in any genuine good from which there can be perception of the quality of evil; therefore the discrimination must begin with the educator. But it must not stop there; for this is only a means to an end which regards the child's own life and faculties. Education is not concerned with acts in themselves, for acts may be directed by another, from whom they to that extent derive quality. What is wanted is that the child may learn to govern his acts according to his own discrimination, and thus to determine his choice and quality of life by the development of his own form of love. The wisdom of the educator is, to know each stage of preparatory loves, and the timely and suitable treatment for each, until the age is reached which brings capacity for genuine spiritual love and with it the rights and responsibilities of manhood. But more particulars on this head will be in place later.
Freedom is the freedom to do right; but how is this lesson to be so impressed upon the child as shall enable it to so use its faculty of freedom as freely to conjoin itself with the endeavor and flow of the Divine Providence? How shall we avoid infringing the natural freedom of the child and yet prepare it for the final sacrifice of that freedom, which must precede the reception of heavenly freedom? By cultivating the perceptive of good through the medium of scientific good, or the affection of knowing.
Affection and Science.
The perceptive of good is developed by truth-and indeed by the scientific of truth. In the LORD good and truth are infinitely One, but in man they are separate; nevertheless they are to be conjoined in order that man may become an image of the LORD. Good inflows by an internal way, but truth enters by an external way, and the two are conjoined in man's natural mind, which is the seat of his conscious life and the ultimate of order, where Divine action terminates and man's reaction begins.
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Good is implanted by the LORD; truth is acquired by man. The conjunction of the two is effected by the good of love on the LORD'S part and by the good of truth on man's part; for good is the all of conjunction. The good (or affection) of truth is the LORD'S with man.
There are two states from which celestial light comes: the first is that into which man is introduced from infancy, for it is well known that infants are in innocence and in the goods of love, which are things celestial, into which they are first introduced by the LORD, and which are treasured up in then for their use in succeeding periods of their existence upon earth, and when they come into the other life: these are what are called the first or earliest remains, of which we have so often spoken above. The other state is when man is introduced into things spiritual and celestial by knowledges, which ought to be implanted in the celestial things given from infancy (A. C. 1548).
The beginnings of all loves are implanted by the LORD, within, but the calling forth of life is from without, by truth, and indeed by the form of truth, distinct from its essence; for the essence of truth is good: they are one and indivisible Truth from without gives form; good from within gives substance and life. It is the scientific of truth, which man may take hold of, as of something inanimate like an instrument. Manifestly, whatever enters man from without must of itself be without any life, for the influx of life is only from within outward, and not the reverse. What is living, namely affection, flows down or out, into forms which are dead, but these when they are in correspondence are receptacles, and by reception they become as it were alive; that is, the descending affection becomes molded into form and thus derives actual existence. Nevertheless the form taken on from nature is not the real form of the affection, but only represents and manifests that form. Thus it is that by the scientific of truth man prepares himself for reception, while the LORD infills that form with living truth which is good. Man must know good before he can choose it and receive it; hence the first good, with the child, is called scientific good. Whatever affects man, through the senses or from without, is called "a scientific," for it conveys knowledge. All other scientifics are designed only to serve to introduce the scientifics of the Word.
Life cannot be appropriated by man until it is perceived as if it were his own, and this is effected by impressions received from without-that is, through scientifics. His senses are formed to receive no other impressions than come from the world; no organic forms have yet been developed whereby he can perceive interior things, and at flint he knows no other sense or life than that of nature. He seems to himself to derive his life from without, yet the influx is really from within out, the only direction in which influx is possible. It is the life of affections in the external or sensual of the natural mind, flowing out through their organs the senses, which gives man sensation. The sensation of life is in externals, where internals terminate and rest, and there is where the LORD speaks to man and invites him to prepare himself to receive life: He bestows Himself on man by influx of good from within, but He reveals Himself for reception by means from without, which are truths-that is, scientifics.
To the end that the life of affection implanted in man's interiors may be not only of the LORD but also of man, and that thus conjunction of the man with the LORD maybe possible, good must come to man in the external form of truth, whereby he may see it as outside of himself, may choose it, do it and incorporate it into the habit of life. Man of himself cannot conjoin truth to good, but he can receive the truth in its scientific form, such as can enter by the way of the senses; and the scientifics of truth, when incorporated in the memory or external of the mind, receive as into a body truth from the LORD, the inseparable consort of which is good.
Scientifics, then, usher loves into the world of man's sensitive perception, thus they introduce man into natural life. And when man is fully formed for adult life, and his mind well stored with the affections-affections of sense, of knowing, and of understanding, with their ideas of thought-even then, in the opening up of that wholly new plane of existence-the spiritual which all his natural education has been but the preparation, it is still by scientifics that he is to be initiated there into; but the scientifics are to be of another and more interior kind.
Thus the whole work of education is a process of impressing upon man's sensation and perception, in forms adequate thereto, Divine Truth; while his capacity to feel and perceive receives its life from the good with which the LORD from within affects him. The forms which when presented awake the senses into activity and life, seem to be the source of life, and hence man's life seems derived from the world, and the power so to derive it seems inherent in himself. This appearance is of mercy, in order that he may be in freedom to learn and know and acknowledge the contrary to be true, and thus freely place himself in the order of reception, by which true life may come to him. Stripped of appearances, education is the LORD'S impressing Himself upon man, internally as to the seeds of life, externally as to the apperception of life, and both internally and externally as to reception and conjunction.
The LORD, by forms in nature, or from nature, which are so many types of His love, speaks to the child through the senses, speaks to the affections that make the child, and calls them forth into activity and life. Every form that enters by touch, sight, hearing, smell, or taste, while appearing to reach only the bodily affections immediately connected with the senses, draws from its Divine Source the capability of opening up loves lying interior to those external ones, extending in a series inward and upward to the very first forms recipient of life.
"In Nature see God" is no mere figure of speech, for the world of Nature is a complex of all things of the Divine Love and Wisdom in ultimate or representative form; upon it rests the whole spiritual universe, and upon impressions derived from it rest all conceptions of God and all development of interior life. The same mother-touch which (instinct with love) awakes in the babe its first obscure sense of life, when impressed by the wife upon the senses of the consort may serve to call forth in him a regenerative response to the loving Mercy whence descends conjugial love and heavenly life. Indeed, the wisdom of the highest angel is based upon forms stored in the ultimates of his mind by similar soft touches. Love is what calls forth love, and to the unconscious love-springs in the infant mind all nature speaks of love, calling forth unseen ears to hear and opening the dawning faculty of sight to see things which will not be visible at a later stage of growth. From inmost things in the soul the LORD flows into outmost things of the body, and thereby builds up and arranges intermediates-the things of the mind, natural and spiritual. Thus earth is to become the footstool and heaven the throne of God. But before that comes earth and heaven will seem far enough apart, when the proprium becomes active.
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Innocence the first of life.
From the number quoted above (A. C. 1643) we learn that the first of celestial light is from innocence. This is an inclination to be led by the LORD and to make self nothing, which self really is. The inclination to this holy love is implanted and impressed upon man's very inmost while borne in the womb (A. E. 710 [a]), and is the ground in which may be sown every heavenly affection. Innocence is the inmost of all remains which follow, and of every affection which is capable of being made serviceable to spiritual life.
The ground of innocence is ignorance, which is a state of receiving everything from the LORD. Man is born an empty vessel, utterly void of life; but this very emptiness is what makes him plastic and receptive of life from the One Life. So far, then, as man is ignorant, he is capable of being formed to reception. Thus in the implantation of the first things of life or the first reception of love, namely, the good of ignorance and innocence, man is wholly passive and unconscious; the LORD is forming him in the womb. What is analogous to this state of ignorance and helplessness-typified by the embryo and by the new-born infant-exists in every new state into which man comes-ignorant and dependent wholly upon what is to be given him. Innocence is the fundamental of all progress.
This is the state of receiving the vital springs of love from the LORD; but that love, though it animates his interiors, cannot be appropriated to him-cannot be more than adjoined to him until it descends to his exteriors, where conscious thought, feeling, and action reside-not until he knows, acknowledges, and perceives his ignorance, and confirms in his thought the truth that all things come from the LORD. When he puts away the appearance (that life flows in from the world and is appropriated by his own proper power) he knows and gladly believes that every moment of life is the free gift of the LORD, and it becomes delight and happiness to perceive the Divine Will being done daily in his life through the power to co-operate which is mercifully adjoined to him-adjoined that it may be directed and devoted by him to the LORD, as if of himself. In education, therefore, the preservation of innocence is primary, essential, and universal. It is the first thing of the LORD'S Operation, for it is what makes man human-i. e., capable of receiving the LORD.
Human education begins with the entrance of the child upon the stage of natural life and sense-of scientifics. Before that, life is of the LORD alone, and not of the embryo-man's, a state of which we know little, only that whatever there may be impressed upon the sensorium is not consciously perceived; yet there must be a plane of reaction analogous to the scientific, as a basis for the implantation of the first forms of love-that is, of life.
There are remains proper to the inmost degree or soul of man, others to the rudimentary spiritual mind, others to the rudimentary natural mind, and it may be inferred that there is something analogous in that internal of the body, which furnishes the clothing of the natural mind, derived from the inmosts of Nature.
Remains are states of innocence, peace, mercy, and charity implanted in rudimentary form in the initial forms of man's spiritual nature, and also all those insinuated by scientific, or experience, from parents, and other friends and guardians, also all instruction from the Word impressed upon the memory. Thus they include both celestial and spiritual things. Infancy is the time when celestials are insinuated, for love is the fundamental; and indeed this takes place without knowledges, for celestials inflow and affect before man knows what love is (A. C. 1450). That affect-ion is the first of life.
As every good affection which is excited in the natural constitutes a plane for the insinuation of remains, it is evidently an important consideration to provide scientifics suitable and conducive to the process. There are scientifics proper to the will and others pertaining to the understanding; and there is a similar distinction among the senses by which scientifics enter. The sense of touch is especially dedicated to the will, for it corresponds to the affection of good, the universal of all life (A. C. 4404). Taste corresponds to the affection of knowing, and smell to that of perceiving, both referring more to the will. Sight and hearing correspond to the affection of understanding and of learning and obedience, evidently referring more to the intellect
In infancy, the age of helplessness and ignorance, and hence of celestial influences, love comes first. Bodily or lowest things are to be developed first, as a basis for highest things. By touch inmost things are implanted, for touch from material things insinuates into the vacuity of the infant mind the first impression of "being" and of "substance," the basis of knowledge concerning the One Substance and Being. Things sweet, bland, and nourishing serve to insinuate that the One Divine Being nourishes and gives delight to His creatures. And so on. From the very general nature of these scientific or sensual impressions we see the Providence in thus placing infants in celestial care, with comparative independence of the character of parents; though, indeed, there are comparatively few mothers who will not reflect something of the celestial sphere peculiar to maternity, to the extent of giving their babe soft caresses and careful nursing. Yet even in the offspring of degradation and depravity there never fails celestial implantation of remains of heavenly life.
ENTERING INTELLECTUALLY INTO THE ARCANA OF FAITH. 1897
(This sermon is the concluding one of a series by the Rev. Alfred Acton (begun in the Life last November), expounding the Fifteenth Psalm; preached during the season of 1895-6.)
"Whoso doeth these things shall not be commoved to Eternity." (Psalm xv, 5.)
THESE closing words of the 15th Psalm teach us who are they who will be of the New Church of the LORD, and who hence will be protected against the assaults of the evils of hell, to eternity. For the Psalm treats universally of "The New Church in place of the former," that is to say of the beginning, the growth and the final establishment of the New Church; therefore in the light of this sense, and for this sense, we must examine every least word, every jot and tittle of the Psalm.
It is said "Whoso doeth these things shall not be commoved to eternity." The word "these," or-as it is in the published music-"this," refers in general to the third verse of the Psalm, where it is said, "He that walketh entire" (or "perfect"). Thus the text might he read, "He that walketh thus entire shall never be commoved;" that is to say, the New Church, to which it refers, is a perfect church which shall endure forever, which shall continue in heavenly prosperity in spite of the assaults of the evil and of hell. For "not being commoved to eternity" can only be predicated of the LORD, and of those who receive His life in human fullness; thus of the Celestial who alone are perfect or 'entire men, and in fact are the only ones who can properly be called MEN, images of the Divine Man.
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These, and a church of these, shall never be commoved.
The Church is the LORD received in the heart of man, consequently, the Lord in man constitutes the Church; the quality of a church is therefore determined by the appearance of the LORD to that church; but that appearance is not arbitrarily determined by the LORD, but it in according to the capacity of reception among men-that is to say, according to the state of men. The LORD never changes. He is ever the same LORD; in the Most Ancient Church, in the Ancient Church, in the first Christian, and in the New Church, man alone has changed in his capacity of seeing and receiving the LORD. This must be borne well in mind, else will we fall into obscurity and perchance into heresy. On either side of the truth are the two extremes, the one that "the Church . . . derives the whole of its attributes or qualities . . . from the members of whom it is organized;" and the other, that the quality of a church is entirely independent of man's state. If a church derived its quality, or the whole of its character from its members, it would be worse than conceit, it would be profanity, for us to call this New Church a Celestial, a perfect Church, for the LORD alone is perfect; and if on the other hand man's state has nothing to do with the quality of a church, then would it seem strange that one church should be celestial and another spiritual, when the LORD is unchanging. The LORD alone constitutes the Church, but the presence of the LORD in His revelation to men is according to men's capacity of reception.
In the Most Ancient Church, because men were not ruled by the proprium, the LORD was seen as Divine Love appearing before the eyes of their spirit in a Divine Human Form, instructing and guiding them. Hence that Church was a Celestial Church-that is to say, a truly heavenly Church. But as the proprium of man gained the ascendancy over Celestial love, men's eyes became blinded to the LORD thus appearing, and the Church came to its end. Hence, that He might still appear to men-that a Church might yet be established with them-the LORD provided that He should he seen by them in and through the teaching of the former Church, thus as the Divine Truth in which was Divine Good. This was the measure of their capacity of reception.
To the First Christian Church the LORD appeared as a Man, but because men were in a sensual state, He was not seen by them in the fulness of His Glory. In the Human, the Divine was obscure. The LORD foreseeing this said to His disciples, "I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot hear them now." When this First Christian Church was judged, by reason of obscurity and heresy prevailing, those who had rejected the LORD were cast into Hell, and those who had received Him were instructed and formed into a new Heaven-a Heaven based on the acknowledgment of the LORD in His Divine Human.
Then the time was ripe for the appearance of the LORD in the Fulness of His Glory-as Jehovah Himself, immediately present and known to men. This be- came possible at that time, not because men were then any less sensual than those of the First Christian Church, but because by the judgment of those who had rejected the LORD, all who will reject Him were already judged, nor can they any more permanently infest the Church and suffocate influx from Heaven, as was formerly the case; and by the institution of a New Heaven which worships the LORD in His Human, a basis and a plane given from which and by which influx can come to men, ever strengthening them in the acknowledgment of the LORD, and preserving them for fuller and fuller enlightenment concerning Him, and closer and closer conjunction with Him.
Thus the LORD has now appeared to His New Church as the DIVINE MAN revealed in His perfection. Order is eternally preserved in the spiritual world, the LORD has provided that men can, and He foresees that men will, receive Him in all the Glory of His Divine Appearance. Hence this Church is Celestial-it is perfect-it is eternal.
This appearance of the LORD to his New Church is described in the Supreme Sense of the Fifteenth Psalm:
"O LORD, who shall sojourn in Thy Tent? who shall dwell in the mountain of Thy holiness? He that walketh entire and doeth justice and speaketh the truth in His heart. . . . He that doeth this shall not be commoved to eternity." This means that the LORD has now revealed Himself, or can now be seen by men, as the Divine Good and the Divine Truth which was in the beginning with the Most Ancient Church, and this in a human form-in the form of a Man seen before the eyes of the world, in Whom and by Whom Divine Justice and Divine Truth are present with man. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and God was the Word. . . . And the Word was made Flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld His Glory." And because this appearance is a full one, because the whole LORD is I seen, therefore it will be eternal, and the Church acknowledging Him will be everlasting. "Whoso doeth this shall not be commoved to eternity."
This, then is the quality the New Church.-It is truly Heavenly-it is Celestial-not that the men of the church are celestial, but that they can become, and some will become, Celestial.
This truth as to the New Church is further taught us in the Memorable Relation read in the first lesson (T. C. R. 508). There it is said that Swedenborg entered into a magnificent temple, in which was a pulpit suffused with light from the opened Word which lay upon it, and in the midst of the temple was a shrine within which was a cherub of gold, and the veil of which was uplifted. On the gate or door of the temple Swedenborg read the inscription "Nunc Licet" (T. C. R. 508).
This was a visual representation, a representation before the eyes of Swedenborg, of the Quality of the New Church. The opened Word shedding light on the pulpit represents that the Priesthood of that Church will teach the interior truths of the Word now revealed by the LORD, in which and from which it will have illustration. The shrine, in the midst of which was a cherub of gold, and whose veil was uplifted, represents the Letter of the Word, in which the LORD, who has revealed Himself as the Word, is seen and worshiped-which is the very inmost and foundation of the New Church, and by which is communication with the Angelic Heaven-that is to say, with the Celestial Heaven. The watchword of this Church is Nunc Licet. Note, at this time when the LORD has appeared in His Glory, every man can if he will receive interior light from Heaven, and in that light can enter into the arcana of Faith-can see the LORD Himself, who is the Divine Truth in His Word, and can he instructed by Him in the inmost thing of Wisdom.
Observe the force of the word nunc; name licet. Now it is allowed. It has never before been possible for man to thus interiorly approach the LORD since the time of the Most Ancient Church, and not even then in fulness.
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It is said in the Word that Adam was cast out of the Garden of Eden, by which is signified that the Most Ancient Church came to its end because it turned from the LORD to self. The LORD then "made cherubs to dwell at the east of the garden, and the flame of a sword turning itself this way and that, to guard the way of the tree of lives." By this is signified that when the Most Ancient Church came to its end it was provided by the LORD, that there should be no possible entrance, into the arcana of Faith; because otherwise men would enter from the proprium and would profane. This guarding the way to the arcana of Faith against any entrance by man, is represented by cherubs; and therefore cherubs were used in the Ancient Church to signify this; and in the Jewish Church cherubs were set above the Ark in the Holy of Holies, to represent that the Word was so guarded that the Israelites could not enter into the least things thereof, for they were of such a quality that profanation and destruction would otherwise have resulted (A. C. 306-308).
The Most Ancient Church saw the LORD Himself, Him they worshiped, and from Him they were taught the Heavenly Arcana of Faith. But with the fall of that Church men could no longer enter thus into Faith, because by the Destruction of Celestial love-which is love to the LORD-the direct approach to Him was also destroyed, and He could be seen only through others-that is to say, through the Most Ancients. Men could learn truths only derivatively through the Celestial Heaven, by means of the doctrines collected and preserved from the Most Ancient Church. Concerning this we read in the Arcana Coelestia:
"The human mind consists of two parts, of the will and the understanding; Love or Good is of the Will, Faith or truth is of the understanding. From Love or Good the Most Ancients perceived what was of Faith or Truth, thus they had one mind. . . . It is different with those in whom there is not Celestial, but spiritual seed, such as are those who lived after the Flood, and those who live at the resent time. They have no love, thus no will of good, but still Faith can be given, or the understanding of truth, and from Faith they can be led to a certain charity, but by another way, and indeed by conscience insinuated by the LORD, from the knowledges of Good and Truth of Faith" (A. C. 310).
But now at this day it is again possible to enter into the arcana of Faith. Nunc Licet. The LORD has again revealed Himself to man so that all can approach Him directly and can receive Love or Good from Him, by which they will he enabled to perceive Him present in Person in His Word-to enter intellectually into the arcana of Faith.
To the man of the New Church it is now permitted to thus see the LORD, to thus enter intellectually into the arcana of Faith; and who is the man of the New Church taught in the Psalm before us:
"O LORD who shall sojourn in Thy Tent? who shall dwell in the mountain of Thy Holiness? He that walketh entire and doeth justice and speaketh the truth in his heart. He detracteth not with his tongue, he doeth not to his companion evil, and shame he putteth not upon his neighbor. Contemned in his eyes is the reprobate, but they that fear the LORD he honoreth. He sweareth to afflict himself and changeth not. His silver he giveth not into usury, and a gift against the innocent he accepteth not. Whoso doeth these things shall not be commoved to eternity."
Let me now read this according to the spiritual sense of the words.
O LORD who shall approach and worship Thee as the Divine Good and the Divine Truth now appearing to Thy Church? The man whose life from Thee is entire, whose will is to do Thy Justice and to think Thy Truth; who shuns hatred against the neighbor, against the Church, against Thee; who loathes and rejects the promptings of his proprium, of his own loves; and honors and treasures the Good and Truth which are from Thee; who afflicts himself and his own affections, and steadfastly pursues the path which leads to Thee; and who does this, not from any hope of reward-not from any thought of merit or desert, not from any feeling of pride and conceit in his own powers, his own goodness- but from Thee; and to Thee he ascribes all and all power over evil. Such a man shall be of Thy New Church and of Thy New Heaven, and protected by Thee shall not be commoved by the evils and falses of the proprium-yea not to eternity.
Here is presented a picture of the man to whom "nunc licet" is addressed, to whom it is now lawful to enter intellectually into the arcana of Faith.
The statement that now it is lawful to enter intellectually into the arcana of Faith, has been sadly limited and misunderstood by the members of the New Church. It has been construed as meaning merely that the Writings of the Church show forth her doctrines so plainly that all men of well-balanced mind can see and understand them. This makes the reception and acknowledgment of the doctrines a matter of intellectual sight only. Men who think this constantly wish truth to be shown them in natural light, and constantly regard the Writings from the lumen of the world, deeming this to be the intellectual entrance into the mysteries of Faith. The teachings of the Writings are obscure to them because they cannot always see them with the natural eyes-that is, grasp them with the natural mind. They forget that ever since the LORD separated man's will from his understanding men could elevate the understanding and grasp the truths of faith, and yet that it is only now, at this time and in this Church, that it is possible to enter intellectually into the mysteries of Faith. They forget also that spiritual truths are not matters of ratiocination, of ocular demonstration, or of natural proof, but of spiritual sight, of spiritual perception; that while man should confirm such truths in the natural mind, still the inability to so confirm them should not, and with the spiritual does not, blind the eyes to the perception of them.
While the fact that the doctrines of the New Church are so plain that all fair-minded men can understand them, is not to be excluded from the meaning of "Nunc Licet," still if that watchword of the Church he limited to this, or if it is made to primarily apply to it, and still more if this position is confirmed-falsity arises which will obscure the spiritual sight to all conception of the arcana of Faith.
To enter intellectually into the arcana of Faith refers to the spiritual intellect of man, the understanding of his love; it is to see the LORD Himself in the Word, in which is all Faith, and from that sight to perceive the teachings of the Word to be true, thence to enter into them and embrace them because they are true. They who do this can see in the revelation given to the Church the LORD Himself speaking to His Church words of the profoundest wisdom, and arcana of Faith never before known to man. And none can do this except they who approach the LORD and receive from Him the affection of truth which He gives when man shuns evils as sins against Him.
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Others may, indeed, enter from the understanding into some of the arcana of Faith; but this is only entering by the intellect into the dogmas of Faith; for the arcana which they understand are not with them matters of internal belief, but of mere intellectual acknowledgment from dogmas laid up in the memory. Such men do not enter intellectually into the arcana of Faith, for the more their ideas are opened up, the less is the LORD seen, and self-intelligence becomes more apparent; with them the arcana of Faith consist of words within which are no spiritual ideas. It is of such man that Swedenborg speaks when, after explaining the words "Nunc Licet," he adds: "When this writing was seen, it fell into my thought that it is an immensely different thing to enter by the understanding into the dogmas of Faith which are inflated by self-intelligence."
But with those who approach the LORD every arcanum of Faith which they learn and perceive from Him, when opened up, is seen to contain more and more interior arcana, and within all is the LORD Himself. It is because these only enter intellectually into the arcana of Faith, that it is so often said in the Writings, "These things-that is to say, these arcana-are for those who will be of the New Church;" and again, "I perceive that none will accept this except those who will be of the New Church;" and yet again, "The doctrine of the New Church will not remain except with those who approach the LORD ;" and at the close of a small work Swedenborg says, "One memorable thing is to be adduced, viz: that all things of the New Church appear before one in illustration in the light of truth."
The whole of the Writings is addressed to the good-to those who will approach the LORD and shun evils as sins against Him, and these alone can enter intellectually into the arcana of Faith.
It is the sphere of the old and devastated Church-the sphere of Faith alone, which crowns the doctrines of that Church-that affecting us, causes the thought that the entering intellectually into the Arcana of Faith consists of the mere grasp and understanding of the revealed doctrines; and although many of the members of the Church may not express this thought in words, yet all of us are more or less affected by it. Nor is this to be wondered at. As to our spirits we are now and actually in the world of spirits, and that world is at this day filled with the solafidians-with those who have cared nought for obedience to the LORD, but have believed themselves to be justified and sanctified and cleansed by Faith alone. These are the bitterest foes of the New Church. They are our real, our spiritual enemies, they that kill not the body but the soul; and it is to warn us against them that we are so often taught concerning the Old Church-her doctrines and her machinations against the LORD. They dwell in our evils and thence infest us. We all feel their influence; for who is there among you who has not perceived in himself that he has been content with acknowledging the doctrines, with holding forth concerning them, and this without reflecting on them for the purpose of amending his own life? Who of you has not been satisfied with the knowledge that you belong to the New Church, that you acknowledge her doctrines, that you see their truth clearly, and yet has not gone forward and provided that those doctrines, those truths, enter into your daily life-make you shun evils as sins-make you shun wicked lusts and proud and slanderous thoughts? This is Faith alone, Faith alone which assails us all.
But woe to him who confirms himself therein; who continues to profess the LORD and does not the things which the LORD commands. Of such it is said that they cannot recede except with the most serious repentance; for they have conjoined themselves with the solafidians, the dragonists in the other world, and these from their undying hatred of the LORD and His New Church produce with them such blindness that spiritual truths become loathsome, except when surrounded with the spheres of honor and of gain. This every man can know if he reflects on his own states of life.
Such men, though they may belong to the congregation of the Church, yet are not of the Church; they are instruments of the dragon to infest and destroy the Church. Their thought infests and their love destroys. No congregation of the Church, consisting of such men, can possibly grow. For the New Church is not a mere figure, a mere representative as was the Jewish Church; it is a living church even in its external organization, and to exist, it must consist of living men-men who love its doctrines and live its life. External support, regular attendance, sound teaching of doctrine-these will not make the Church living, will not make the congregation of the church living; there must be reception of the words of truth in the heart, and repentance and reformation of life. Without these the Church will languish and finally die away or become mingled with the devastated Church.
The New Church must grow from within and not from without. It must grow by an increased perception of the LORD and His Divine Good and Truth, by an ever more interior intellectual entrance into the arcana of Faith, and this can come only by closer conjunction with the LORD. Only as men shun the evils of their will can they see the LORD, can enter intellectually into the mysteries of Faith. And how difficult and slow a work is this with us! How uninteresting, how undelightful are spiritual truths! How irksome are thoughts of true Christian charity! How often do we find selfish and worldly loves or lusts the objects of meditation, of delightful imagination, and secret worship and adoration! By our own lusts we are in the sphere of the old and devastated Church, and it is an extremely difficult and slow process for us to enter the new. The old clings to our will, it infests our thought and blinds lit to the light, and hence the growth of the New Church is slow-very, very slow (A. R. 547, A. K 732).
I refer not so much to the external growth, though this also is included-for as the Church grew in man, so it will grow among men. But I refer principally to the interior growth of the Church, to growth in perception and from perception in the intellectual entrance unto the arcana of Faith, to the establishment of the Church of the LORD in the heart of man. The old must first be cast out, and this is battle-it is warfare, and oft there is apparent backward movement, and oft there is apparent failure. The New Church is far from being established-it can hardly be said to be begun; it is in its initiament, in the preparation for its beginning. It will only be established when men actually see the LORD in His Word-perceive that the truths which He reveals are His own speaking voice; and man cannot perceive this until the state of Faith alone with him is utterly broken down-until, by a life of reformation and regeneration, he approaches the LORD alone and interiorly perceives that He alone is good and himself nothing but evil. And then-with the perception that it is the LORD who speaks-will come the perception of the truth of His Word. But so filled is the world with wickedness and its falsities, so filled is the world of spirits with the enemies of the Church, and so prone are we to let our loves conjoin us with those enemies, that this state of the establishment of the New Church in its glory, in its perfection, will be a work of many, many generations-yea, of ages.
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Still it is important that we see and acknowledge these truths concerning the glory and supereminence of this New Church of the LORD, for thereby only can we realize that man does not make the Church, but the LORD alone; can thus look to Him alone for the establishment of the Church within us. He has come to us in His glory and in His Power; and in His loving mercy He has sent forth an invitation to the whole world to His Church-to go forward and meet Him (Abomination, ad finem). And this invitation is given because with it the LORD gives the power to accept.
Let us then as members of this congregation of the New Church, in which the LORD has given us spiritual food and spiritual drink, go forward to meet Him, and in humble gratefulness for His great goodness submit ourselves as willing instruments in His hands for the hastening of the end of His creation.
For though it will be long, very long, ere the New Church is fully established on the earth, yet spite of this there is nothing but ourselves to prevent each one of! us from reaping the full benefit of the LORD'S Loving Revelation of Himself. The teaching of the text-the teaching of the whole 15th Psalm-shows us the way-is itself the way. Humbly approach the LORD as He has revealed Himself-shun conceit and the pride of self-intelligence, and learning from Him alone shun as deadly evils the evil loves which are stirred up within us. Only reflect on spiritual truths, on the other world on the LORD as the God of Heaven and Earth, perform the work of self-examination, and do the work of repentance, and the LORD will lead you to perceive Himself in His Word, and will inspire you with love from which you may enter intellectually into the hidden, celestial things of Faith, and become a true and living member of the New Jerusalem Church.
"Whoso doeth these things shall not be commoved to eternity."
May the LORD help and strengthen us to do them. Amen.
ANNALS OF THE NEW CHURCH. 1897
(Continued.)
1734.
January-February.-Swedenborg remains in Leipzig, where, during these months, he publishes:
"Opera Philosophica et Mineralia" (Philosophical and Metallurgical Works). 3 vole. Dresden and Leipzig. Fred. Hekel.
Vol. I, "Principia Rerum Naturalium, sive novorum Tentaminum Phemomena mundi elementaris philosophice explicandi" (The first Principles of Natural Things, or of new attempts toward a philosophical explanation of the elementary world). 3 parts, 452 pp. folio.
Vol. II, "Regnum Subterraneum sive Minerale de Ferro" (The Subterranean or Mineral Kingdom, in respect to Iron). 386 pp. folio.
Vol. III, "Regnum Subterraneum sive Minerale de Cupro et Orichalco" (The Subterranean or Mineral Kingdom in respect to Copper and Brass). 534 pp. folio.
These three volumes described, Doc. II, 908-912. (The first volume contains a portrait of Swedenborg, printed from copper-engraving. Cuno testifies to its faithfulness [Doc. II, 1196], but Flaxman held it to be "a very indifferent likeness, if any, judging from the utter want of correctness in its drawing." See New Jer. Church Repository, 1817, p. 138.)
January 4th.-Leipzig. Letter of Swedenborg to Councillor Frier, of Dresden, respecting the petrifaction of marine animals (Doc. II, 744; original in possession of John Bragg, Esq., of Birmingham; fac-simile published in Morning Light, 1879).
January 19th.-Leipzig. Letter to the College of Mines, applying for prolonged leave of absence (Doc. I, 444).
February.-While still at Leipzig he publishes further:
"Prodromus Philosophiae ratiocinantis de Infinito et causa finali Creationis: deque Mechanismo operationis Animae et Corporis" (Outlines of a philosophical argument on the Infinite and the final cause of Creation; and on the mechanism of the operation of Soul and Body). Fred. Hekel. 270 pp. small 8vo. (Doc. II, 913, A. L.)
March.-Swedenborg leaves Leipzig; travels to Halle, Cased, Schmalkalden, and Gotha; visits Duke Ludwig Rudolph, at Brunswick; journeys through Hamburg and Ystad to Stockholm, where he arrives in July, and attends the opening of the Diet (Doc. II, 6, 73, 616).
July 4th.-In Stockholm; resumes his duties in the College of Mines; remains here the rest of the year (Doc. I, 445).
December 17th.-Swedenborg is invited to become an honorary or corresponding member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences of Russia (Doc. I, 22).
During the autumn or winter of this year he presents to the Secret Committee of the House of Nobles a "Memorial on the impolicy of declaring War against Russia" (Doc. I, 483).
About this time he writes also:
"Epitome Principiorum Rerum Naturalium" (An Abstract of the "Principia") MS. 27 pp. (Doc. II, 914).
1735.
January-June.-Swedenborg remains in Stockholm (Doc. I, 446).
June 17th-September.-Absent on a tour, inspecting the copperworks at Fahlun (Doc. I, 446).
July 26th.-Brunsbo. Death of Bishop Swedberg, at the age of 82 years (Tottie). (This occurred on July 7th, according to Doc. I, 83.)
Some time this year he begins to write:
"Fragmenta Transactionum Trium de Cerebro "(Fragments of three Treatises on the Brain) MS. 1004 pp. (Doc. II, 914).
1736.
January 29th.-Swedenborg in Brunsbo, attending the funeral of his father (Doc. I, 359, 447).
March-July.-Remains in Stockholm (Doc. I, 447, 455).
May 27th.-Stockholm. Applies to the king for another leave of absence, in order to publish some new works abroad. Offers to give up half of his salary to pay for an assessor taking his place in the College (Doc. I, 448, 450).
June 1st.-Stockholm. Royal decree, granting Swedenborg a leave of absence for three or four years, at half salary (Doc. I, 454).
July 3d.-Swedenborg takes leave of the king and the queen, who are very gracious to him (Doc. II, 75).
July 10th.-Leaves Stockholm; visits his sister and his brother-in-law, Bishop Eric Benzelius, in Linkoping (Doc. II, 76).
July 17th.-Eelsingborg. Leaves Sweden, on his fourth foreign journey; travels over Elsinoer to Copenhagen (Doc. II, 77-80).
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July 24th.-Travels from Copenhagen to Hamburg (Doc. II, 81).
August 2d.-In Hamburg. Calls upon the celebrated philosopher, Christoffer Wolf, who, in a subsequent letter to Bishop Benzelius, states: "At the present age scarcely any one can compare with this most excellent and clearheaded' man [Swedenborg], in the science of Mineralogy" (Doc. I, 362).
August 17th.-Arrives at Amsterdam; travels thence to Rotterdam; remarks, in his Diary, on the excellent condition of Holland, and on the blessings of a republican form of government (Doc. II, 86).
August 22d.-Leaves Holland; travels through Antwerp to France. Speaks, in his Diary, of the bad and useless life of the many monks who are devouring France (Doc. II, 90).
September 3d.-Arrives in Paris; visits the libraries and the opera; works on his treatises (Doc. II, 93).
October.-In Paris; writes of the Catholic clergy, who possess one-fifth of all the property in France; predicts the ruin of the country (Doc. II, 94).
Remains in Paris the rest of the year.
During this year he begins to write down some of his more singular dreams (Doc. II, 130).
1737.
January-December.-Swedenborg seems to have spent the whole of this year in Paris (Doc. II, 98-102).
1738.
March 12th.-Swedenborg leaves Paris, traveling over Lyons and Savoy, to Italy, arriving in Turin on March 31st (Doc. II, 102).
April 7th.-Travels to Milan; on the way he is in danger from a veturino (coach-driver) with a stiletto (Doc. II, 106).
April 13th.-Leaves Milan; travels over Bergamo, Verona, Vicenza, and Padua to Venice, where he remains five months (Doc. II, 110). (Concerning his alleged experiences in Venice, "when a youth" [fifty years of age], see Doc. I, 629).
August 9th.-Leaves Venice; travels through Mantua, Ferrara, and Bologna, to Florence (Doc. II, 112).
September 21st.-Visits Livorno and Pisa; travels, by way of Siena, to Rome, where he remains the rest of the year (Doc. II, 112-126). (Concerning the then pope, Clement XII, and his subsequent happy lot in the spiritual world, see M. vol. 37, p. 383.)
Beside the great work (The Economy of the Animal Kingdom), on which Swedenborg is engaged, he writes, about this time, two small religio-philosophical works:
"De Via ad Cognitionem Animae" (The Way to a Knowledge of the Soul) MS. 5 pp. 4to.
"De Fide et Bonis Operibus" (on Faith and Good Works). MS. 10 pp. (Both of these have been translated into English by Dr. Wilkinson, and published in the "Posthumous Tracts." See Doc. II, 866.)
1739.
January-February 15th.-Remains in Rome (Doc. II, 127).
February 15th.-Returns to Florence and thence to Leghorn (Doc. II, 129).
March 17th.-In Genoa; remarks on the flat noses and countenances of the Genoese (Doc. II, 130).
May 14th.-Returns to Paris, where he remains the part of the year.
December 27th.-In Amsterdam, where, on this day, he finishes the writing of the "Economy of the Animal Kingdom" (Doc. II, 130).
1740.
January-October.-Swedenborg remains in Amsterdam, where he publishes:
"OEconomia Regni Animalis, in Transactiones divisa" (The Economy of the Animal Kingdom, divided into separate treatises). Part I, Francois Changuion, pp. 388, 4to (Described Doc. II, 915).
During the early part of this year he writes, also:
"De Ossibus Cranii, deque Ossifications, et de Dura Matre "(on the Bones of the Skull; on Ossification, and on the Dura Mater), MS. 49 pp. (Doc. II, 919.)
"Philosophia Corpuscularis in Compendio" (The Corpuscular Philosophy, in a Summary). MS. 1 p.
In this paper he states of the things which he had written: "haec vera sunt, quia signum habeo" (these things are true, because I have the sign). This "sign" consisted in "a certain extraordinary light," and the vision of "fiery lights and flames." (See Spiritual Diary, 2951; Doe. II, 145, 920; Adversaria, Vol. III, 7012.)
September 10th.-Amsterdam. Third letter to Ambassador Preis, at the Hague: presents a copy of the "Economy" (the second part), and a treatise on "the human soul." These were probably in the form of manuscripts. (L. 1896, p. 168.)
October-Leaves Holland for Sweden.
October 25th.-In Stockholm; returns to his duties in the College of Mines (Doc. I, 366, 456).
November 26th.-Stockholm. Carl Linnuaeus proposes Swedenborg for membership in the then newly instituted Royal Academy of Sciences of Sweden. (L. 1893, p. 58.) This disproves Dr. R. L. Tafel's surmise, that Linnuaeus and Swedenborg never came into any personal contact with one another (Doc. I, 616).
December 3d.-Stockholm. Swedenborg is unanimously elected a member of the Royal Academy (L. ibid.).
December 14th.-Reads a paper before the Royal "Academy" On the Computation of the Declination of the Magnetic Needle." This was a reply to an attack made by Professor Celsius, of Upsala on Swedenborg's theory of the subject. A scientific controversy followed, terminating in a triumph for Swedenborg in February, 1741 (Doc. I, 568; II, 927).
During this year Swedenborg writes the following treatises:
"Philosophia Universalium Characteristica et Mathematica (a Characteristic and Mathematical Philosophy of Universals). MS. 5 pp. (Doc. II, 918.)
"Anatomia omnium partium Cerebri, Cerebelli, Medullae oblongatae et spinalis; et de morbis capitis." (Anatomy of all parts of the two Brains and of the Medullas; and on the diseases of the head). MS. 636 pp. (Doc. II, 920.)
"Introductio ad Physiologiam Rationolem, cujus hae prima pars de Fibra, de Tunica Arachnoidea, et de morbis fibrarum agit" (Introduction to a Rational Psychology, the first part of which treats of the Fibre, the Arachnoid Tunic, and the diseases of the Fibres). MS. 366 pp. 4to (Doc. II, 925). This work was published by Dr. Wilkinson, at London, 1847, as "Oeconomia Regni Animalis, Transactio III," and the latter portion is now first appearing in English in the current issues of New Church Life.
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1741.
January-December.-Swedenborg remains the whole year in Stockholm (Doc. I, 456).
He takes his seat as a member of the Royal Academy of Sciences (L. 1893, 58).
During this year there is published, at Amsterdam, "Oeconomia Regni Animalis," Part II, 194 pp., 4to (Doc. II, 915).
About this time Swedenborg writes the following works and treatises, some of which have been published since his death:
"Introductio ad Psychiologiam Rationalem." (Introduction to a Rational Psychology; the second part, treating of the Doctrine of Correspondences and Representations.) MS. 9 pp. (Doc. II, 927).
"Clavis Hieroglyphica arcanorum naturalium et spiritualium per viam Repraesentationum et Correspondentiarum" (an Hieroglyphic Key to natural and spiritual mysteries, by way of representations and correspondences). MS. 48 pp. 4to. Published in Latin by Robert Hindmarsh. London, 1784.
"Concordantia Systematum Trium do Commercio Animae et Corporis" (Concordance of the three Systems concerning the Intercourse of the Soul and the Body). MS. 44 pp. (Doc. II, 928).
"De Sanguine Rubro" (The Red Blood). MS. 24 pp. (Doc. II, 929).
"De Spiritu Animali" (The Animal Spirit). MS. 24 pp. (Doc. II, 929).
"De Sensatione seu de Corporis Passions" (Sensation, or the Passion of the Body). MS. 11 pp. (Doc. II, 930).
"Do Origins et Propagations Animae" (The Origin and Propagation of the Soul). MS. 6 pp. (Doc. II, 930).
"De Actione" (Concerning Action). MS. 30 pp. (Doc. II, 930).
"Psychiologia Rationalis" (Rational Psychology). MS. 234 pp. folio (Doc. II, 931). A Latin edition published by Dr. Im. Tafel in 1849, as "Regnum Animale, pars VII. De Anima."
During this year occurred the death of Queen Ulrica Eleonora, who is succeeded on the throne by her consort, Frederic I. Concerning the subsequent state of the queen, in the other life, see S. D., no. 6009.
1742.
January-December.-Swedenborg remains in Stockholm the entire year, during which he suffers from illness at various times (Doc. I, 457).
During the year Swedenborg writes:
"Vocum philosophicarum Significatio vel Ontologia" (The Signification of philosophical terms, or Ontology). MS. 21 pp. folio (Doc. II, 934).
"Anatomia corporis, cujus partes secundae et tertiae, de membris genitalibus et de organic quinque sensuum agunt" (The Anatomy of the human body. Parts II and III, treating of the generative organs, and the organs of the five senses). MS., 269 pp. folio (Doc. II, 935).
This year closes the period of Swedenborg's natural or scientific preparation for his office as revelator to the New Church.
DISEASES OF THE FIBRES. 1897
CHAPTER VI.
On Apoplexia, Hemiplegia, Paraplegia, and Parapoplemia.
404. IN order that we may know all the varieties of apoplexia and their causes it is necessary that we explore from the centre what the cerebrum does, what properly the cerebellum, what the medulla oblongata, and what the medulla spinalis; what connection they have with one another; how one or the other inflows conjointly, as also separately, into the muscles, consequently into the viscera of the body. From the anatomy of the brain it is evident that the CEREBRUM, or its cortical substance, which is properly called the brain, is the COMMON SENSORY, for the five organs refer their external senses to the cortex of the cerebrum as to their common and only internal sensorium. The CORTICAL CEREBRUM also is the COMMON VOLUNTARY MOTOR, for whatever is to be performed by the mediate nerves and muscles is to be determined by a previous wish by the cerebrum: THEREFORE THE CEREBRUM IS THE COMMON SENSORY AND THE COMMON VOLUNTARY MOTOR, AND, INDEED, THE PRIMARY AND THE PRINCIPAL. But the CEREBELLUM is not the sensorium except the most common and obscure, to which no single idea that comes to our consciousness except by effect is represented: hence the cerebellum is called the common, spontaneous, natural, and involuntary motor, whence are the actions which are called instincts: thus THE CEREBELLUM IS THE COMMON, SPONTANEOUS, PRIMARY, AND PRINCIPAL MOTOR; and its difference from the cerebrum is such as is that between the voluntary and the natural spontaneous, or between that of which we are conscious, and that the rise, progress, and effect of which we are altogether ignorant.
But the MEDULLA OBLONOATA partakes of the fibres both of the cerebrum and of the cerebellum; for a fibre of each descends into it, of which, as also of its own, it is composed: this medulla is, as it were, a uniting medium of the cerebrum and cerebellum, and is the medium transferring both the sensations of the five organs towards the cerebrum, and the hidden operations of the viscera to the cerebellum, and also the behests and commands of each into the muscles. It can he called the COMMON SENSORY AND MOTOR BOTH OF THE CEREBRUM AND OF THE CEREBELLUM, BUT THE SECONDARY AND SUPERIOR INSTRUMENTAL. Similarly the MEDULLA SPINALIS, which is composed of fibres of the cerebrum, of the cerebellum and of its own, deserves to be called the COMMON SENSORY AND MOTOR, BUT THE SECONDARY AND INFERIOR INSTRUMENTAL, certainly nearest to the body.
405. Especially we ought also to know what connection the cerebrum, cerebellum, medulla oblongata, and spinalis hold to one another; the connection may be explored from the connection of the membranes, sinuses, arteries, and fibres; hence it may appear that these four viscera of the encephalic or superior kingdom-that is to say, the cerebrum, cerebellum, medulla oblongata, and medulla spinalis-are so mutually connected that the cerebrum can act into the cerebellum, and with this conjointly into the medulla oblongata and medulla spinalis; but every action which takes place in the daytime or while awake is then called voluntary. Similarly that the cerebellum can act into the cerebrum, and conjointly with this into the medulla oblongata and medulla spinalis, but every action thence resulting is called the spontaneous natural, such as takes place at night or in sleep. Further, that the cerebrum and the cerebellum, from equality, vindicate to themselves the right of acting into the underlying medulla oblongata, forsooth into its annular protuberance, the olivary bodies and pyramids, and, consequently, into the nerves springing from those protuberances; but that the cerebellum claims to itself more fully the right of acting into the fourth ventricle, its region, and into the underlying medulla spinalis, which commonly can be excited by the cerebellum, but not so by the cerebrum, except in particular and by means of the cerebellum.
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But these things which are to be demonstrated come in the Treatise on the Cerebrum and its Membranes. In the meantime, without a previous knowledge of the whole brain, we in vain explore interiorly the causes of apoplexia, epilepsy, catalepsy, hydrocephalus, carus, and many other diseases. Having premised these things, let us inquire what apoplexia is and what its varieties are.
APOPLEXIA.
406. APOPLEXIA is the impotence of the common sensory and voluntary motor-that is, of the cerebrum, and, indeed, of its cortical and cineritious substance, of sensating and acting-that is, of receiving through the fibres images of the five organs of the external senses, as also by previous wish of exciting the muscles to action; while, nevertheless, life and motion of the cerebellum remains, and, consequently, life and motion of a part of the medulla oblongata, and similarly of the medulla spinalis. Thus apoplectics, deprived of the enjoyment of a more healthy corporeal life, live only in the blood and body, except the obscure life which emanates from the cerebellum and the subjacent medulla spinalis, which is similar to our state in sleep or in the mother's womb. Nor is it very dissimilar to death; because of themselves they retain nothing more than self and proprium, which is the thought or inmost sensation, and the will, which is the origin of action. But because the cerebellum does not die the pulsation of the heart and arteries, which is stronger than usual, remains; similarly the respiration of the lungs is loud and stertorous, as if in profound sleep. For the cerebellum, together with the medulla spinalis, asserts for itself the rule of the heart, as also of the lungs; for the fibres of the pericardium and of the cardiac muscle itself, as also the fibres of the pulmonic plexuses, and likewise of the intercostal muscles, are equally of the cerebellum and medulla spinalis, for they are of the intercostal nerve and of the eighth pair [of nerves] of the head, as also of the dorsal.
407. All causes which render the cortex of the cerebrum incapable of acting or animating or respiring, chiefly produce apoplexy of the whole body; that is to say of the sensory and motor organs so far as they are voluntary. The faculty itself of animating is the life of the cerebrum, for the cerebrum by the mediation of animation receives sensations and produces motions, and, indeed, by the animal spirits which rush through the median cortical glands and the medullary and nerve fibres; for when the cortical cerebrum is quiescent, the animal spirit, which is the purer blood, does not pulsate through the fibres better than does the red, blood when the heart is quiescent.
408. Those causes are many: the first is an obstruction in the trunk of the internal carotid before it divides into branches; whether it happens without the cranium, or in the passage through the osseous foramen, or before or after it reaches that ventricle which it forms in the cavernous receptacles. If the carotid is obstructed after those points, or in its branches, general apoplexia does not arise, but of only one-half of the cerebrum, or of one part in one hemisphere, of which varieties of apoplexia see below.
409. But the causes of obstruction are many; that is to say an abundance of glutinous, viscid, coarse, cold, inert blood, which is stagnated in its entrance-innate or acquired tumors in those arteries, cancers [schirri], abscesses, fatty tumors [steatomata], and many things which block it up internally, or compress it externally. The carotid artery is proper to the cerebrum, but the vertebral artery is proper to the cerebellum, and similarly to the medulla oblongata, and partly to the medulla spinalis. While the vertebral arteries remain intact the cerebellum and the medullas mentioned enjoy their ministering blood, and execute their animations, the cerebrum being quiescent or, as it were, absent; and a tiny part of these administer to the cerebrum, in order that it may derive a certain feeble life, but not a sensitive and voluntary one; for the vertebral artery so communicates with the carotid that one inflows into the branch of the other, and lives from the blood of the other.
410. Although that cause of apoplexia is the primary one, nevertheless there are others which affect the cortical cerebrum similarly, and although they are very many, yet all respect that primary one as their own. For the cerebrum by the force of its animation attracts the blood from the cavity [alveolus] of the carotid, but the heart does not force it into the cerebrum; hence whatever inhibits the animations in the cerebrum also inhibits the blood from being drawn from the carotid and vertebral arteries.
411. According as there is viscid serosity, tough phlegm, yea even extravasated blood, which is collected within the soft meninx, between the greater windings and lesser networks, and is poured about the cortical glands, does it take away all power in them of acting, expanding, and contracting themselves, or of animating. Such a state arises from an immoderate secretion of malignant blood, from inflammation, and impeded discharge; and these arise from their own causes, which are still more remote, yet all are to be remedied. The ways of discharge are many, as by the veins into the larger sinuses, by the cribriform plate into the cavities of the nares, and into the nerves among their fascicles, which the more tightly they are closed the greater the increase of the phlegm of the cerebrum, since no passage of the common excretions lies open, as by the bowels, bladder, salivas by the fauces, and hmuiorrhoids. When these passages are closed, the cortex and medulla of the brain are inundated; from a superinundation of either, if the flow be tenacious and thick, the animatory force is stopped, and so the afflux of arterial blood; and consequently the sensory and motor force of the cerebrum, whence is apoplexia.
412. Also a viscid and copious flux between the dura and pin mater shows a like effect; for the intercepted humor so compresses the arachnoid tunic, and the soft meninx underlying it, and the interjected arteries and veins, that the cortical substance cannot be raised at all-that is, it cannot at all set in motion its alternate changes of animation.
413. A similar effect also is brought into the cortical substances of the cerebrum if the three ventricles of the cerebrum, namely, the two larger or superior ventricles and the one intermediate which is called the third, are filled with so great a quantity of serum that the cerebrum cannot determine or send forth the forces of its animation towards the interiors; for while the cerebrum expands and contracts itself, it then unfolds itself either outwardly or inwardly, or becomes tumid within or without, for it may be either; on which account also there are ventricles and space between the meninges; if the cerebrum has not the power of swelling or unfolding itself outwardly, and at the same time of expanding within, all the faculty of animating-that is, of sensing and acting voluntarily, is wholly taken away from the cerebrum.
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414. It is also a cause of apoplexia if the dura mater becomes so thickened that it both is impaired with humor and becomes flaccid, so that it has lost all of its elasticity and power of reacting; or if the same becomes indurated; as also if being altogether separated from the connections of its cranium it lies heavily upon the soft meninx, and thus on the cortical cerebrum; of which effects there are many causes. For the dura mater is a kind of elater [elateris] or tendon, which reacts to the extent that the cerebrum acts. The cortical cerebrum, when it rises up into a tumor, no more subsides if nothing of the reactive be present, but remains in a state of inaction, consequently in privation of sensation and voluntary action. Thus neither does it draw in the arterial blood from the carotids, nor expel the indrawn blood into the veins and sinuses; neither do the sinuses themselves receive the blood, for they are of the dura mater and contained in its duplicature, nor are they actuated into alternate changes except by the motion of the cerebrum.
415. Meanwhile the province of the cerebrum, although bordering on the province of the cerebellum, is so separated by the septa formed from the dura mater and connected with the cranium that the cerebrum distinctly exercises its own functions, and the cerebellum distinctly its own, nor do they concur except in the maintaining of the whole corporeal system in safety.
For the cerebrum rejoices in its own arteries or the internal carotids, in its own ventricles, which are three, in its own medulla, in its own cortex, in its own pia and dura mater, and in its own sinus, which is the longitudinal. The cerebellum likewise rejoices in its own arteries or the vertebral, in its own medulla, its own cortex, its own pia and dura mater, its ventricle, which is inseated in the body of the medulla oblongata, as also in its own sinuses. Thus the action of the cerebrum may be stopped, while the action of the cerebellum continues; wherefore apoplexia is of the cerebrum, and as soon as it becomes of the cerebellum there is suddenly a deadly stupor or death. Thus a malignant and infesting humor collected between the meninges, the windings, in the cortex, medulla and ventricles of the cerebrum does not invade the cerebellum, nor does it break forth towards the medulla spinalis unless the barriers' be broken down; thus neither may they tarry above or about the cerebellum, because an exit stands open into the vertebral theca through the great foramen of the occiput at the posterior part.
CONFLICT OF STATEMENTS. WM. H. BENADE 1897
Communicated.
EDITOR OF NEW CHURCH LIFE.
SIR:-On page 43 of the March issue of New Church Life you publish the following: "At this meeting (of the Board of Directors of the Corporation 'the Academy of the New Church') Chancellor Benade announced to the Board that he now withdrew from the office of Chancellor of the Church of the Academy, and declared that office vacant."
This statement is entirely false, and ought to be corrected without further delay.
WM. H. BENADE,
Chancellor of the Academy of the New Church.
PHILADELPHIA, March 17th, 1897
EDITOR OF NEW CHURCH LIFE.
Dear Sir:-Through your courtesy we have read Bishop Benade's letter of 17th inst., in which he characterizes as "entirely false" the statement that he had withdrawn from the office of Chancellor of the Academy.
As the statement in Life was based upon information furnished by this Board it seems proper that we should present an extract from the minutes of the meeting of February 13th, at which Chancellor Benade withdrew:
"In discussing the alteration or repeal of the amendment of the by-laws relating to the qualification for membership, the Chancellor stated that he would relieve the Board of one difficulty. He would withdraw as Chancellor. He stated (that) there was a great lack of harmony between the Church body and the Chancellor.
"After some conversation between the Chancellor and the President, the President said, 'I understand, Father Benade, that you inform this Board that you now formally withdraw from the office of Chancellor of the Academy, and declare that office vacant.'
"The Chancellor assenting, the President asked the Secretary to lace the statement upon the minutes, and to then read it.
"This was done, and upon being asked by the President if this was his statement, Bishop Benade said, Yes, that is my statement.
"The President then said that while this verbal withdrawal from the Chancellorship was, no doubt, all that was necessary, it seemed to him that an action of such importance, a milestone, as it were, in the history of the Church, deserved the dignity of a written statement from the retiring Chancellor that might be filed among the archives of the Academy.
"Bishop Benade said that he would send such a written statement to the President by mail."
The above statement is a true copy from the minutes of the meeting of the Board of Directors of the Academy of the New Church, held February 13th, 1897.
SAMUEL H. HICKS,
Secretary.
The above extract from the minutes agrees with our recollection of the facts.
ROBT. M. GLENN,
CARL G. ASPLUNDH,
SAMUEL H. HICKS,
Directors of the Academy of the New Church.
HISTORY OF A GOURD. 1897
A STORY FOR CHILDREN.
DEAR CHILDREN:-It may seem rather wonderful to you to read a history which was written by an inhabitant of the vegetable kingdom; however, I mean to give you the history of my life.
I belong to a species of the Gourd Family, and am the son of a strong vine which was ornamented with large green leaves. It bore several children beside myself, who are my brothers. The vine sprang from a single seed, which, with a number of others, was planted in Mother Earth by the mother of a New Church family, who reset the germ, after it began to expand, near a tall pear tree, which, in time, supported our parent-the vine.
We were born in the country, in the year of 1896, not far from the village of Greenford, which is in the State of Ohio. This proves that I am, as yet, quite youthful; but you know that the offspring of the vegetable, kingdom grow to maturity in the course of a few months.
We looked rather graceful as we hung from the old pear tree, suspended in the air like long green pendants, which swelled out into round, globe-like shapes, somewhat resembling a ball fastened to one end of a handle, only less artistic.
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We were very thankful that our dear mother climbed into the branches of the pear tree; for this afforded us a fine situation to observe the surrounding country and its beautiful belongings. Many and wonderful were the sights which were presented to view while we lived in our leafy bower, which was a home grand enough for a fairy princess. Dear old Nature was spread out before us-a living picture, which was infused with the living principle by the Divine Parent, who created all things for a wise and good purpose.
Oh, what a pleasure we experienced when we saw the golden chariot of Father Sun rise above the eastern horizon, and saw him drive his fiery horses across the sky! How eagerly we waited for the coming morn to see his smiling face, which greeted us with loving warmth and breathed new vigor and strength into our frail bodies, day after day!
But sober, quieter feelings followed, when we beheld the last reflection of the golden chariot disappear behind the western slope, and the purple veil of night shut out the light of day.
There were times when Father Sun provided Mother Earth with silvery light till he returned again with his own brilliant splendor. He sent his sister Selene, the moon, in a silver chariot, which was drawn by beautiful white horses, to light us with the silver torch which he presented her to use in his absence. She is sometimes called queen of night; and well may she be called queen, for she looks like one, with a shining crescent upon her fair brow and her long gauzy veil floating out in the air behind her.
There are also lesser lights-myriads of them-which are so far distant that they appeared to us like diamonds set in the vast expanse above us.
The sky reminded us of a great panorama which was subject to many attractive changes of scene. Clouds played a very important part in this great here theatre. There were great varieties of all kinds of and sizes. At times they were very boisterous an disorderly, which caused the sky to weep, so that the tears fell in great torrents, and Zeus would hurl his thunderbolt with such force that Mother Earth would tremble and shake.
This tumult would sometimes rouse up the storm-wind till he blew a fierce gale, which, on the whole, proved him to be a very destructive element, very different from the gentle breezes who vanished in terror before him. Such an experience as this did not produce a very pleasing effect upon us and induced us to cling more firmly to our leafy protector.
Still, even the storm wind's rough handling seemed to make me stronger and more full of life, and I suppose he helps others, too, in some such way.
The animal kingdom produced many amusing and interesting acts which were performed upon the stage of existence by specimens of various races which belong to that realm. A large flock of domestic fowls was permitted to roam about in freedom wherever instinct chose to lead them. Some were intrusted with the care of large broods of young ones, and wandered from place to place with great maternal watchfulness to shield and protect them from danger, at the same time aiding to supply them with such food (in addition to that provided by their owners) as can he found within the reach of the feathered tribe.
Birds of the air flew around us, and sang pretty, tuneful songs, and swung their tiny forms upon the slender twigs in strange delight. Horses and cows passed by to make their daily circuit to and from the crystal fountain where they are wont to enjoy their cool and tempting draughts.
A few yards back of us stood a rude wooden palace which was occupied by very industrious little creatures of the insect class. From early morn till dewy eve their noisy hum was heard. No idle drones dare eat the precious fruits of labor which were stored up for future use. They are gifted with great architectural skill. Within the wooden shelter lie their own artistic structures. They build a palace for their queen and appoint guards to protect it. They also build cells, and, like houses, arrange them in the form of a city, with streets by which they may go in and out as often as they please. They sip the sweets from the tiny flower cups, and gather wax for building purposes to use as cement wherever use requires it. All this they do with great skill, besides manufacturing a delicious article for table use. This delicacy is called honey. By this you can guess the name of this industrious little working class which belongs to the highest grade of insect life.
A short distance beyond us lay the bed of a small stream, which was lined with pebbles and other material belonging to the mineral kingdom. It is a very useful water-course, offering its services in carrying off the surplus quantity of water, which, otherwise, would prove very destructive to tillable land. Sometimes the bed is dry and motionless for weeks, until the sky is moved to weep great tears in abundance; then a small stream begins to form and creep along in the vacant channel, till it grows larger and larger, and begins to murmur and sing very happy and contented. But this does not last long. Father Sun's horses soon drink the water, and thus its musical voice is silenced from time to time.
Large forest trees were stationed here and there, like tall sentinels, and looked very pretty in their green uniforms, which fluttered in the breeze, while their long, slender branches waved in graceful gesture.
Neat farm-houses in the distance, nestling among trees and shrubs, with forests beyond, added to the attractive picture. There were also many other things too numerous to mention.
While we were yet in our infantile state, and midsummer temperature rose to a high degree of heat, even in the night, we were soothed to sleep, many times, by thousands of little fans, kept in motion by the soft breath of the gentle zephyr, which was laden with delicate perfume gathered from rare flowers as he passed upon his way. Can you guess what kind of fans they were? They were the leaves of the pear tree.
We perceived that summer was a generous maiden who relieved her mild and gentle sister, Spring, from the great work which she begun, by completing the support of Nature's children; and that she was rapidly passing on to leave the finishing touches of the work to her generous but mournful sister, Autumn, who painted the most beautiful tints upon the delicate forms intrusted to her, as, alas! the last token of love shown by the three faithful sisters before their beautiful work peered into the hands of their rude and destructive brother, Winter.
Yet we were not destined to be destroyed by the cruel and daring Winter King. In the month of October some New Church visitors from the city came to the country to call upon friends; they also came to the place where we lived. It happened that a couple of our ancestors were espied in one of the human homes in our neighborhood, who had been converted into articles of use, and were considered quite a curiosity. This instance was the means of showing the visitors our place of abode.
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We were very glad to see them-a father, mother, and an interesting little boy. They are fine people, but did not object to taking a specimen of our race with them to the city. We were very much pleased, and wondered which one of us would be chosen. But, ah, me I to my great astonishment, for some reason, one of my cousins, who lived a few paces beyond us, was the favorite subject; which made me very discontented, yes, even jealous and envious. But I remembered that it was very selfish and unjust to act in this manner, and tried to do my duty and cultivate a cheerful and unselfish spirit in the spot where I had been placed by the Divine Parent.
Soon after this event the approach of the Winter King moved the farm people to make preparations to gather in such articles of use as could not withstand the violent action of the stern and ungentle ruler. But before the last sigh of Autumn was borne away on the wings of time we were separated from our parent vine, who was preparing to return to Mother Earth. The parting was sad, but we perceived that all things which belong to the great theatre of nature were subject to change, and that we too must submit.
My brothers and cousins were distributed among the married daughters of the New Church mother who had charge of us; while I was chosen from among the whole group to act as representative of the gourd family, and, after undergoing some necessary changes, was to hold my position in the parlor.
I was so much elated over the good fortune so unexpectedly bestowed upon me that vanity rose to a considerable height; but I sobered down again when I reflected that my being there was nothing of my own doing, and that the reason I had been chosen was because in some way I was better fitted to do what was wanted. I was very much humiliated at my previous lack of judgment and sudden outburst of pride.
At last the time arrived for my new mode of life to begin. A bright red ribbon was tied around my neck, and for the first time I was ushered into my new home-the future habitation of, perhaps, the rest of my life. When I took a survey of the surroundings it was with joyful surprise that I saw upon the walls some scenes which were representations of dear old Nature I had so lately left, painted upon canvas, in colors of various kinds.
But when I thought of being alone and separated from all my friends-inclosed within the space between four walls-a feeling of sadness stole over me, and a longing for my dear friends and home weighed heavy upon me. But this was useless. We must strive to submit to the doings of Providence, and place ourselves at His disposal; this was the next train of thought which entered my mind, and the door which leads to the palace of Use swung open and I entered by making an effort to relate this history which is now completed; and the hope that it will be of some use to you shall fill the closing words of
Your faithful servant,
THE GOURD.
Notes and Reviews. 1897
Nya Kyrkans Tidning, edited by the Rev. C. J. N. Manby, is being published this year in an enlarged form, with two columns to the page, instead of one, as before. The February number contains an excellent Swedish rendering of Miss B. E. Plummer's "Ode to Swedenborg."
Title Unspecified 1897
Den Nya Kyrkan, ably edited by the Rev. Joseph E. Boysen, of Stockholm, in its issue for February contains a sermon by the Rev. F. E. Waelchli, and an outspoken presentation of the Divine authority of the Writings in an answer the question, "Are the Writings of the New Church a work of Swedenborg's own ideas?" From all indications (see the "News Notes"), the New Church in Sweden seems to be awakening to a new, more active, and interior life.
Title Unspecified 1897
CALENDAR reading of the Writings has become a well-settled practice in the Church. The course selected for 1897 by the New Church Home Reading Union, of England, includes the Brief Exposition, Heaven and Heft, intercourse of Soul and Body, and the early part of volume four of the Arcana Coelestia, which treats of a new spiritual Church (Gen. xxiii) and the LORD'S Divine Rational (Gen. xxiv). The Committee appointed by the General Conference to conduct the Union recommends in its circular, the readers to note daily all points of inquiry and to make a summary from memory of the day's reading. Questions and their answers are printed in the Monthly Magazine of the Union, the valuable services of the Rev. James Buss being devoted to this use.
Title Unspecified 1897
Louis Pendleton's well-known novel, "The Wedding Garment," which is being published in German in the Neukirckenblatt, has now appeared also in a Swedish version, entitled "Brollopskladerna" (Stockholm. Nykyrdliga Bokforlaget. 1898. pp. 295). The rendering is faithful, and the typographical work remarkably fine. The cost of the publication has been defrayed, we understand, at the individual expense of Lady von Burenstam, a member of the New Church in Stockholm. It is most pleasant to witness the extended circulation of this useful evangelistic work of the Church, but we would suggest, as a matter of ordinary etiquette, that the publishers send a copy of the book to the author, to whom the news of its publication came as a surprise. The work is warmly recommended to our Swedish-speaking readers, and may be obtained from the Academy Book Room. (See advertisement on the last page.)
Title Unspecified 1897
IT would be sluggish blood that would not be stirred by the account of untiring effort, of difficulties and dangers met and overcome, and of famine and suffering relieved-which is embodied in the Report of "America's Relief Expedition to Asia Minor Under the Red Cross," an illustrated edition of which is being sold, at 30 cents a copy, by the American National Red Cross, Washington, D. C. The illustrations are graphic, and those interested will be able to form a vivid picture of the conditions and surroundings encountered by the famous relief expedition to Armenia. A special article gives explicit information concerning "Red Cross Principles," prominent among which is, that the association "NEVER APPEALS NOR SOLICITS AID FOR ANY PURPOSE." Its method is to go where it is needed, investigate and report, through public and private sources. The response has always been spontaneous. But in any case the Red Cross never "degrades charity" by "beggary."
Title Unspecified 1897
UNDER the title "The Union of the Churches," a writer in the Messenger (January 27th) signing himself "B," deprecates the obliteration of denominational distinctions which at this day is desired and expected by many. His position is that while a merely external union may be brought about by doing away with the individual methods of its members, the very uniformity thus produced destroys the efficiency of the parts of such an indistinct whole: that on the other hand an internal union by emphasizing the individuality of the members of the whole, develops the greatest efficiency of each and thus of the whole. This is correct in principle, but faulty in application, in so far as it makes the distinction between churches to depend on the members of the Church. Doctrine from the LORD makes the Church-not the quality of the men either as to views or as to loves. These take their quality from the Doctrine-i. e., they seek the shelter of the doctrine to which they can be conformed and adapted.
Title Unspecified 1897
SUGGESTIVE and refreshing is Mrs. James S. Conant's article, "Childhood's Ingenuousness, How Nurtured by Books," published in the Messenger of February 3d. Alive to childhood's capacity for receiving invaluable and enduring impressions, the writer repudiates the idea that any but the best care and surroundings are "good enough" for children. "Good literature is one of the many sources from which, like a river from its mountain springs, the moral life may flow."
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But keenly appreciative is she, too, of the fact that the morality must be vital, not didactic, inwoven with the very substance and texture of the mental food offered the child-concealed as it were by incorporation with juicy, appetizing viands, not in the dry form of preaching from which has been expressed all the juice-that is delight. In other words, if you would develop the child into a living being, you must apply yourself to what in him is of life-namely, love and delight. "Provide proper conditions and let the child do the growing. The uselessness of studied efforts to impress moral lessons without regard to the childish state of responsiveness to delights is aptly illustrated by "the little girl who said, after hearing a story applying directly to her, 'I do not care to be so remarkable.'" The writer continues, "What we desire for our children, however, we must learn to love ourselves. . . . For it is what we are, not what we advise, that makes its impression upon children."
Would there were more thinking in this line.
Title Unspecified 1897
To those poor mortals who, for their notions of the hereafter, are obliged to rely on the testimony either of Scriptures, or of "professing" dwellers in that veiled kingdom, or of revelations on the subject of any kind or source, the High Priestess of Theosophy, in The Nineteenth Century (November), obligingly prescribes not only how to dispense with the uncertain element of testimony, but how themselves to penetrate that hereafter, returning at will, the excursions warranted to be rich in spiritual edification-and devoid of expense. After certain truly unexceptionable preliminaries-cleanness of life, purity and elevation of thought, unselfishness, devotion, etc.-the neophyte is to "train his mind to daily concentration on some difficult or abstract subject," acquiring immunity to "distractions" caused by external objects, by the senses, or by the mind itself. The mind- "Must be braced up to an unswerving steadiness and fixity, until gradually it will learn so to withdraw its attention from the outer world and from the body that the senses will remain quiet and still while the mind is intensely alive, with all its energies drawn inward, to be launched at a single point of thought, the highest to which it can attain. When it is able to hold itself thus with comparative ease it is ready for a further stop, and by a strong but calm effort of the will it can throw itself beyond the highest thought it can reach while working in the physical brain, and in that effort will rise to and unite itself with the higher consciousness, and find itself free of the body."
It is reassuring to be informed that transference into a new "body of light" will follow a line of conduct which might have been supposed likely to produce monomania, if not worse. It is a damper, however, to be told that not only one must" train his faculties long and faithfully" under the new transcendent conditions, but that the soul, even now, "is subject to errors as it is here, from careless observation, hasty generalizations from partial knowledge, inferences biased by prejudices and preconceived opinions."
To be asked to launch one's self on an unknown sea, without other guide than faculties confessedly liable to an indefinite amount of error, is calculated to make the prudent man hesitate, even with Mrs. Besant's "Happy Land" in sight, as it were, especially if he have only a moderate estimate of his own ability to take care of himself. Probably the average man is so imbued with certain old-fashioned ideas concerning regulation of the passage between the two worlds as being lodged in a Higher Power, that he will only rub his eyes a little at the dazzling prospect, while his conservatism compels him to forego it, and settle down to traveling the same old road to the Other Land that has existed from time immemorial, performing plain, every-day uses, and shunning the evils that do so pester him in the effort. If a modest man he will find this more sustaining than reliance on his own efforts or merits.
EDITOR NEW CHURCH LIFE. 1897
Questions and Answers.
DEAR SIR:-Would you kindly explain what is meant by the term "Animus" in the article current in your paper," Diseases of the Fibres?"
We ordinarily use the term to describe or denote the disposition of one's mind toward some person or principle. We say we know the animus of a certain act or utterance. But, here in this article, it seems to mean an organ, distinct or below the mens (mind). And while the article tells us what the "animus" does not do-in the way of functions, viz., that it does not perceive, think, judge, or will-it doesn't seem to give any clear idea of what it does do.
The simile or comparison to a Republic is given in the article in reference to the functions, and the diseased functions, of the different departments of the human mind; and I would like to ask, What piece of machinery or department of government the animus would seem to most nearly resemble?
Very respectfully yours,
READER.
RICHMOND, IND., January 12th, 1897.
REPLY.
DELAY in answering this question has been caused by an effort on the part of the Editor, before making it, to master Swedenborg conception of the animus as embodied in his scientific works. Without feeling at all qualified to give a digest of the teachings of those works, he would suggest that number 257 of the theological work, The Divine Love and Wisdom, may be found to give the key to the statement referred to by "Reader:"
"Human wisdom, which is natural so long as man lives in the world, cannot possibly be exalted into angelic wisdom, but only into a certain image of it; because the elevation of the human mind is effected by continuity as from shade to light, or from grosser to purer; but still the man in whom the spiritual degree is open, comes into that wisdom when he dies, and may also come into it by laying asleep the sensation of the body, and by influx from above at the same time into the spirituals of his mind. The natural mind of man consists both of spiritual and natural substances; from its spiritual substances thought is produced, but not from its natural substances; the latter substances recede when a man dies, but not the spiritual substances; hence the same mind after death, when a man becomes a spirit or angel, remains in a form like that which it had in the world. The natural substances of that mind, which, as has been said recede by death, constitute the cutaneous covering of the spiritual body of spirits and angels; by means of this covering, which is taken from the natural world, their spiritual bodies subsist; for the natural is the ultimate containant: hence there is no spirit or angel who was not born a man."
The natural mind is duplex, because it is intermediate between the world of matter-of inertness and reaction,-and the world of spirit-of love and of thought. Therefore it is composed of substances of both worlds. Those which are derived from nature are of the most refined kind, far above cognizance by the senses, and capable of being acted upon directly by spiritual. They constitute the first principles of the brains, and receive impressions through that organ of sense and intellection-which are thereby, as it were, transferred to the spiritual world-to the substances of the mind proper. Now it cannot be said that these purest natural substances are capable of perception, thought, judgment or will, and this seems to describe that which Swedenborg calls the animus in the article referred to by "Reader." But at other times "animus" (in the Theological Writings at least) seems to be used as covering the whole natural mind, including the spiritual or internal thereof. Here, it is not spirit, but the spirit's vicegerent in the body; the habitacle of thought and affection, -but not the thought and affection themselves. For a solution to your latter question I will have to refer you to some one more at home in the field of thought involved. Perhaps some reader of the Life will respond.-EDITOR.
64
CHURCH NEWS. 1897
NEW CHURCH LIFE.
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ADDRESS all communications for publication to the Editor, the Rev. George G. Starkey, Huntingdon Valley, Montgomery Co., Pa.
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CANADA.
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GREAT BRITAIN.
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PHILADELPHIA. APRIL, 1597-127.
CONTENTS PAGE
EDITORIAL: Motes: Celestial Democracy 40
The Development of Freedom by Science and Delight 50
THE SERMON: Entering Intellectually into the
Arcana of Faith 52
ANNALS OF THE NEW CHURCH 56
Diseases of the Fibres 58
COMMUNICATED: A Conflict of Statement 60
The History of a Gourd 60
NOTES AND REVIEWS 62
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 63
CHURCH NEWS 64
ANNOUNCEMENT 64
A CORRECTION 64
ACADEMY BOOK ROOM 64
At Home.
Philadelphia.-SERVICES are held as formerly at 1826 North Street conducted by Pastor Synnestvedt, under die auspices of the General Church of the New Jerusalem. With the exception of a few absentees, the same congregation attends as before. Mr. Synnestvedt conducts a Doctrinal Class on Wednesday evening, in which the little work on the Last Judgment is being read. The class is preceded by an informal supper, and followed by practice in singing. On Friday evening, March 27th, a musical social was held in the hall, and was well attended
THE Schools of the Academy have not yet been reopened, but Miss Ashley, assisted by Miss Hohart and Miss Schill, conducts classes for the pupils of the Girls' School and of the Primary Department, using the buildings of the Academy, the use of which has been accorded by that body.
The theological students and pupils of the College and Boys' School have been accommodated in Huntingdon Valley, with the exception of two or three pupils, who attend classes there daily by the use of trains. A class of three small boys, living in town, has been placed in the class of Miss Hobart. The espirit of the classes, both in town and in Huntingdon Valley, is said by the teachers to be excellent.
LARGE numbers of applications for membership in the General Church of the New Jerusalem have been received, and the clergy of that body has been increased by the admission of the Revs. R. J. Tilson and E. C. Bostock, of England, and the Rev. J. E. Bowers, of Canada. Candidate R. H. Keep, of Middleport, Ohio, has also been recognized by the new body.
Chicago and Glenview.-AT a meeting of the members of the Immanuel Church of the New Jerusalem, of Chicago, held in Glenview, March 12th, 1897, the following resolution was passed:
WHEREAS, The policy and methods of government which have recently prevailed in the Academy of the New Church and the General Church of the Advent of the LORD, have caused serious disturbances in those churches, and have resulted in a loss of confidence on the part of the members of the Immanuel Church in the ability of those churches to properly carry on the uses for which they were instituted; and,
WHEREAS, The members of the Immanuel Church have confidence that the General Church of the New Jerusalem, which has recently been instituted will restore harmony, by adopting such a policy and such methods of government, as will enable it to perpetuate the uses of the church; therefore be it hereby
Resolved, That the Immanuel Church as a particular church and as a corporation withdraw from all general churches and apply for association and membership under the General Church of New Jerusalem.
GREAT BRITAIN.
Liverpool.-The Circle here was visited in the ordinary course by the Pastor, the Rev. R. J. Tilson of London, on Sunday, February 14th. The time of meeting for worship was changed from 6.30 to 3 P. M., on this occasion, to allow of a lecture being delivered in the evening. There were 17 present at worship. The sermon was on The Prodigal Son, emphasizing the need of repentance. The Holy Supper was administered. At 7 o'clock, evening, a lecture on "Swedenborg: The Man and His Mission," was delivered by Mr. Tilson in the room of worship, there being 26 present. The lecture was illustrated by lantern-slides and proved exceedingly interesting. At the close of the lecture-slides proper, a series of photographs of priests of the Church was exhibited, including three of the Bishops. Each one of the well-known faces was greeted with applause. Finally, a slide with the words "Vivat Nova Ecclesia" was thrown on the screen, and the anthem, of which these are the first words, was sung. Afterwards a pleasant time was spent in toasts and conversation. At worship one stranger was present and at the lecture several, including some members of the Bedford Street (Conference) Society. Expressions of mutual goodwill were expressed by Mr. Tilson and the visitors, and the latter freely joined in the conversation.
SWEDEN.
THE birthday of Emanuel Swedenborg was celebrated quite generally this year in his native land.
In Stockholm the two societies united ma common celebration and supper. Addresses were presented by the Rev. A. Th. Boyesen and the Rev. Alfred Bjorck. In the manufacturing town of Eskilstuna (the Swedish Sheffield), where an active little society has grown up within the last few years, the members met for a feast of charity on January 29th. A transparency, representing the silhouette profile of Swedenborg, was a striking feature of the celebration.
The day was commemorated also in the city of Gottenburg, under the leadership of the pastor, the Rev. C. J. N. Manby. The feast opened by the members singing a Swedish rendering of Miss E. E. Plummer's "Ode to Swedenborg," to the music composed by Mr. C. J. Whittington (published by the Academy of the New Church). The pastor then read the Memorable Relation, describing the Heavenly Temple, which bore the inscription "Nunc Licet," and, in an address dwelt upon the debt of gratitude which we owe to the LORD for the gift of His chosen servant, Swedenborg.
Mr. Zachariah Falk, probably the oldest member of the New Church in Sweden, died at Stockholm on January 30th, at the age of 50 years. Mr. Falk had been connected with the New Church in Stockholm for more than eighty years, and had been during this long period the faithful and zealous treasurer of the general New Church organization in Sweden.
ANNOUNCEMENT. 1897
THE committee having in charge the entertainment of guests who will attend the General Assembly of the General Church of the New Jerusalem, to be held at Huntingdon Valley, Pa., June 25th to 29th, would request all those who expect to be present to notify Mr. C. H. Asplundh, 1821 Wallace Street, Philadelphia, of that fact at as early a date as possible, so that proper arrangements can be made for the entertainment of all the friends.
ROBT. M. GLENN,
C. H. ASPLUNDH,
C. S. SMITH,
Committee.
CORRECTION. 1897
MR. A. J. Gowanlock of Chicago, calls attention to an error in the February news, where his initials appear instead of those of his father, Mr. Robert K. Gowanlock, deceased.
BOOK OF DOCTRINE. 1897
Containing Summaries of Doctrine from the WRITINGS OF THE CHURCH. 320 pages.
Price, including postage: bound in Cloth, 75 cents; in Brown Flexible Morocco, round corners, gilt edge, $2.00.
BROLLOPSKLADERNA.
This is the title of the "WEDDING GARMENT," which has been translated into Swedish, and is now on sale.
Price, including postage: bound in Cloth, 90 cents; in Paper cover, 80 cents.
MEDALS OF SWEDENBORG.
In Silver, Bronze, and Aluminum, have been coined in Sweden.
One side represents a bust of Swedenborg, and besides his name, gives the dates of his birth and death. The other side represents Swedenborg's Summer-house, and bears the inscription: "Trichila Swedenborg. In Skansen. Transportata 1896." This Latin Inscription means "Swedenborg's Summer-house at Skansen. Transported 1896."
These medals are on sale here.
Price, in Silver, $1.25; Bronze, 50 cents; Aluminum, 25 cents.
ACADEMY BOOK ROOM,
1621 Wallace Street, Philadelphia.
Title Unspecified 1897
65
NEW CHURCH LIFE
Vol. XVII, No. 5. PHILADELPHIA, MAY, 1897=127. Whole No. 199.
Editorial. 1897
CONFIDENCE.
TRUST in the Divine Providence is the cure for all earthly care, unrest, and sorrow, for those evils are the product of nothing else than lack of trust. Although the Church acknowledges this truth in a general way, her life continues to be infested with those disordered conditions, and her establishment is thereby delayed. This argues in that acknowledgment a lack, not of sincerity, but of full conviction, arising from a non-agreement of the loves and thoughts of the natural man with those of the internal. When those natural loves are quiescent man is able to think in favor of trust, because the internal affections can then be active and dispose him affirmatively toward the truth. But because man's thoughts must rest at last in the natural, when he comes into a state of action the rousing of the natural loves obscures perception from the internal in the natural. In the quiescent state he may wish that those non-agreeing loves might be removed, but when they become active, and by their delights demonstrate their power and hold on him, his desire weakens under the pressure, and he begins to try to reconcile the indulgence of those loves and their delights with what he knows to be the truth, and often persuades himself into regarding as leadings of Providence what really are the promptings of his own natural will and self-intelligence.
The extracts quoted from the Spiritual Diary (n. 3624-5), in the "Notes" of last month, seem to bear upon the practical side of this subject. Therein we are taught-by implication at least-that we can rid ourselves of such mental sicknesses and disorders by resisting the efforts of the spirits which induce them. Those spirits love to fix the thoughts of the man to whom they attach themselves upon such things as pertain only to the dead and finite side of the universe-that which looks outward and downward to mere form and to the person, instead of inward and upward to essence and use, thus to the LORD. These corporeal spirits love to drag the thoughts down to such things as are finite, worldly, relating to the proprium-upon objects and affairs that concern oneself and his own welfare, especially with regard to the future-his own possessions, and whatever pertains to him personally, as his functions and achievements, and their results; and so far as the thoughts are directed to others it is their finite side or proprium that is regarded-their peculiarities and limitations, and their personal attitude to the man himself. Because such things regard self, and self leading, and not use and the LORD'S supreme guidance, they obstruct the clear light of truth and induce upon the mind phantasies, melancholies, morbid persuasions, and sometimes even insanities.
Such a state if it prevails inverts order and makes the universe revolve about self, exalts self and its happiness as the chief good, instead of making these subordinate to the flow of order and of uses, in which consists the operations of the Divine Providence. In true order use looks away from self to the neighbor, in an ever-widening sense of that term, involving one's friends, society, the country, and the Church, and as the soul of all these, the LORD'S Kingdom. But when use is made to revolve about self worldly cares and anxieties and necessities crowd in and overwhelm the mind with a sense of their importance and urgency, the circle of vision becomes contracted, and the habits of life fall into more and more narrow grooves in which sympathy and good offices to the neighbor find less and less place. As charity becomes cold its loss is perceived not as due to self; but to defect and failure of friendship in others, and in the contracting circle of thought and affection a spirit of suspicion and accusation toward the neighbor is engendered. Discontent and failure of satisfying delight follow, causing an attitude-which at length cannot be hidden-not only of distrust, but of actual opposition toward Divine Providence.
What a picture of lack of trust in Providence-and consequently in the neighbor-is presented by the man who in use regards self first, or who by vulnerability in that respect becomes a prey to the spirits who love to usurp his thoughts and fix them upon things which are of no profit. And to whom does not this description in some measure apply?
Trust in self destroys trust in Providence, and there can be trust in nothing else than self so long as self reigns in will and thought. If man would know and do the LORD'S Will in place of his own, he must put that Will, as revealed in the Truth, above the delights which he has made of his life and so of his will-he must make use instead of delight his end, and must devote to destruction the old life in which the delight of self-leading prevailed. When he does this he then first consents to follow and no more leads, and, then, together with self-leading will fall away the old cares and strivings and heartaches and animosities: his happiness, which he no more puts first, is nevertheless safe in the hands of the Divine Father; for trust brings peace, freedom from spiritual burdens, and a new life of love and use which contains its own sufficient reward.
The welfare of the Church lies not in possessions of wealth or of knowledge, not in tranquillity, nor in perfected ordinances and rituals, nor upon any external conditions whatever; but in growth of that humility of heart and sincerity and faithfulness in use, into which the Truth can descend and put self-will, and the mists of self-leading, to flight. All that any man can do to help the Church is to put away the evils that prevent his being gifted with that heavenly state; and as the Church attains that state, man will see how vain it has been for him to "rise up early, to sit up late," or "to eat the bread of sorrows," for as an inhabitant of the House which the LORD alone hath built, he will actually realize the blessings which the Builder and Watcher giveth "in sleep"-when the proprium has been reduced to submission. In the temptations which prepare the way it is not pain but evil which is to be feared and shunned.
"In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be confident; I have overcome the world."
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DELIGHT. 1897
IN freedom, as involving the all of life, is contained the key to the science of education. Under the heading, "The Development of Freedom by Science and Delight," last month's editorial dealt with the functions of science, or of scientifics, in developing thought, taking for a text this statement from the Divine Providence, "Whatever a man does from freedom according to his thought, is appropriated to him and remains." We now come to consider the development of the will by delights. As scientifics give form to the thought so delights give existence to the will. Freedom is of both will and understanding. Science opens the understanding, delight opens the will; therefore education has to do with both.
"In delight there is life" (A. C. 995).
"The external man receives its life principally from the external-that is, from his spirit or soul; hence is derived his very life in general; but this cannot be particularly or distinctly received by the external man unless his organical vessels be opened, which will be recipients of the particulars and singulars of the internal man; those organic vessels, which must be recipients, are not opened except by means of the senses, which are especially sight and hearing, and as they are opened the internal man can inflow with particulars and singulars. They are opened by means of the senses, by scientifics and knowledges, as well as by pleasures and delights; by the former the things which are of the understanding, and by the latter those which are of the will."
In education, in order to develop right thinking, proper scientifics are to be insinuated, and that in a true order; but since these must ever be selected with regard to eliciting orderly and useful delights, for the purpose of developing right-willing, the Divine teachings are to be consulted with respect to Delight. A spiritual conception of the true origin and essential nature of this Divine gift prepares one to deal wisely with the apparent delights which belong to childhood and constitute the fire of life at that age-in order to temper, nurture, and guide them toward a fruitful and not an empty end.
A natural conception of delight will not illuminate our subject. The natural mind, from the lumen of its own loves, regards self as at once the seat and the object of delight. "Leave self out," it says, "and where is delight?" Thus it regards self in delight,-looks to delight as an end for the sake of self. Yet experience alone should teach that that delight which has no other life than love of self, fades away and perishes. We must rise from our conception of delight, to its origin, in the pure, unselfish joy of the LORD'S Divine Love, in giving, blessing, and surrounding with untold mercies His creatures.
The Essence and Origin of Delight.
The Divine Love is Use Itself, and so great is the delight-giving power of its sphere that it cannot otherwise than communicate its blessings to those who receive; and even to those who, instead of reciprocating that unselfish loving operation and influx, pervert and divert to self that which in its essence is all self-sacrifice-it still imparts blessings. Not only the regenerate but even those who have confirmed themselves in evil, are left not wholly without delight, or that which appears to them as delight. The Divine gift of life carries with it capacity for delight, but the delight will be of a quality such as is that of the life chosen. If a man does not receive and reciprocate the Love which consists in giving of its own to others, he cannot receive the genuine delight that belongs to that love; but since that love is the only one which opens and expands the mind to the sun of heaven, all other delights than its own are unsubstantial, fading away until they become none; for they have no living and expansive quality, they close in upon self, and contain the elements of their own curtailment, the seeds of undelight.
"Love consists in this, that its own should be another's; to feel the joy of another as joy in one's self, this is love; but to feel one's own delight in another, and not the other's delight in one's self, that is not loving, for it is loving self, while the former is loving the neighbor" (D. L. W. 47).
To feel one's own delight in another, here, seems to mean, perceiving as delightful in another only that which excites delight in oneself, thus making self the centre of delight; this is a willingness to absorb, not to impart. In a true conception of delight, then, use is everything, self is nothing, and delight is regarded from the standpoint of use, and not the reverse. This overturns the modern theory of life, that its chief object is the pursuit of happiness; and indeed it is of vital importance to escape from the powerfully persuasive sphere of that thought, if one would fulfill his responsibilities in giving a spiritual bent to the young lives entrusted to his charge. These, during minority, cannot be elevated above a natural conception of delight; but he who would prepare them for the elevation when adult age shall be reached, must elevate his own ideals.
When happiness is made the end then delight leads, which Is only self leading; but when man substitutes for this end the LORD'S Will, then he does not lose happiness, but really first finds it-the lending of the LORD is blessedness itself. Since the LORD'S Will seeks the happiness of the universal human race, the joy of that will cannot be communicated except in the measure in which man substitutes that end for the self centered one that concerns only his own happiness. Nevertheless, before regeneration man is absorbed in the apparent delights of self-leading, and the sacrifice of these, which must precede reception of spiritual life and delight, has every sense and appearance of painful death, to the natural, where man resides.
When man freely "loses his soul" (natural loves) he then first "finds" his soul of heavenly love and delight. "It is a Divine Truth that whosoever in his own idea allots to himself the least joy in the other life, receives from the LORD the greatest; and whosoever allots to himself the greatest, receives the least" (A. C. 1936).
This sacrifice of the life of delight would be impossible without the springing up of interior delights, for man could not be led by the LORD, nor even have any life, without delight. Yet interior delight alone could not nourish man, for he requires also actual delight, such as comes to manifest perception. Delight is the perception and sense of the LORD'S gifts to man by which they are appropriated to him; and the appropriation of spiritual life is attained by a process of substitution of delights, in which man freely consents and co-operates. The leading is effected by incipient, unconscious delights in the internal, but his free co-operation is won by delights in the external: the bringing of both into agreement is of the Divine Providence. "No pleasure ever comes forth in the body unless it comes forth and subsists from some interior affection" (A. C. 994).
"All love desires the good of another; the love of parents desires the good of their children; the love of the betrothed and husband desires the good of his bride and wife; and friendship's love desires the good of friends; what then does not the Divine Love desire? And what is good but delight, and what is the Divine Good but eternal blessedness? Every good is called good from its blessedness" (D. P. 324).
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Use and Delight
The LORD does not lead man without his consent and co-operation; indeed reception of delight involves an active consent of the will, for only that life in which man feels, thinks, and acts, as of himself, is perceived as his own and thus as delightful. Therefore man is led by activities or uses, to each of which belongs its delight. Whether you say that the leading is by loves or by uses, or by delights, it is the same thing. In this connection we note the derivation of delight (jucundus) from juvo, "to assist, benefit, profit." This suggests the Divine bounty in bestowing delight, and also the connection of delight with love of others, as well as the offices delights perform in man's development. The very initiation of the babe into faculties of consciousness and motion, is by means of the delights peculiar to the uses of the various organic vessels or receptacles of life. This initiation is effected not instantly nor haphazard, but by series of delights, according to Divine Order.
"The form of the Divine Love, which is Life, is the form of uses in their whole complex, because the form of love is the form of use, for the objects of love are uses" (Div. Love in A. E. iv).
"Life does not apply itself to man, but only to uses in him. Uses regarded in themselves are spiritual, and the forms of uses which are members, organs, and viscera, are natural, but nevertheless they are series of uses; so that there is not in any member, organ or viscus a particle or the least of a particle, which is not a use in form. The Divine Life applies itself to uses themselves in each series, and thereby gives life to each form: thence man has the life which is called his soul" (Ibid.).
"The delight of the love of uses is heavenly delight, which enters into the succeeding delights in order, and according to the order of succession exalts them" (C. L. 18).
These extracts disclose how delights from use connect man with the Divine Source of his life, and how the universe exists and subsists from the Divine Omnipresence in Use. Further, they show that man is led by natural delight-which in itself is no delight at all- into the imperishable beatitude of heaven. And, finally, they indicate that the transference of the mind from the natural to the spiritual sphere of uses, is to be effected by delights, according to a Divinely revealed order, involving series of uses which cover the whole range of human development. Every use in the series is a form of love, and the series of affections by which man is led upward through the stages of life-corporeal, sensual, scientific, and rational, to the goal, which is spiritual life-are also series of delights, the study of which is to include also the series of scientifics, pari passu.
Delights are what develop the will, as scientifics develop the understanding. Since the will is invisible, and since it is developed only through the understanding, which is, as it were, the visible and external part of the mind, the appearance arises that truth is prior to good, and the external man to the internal. The truth is, however, that the understanding could not exist, still less be opened, were there not beginnings of a will laid with man in his earliest infancy, nor could man receive scientifics unless he experienced delights whereby they are introduced and appropriated. The external man could not be opened but for the beginnings of the internal man; and after being opened the external does not really live until it does so from the internal-that is, until it is conjoined with the internal.
Modern Education ignorant of True Delight.
The emptiness of modern education lies in this, that it stops at education of the understanding, knowing nothing of the real nature of the will nor of the proper development of its delights in series: this is the result of faith alone, which destroys all perception, and even knowledge, of genuine love and its delight. This doctrine permeates the whole fabric of all the science of the Old Church, and there can be no healing until there is open repentance and confession of the Divine Human-the Very Manifestation of love itself.
From the Divine Human the Newchurchman has light; he knows not only that scientifics cannot be insinuated without delights, but also the varieties and degrees of each, and their relative position and value in the series which culminates in rationality, the threshold of the internal man (which is the genuine Rational)-the beginning of conjunction with the internal man. In the world at large there exists a general or external idea that education does involve a series of progression, which order must be followed in order to secure good results; but they do not get at the inner reason for the necessity, nor do they discover the real internal order-for the reason given just above. For instance, they discover that precocious development of the understanding is not good, but they see only the obviously stunting effect upon the understanding; they know nothing of remains or the goods of innocence, which are the beginnings of the will, and which are injured by appealing to affections and delights not agreeing with the order whereby the LORD leads man upward and prepares him not only for strength of understanding, but also for wholeness of will. The Newchurchman looks past the understanding to the will, the needs of which he interprets by its manifestations of delights, viewed in the light of Divine teachings concerning the nature and functions of will and understanding and illustrated and confirmed by experience. He alone knows, not only that use is delight, but also what use is, viz.: love-essentially, the Love of the Divine Human.
We would not be understood to deny to modern education a certain light of common perception whereby it is enabled to produce some truths of a natural rational philosophy, more or less in accord with the spiritual philosophy of New Church education. The latter is yet in its infancy, and necessarily lacking in equipment in the things of science and applied philosophy in which the 01(1 Church is rich, and we may account it as providential that modern Egypt offers us such rich spoil. What we do wish to say is that the New Church Education must look for inspiration to the LORD alone in the place where alone He is to be found-the truths of revelation, and especially in respect to the important doctrine of Delight; and that against this interior doctrine the internal of Old Church education is destructively hostile, assaulting it in many insidious ways. And we believe that without recognition of this fact the mind cannot be directed with due singleness of purpose to the Truth of revelation, but will be diverted and infected with external and fallacious ideas, derived from sources not genuine. We mean to say that the science of modern education is vitiated by the falsities of religion upon which it is founded, and hence does not accord with the essentials of a Church which the Divine promise says is to be wholly "New."
When the corruption of loves and loss of heavenly delights that perverted all the knowledges of the Christian Church, ultimated themselves in the doctrines of the tri-personal god-head, the Vicarious Atonement and Faith Alone, the Church was done to death in the hands of her own children, and the light went out. That light can never be re-kindled nor the Church healed unless there be repentance as to those death-dealing heresies, and the LORD approached in His Glorified Human.
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This is possible, for the Doctrine of the Divine Human has been revealed in forms so accommodated to human comprehension that he who fails to receive does so because he so wills. That it is possible seems to be indicated in the qualifying words "rarely if ever" as applied to the statement concerning the resuscitation of the Church among those who have been vastated as to its truths. They can be healed, but will they?
Without discussing that question, we simply reaffirm that without repentance, rejection of fundamental doctrines, and acknowledgment of the LORD, the Old Church will remain essentially as before, and hence the ends and central ideas of New Church and of Old Church education will remain antagonistic. We dare not, as a Church, except at our peril, discredit the Source of our inspiration by acknowledging other sources. What truths reach us from the fragments of the past Churches are but the incohering stones of temples that lie in ruins. They may be re-fashioned, perchance, into manmade structures, but within will be but mockery and delusion.
Nevertheless, there are, in the education of the day, appearances as if it possessed heavenly internals, fox, things moral and scientific readily assume a heavenly guise. In Conjugial Love, n. 267, we read, "Every one is interiorly in concupiscence from birth, but in intelligence by education." By correspondence heaven is represented in worldly things; and into intelligence in such things, whereby heavenly appearances can be put on-derived from its mis-used treasures-the Old Church expertly trains its young, thereby cloaking but not removing the concupiscences of the interiors. Those appearances are very seductive, and many of those who are in them believe themselves to be led by heavenly zeal and delights, and to be thus in charity and in its uses; but their delights are phantasy and their exaltation of charity a delusion and a snare, when within, in place of the banished LORD, are enthroned self and the world, never to be unseated except by repentance and a return to the worship of the LORD.
The quality of scientifics and delights which constitute the environment and atmosphere derived from the world around in which we live, is of weighty import to the educator. Eternal vigilance is the price of safety, but effective vigilance necessitates knowledge of the dangers that threaten. We can take nothing for granted nor accept anything without scrutiny that comes from the world. Yet, since we are of the world we derive thence our natural food and sustenance, and hence we cannot cut ourselves off from it. Selection and discrimination, these are involved in all the phases of life, and especially of education. We are still only on the threshold of our subject: The order in which delights succeed each other, next invites attention.
Sermon. 1897
THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE INTELLIGENT.
(This sermon gives a general explanation of the Second Psalm, and is to be followed by the rest of the series in which the several verses are expounded in particular. This series was preached in Philadelphia about a year ago.)
A SERMON BY THE REV. ENOCH S. PRICE, A. B., TH. B.
WHY are the nations tumultuous, and the peoples meditating vanity? The kings of the earth stand together, and the rulers consult together against the LORD, and against His Anointed.
Let us tear off their bonds, and let us cast away from us their cords. He that dwelleth in the heavens shall laugh; the LORD shall mock them.
Then shall He speak unto them in His anger, and in His wrath shalt He terrify them.
And I, I have anointed My king upon Zion, the mountain of My holiness. I shall announce concerning the statute, the LORD said unto Me, My Son art Thou, I to-day have begotten Thee. Seek of Me and I will give nations for Thine inheritance, and for Thy possession the ends of the earth.
Thou shalt crush them with a septre of iron, as the vessel of a potter Thou shalt disperse them.
And now, O kings, be ye intelligent, be ye instructed, ye judges of the earth. Serve the LORD in fear, and exult an trembling. Kiss the Son lest He be angry, and ye perish in the way; for His anger will burn shortly.
Happy are all that confide in Him (Psalm ii).
THIS Divine Song or Psalm treats in the Internal Sense of the Successive Vastation of the Church, then of its total Devastation and Rejection. Most universally it treats of the Coming of the LORD, and of a New Church, established by Him in place of the Former, which has been rejected. Finally it treats of the Glorification of the Human of the LORD, or, what is the same thing, the unition of His Human with the Divine Itself, from Which It was.
The vastation and devastation of the Church was brought about by this, that they who should have been, and should be, in the goods and truths of the Church, have been, and are, in self-intelligence and the love of the proprium, thus against the LORD. This is signified by the question, Why are the nations tumultuous, and the peoples meditating vanity? and further by the statement that The kings of the earth stand together, and the nations consult together, against the LORD, and against His Anointed.
On account of the vastation, total devastation, and consequent rejection of the Old Church, those who are to be of the LORD'S Spiritual Church should separate themselves from those of the Old: Let us tear off their bonds, and let us cast away from us their cords; for such as they are nothing before the LORD: Re that dwelleth in the heavens shall laugh; the LORD shall mock them; and they will be destroyed by their own evils and falses: Then shall he speak unto them in His anger, and in His wrath shall He terrify them.
For such as are willing thus to separate themselves the Lord has come into the world, and there is a New Church in place of the Old; for the LORD has put on, and will put on, the Human, and He has established and will establish the Church: And I. I have anointed My king upon Zion, the mountain of My holiness. I shall announce concerning the statute, the LORD said unto Me, My Son art Thou, to-day have begotten Thee. Seek of Me, and I will give nations for Thine inheritance and for Thy possession the ends of the earth. From this Church the falses of evil will be dispersed by the LORD by the power of spiritual truth in the natural: Thou shalt crush them with a sceptre of iron, as the vessel of a potter Thou shalt disperse them.
In this New Church it is necessary that men acknowledge that the LORD has glorified His Human, and that they worship the LORD in this glorified Divine Human, or the Human united with the Divine Itself from Which, lest they perish: And now, O kings, be ye intelligent, be instructed ye judges of the earth. Serve the LORD in fear and exult in trembling.
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Kiss the Son lest He be angry, and ye perish in the way; for His anger will burn shortly. All that do these things and have faith in the LORD will be saved: Happy are all that confide in Him.
The Psalms contain eternal lessons of life in their Internal Sense-they treat of the LORD, Heaven and the Church, and not of material things, as understood by the Jews, nor of rewards of merit as understood by the Christians of the Old Church. The second Psalm, as you have heard in the summaries in its Internal Sense, treats of the LORD, Heaven, and the Church. Why not, then, proceed immediately to develop the particulars of what is taught of the LORD of Heaven and of the Church? The answer is, There is no reason why this might not be done, but there are reasons why another course may be adopted. We may begin by showing the false and incorrect understanding of the text; for the true and correct comes into clearer light when contrasted with the false and incorrect. In fact, this is the way in which the Divine interpretation of this Psalm does begin, namely, by showing the state of evil and false with those who might have been and who ought to be in good and truth: The nations are tumultuous, and the peoples meditating vanity.
This Divinely inspired song was written through the instrumentality of an Israelite, and was among the Israelites who had the Word, and who might have known of the LORD, of the life after death, of Heaven and Hell, and of -the Church. They might have been in the truths and goods of the Church; but instead of that they were against the LORD, inasmuch as they applied all things of the Word to themselves, as a nation in this world.
In general, then, the Jew understood, and yet understands, this Psalm to treat of the enmity of the surrounding nations for the Israelites; that the Jews shall eventually overcome those nations; that the LORD hates all others, and will eventually compass their downfall; that He will some time raise up a king in Jerusalem who will conquer the whole world and make the Jews the greatest of all nations, making all other nations tributary-in fact, making of all of them servants and slaves, over whom it will be allowed to exercise the most despotic power. They understood this Psalm to contain a warning to the surrounding kings and rulers to submit themselves, when the Jewish deliverer shall appear, on pain of utter extirpation. These things they believed while yet a nation; and they still believe that that nation will be restored if they remain faithful to their traditions of the coming Messiah; for they say, Happy shall all be that confide in Him-that is, in the coming of the worldly Messiah.
An eminent Christian authority says that this Psalm is a celebration of the taking of Jerusalem from the Jebusites, and the overthrow of all the kings and chiefs of the neighboring nations; and further, that David typified JESUS CHRIST, and that this Psalm celebrates His victories over the Philistine Jews and all the confederate power of the heathen governors of the Roman empire. His whole treatment makes the Psalm refer to' affairs in this world, and to a tripersonal or bipersonal theology. The authority referred to is Dr. Adam Clarke, who wrote a commentary on the whole Bible, verse by verse.
But to the Newchurchman, the real heir of this inestimable legacy, this Psalm teaches in its Internal Sense spiritual and celestial things.
The whole Word in its letter is written by mere correspondences, which represent and signify spiritual and celestial things. In this writing there are four different styles: (1) made historicals or fiction, such as are found in Genesis from the first chapter to the tenth; (2) true historicals, more or less mixed with made historicals; (3) propheticals, in the form of predictions of things to come, frequently containing no natural sense whatever, except that of the detached and separate words; and (4) that of the Psalms of David, and of other songs found here and there throughout the Word. These Psalms and songs are in a style intermediate between the historicals and propheticals. All portions, as before said, contain an Internal Sense, veiled under correspondences; but we are taught that the less coherent is the natural or literal sense, which has a tendency to hold the mind in natural things, the more clearly may the Internal Sense be perceived.
So now, this Psalm, which means almost nothing except natural things, and those things not very coherent and clear-to one not in the genuine truths of doctrine-clearly teaches us, in the light of the Divine exposition of its Internal Sense, lessons about the LORD, about Heaven, and about the Church; and about the kind of life in this world that shall be preparatory to eternal life in the other; so that now, though they see through a glass darkly, we may, if we will, see face to face.
Why are the nations tumultuous, and the peoples meditating vanity? The kings of the earth stand together against the LORD and against His Anointed. It has been ever thus from the beginning, that just those who should be in the goods and truths of the Church are against the LORD. They should have been, and they should be, in goods and truths, because they, and not others, have the opportunity; because they have the Word and doctrine by which goods and truths are to be acquired.
It cannot be supposed that the simple, in any age, have hatched out heresies against the LORD. It has always been the intelligent or erudite class that has been the author of all opposition to good and truth; yea, for the most part it has been the priesthood.
In the Most Ancient Church it was the whisperings of sensual appearances to the intelligent, that they were and did things of themselves, which was the serpent which induced the sin of disobedience against the LORD with Adam and Eve, which disobedience, and the dire persuasions emanating therefrom, caused the final extinction of that Church in the Flood, after which the LORD came in the form of a written Word, and established a New Church-the Ancient.
Again, with this Ancient Church, die very ones who should have been in the goods and truths of the Church became so much opposed to the LORD'S way that they builded a tower by which they wished to reach heaven by a way of their own; but these again the LORD crushed and dispersed, and established in their stead a New Church, the Hebrew, which also in time became idolatrous. In its place arose the Israelitish Church, which was only a representative of a Church, but by means of which, on account of its representative character, some communication between heaven and earth might be maintained. This Church, even in its representative character, was perverted by those who should have been in its truths and goods-that is, who should have represented its truths and goods, by maintaining at least external piety and order. Its priests were its worst sinners. The kings of the nation rushed into all the idolatrous abominations of the surrounding peoples. Aaron, the High Priest, in the very beginning, in the absence of Moses, or the Law Divine, established the worship of the golden calf of Egypt.
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Yea, most active of all was the High Priest in crucifying the LORD. When the intelligent and learned, who more than others might have been in the truths and goods of the Church, had done this, then the end of that church and of that nation came forever.
The Christian Church was then established, which was a real Church. But how was it with this one? Again the same tragic story. Falses and evils with those who should have been in the truths and goods of this Church-the intelligent and learned-were against the LORD; so that unless He came again into the world no man could be saved.
Who but the intelligent and learned, who but those with the best opportunities of all for being in the truths and goods of the Church, originated the doctrine of three Divine persons from eternity, each one of whom is God, thus the idolatrous doctrine of three gods? Who but the priesthood of the Catholic Church assumed the power of opening and shutting heaven, thus power over the souls of men? Who but these same priests took the Word away from the people, and left them in its place their own vile litanies and fabrications? Who but these persecuted with rope and steel and stake those who wished to restore the Word to the people?
The Reformed, or those to whom and by whom the Word was restored, did not, however, constitute a New Church, but were merely instrumental in preparing the way for the LORD'S Second Advent. Without this the LORD could not have come a second time, for as He Himself predicted, He was to come in the clouds of heaven, and these clouds are the letter of the Word, which, therefore, had to be restored to the people. These very reformers originated the doctrine of faith alone, or faith separate from charity, by which a man may be saved in the last hour of his life, no matter how evil his life may have been.
When the LORD asks a question the answer is contained in the question, for the LORD is omniscient; therefore, Why are the nations tumultuous, and the peoples meditating vanity? means that, The nations ARE tumultuous, and the peoples ARE meditating vanity. Nations signify in a good sense the goods of the Church, - or those who are in those goods, and in the opposite sense the evils of the Church, or those who are in them-peoples signify in a good sense the truths of the Church and those who are in them, and in the opposite, falses and those who are in them.
As a Divine confirmation of these things, an apparent repetition of the ideas of the first verse is made in the second, namely, that these who are or ought to be the intelligent, The kings of the earth, and who are or ought to be the wise, and the rulers, are against the LORD, they stand together and consult together against the LORD and against His Anointed.
All the preceding churches, as you have seen, and as every Newchurchman ought to know, have come to their end. The New Church will never come to an end; for the LORD in His mercy has so provided; and hereafter there will always be some who are in its goods and truths, and from these, as from heart and lungs, the life of the body will always be preserved, renewed, and purified. But individual societies, external organization, or particular churches of the New Church may come to an end, and have come to end. The New Church with the individual man may come to an end, and the man may come into hell, among those that pervert.
Further, there is something analogous to the rise, progress, and consummation of the previous churches, and the erection of a New Church in their place, in the rise, progress, and consummation of any given state in the New Church, and the introduction of a new state in its place. At the time when a state has come to its end-that is, when it is no longer a state of progress, there occurs something analogous to a judgment in the Church, as existing in that state. At times this judgment ultimates itself in the actual separation of individuals who have come into a state of falsity, or evil, or both, by misunderstanding, misapplying, or perverting the truths which had been the leading ones of the closing state but which are not adequate to the new state, or are external to it. At times-and these are happier ones-the judgment is upon the falses themselves only, which all in the Church are wise enough to see and reject.
When actual heresies have arisen in the New Church, with whom have they originated? With the simple and ignorant? Who within the borders of the organized New Church have been against the LORD and against His Anointed? Always the intelligent-that is, the well-informed and educated-never the unlearned and simple. For the most part any retrograde or standstill in the New Church has arisen from the slackhandedness, inefficiency, or actual perversity on the part of the clergy,-the very ones who of all, since they are in the greatest light of the understanding, ought to be in the truths and goods of the Church, if not personally, then at least in the acts of their office.
The priesthood is the LORDS office in the Church for the sake of the salvation of human souls, and it is by it that spiritual things, truths and goods, are to be among men. So that, as the greatest good, yea, the very existence of the Church, depends upon a rightly-educated and properly subordinated priesthood, likewise the greatest danger, yea, the possible destruction of a Church, lies in a badly-educated and insubordinate clergy. Let every young man studying, or contemplating studying for the priesthood take this to heart.
Against all these evils of self-love and falses of self-intelligence, and against the men who are in them, we are warned to separate ourselves, if we would be of the New Church: Let us tear off their bonds, and let us cast away from us their cords.
It is curious to note that this passage, by the translation of the common version, and, of course, by the Old Church generally, is made a part of the tumult and vain meditation of the evil. The Authorized Version reads as follows: The kings of the earth set themselves, and the riders take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his Anointed, SAYING, Let us break their bonds asunder, and cast away their cords from us.
The warning for separation is for the whole Church, the individual societies of the Church, and the individual man of the Church; for to be against the LORD and against His Anointed, is to be against the very Divine and the Divine Human. The Anointed of JEHOVAH is the Divine Human, or the Divine Truth of the LORD in His Second Coming, thus the actual presence of the LORD with men. Against this every man's pride of intelligence and lust of evil arrange themselves. The kings of the earth stand together, and the rulers consult together against the LORD and against His Anointed. But let us separate ourselves from this pride and this lust; Let us tear off their bonds, and let us cast away from us their cords; for such things are nothing before the LORD; He that dwelleth in the heavens shall laugh, the LORD shall mock them.
The hells and the World of Spirits are full of the nations that are tumultuous, and peoples that are meditating vanity, and they strive with all arts and cunning to set others into tumult and to induce a state of vain meditation.
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Tumultuous nations are the evils of the love of self and the world. These evils may, by the insidious persuasions of those in the other world, have induced upon them the appearance of good; they may even be goods as considered in themselves, but because applied to self and to selfish ends they become evils with the man, all on account of the vain meditations of the peoples-that is, because man allows himself to meditate upon himself and in his own favor. It now stands before each one of us, that with us the kings of the earth shall not stand together, and the rulers shall not consult together, against the LORD and against His Anointed.
Kings are principles of the false or falses, and rulers are evils. The Internal Sense of this passage says that those who should or might be in truths and goods are against the LORD. Therefore this warning is especially to the Newchurchman, since he has within him kings and rulers in a good sense, namely, the truths and goods of the doctrines of the Church. Let us see to it that we are on the side of the nations that are tranquil, and of the peoples that are meditating wisdom, and of the kings of the earth that stand together, and of the rulers that consult together FOR the LORD and FOR His Anointed; and from the other kind let us separate ourselves, let us tear off their bonds, and let us cast away from us their cords; for they are nothing before the LORD, He that dwelleth in the heavens shall laugh, the LORD shall mock them.- A men.
CIVILIZATION AND THE WORD. 1897
THE useful work that is being done by such bodies as the New Church Home Reading Union, connected with the English Conference, and the Society of the Isolated, of this country, suggests some thoughts concerning the great modern advance in methods of communication by which such uses are made possible. Not only do the mails carry throughout the land the literature of the Church, but they facilitate question and speedy reply, whereby the distant and isolated members of the Church are, enabled to feel the pulse of thought and affection from the centres, and thus keep in the sphere of the Church and its progress. It does not take much reading between the lines to see an application here of what is said of the use of commerce, in the Arcana Coelestia, n. 9354, that on this earth there is a general intercourse among all nations for the sake of the Word. (See also: S. S. 108, and D. P. 256.) The same significance may be seen in the invention of the mariner's compass, the discovery of new continents, the inventions of paper- making and the printing-press-all which are associated with the culminating feature, the restoration of the Word to the common people, effected by the Reformation. They all mean, Dissemination of the Word.
Even so the mighty enginery of modern civilization is destined all to be devoted to uses as far from those intended by its apparent originators and masters as is heaven from earth. All things exist for the sake of the Word, and this means also for the sake of the Church; for the understanding of the Word makes the Church: the Word really exists on earth only in the minds of the men of the Church-by means of its material clothing.
But the coming of the Word is an internal, invisible one; and to suppose that the perfection of natural civilization is in any sense a measure of the spiritual reception of the Word, is to confound the means with the end they are designed to promote. The enlightenment of to-day is merely a part of the revival of natural intelligence and freedom which followed the Dark Ages, and which constituted a forerunner and preparation for the now-dawning spiritual glories of the Word.
CONTENTMENT WITH ONE'S LOT. 1897
DURING their journey through the wilderness the Sons of Israel daily received manna, or bread from heaven, so that their life might be sustained until they reached the promised land. This manna lay every morning round about the camp, and they were permitted to gather each day what was necessary for that day; but they were strictly commanded not to gather more: "Moses said to them, let not any one make a residue thereof until the morning" (Exodus xvi, 19). We read further, that "they hearkened not to Moses, and the men made a residue of it until the morning, and it bred worms, and grew putrid."
The commandment not to make a residue of the manna, teaches, in its spiritual sense, that man, trusting in the LORD'S Providence and content with his spiritual and his natural lot, should not have anxious care for the morrow. Every regenerating man during his life on earth makes the journey from Egypt to Canaan, from hell to heaven, and during the same is sustained by the LORD with manna, or bread from heaven; this manna is the good which inflows into man from the LORD when he seeks to live a life of obedience to the truths which the LORD reveals in His Word. With this good man should be content and not anxious lest it be not provided; for the LORD constantly gives it; all that is necessary on the part of man is that he faithfully do his duty, which is, that he seek to obey the LORD, by shunning evils as sins against Him. Man must not seek to make a residue of good-that is, he must not seek to provide it for himself by the exercise of his self-derived prudence; such good is not genuine, but is only the appearance of good put on externally, and therefore cannot sustain spiritual life. It will "breed worms, and grow putrid."
The LORD is good itself, consequently He is the source or all good; the good which is from Him has in it what is Divine, thus it is good from the inmost and from the first esse; but the good which is from man is not good, because man of himself is nothing but evil; hence the good which is from him is, in its first essence, evil, although in the external form it may appear as good. Good from the LORD pertains to those who love the LORD above all things, and the neighbor as themselves; but good from man pertains to those who love themselves above all things, and despise the neighbor in comparison with themselves. They who are in good from the LORD put their trust in Him, trusting that He will from day to day provide good for them; they do not in this matter have care for the morrow; but they who are in good from themselves trust in themselves and in their own prudence, and are in constant anxiety about the cloak of good with which they cover themselves, not only for the present but also for the future, and hence they are in constant care for the morrow in regard to it. They who are in good from the LORD, are content with their spiritual lot-that is, with the good which they have from the LORD; but those who are in good from self are not content with their good.
The regenerating man, seeking to be content with his spiritual lot, must put aside anxiety and solicitude as to the degree of good which he may possess, and have confidence that the LORD will provide all that is necessary to his spiritual sustenance; but in order that he may have this confidence, it is necessary that he do his duty-that is, shun his evils as sins against God.
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He must not have care for the morrow-that is, must not have anxiety as to what good may be provided in a future state; let him shun the evils which he sees within his heart in the present, and enjoy the good which the LORD grants him to enjoy because of so doing, fully trusting that when a new state comes the LORD then also will give him his "daily bread."
In the despair of grievous temptation, when man sees the monstrous and diabolical character of some evil within himself, and realizes how strong a hold it has upon the very roots of his life, he is apt to feel as if it were totally impossible that he could ever be rid of it. What is he to do in such a state? First of all, let him put aside care for the morrow; let him begin now, in the present, to fight against that evil, and if he look to the LORD, he will succeed; he will not be able to remove that evil as a whole to-day, but yet he will remove something, and receive in its stead good from the LORD; for that good let him be thankful, content with his lot; on the morrow the LORD will give him strength again to do his duty, and to find the manna round about the camp.
It is, however, important that it be borne in mind what is meant by care for the morrow, namely, that it means anxiety about the future, and not that man should act provide for the future. It is the duty of every man of the Church to provide for his future states, and he does this by learning from the LORD the truths of faith for the sake of application to life. The time and the manner of that application he may not know, but the LORD will give him the perception thereof when that morrow-that is, the state for it-is at hand. Man need have no anxiety about this; all that is necessary is that he be in the earnest desire to bring the truth into his life, yet ever remaining content with his lot. "Be ye not therefore solicitous for the morrow, for the morrow shall have care of those things which belong to it."
He who is content with his lot on the spiritual plane will be so also on the natural, for the trust in the LORD'S Providence on the higher plane will inflow into the lower. He will therefore not be solicitous for the morrow in regard to worldly things. But he who is not content with his lot on the spiritual plane will not be content on the natural, for he trusts in himself and not in the LORD, believing that the obtaining of worldly things depends entirely upon the exercise of his own prudence; therefore, also, he is in constant anxiety as to the future. As on the spiritual plane, so on the natural, man is content with his lot when he from day to day does his duty-that is, performs his use faithfully, sincerely and justly, trusting that the LORD will give to him what He sees to be sufficient for his daily necessity. He who does this will have no care for the morrow-that is, no anxiety for it-for he knows that the LORD will be present with him then as now. Yet at the same time he will, if possible, also provide for the morrow, for it is according to order that man should do this.
Every regenerating man who trusts in the LORD should be content with his lot, yet at the same time it should be his constant effort to better his lot. At first thought it may seem that these two principles of life are opposites, but on reflection it may be seen that such is not the case, and that they can be in perfect harmony. They come into harmony when man puts aside anxiety about the bettering of his lot. He must do all in his power to better it, and leave the result of his efforts in the hands of the LORD, trusting in His Providence.
The things which pertain to man's worldly lot can all be referred to two generals, namely, wealth and dignity. Every one, even he who is in great poverty, has certain wealth, for he possesses something; likewise every one, although his position be the meanest, has a certain dignity, or standing in the eyes of his fellow-men.
The subject of wealth naturally divides into two parts, the obtaining and the expending of it, in each of which man should be content with his lot.
Man obtains wealth by the performance of his use, for every one has a certain use or work to do for his neighbor, and in return for the good which he thereby does the LORD rewards him through others with such a degree of wealth as he sees to be necessary for his natural wants and best for his spiritual welfare. He who loves the LORD will humbly thank Him for what he thus receives, content with his lot, and acknowledging that it is better than he deserves. Such a man, because he acknowledges that his wealth comes from the LORD, will most earnestly shun the obtaining of it by any means which he knows are not pleasing to the LORD; he will not stoop to the tricks and wiles of the world, whereby men seek to obtain more than what they give value for; he acts honestly, sincerely, and justly in all that he does, even if he lose wealth by so doing, for he implicitly believes that the LORD will provide. It is otherwise with him who does not hove the LORD, for he is not satisfied with what the LORD gives him, and seeks to add to it by his own prudence through the exercise of dishonest and questionable arts. He makes a residue of a manna, which will assuredly "breed worms, and grow putrid."
In the expending of wealth man must also be careful "lest he make a residue of the manna until the morning." This he does if he lives beyond his means. The LORD gives man wealth that he may thereby perform use and also acquire the necessaries and comforts of life. The LORD knows the measure of necessaries and comforts which it is best for each man to have, and indicates this to him by the wealth he bestows upon him; he who goes beyond this shows that he is not willing that the LORD should determine his needs, but that he wishes to determine them for himself.
Another indication of discontent with one's lot in the expending of wealth is unwillingness to bring to the LORD the first-fruits of one's labor. The LORD most assuredly gives to every one in such measure as to enable him to do this; man is, however, too apt not to acknowledge this, and to determine from his own prudence that the LORD does not give him sufficient to permit him to contribute to the promotion of the uses of His Kingdom. But even he who does bring his first-fruits may be in discontent in this matter, for such is the case if he does it with an unwilling heart.
Many may, perhaps, have a clear conscience as to these two forms of discontent in the bringing of their first-fruits, but there is still another form from which all may not be so free, a form which is apt to infest even the man who does his full duty. How often do we not hear men of the Church say sorrowfully: "If I only had more, then could I give more!" In such states man loses sight of the truth that it is the LORD and not man who provides for the Church; the LORD provides for it through men, and by means of the wealth which He enables them to contribute He indicates what is the measure of uses which the Church is to perform. If the Church endeavors to perform more uses than the wealth which the LORD gives to it warrants, then it is making the residue of manna. Let, therefore, every one who does his duty be content with what the LORD enables him to do.
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Man must be content with his lot also as to the dignity or honor which he enjoys-that is, as to his rank or position among men. There are higher and lower social grades, and justly so, for the higher the use which a man performs, the higher is the dignity and honor which should pertain to him and his. In the world at this day the perception and acknowledgment of this truth is constantly growing weaker; for in this democratic age few are willing to acknowledge a superior. Since dignity and honor pertain to the use which man performs, therefore the first essential of contentment with one's lot in this respect is contentment with one's use. It is not wrong, but on the contrary a duty, for every one to seek to perform as high a use as possible, but his endeavors must be free from anxiety, and at the same time he must be content with that which is before him to do, thanking the LORD that He permits him to do it.
He who is genuinely content with his use will also be content with the social position which it allots to him; he will give due honor, not only internally but also by external acts, to those who are superior; and at the same time will not consider himself as more worthy than those who are inferior, but will regard them as brothers and friends, honoring them according to their wisdom in the performance of their uses.
Happy are they who are content with their lot, and thus free from anxious care for the morrow. Their state cannot be more aptly described than by the following words of doctrine: "These, notwithstanding they have care for the morrow, still have it not, for they do not think of the morrow with solicitude, still less with anxiety; they are of an equally composed mind whether they enjoy what they desire, or not, neither do they grieve at its loss, being content with their lot; if they become wealthy, they do not set their heart on wealth; if they are exalted to honors, they do not consider themselves as more worthy than others, neither are they made sad if they become poor, nor dejected if their condition be mean; they know that all things succeed for a happy state to eternity with those who put their trust in the Divine; and that the things which befall them in time are still conducive to that end" (A. C. 8478).
F. E. W.
GOD 1897
(This article is extracted from a recently prepared small work designed to epitomize the teachings of the New Church for evangelistic purposes.)
No MAN with religion and sound reason will deny that there is a God, and that He is One.
But who and what is this one God?
The old Christian Church, Catholic or Protestant, teaches that "God is a Spirit, invisible and incomprehensible, without body, parts, or passions," and that He created the universe out of nothing.
Is this a true idea of God? Does not the absence of any "parts" involve the absence of a whole? Is not the lack of "passions" or affections the same as lifelessness and unconsciousness? What has no body has no form, and what has no form can have no permanent and substantial reality. How can we form any conception of what is invisible and incomprehensible? And how can we approach and love that of which we have no conception? "Ex nihilo nihil fit." Out of nothing comes-nothing.
Clearly, such an idea of God is not just and true. Widely different from this is the Doctrine of the New Church, signified by the New Jerusalem in the Revelation.
This Church teaches that there is a God, and that He is One; that this One God is the Divine Man, in Himself essential Love and Wisdom, or Good and Truth; that, though Infinite and Eternal, He is both visible and comprehensible; that He possesses a Divinely Human substance and form, with consciousness, affections, thoughts, and distinguishable qualities, and that He created the universe, not out of nothing, but out of Himself, by means of His Word.
It is self-evident that God is Love and Wisdom itself, for it must be admired by all that He is Life itself since He is the fountain of all life. Life is Love, and Wisdom is but the form and expression of Love.
God is Man, the Divine Man, the only Man, for love and wisdom are the essential and distinguishing qualities of humanity. We know He is Man, for He created us men, in His own image and likeness.
He is visible, for He is Truth itself, and truth can be seen. He is visible in His own Divinely Human form and body. Here on earth we see and hear Him in His Word, and "in Heaven the angels do always behold His face" (Matthew xviii, 10).
He has a Body, for in His Word we read of His face and His eye, His mouth and nostrils, His arms and hands and feet. If He has all these parts, what else can possibly be lacking?
And who is He? "In JESUS CHRIST dwelleth the fullness of the Godhead bodily" (Col. ii, 9).
Title Unspecified 1897
ANNALS OF THE NEW CHURCH.
SWEDENBORG'S SPIRITUAL PREPARATION OR GRADUAL ILLUMINATION.
1743-1746.
1743.
CONCERNING this important year of his life, Swedenborg states: "As the LORD had prepared me from my childhood, He manifested Himself in Person before me, His servant, and sent me to do this work" [i. e., the publication of the Doctrines of the New Church]. "This took place in the year 1743, and afterwards He opened the eyes of my spirit, and thus introduced me into the spiritual world" (Doc. II, 387; compare Doc. I, 9; C. L. No. 1, 419; T. C. R. 157, 779, 851).
There exists no further account of the LORD'S personal manifestation to Swedenborg, as occurring during this year. But He revealed Himself to Swedenborg again in April, 1744, and the third time in April, 1745.
The date of the opening of Swedenborg's spiritual sight has been discussed in the Documents, Vol. II, p. 1118 (*1. 1874: 24, 178, 268); See also Mr. Richard McCully's articles on "Swedenborg in the New Dawn" (I. 1871: pp. 23, 68, 110).
* Abbreviations: A. L., Academy Library; Doc., Tafel's Documents Concerning Swedenborg; 1., Intellectual Repository; L., New Church Life; M., New Jerusalem Magazine (Boston).; O., The Monthly Observer (London); Tottie, Tottie's Life of Jesper Swedberg.
A full comparative account of Swedenborg's spiritual experiences and mental states during the years 1743 to 1746 is to be found in the Documents (II, 1082-1118).
January-July.-Swedenborg remains in Stockholm. Is ill at various times during these months (Doc. I, 457).
March 26th.-He purchases the property on Hornsgatan, in Stockholm, which henceforth becomes his permanent home (M., n. s. XIV, 175).
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June 14th.-Swedenborg to the king, asking for two years leave of absence in order to undertake a foreign journey (L. 1896: 167).
June 14th.-Letter to the College of Mines, announcing his intention to go abroad (Doc. I, 458).
June 30th.-Royal decree, granting leave of absence to Swedenborg (Doc. I, 461).
July 21st.-Swedenborg leaves Stockholm on his fifth foreign journey; travels through Nykoping, Norrkoping, Linkoping, and Norrkoping to Ystad, and thence by boat to Germany.
August 6th.-Arrives in Stralsund; travels thence to Rostock and Wismar.
August 12th.-In Hamburg, where he is introduced to Prince Adolphus Frederic of Holstein Gottorp, the crown prince-elect of Sweden; submits to him the manuscript of the "Regnum Animale" (Doc. II, 132).
August 18th.-Travels through Bremen to Holland (Doc. II, 133).
September 2d.-In Amsterdam, where he remains until November (Doc. II, 1089).
December 1st.-Arrives at The Hague to superintend the publication of the "Regnum Animale" (Doc. II, 938, 1089).
December 1st.-The opening date of Swedenborg's "Book of Dreams." He experiences a change of state as to his former love of honor, and love of the sex (Doc. II, 148).
The "Book of Dreams" has been translated, in parts, by Dr. R. L. Tafel (Doc. II, 147-219).
During the year occurred the death of Archbishop Eric Benzelius, Swedenborg's brother-in-law, educator and most intimate friend (Doc. II, 608).
About this time Swedenborg wrote "A Digest of Swammerdam's 'Biblia Nature'" (MS. 79 pp. Doc. II, 937).
1744.
Swedenborg states of this year: "Heaven was opened to me in the year 1844" (Doc. II, 257).
"I had daily intercourse with angels and departed men from the year 1744" (Div. Wisdom [A. E.] VII, 2. Compare Doc. II, 404, 1082.)
January 20th.-Swedenborg still at The Hague (Doc. II, 1089).
April 6-7th.-At Delft, near The Hague. The LORD manifests Himself in Person to Swedenborg, and speaks with Him. "It was a countenance with a holy expression, and such that it cannot be described; it was also smiling, and I really believe that His countenance was such during His life upon earth. He addressed me, and asked if I had a certificate of my health? I answered, 'O LORD, Thou knowest this better than I,' and He said, 'Then do it.' This, as I perceived in my mind, signified, 'Love Me truly,' or, 'do what thou hast promised.' O God, give me grace to do this" (Doc. II, 159).
While at The Hague, Swedenborg publishes his great work, the
"Regnum Animale, anatomice, physice et philosophics perlustratum" (The animal kingdom, considered anatomically, physically, and philosophically). The Hague, Adrian Blyvenburg. Part I, pp. 438; part II, pp. 286, 4to (A. L., Doc. II, 937).
May 16th.-Swedenborg arrive, in London; takes lodgings at the house of a Mr. Brockmer (Doc. II, 193, 587).
For a short time he is said to have attended the services of the Moravian Church in Fetter Lane. His private Diary shows that he had some inclination towards this sect at this period (Doc. II, 196, 587).
About this time he is engaged upon a work, entitled, "De Sensu communi, ejusque influxu in animam et de hujus reactione" (On Sense in general, its influx into the soul, and the reaction of the latter) MS. 200 pp. (Doc. II, 941.)
July 9th.-States that he moved to other lodgings (Doc. II, 200).
According to one report, Swedenborg changed his lodgings, because two Jews at Mr. Brockmer's had stolen his watch (I. 1871: 28).
According to another report, invented by Mr. Brockmer and circulated by John Wesley, Swedenborg is said to have left Brockmer's house in a fit of insanity. The story has been thoroughly exploded by Robert Hindmarsh, and others (Doc. II, 587-612.)
During the month he writes a treatise, "De Cerebro" (On the Brain). MS. 43 pp. (Doc. 11,948.)
October 27th.-Begins to work on "De Cultu et Amore Dei" (Doc. II, 588).
Remains in London during the rest of the year (Doc. II, 1090).
To this year belong two small treatises by Swedenborg:
"De Musculis Faciei et Abdominis (On the Muscles of the Face and the Abdomen). MS. 13 pp. (Doc. II, 942.)
"Experimenta Physica et Optica" (Physical and Optical Experiments). MS. 6 pp. (Doc. II, 943.)
A painting of Swedenborg in 1744 exists, representing him in the act of leaving his room for a walk (Doc. II, 1197).
Another portrait of Swedenborg in 1744 is described in L. 1895, p. 186.
1745.
January-July.-Swedenborg remains in London, preparing the following works for the press:
"Regnum Animale. Pars III. De Cute, Sensu Tactus et Gustus, etc." (The Animal Kingdom. Part III. Treating of the Skin, the senses of Touch and Taste, etc.) London: 169 pp. 4to (A. L.; Doc. II, 944).
"De Cultu et Amore Dei" (On the Worship and Love of God). Parts I and II. London: Nourse and Manby, 144 pp. 4to (A. L.; Doc. II, 947).
A third part of the same work, containing 19 pages, was printed subsequently, but not published. It was photolithographed by Dr. R. L. Tafel in 1869 (Doc. II, 949).
March 11th.-Swedenborg's letter to Ambassador Preis, at The Hague, presenting his latest works (L. 1896, P. 186).
April 15th.-London. Of this date he states: "From the middle of April, 1745, I have been in Heaven, while I was at the same time with my friends on earth" (Adversaria, vol. I, no. 1003).
About this time occurred Swedenborg's vision, in an inn, of various kinds of reptiles, and of a man who told him "eat not so much" (See Doc. I, 35, 69). The correct report of the vision, as given by Swedenborg himself, is found in the Adversaria, vol. II, nos. 1956, 1957; and S. D. 397.
The occurrence has been further discussed in I. 1871: 29; O., vol. VII, p. 88.
Soon after this vision the LORD again revealed Himself in Person before Swedenborg, commissioning him with the office of revealing the Doctrine of the New Jerusalem (Doc. I, 86, 69).
"From that day I gave up the study of all worldly science and labored in spiritual things, according as the LORD commanded me to write" (Doc. I, 36).
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"When Heaven was opened to me, I had first to learn the Hebrew language, as well as the correspondences according to which the whole Bible is composed" (Doc. II, 261).
July.-Swedenborg heaves England and returns to Sweden. On his journey, which lasted a whole month, he enjoys uninterrupted spiritual communications (Doc. II, 1119).
August 22d.-In Stockholm, present at the College of Mines; he remains here until the end of the year (Doc. I, 462).
He now begins the interior study of the Word of God, receiving, by degrees, more and more light upon its spiritual meaning. The results of his studies are noted in his "Commonplace Book" (the "Adversaria"), which consists of many separate treatises. Of these the following were written in the year 1745:
"Historia Creationis a Mose tradita" (The History of Creation, as related by Moses). MS. 25 pp. (Doc. H, 950.)
"De Messia Venturo in Mundo" (On Messiah, about to come in the world, and on the Kingdom of God). MS. 32 pp. (Doc. II, 951.)
"Explicatio in verbum Historicum Veteris Testamenti" (Explanation of the Historical Word of the Old Testament). MS. 3 vols. 169 pp. (Doc. II, 951.)
1746.
Concerning Swedenborg's spiritual state and experiences during this year, see Richard McCully's articles on "Swedenborg in 1746" (I. 1871:165, 221).
January-December.-Swedenborg remains in Stockholm the entire year, working in the College of Mines, and writing the following treatises:
"Index Biblicus Librorum Historicorum Veteris Testamenti" (Biblical Index to the Historical Books of the Old Testament). MS. 581 pp. (Doc. II, 954.)
"Esaias et Jeremias Explicati" (Isaiah and Jeremiah explained). MS. 107 pp. (Doc. II, 955.)
"Annotata in Jeremiam et Threnos" (Notes on Jeremiah and the Lamentations). MS. notes in the margin of Swedenborg's Latin Bible (Doc. II, 955).
"Index Biblicus Esaias, et quoque Jeremiae et Geneseos quoad partem" (Biblical Index of Isaiah, and also a portion of Jeremiah and Genesis). MS. (Doc. II, 956.)
CORRECTION AS TO DATES. 1897
THROUGH a private letter from the Rev. Fedor Gorwitz comes a correction of some minor details of the article on the New Church in Vienna, published in the December number of last year.
Mr. Gorwitz states that the Rev. William Peisker, for several years pastor of the Vienna "New Church Union," was ordained in 1871 (not 1872), and that he went to Vienna the following year, remaining there until his death. As this was in 1880 the visits of the Revs. Messrs. Mittnacht, Tafel, and Benade took place before that event, Mr. Mittnacht indeed having preceded him to Vienna (1870). Dr. Tafel's visit followed three years later, while Mr. Benade's occurred in 1879 (the Life put it at 1878). It may be added that according to Mr. Gorwitz, Mr. Peisker's death was said by his friends to have been occasioned by an overdose of opium, taken to allay a toothache.
DISEASES OF THE FIBRES. 1897
(Chapter VI, continued.)
HEMIFLEXIA.
416. HEMIPLEXIA or hemiplegia is a similar privation of animation, consequently of sensation and voluntary determination of one-half of the cerebrum, or of one of its hemispheres. For the motion of the cerebrum ought to originate according to the partitions of its cortical substances, both general and special, as also particular; wherefore the brain is variously subdivided. For the cerebrum is divided into its hemispheres, these into their lobes, these into their serpentine ridges, these into their elevations, these into clusters, these into spherules, which are again divided into lesser and least parts; whence also the brain has the faculty and possibility of expansion in general, in particular, and in part; for either the whole, a lobe, or a portion of the cortical substance, may be unfolded; wherefore if one-half or one hemisphere should become torpid by reason of some heavy obstruction, the other hemisphere could act; if one lobe, another could be actuated in turn; and if this be possible, either one or the other serpentine elevation could be actuated.
417. Thus when the carotid arteries, in their greater branch, which leads to one hemisphere, are blocked up with much glutinous, viscid, gross, cold, or inert blood, or are filled up with steatomata, polypi, or excrescences; or are compressed extrinsically, or if the viscosity blocks up the cortical glands, the pituitary serum about the fibres or collections of fibres in the medullary substance becomes gluey in the tortuosities of the brain, it conglutinates the folds, stops up one of the lateral ventricles, is collected between the meninges on one side of the longitudinal sinus, or if the dura mater becomes too flaccid, or rigid from induration, action perishes in one hemisphere, whence is hemiplegia.
PARAPOPLEXIA.
418. But parapoplexia arises when one or another division of the cortical substances is infested by the same evils as mentioned above. But still many causes may concur to produce parapoplexia, that is to say, besides the fluid gluten collected somewhere under the dura mater, its concretion or relaxation from the cranium, the cohesion of one convolution or sulcus, it also happens that the beginnings of the nerves may cohere by a similar viscid humor in their exit from the cranium, after the exit in the body, and doubtless between the fasciculi, whence are tumors, sinuses, and hollows, also in the ganglia and in the muscles, yea in their fibrous layers. A similar effect results from compression, ligation, lesion, erosion, or amputation of the nerves.
PARAPLEXIA.
419. Paraplexia or paraplegia does not derive its original cause from the brain, but from the medulla spinalis; for the whole body below the neck, or all the muscles, as many as are approached by the spinal nerves are attacked by apoplexia, the sensations of the head remaining unimpaired, and the power of acting into their muscles unimpeded. Paraplegia in the medulla spinalis exists from causes similar to those which were mentioned above as taking place in the brain, with a difference according to the fabric of that medulla and of the brain.
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420. In the meantime, because there is such a connection between the medulla spinalis and the cerebellum in man, that one can only with difficulty be moved without the other, and because the spinal nerves from the dorsal region inflow into the muscles devoted to respiration, and the intercostal nerve into the heart, vena cava and aorta, which intercostal is indeed sent forth from the cerebellum, but passes through the spine, hence this species of paraplegia [apoplexia] cannot be otherwise than fatal in a short time, should it degenerate into apoplexia; but in the meantime the heart lives through the eighth nerve of the head, similarly also the lungs live for some time.
421. THERE is sleep, when the cerebrum returns into its natural state, such as it had in the mother's womb, and rests from the emotions and affections of its animus; then also the windings in connection with their cerebrum, the sulci, and spaces between the cortical spherules and medullary fibres, close up. The tranquillity and innocence appearing in the face indicate this; and at the same time the respiration of the lungs is more equable, slow, soft and profound, and subject to no arbitrament of the will. In the meantime when the cerebrum rests, the cerebellum moves and animates itself. So at night or in sleep the cerebrum relinquishes its reins and hands them over to the cerebellum, which then left to its own authority, drives the pulmonary machine through its own fibres and those of the medulla spinalis, likewise it drives the cardiac engine into alternate reciprocations, and at the same time the muscles of the body, into all which, while it inflows, a complete equilibrium of the whole results. From the cause of sleep and wakefulness and the other connected phenomena, we learn by diligent anatomical study that the cerebrum by means of the medulla oh. longata and medulla spinalis inflows into all those muscles which are moved voluntarily; similarly also the cerebellum by its fibres; so that the fibres of the cerebrum, cerebellum, and medulla spinalis, proceed conjoined in one nerve, and prudently unite them selves in the very muscles; but that the cerebellum may act into still more muscles, and indeed in such manner, that when it actuates one muscle it may at the same time actuate another, even antagonists themselves, and because one muscle cannot be so excited against another as it is wont to be by the cerebrum,- equilibration of all arises. Hence there is alternate rest and unrest-that is to say, the cerebrum sleeps while the cerebellum watches, and vice versa; and there would be certain death if both should sleep, as also uncertain life if both should reign on equality at the same time.
422. Whatever voluntarily excites the muscles, and disposes the organs of sense that they may distinctly receive and transmit the means by which they are affected, is destroyed and perishes in sleep; thus sleep is the temporary death of voluntary actions and sensations; consequently sleep is an affection of the cerebrum only, which is both the common sensory and the voluntary motor; but how the cerebrum is affected, is to be thoroughly mastered from the exquisite anatomy of all its parts, as of its substances, meninges, members, and of its connection with the cerebellum and subjacent medullas. The cerebrum is divided into hemispheres, into similar convolutions of its internal parts, and these most exactly into their divisions by furrows and ridges; one fold, commissure and duplicature crosses, subdividing into another, scarcely otherwise than as a great artery ramifies into its lesser and least divisions; when all the divisions and double ramifications of the cortical cerebrum, divided and properly separated, open-that is to say, when the cortical cerebrum is so expanded and raised erect that it appears to be crossed by a single sulcus or fold-then is the state of its vigil, attention, and intention. But while the cortical cerebrum is collapsed, that is to say, while one congeries of the cortical substance lies upon another and their divisions are almost obliterated, then the cerebrum is in the state of its sleep, obscurity, insensibility and indeterminability, that is, in impotency of willing to act and of sensating. For TO WILL is to determine into act that which has been concluded, when the desire of some end comes into the mind, or the lust of what favors into the animus. But SENSATION in the cerebrum is a perception of the images and methods which from the external senses and from the memory inflow from below into the mind. The cerebrum cannot determine into act that which it wills and attempts, if it does not perceive what is to be attempted; for as is the perception of the sensations, so also is the will of the actions, and vice versa; for there are in one series, first successive, then simultaneous, PERCEPTION, COGITATION, JUDGMENT, CONCLUSION, WILL and DETERMINATION INTO ACT. If the first in the series be intercepted, the last likewise perishes, for it depends on the first for a means; so also if the last perish, progression from the first ceases in a moment, and thus existence by first act.
423. Consequently if we now demonstrate that the state of the cerebrum during sleep is such that it cannot perceive, or determine into act the desires of its will, it comes to this: In order that the cerebrum may determine into act that which it wills or desires, it is necessary that it be in a state of separately moving its cortical substances or their congeries, which are distinct or separate from one another, and which excite the corresponding muscles in the body. If the cerebrum collapses, and by the collapse obliterates the distinctions, then assuredly the cerebrum can rule over no muscle in particular, but over all in general; incapability of actuatinq particular motions or determinations is what is called sleep. Therefore, in order that the cerebrum may sleep, it is necessary that it close up and contract, and thus extinguish its power of acting in particular [singulariter].
424. But it certainly is of interest to know the state of the cerebrum when animated or expanded-that is, its state of vigil. Every motion or affection of the animus elevates, raises up and unfolds the cerebrum-that is, awakens it. For great joy, exhilaration, yea ambition, and other similar warmth, wheresoever directed, expands the cerebrum to the angles of its cranium, for that which causes the cerebrum to become tumid, appears from signs and from sensation itself. But, on the other hand, sadness, humility, and the privation of hope constringe the cerebrum, not otherwise than anxiety constringes the chest, and grief the nerves. Wrath and fury and similar insanities exhaust the brain diversiformly, and confuse it with a copious, unchosen, and malignant blood: the other passions [animi], as vindictiveness, hatred, fear, want of reason, and love, which will be treated of in their own places, are otherwise. That there are so many common states of the cerebrum we observe to the life in every one's countenance, which is the index of the animus, but especially we observe this from the state of respiration of the lungs, which is altogether synchronous with the animation of the cerebrum or coincides with it; for the lung at one time with tightened, at another with more lax rein, now variously closed or expanded, respires vigorously, weakly, quickly, slowly, silently, gently, distinctly, as the cerebrum excites its animations; similarly the lungs apply and accommodate themselves to every beck of the will or to every single animation, for the purpose of moving the muscles or producing actions.
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These are the common states of the cerebrum, from which it rests or relapses into its natural state, when it begins to slumber.
425. Into this state the cerebrum relapses when, the discriminating lines being obliterated, its cortical substances coincide or collapse; and so also perishes the distinct and diversified elevation or animation of the singular congeries of that substance, and in its place succeeds an animation common to the whole brain, one or simultaneous.
426. Such as is the animation of the brain, such is its life, and the singular animation or the animation of the single parts under the general gives distinct life; that is to say, it gives the power of feeling, of willing, and of determining singulars into act. For each cortical protuberance, as was shown above, corresponds to its own muscle in the body, which the brain excites by the singular elevation or animation of its cortical substance. But the common animation gives a life common, undivided, and obscure, such as is of the sleeping cerebrum, and such also as is of the vigilant cerebellum. Consequently whatever deprives the cerebrum of that power of animation, that also deprives it of the faculty of feeling and willing.
427. In the state of sleep the red blood is likewise debarred from approaching nearer to the individual cortical substances, but it is kept at a distance from them according to the decree of sleep; for it is the animation which draws the blood from the arteries, and invites it toward the cortex; thus such as is the animation so is the afflux, distribution, and circulation of the blood in the brain. Thus in sleep the blood glides along the outmost surface of the pia mater, nor does it penetrate into the interiors of the brain except by the more patent ways, where also are the arterial trunks; for it cannot flow through the winding mazes and commisures toward the substances of the cortex, because they are constricted and collapsed.
428. From these things it may appear what the causes of sleep are, that is to say, everything that inhibits and extinguishes the singular animations of the I cerebrum; and those which debar the blood from the cortex; for then the cerebrum collapses and begins to sleep: wherefore the causes of sleep are silence, leisure, en exalted peace of the mind, rest of the animus, lassitude, love [Venus], a soothing spirit, and sweet harmony likewise blood that is too heavy, its defect, or a very great loss of it, external or internal compression of the cortical cerebrum, or blocking up of the vessels, are causes of sleep, but these last are causes of morbid sleep.
429. But among the prime causes of natural sleep the necessity of the kingdom holds a place, that is to say, that what during the day is worn out-that is, destroyed or disordered-may be restored at night; for what the will destroys, nature repairs; or, what wakefulness disturbs, sleep recomposes; or, what the cerebrum confuses, the cerebellum distinguishes, and, what the cerebrum constringes the cerebellum relaxes, as also the reverse. So unless one acts in turn while the other remains passive-that is, if the whole should be without sleep, the animal machine would not long cohere. Necessity itself adverts, admonishes, and, as it were, solicits that the cerebrum, distracted and oppressed with weariness, should refresh itself, and that the cerebellum having taken its rest, should both rouse up again promptly and assert itself. And when the circulation of the spirits, the blood and humors, the economy, and the universal state of the corporeal life, and especially that of the cerebrum is restored, then the cerebellum renounces its authority and returns it to the cerebrum, or the cerebrum awakening from sleep resumes the office spontaneously. Hence it follows, a cause of sleep is also whatsoever vigorously excites the cerebellum.
That the cerebellum, when left to its own right of acting-that is, while the cerebrum is quiescent-more constantly, equably, lustily, and the more slowly, the more deeply, animates the body, we are taught from the anatomy of the brain.
430. From these things it may appear why infants sleep more than adults, but old people with more difficulty; why from too much sleep results drowsiness, dullness, heaviness, weakness of the memory, obesity, and indisposition to move, that is to say, the animation of the cerebrum, and the unfolding of the tortuous windings is more difficult; why awaking from sleep we stretch the limbs, but going to sleep relax the muscles; why the coarser foods cause sleepiness; why when we are weighed down with sleep the muscles by degrees relax, first the eyelids and eyes, then the face and neck, afterward the arms, and lastly the feet; for sleep begins in the top of the cerebrum, and by degrees descends.
431. Moreover every cortical gland, which is a little internal sensory, a little brain in the least type, and a symbol of our rational mind, in its common state, which is a singular state respectively to the common state of all the glands, or of the whole brain, so long as asleep remains unchanged; for the state of the individuals or single parts and the permanence of that state, do not impede the change of state of the common composite, as is well known in physics (compare Treat. I, n. 287). As all affections of the animus change the general state of the cerebrum, and induce upon it a form agreeing with, and accommodated to its modes of acting or to its nature-so all desires of the mind, which respect some end, are so many causes which similarly change the state of each cortical substance of the cerebrum, and induces upon each in particular an agreeing form. If these states continue or are changed during sleep, dreams, visions, phantasies, and most diverse apparitions are thence excited, which are so many representative images in the mind from the soul, according to the state of the cortical substances, and according to the ratio of influx into the general state of the cerebrum, where are the things of memory and images.
432. That we may collect together the scattered causes of both natural and preternatural sheep, there are, I. those which remove the singular animations of the cortical substances of the cerebrum, and reduce them into a general indiscriminate one. II. are those causes which debar and separate the arterial blood from the cortex of the cerebrum. III. and more singular, are those which fatigue the cerebrum, and render it incapable of acting, but the cerebellum spirited and lively. IV. The effect is that the cortex of the cerebrum, which is the sensory and common voluntary motor, becomes collapsed, and by mutual application, coheres just as if not divided and distinct. Consequently that the corresponding muscles in the body are excited by no singular and individual force, but all at the same time by some common one.
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Notes and Reviews. 1897
FROM the New Church Book Room, St. Louis, we have received "The Problem of Reform," a small volume of essays by the Rev. S. C. Eby. The nature of the subjects treated require more careful consideration than we have been able as yet to bestow upon the work, but we hope to have something to say in our next number.
Title Unspecified 1897
FROM James Speirs, London, we have received "The Affections of Armed Powers. A Plea for a School of Little Nations," by D. J. J. G. Wilkinson. We regret to have to urge physical indisposition as our excuse for some unwilling neglect of our Review department of late. We hope to be enabled to bring up arrears before long.
Title Unspecified 1897
THE Rotch Edition of the Writings has been augmented by a new translation of The Earths in the Universe issued in stiff paper binding, but otherwise uniform with the rest of the edition, which means typographical excellence as well as convenience of form. An index adds materially to the value of the edition.
Title Unspecified 1897
THE Rev. James F. Buss, in his valuable "Replies to questions received from readers connected with the New Church Home Reading Union," in Morning Light for April 17th communicates an interesting passage from Swedenborg's Regnum Subterraneum de Ferro Subterraneous Kingdom of Iron), p. 291. The passage which describes "flowers of iron" found "sprouting" in certain mines, is quoted in illustration of Divine Love and Wisdom, n. 61, and is accompanied by the reproduction of a wood-cut taken from the former work, representing samples of such "flowers."
Title Unspecified 1897
ACCORDING to the Messenger some perturbation is shown by the Christian Advocate (Methodist) at the New-Church system of propagandism by the Gift Books, which that journal, in an editorial entitled "A Long-Headed Testament," treats of the will of the late Dr. Ellis. The Advocate takes occasion to state its views on the subject of the New Church Doctrines, and at the same time to warn its readers against the invasion of orthodox territory as a "scheme" for "unsettling the foundations" of the evangelical. We can the more readily concede the Advocate's right to take such steps to protect the "foundations" in that we have so lively a sense of their vulnerability.
Title Unspecified 1897
APROPOS of Dr. Ellis's will, the Oil, Paint, and Drug Reporter gives the estate at $250,000, of which $20,000 was bequeathed to the American Swedenborg Society for printing and distributing the Arcana Coelestia, and $10,000 for distributing Swedenborg's works (in Italian) in Italy, $10,000 each, to the Swedenborg Society (Publishing Association of Philadelphia, the New York Association, and the National Temperance Association. Liberal provision is made for the employees of the New York, store of John Ellis and Company, and of its refinery at Edgewater, N. J.; $200 to each married man and $100 to each single man who had been in the employ ten years; to those not so long in service, $50 and $20 each. Of the residue, after deducting also $115,000 left to his widow and nephews and nieces, one-quarter is to go to the American Swedenborg Society.
Title Unspecified 1897
IT is with a particular sense of gratification that we note the completion of the English edition of the Apocalypse Explained of the American Swedenborg Printing and Publishing Society, and acknowledge the receipt of the fifth and sixth volumes, just issued. These do not differ in general appearance from the preceding ones, except for being thinner: the number of pages in Vol. IV (560) is greater by over one hundred, although Vol. I exceeded them by less than half that number. In Vol. VI the treatise on the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom, in the Appendix, is accompanied by an index of subjects and also one of Scripture passages. As is well known, The Athanasian Creed is also included in the Appendix. The translation, by the Rev. J. C. Ager, appears to be uniform in quality with former volumes, which were reviewed in this journal in April of 1895. The Church is to be congratulated on now possessing, in accessible form, this spiritual treasury.
Title Unspecified 1897
IN the Messenger for January 6th and also the 13th appeared articles "by the Rev. A. Roeder and Albert J. Edmonds," correcting a misapprehension as to the attitude the philosopher Kant took toward Swedenborg. Mr. William White, in his larger Life of Swedenborg, makes Kant testify to a wonderful agreement between Swedenborg's doctrines and the "deepest results of reason." Mr. Roeder gives the correct translation of the passage which Mr. White appears to have egregiously garbled, and quotes other language of Kant full of satire and ridicule of Swedenborg.
Title Unspecified 1897
IN The New Church Review for April Mr. Charles H. Drew traces the growing desire for "International Arbitration" to the changed conditions brought about in the spiritual world by the Last Judgment, and he presents an interesting and thorough study of the history of the movement for arbitration. To the statement that "In 1757 the civilized world, except Holland . . . and Switzerland . . . and England . . . was governed by absolute despotism," should be added the name of Sweden, which nation at that time had a constitution by far the most democratic in Europe.
Title Unspecified 1897
OTHER leading papers in the Review are: "The Place of David in the Scriptures," by the Rev. James Reed; "Theories of Evolution," by the Rev. T. F. Wright; "The Noble French, Nation," by the Rev. W. L. Gladish "The Demonstration of Correspondences," by the Rev. Jacob E. Warren, and a series of four papers on "The Church with a Few; or, The Woman in the Wilderness," by the Rev. Messrs. L. H. Tafel, Edwin Gould, A. J. Cleare, and I. N. Martin. Mr. Albert J. Edmunds contributes an interesting paper on "Time and Space; Hints Given by Swedenborg to Kant," in which he compares the statements of Leibnitz and Swedenborg on this subject, and shows that Kant, consciously or unconsciously, was greatly influenced in his philosophy by the Revelator whom he reviled.
Title Unspecified 1897
THE paper on "The Noble French Nation" endeavors to locate the exact position of the French in the composite or spiritual anatomy of the "Greater Man" of European nations, and arrives at the unexpected conclusion that the French national mind corresponds to the cerebrum or the distinctively intellectual or male principle, while the English are assigned to the cerebellum, the feminine or will principle. Modern writers are quoted in support of this position, which, however, seems to us hardly borne out by the Doctrines or by the history of the French.
Title Unspecified 1897
AN ADDRESS from the Correspondence Committee of the Young People's League to the Society of the Isolated was printed in the New Church Messenger of February 3d. Zechariah viii: 23 is quoted as indicating that "when men of all creeds who sincerely look to the Lord and seek to do His commandments, realize how empty are the means provided for the worship of the true Lord, and for knowing his will, in the various tongues which the sects speak, then will they come to the New Church, as the only place where there is the knowledge of and belief in the true God." Twelve points are noted in which the isolated, as well as members of societies, can be ready to forward the good time. 1. By letting the New Church rule in the life; 2. By learning the Doctrines; 3. By conducting worship in the home, thus securing the sphere of the fellowship of the New Church and of the New Heaven; 4. By reading the Writings; 5. By training children in the teaching of the Church and in the sphere of living those teachings. The remaining points relate to use of a Circulating Swedenborg Library for the isolated, and of tracts and periodicals, the enlisting the interest of friends and of ministers, and the final suggestion is, to keep the New Church in evidence by inserting in local papers items from the New Church periodicals.
Title Unspecified 1897
THE work being done by the American League of Young People's Societies in way of organizing "The Society of Isolated Receivers of the New Church," seems to be progressing upon very useful lines, and the report of the Corresponding Committee Tubhisbel in the Messenger of April 28th, makes very interesting reading, especially the quotations from letters received from lonely and hungry Leaders of the Doctrines. Calls to isolated receivers have been issued through the Messenger and the Helper, and also by printed form mailed to those likely to be concerned, and it is proposed to go on until proximately all such scattered sheep shall have been enrolled, to enjoy the benefits of organization and the ministrations of the visible Church.
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Over two hundred names have been entered (232 in all), but unquestionably it might be very greatly extended. It is proposed to send out a general letter containing suggestions for systematic study of the Writings, and for Sunday-school study, together with a directory of addresses of all the members-a feature which should prove very useful, not only in the way of facilitating ministrations to the members, but affording opportunities for correspondence among themselves. The Committee recommend the League to induce Convention to assume the use, as being better equipped to meet the requirements which seem likely to arise with its extension.
MARRIAGE. 1897
(Marriage: 1. Purity; 2. Service. By Jane Dearborn Mills.)
FROM the pure-white cover of an attractive booklet, received sometime since, looks out the gold-embossed word, " Marriage," and in its pages are to be found some very suggestive thoughts for those who are in or look toward that happy relation.
If there be one subject which above all others involves all the fundamental antagonisms between the dead past and the religion of the future, that subject is, Marriage. Since conjugial love is the fundamental of all loves, spiritual and also natural, it follows that in a corrupt faith and life that love more than all others, will be inverted. Here, especially, the "making new" of Divine promise necessitates a revolution-must turn upside-down inherited prejudices, notions, phantasies, and falsities-must indeed move from centre to circumference the Church, before her establishment can be said to have been accomplished.
Therefore every sincere attempt to rend the veil of prudish secrecy and unworthy associations which-disguised as superior delicacy or chasteness-has obscured this vital topic, deserves recognition; and as such we welcome the frankness of thought that characterizes the little work in question. Nevertheless, we venture to hold that the author has made a mistake in supposing that the testimony of women is what is needed or will avail, to convert those whose minds have been tainted with the idea that the ultimates of marriage are not pure-much less holy. Such minds, if they will not from the light of salvable affection in their own minds recognize the truth on this subject, as given forth by the authorized teachers of the Church, will but scoff, and worse, when a woman enters the unequal contest on behalf of the truth. On this delicate phase of the subject the heavenly wives have set a conservative example. (See Conjugial Love, n. 293.)
It is suggestive of the extent and degree of unwholesomeness of thought prevalent in the world that the author finds it necessary to contend that the marriage relation is, on the part of woman, neither a toleration of what is distasteful nor a lowering of herself in accommodation to masculine imperfection-or to maintain that sexlessness is not chastity. To such as do not already possess the New Church teachings, the part of the book devoted to "Purity" may impart new and more elevated conceptions of the physical aspect of marriage as the foundation of the holiest and most unselfish attributes of our kind.
The second part, "Service," is an attractive presentation of the morality and ethics of marriage, the nature and results of that service and devotion which by the mutual yielding up of self-life makes it possible that the LORD, "entering into each of their hearts through that of the other, will be the deepest joy that human love can know."
Particularly pointed seems the following:
"In the ideal marriage the happiness of husband and wife, which is of the slightest permanence and value, is not in selfish gratification. It is wholly in the joy of service to each other. The performance of duties, the shunning of peculiarities, pettinesses and greater evils, are just as difficult in the sunshine of each other's love as they would be in the darkness of indifference or dislike. The temptations which prosperity brings to individuals and peoples to luxuriate in idleness, comes to the happy husband and wife. To luxuriate in their happiness is a constantly recurring impulse with them; to live in each other's attentions and appreciation; to forget or to despise common duties; to ignore the welfare of the neighbor. The happy husband and wife must struggle as bravely with these temptations and as constantly as must others with the sorrows of a disappointed marriage. They must as often each yield their personal selfishness to the other as must the ill-mated. They must as often give up each other's dearly loved companionship for duties to others, as must the unhappy struggle not to let their sorrow render them powerless for these same duties. 'As often' and as earnestly, because regeneration comes only with constant, prayerful exercise of spiritual love and wisdom which must take the place in the heart of natural good as well as of evil; and without regeneration happy marriage would soon turn into unhappiness."
On the last page of the book occurs a fallacious teaching which is so serious as to require notice. It reads thus:
"Therefore marriage is service. It consists in shunning great evils and what seem little feelings, and in honest devotion to external duties. But the end for which they are done makes its glory. They are not for one's own salvation. They are for the bestowal of Divine Life upon others through one's own soul and life."
We have italicized the part objected to. As we read the Writings the only admissible end in the shunning of evils is salvation, our own salvation, not that of others. The only part man has in salvation is reciprocation, according to freedom and rationality, and these faculties are given him to exercise for himself, not for any one else. The bestowal of Life is from within; our influence upon others is from the outside, and plays no part in that bestowal other than instrumental or incidental; for when by our actions or spheres, thoughts and affections are excited in any one, the bestowal of spiritual life depends not upon such excitation but upon the man's attitude toward those thoughts when he sees them as below him in his external, and from free-determination in his internal, disposes himself either for or against the operation of the Divine.
GENERAL CHURCH OF THE NEW JERUSALEM. 1897
THE General Assembly of the numbers of this Church will be held at Huntingdon Valley, Pa., June 25th to 29th, the sessions beginning on Friday, June 25th, at 10 A. M. Friends of the movement are invited to attend the meetings.
There will be no general conference of the Clergy before the meetings of the General Assembly.
Blank applications for membership will be furnished by applying to the Secretary.
Any persons who have applied for membership, but have not yet received their certificates of membership, will please notify the undersigned, as there are reasons for believing that some of these papers may have miscarried in the mails.
80
CHURCH NEWS. 1897
NEW CHURCH LIFE.
PUBLISHED MONTHLY BY THE ACADEMY OF THE NEW CHURCH.
TERMS:-One Dollar per annum, payable in advance.
FOUR SHILLINGS IN GREAT BRITAIN.
ADDRESS all communications for publication to the Editor, the Rev. George G. Starkey, Huntingdon Valley, Montgomery Co., Pa.
Address all business communications to Academy Book Room, Cart Hj. Asplundh, Manager, No. 1521 Wallace Street, Philadelphia. Pa.
Subscriptions also received through the following agents:
UNITED STATES.
Chicago, Ill., Mr. A. B. Nelson, Chicago Agent of Academy Book Room, No. 565 west Superior Street.
Denver, Col., Mr. Geo. W. Tyler, Denver Agent of Academy Book Room, No. 544 South Thirteenth Street.
Pittsburgh, Pa., Mr. W. Rott, Pittsburgh Agent of Academy Book Room, 4726 Wallingford Street.
CANADA.
Toronto, Ont., Mr. R. Carswell, No. 47 Elm Grove.
Waterloo. Mr. Rudolf Roschman.
GREAT BRITAIN.
Mr. Wiebe Posthuma, Agent for Great Britain, of Academy Book Room, Burton Road, Brixton, London. S. W.
PHILADELPHIA, MAY, 1897=127.
CONTENTS. PAGE
EDITORIAL: Confidence 65
Delight 66
THE SERMON: The Responsibility of the Intelligent 68
Civilization and the Word 71
Contentment with One's Lot 71
God 73
ANNALS OF THE NEW CHURCH 73
A Correction as to Dates 75
Diseases of the Fibres 75
NOTES AND REVIEWS 78
Marriage 79
General Church of the New Jerusalem 79
CHURCH NEWS 80
A REQUEST 80
ACADEMY BOOK ROOM 80
Philadelphia.-THE congregational life here, under the conduct of Pastor Synnestvedt, pursues an even course, marked by no more especial events than occasional social functions more or less informal, but enjoyable. The doctrinal class is attended by about thirty, and seems to excite interest.
Huntingdon Valley.-SATURDAY evening here is frequently made the occasion of either a lecture or social entertainment. We have had a lecture from Mr. Pitcairn on the financial question; one from Mr. S. H. Hicks, on "Railroads;" one from Bishop Pendleton, on the "Beard;" one on the "Principia," and another on "Betrothals, Ancient and Modern;" and one from Mr. Odhner on that enlightened pioneer, the Rev. Richard De Charms, and also another on the "Gallican Church." The musical element have received a valuable acquisition in the person of Mr. Robert Caldwell, formerly of Parkdale, Canada.
AT a meeting held to consider ways and means in connection with the coming General Assembly in June, it was found that the Society would be able to provide for quite a large attendance; apparently all were impressed with the importance of the occasion, as well as its promised enjoyableness. The desire for a more General Church life gives promise of future growth and a broadening of sympathies and uses.
A PRIVATE class in Practical Botany has been formed by Professor Odhner, including now about fifteen or twenty members.
Pittsburgh-PENDING the selection of a pastor by the Pittsburgh Society, the Rev. A. Czerny usually conducts services. On March 27th the Rev. E. J. E. Schreck again filled the pulpit.
CANADA.
Berlin.-THE Pastor of the Berlin Church has instituted a Pastor's Council, consisting of seven members of the Society. A Board of Finance, connected with the Treasurer, already existed.
The school closed for Easter vacation on April 9th, and reopened on April 20th.
On Good Friday the Society enjoyed a very successful supper social, with toasts, dancing, etc. several visitors being present.
The Easter celebration, which included a rendition of fifteen selections of the new music, was much appreciated. On Easter Monday the Church Orchestra gave a most enjoyable concert. The work on the Church grounds has been resumed under the leadership of Mr. Isaiah Steen.
ON Sunday, April 25th, Pastor Rosenqvist visited Milverton, where, at the house of Mr. Henry Doering, he conducted services and administered the Holy Supper. In spite of bad weather twenty-font adults and children were in attendance.
On the 27th, at a meeting of the Berlin Society, after resigning from the General Church of the Advent of the LORD. Pastor and people signed an application for membership in the General Church of the New Jerusalem.
THE CHURCH AT LARGE.
Missouri.-THE Council of Ministers of the General Convention will meet this year in St. Louis, May 11th to 13th; and the Convention itself will meet in the same city May 16th, et seq.
Massachusetts.-The semi-annual meeting of the Massachusetts Association was held in Boston, on April 8th. Mr. Thomas S. Harris was ordained, and will take up pastoral work in Providence, R. I.
The Rev. Jacob E. Werren has resigned the pastoral charge of the Abington Society.
Pennsylvania.-The Pennsylvania Association held its ninth annual meeting in the temple on Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, on April 18th. The society in Frankford, under its new minister, the Rev. Louis Rich, reported a membership of 80; Harrisburg, w here the Rev. A. B. Dolly labors, reported 16 members; Lancaster. 34; Philadelphia, 421; Vineland, 77. The Rev. J. E. Smith, who is engaged as general missionary to the Association, reported new centres at Montgomery's Ferry, Fishing Creek Valley, and Stormville. A society is growing up at Chester, also. During the year $2,190 had been collected for the uses of the Association.
Addresses were delivered on "The Beauty and Use of Association," by the Rev. Louis Rich; on "Subject Study of the Word," by the Rev. Adolph Roeder; on "Subject Study in Swedenborg," by Mr. Edwin S. Cook (advocating a more thorough study of the Writings), and, on "Subject Study in the Collateral Literature," by the Rev. William H. Alden, suggesting that the latter has a use, subordinate, but valuable for comparison, and tending to prevent the adoption of narrow, discolored, or distorted views. The meeting was attended by eight ministers, 29 delegates, and 160 visitors.
Ohio.-THE Rev. E. J. F. Schreck, on Easter Sunday, preached in the new house of worship in Toledo. The chapel was then used for the first time, but will not be dedicated until the congregation is out of debt.
MRS. MARY ARION BURNHAM.
THE passing away of Mrs. Burnham, noted in the March number, is of interest to those who have been affiliated with the former Church of the Academy for, aside from the fact that her husband had been one of the foremost thinkers and teachers of that body, her own interest and espousal of its principles continued with her to the last. She was born near Lynchburg, Va., on the 11th of January, 1823; her father, Mr. David Pancoast, becoming a receiver of the Doctrines a short time after. In 1842 she was married to the Rev. Nathan C. Burnham, then Pastor of the Cincinnati Third Society. Her interested and intelligent grasp of the Doctrines made her a valuable reader and amanuensis to Doctor Burnham in the blindness that afflicted his later years. Of eight children, four sons survive. Mrs. Burnham formerly taught a class of small boys in the Academy Schools.
REQUEST. 1897
ALL who contemplate attending the General Assembly in Huntingdon Valley next month, will confer a favor by early notifying the Committee on Entertainment. (See April Life; also the notice on page 79.)
BOOK OF DOCTRINE. 1897
Containing Summaries of Doctrine from the WRITINGS OF THE CHURCH. 320 pages.
Price, including postage: bound in Cloth, 75 cents; in Brown Flexible Morocco, round corners, gilt edge, $2.00.
BROLLOPSKLADERNA.
This is the title of the "WEDDING GARMENT," which has been translated into Swedish, and is now on sale.
Price, including postage: bound in Cloth, 90 cents; in Paper cover, 60 cents.
MEDALS OF SWEDENBORG.
In Silver, Bronze, and Aluminum, have been coined in Sweden.
One side represents a bust of Swedenborg, and besides his name, gives the dates of his birth and death. The other side represents Swedenborg's Summerhouse, and bears the inscription: "Trichila Swedenborg. In Skansen. Transportata 1806." This Latin inscription mean's "Swedenborg's Summer-house at Skansen. Transported 1896."
These medals are on sale here.
Price, in Silver, $1.25; Bronze, 50 cents; Aluminum, 25 cents.
ACADEMY BOOK ROOM,
1821 Wallace Street, Philadelphia.
Title Unspecified 1897
81
NEW CHURCH LIFE
Vol. XVII, No. 6. PHILADELPHIA, JUNE, 1897=127-128. Whole No. 200.
Editorial. 1897
NOTES.
FOR some time past various utterances throughout the Church have seemed to indicate a growing impression that the transitional character of the still infantile New Church is about to be marked by the development of a state distinct from what has gone before. To us that state seems to promise to be one of greater freedom and individuality of thought. The hope that the resultant freedom may prove genuine-because derived from the truth, not from the license of self-intelligence - is strengthened by the apparently increasing study of the Writings, which are being made more accessible than ever before, not only by new and better translations and editions, but also by analytical index work, chief among which stands the invaluable Potts' Concordance. As men outgrow old trammels and come into new grasp of the meaning of "Nunc Licet," such ultimate means of access to the Lord Own guiding Truth must play an important part in the general enfranchisement from bonds of false teachings, errors, and prejudices, human authority, and self-intelligence in general.
Title Unspecified 1897
THIS train of thought was suggested by observing in the last issue of the Concordance (No. 92, May) the magnificent array of passages on the timely subject of "Rule." Among them we noticed several bearing on the question-mooted of late in the periodicals-whether in heaven-especially the highest heaven-there exists formal government; or whether the statement in Heaven and Hell, n. 214, means that the government of Justice, proper to that heaven, which is said to be "of the LORD alone,"-is administered by Him without any mediation-that is, without angelic governors.
In the Arcana Coelestia we read: "With the evil, equally as with the good, or in hell as in heaven, there is a form of government; namely, there are dominations and subordinations; without them society would not cohere. But subordinations in heaven are plainly other than in hell: in heaven all are equal, for one loves another as brother loves brother, even so that one sets the other before himself in proportion as he excels in intelligence and wisdom; the love of good and truth itself causes that every one as it were from himself, subordinates himself to those who are in wisdom of good and intelligence of truth more than themselves. But the subordinations in hell are those of command, and thence of savageness; he who commands rages against those who do not favor his every nod" (A. C. 7773).
This passage, while it seems perfectly explicit as to heavenly government's being a formal and hence a visible and tangible one, at the same time lifts the mind above the question of form and shows the essence of heavenly domination, and bow its form is only a means of effecting the common end, namely, charity, or the carrying out of the Lord will. Since this can be done only by the Divine Truth, each one gladly submits to that truth in the organic forms in which it exists with the angels, namely, in angelic minds, whence it emanates in mediated form as government; for the governing Truth is not a vague abstraction or universal influence, but an actual substance which constitutes the very angels themselves as to their heavenly proprium. So the subordination is not to the higher angel, but to the Truth, which rules all the angels, as their life.
Title Unspecified 1897
THE forms of government vary in adaptation to the purpose and to the states of those who are in the common love or end which the government serves. The form will be according to the plane-more flexible, plastic, and living, in internal things; more rigid, imperative, and uncompromising, in externals. Yet whatever the plane, if the government be just and true it will always involve something of the principle of free, rational consent on the part of the government. Take even military government, external and rigid as it is. The soldier, in enlisting, yields free, rational support to the end for which the army exists, knowing that its accomplishment requires that government there be one of command, and that his free, rational co-operation in carrying out that common purpose will have to take the form of prompt, implicit, and blind obedience. That is because the objects aimed at are on the plane of most external things. The objects of spiritual government, however, call for the exercise of higher forms of freedom and rationality, on the part of both governor and governed. But there should be willingness to sink one's self-intelligence in the presence of the Truth, even to the extent of blind obedience.
Effectiveness and permanence depend entirely upon oneness of end on the part of governor and governed. This cannot exist without a spiritual conception of what is involved.
Title Unspecified 1897
A SPIRITUAL conception of government necessitates some perception that there is an absolute distinctness or discreteness between things spiritual and things natural, that the laws conditions that exist on the one plane do not on the other. In order to be able to think clearly and rationally concerning things of heaven and of the Church, in relation to things of this world, it is of the greatest importance to distinguish well between the natural and the spiritual. The two planes indeed correspond, and the two worlds respectively belonging to them present wonderful similarity of objective appearance, insomuch that the one may be mistaken for the other by any one passing, without foreknowledge, from the one into the other. But unless we recognize a radical distinction as to essentials, we shall get to thinking and judging materially of spiritual things, of the higher from the lower, and so fall into fallacies. "The heavens, the heavens, are the LORD'S, but the earth hath He given to the sons of men."
Title Unspecified 1897
THE heavenly and the earthly are discrete planes of existence. This discreteness is represented on earth by the distinctness between the things of spiritual and those of natural knowledge; between the things of faith, which relate to heaven, and those of nature, which relate to earth; between things ecclesiastical and things civil.
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"The Kingdom of the LORD is the same as the Church, with only this difference, that the kingdom of the LORD on earth is called the Church" (A. C. 8900). It is the same in the Church, which is the Spiritual World or the LORD'S Kingdom on the earth" (A. C. 4901). "The science of the knowledge of faith is so distinct from the science of natural things that they scarcely communicate" (A. C. 1198). They communicate only by correspondence, not by continuity.
The distinctness arises from the difference of ends, and is shown in the difference of the respective uses. Civil things regard as an end civil good; or nourishment, clothing, protection, and intercourse, and also the common welfare arising from those. Spiritual things regard as an end all the goods of faith and charity, and arising from these, salvation. There is no connection between the two, of continuity; what is spiritual is discrete from what is natural. But they correspond, and the correspondence lies chiefly in ends or loves; for love constitutes life on every plane. Orderly civil things in themselves do indeed correspond to orderly spiritual ones, but that correspondence does not exist in a man until spiritual ends reign with him. Before then the correspondence is external to the man himself, and so brings only outward benefits, like the prosperity which attended the ancient Jews so long as their external worship corresponded to heavenly things.
Title Unspecified 1897
Because all men of any sanity are influenced by a common end, so far as the desire for civil good is concerned, the bonds of civil law are adequate to preserve external order, which is maintained according to Divine Providence, as being essential to the existence of spiritual order; not that the Divine Omnipotence is dependent for the preservation of that order, upon man's fickle will or compliance-with order, but that the LORD wills thus to use motives which are permitted to man in order that he may have any life or human quality of freedom. Men know that without civil order there is no enjoyment of civil good and so maintain it by a common consent or common end. But in ecclesiastical things there is no such common bond of interest and necessity among men. The end here is spiritual, and can be shared only by those who suffer themselves to be led by the LORD and to be gifted by Him with a desire for salvation. There can be no compulsion about this. Ever since the power of Babylon was broken in the spiritual world, at the Last Judgment, tyranny over the conscience of men has become a thing of the past; the spirit indeed remains, and the effort to exercise it will recur, over and over again, but the power is broken. The only power that can hold a church together is community of end as to the things of salvation, and thence a common bond of conscience. Other and more unworthy ends may bind men temporarily to the Church; but such is the new power of truth, arising from the new spiritual conditions that prevail since the LORD'S Second Advent, that the Church cannot be made to serve such ends for any great length of time. Because the separation has been made in the other world it will certainly and inevitably be made in this. Ecclesiastical things cannot be subjected to civil things, except with those who so desire. The usurper can dominate only over those who themselves subordinate ecclesiastical to civil things, who compromise conscience in spiritual things for the sake of any natural loves,- friendship, love of fame, gain, or from weakness in the presence of a stronger will, or from mere natural good.
REV. JOHN PRESLAND 1897
IN the death of the Rev. John Presland (on May 1st), Pastor of the large congregation worshiping in Argyle Square, London, and editor of The New Church Magazine, the New Church in England has suffered a heavy blow. Eminent in scholarly attainments, and endeared to a wide range of New Church associates and friends, his departure seems to leave a deep sense of both public and private loss.
In our next number we will give a sketch, of Mr. Presland's life and services.
"A NON-ECCLESIASTICAL ECCLESIASTICISM." 1897
THE above is the advisedly paradoxical title of an address delivered by the Rev. C. H. Mann before the New York Association at its annual meeting last February. Its publication in the Messenger was followed by a supplementary paper having the same heading. The idea represented by the title seems to be simply, a Church organization freed from the old idea of a Church authority, which requires submission of the understanding to the dogmas of the Church. In place of that authority the paper would substitute a new individualism, arising from the union of men and women in a common end of religion.
No exceptions can be taken to having all possible individuality in the Church; but to derive the Church and its authority from the collective individualities is no better than the old condition. There seems to us decided inconsistency in the papers' positions: first, that" Justice in the state and order in the Church, are from God;" now contrast this with these, that "the authority of the Church, even its ecclesiasticism, is vested in the individual, and thus in the people," and also, "We have renounced a Divinely authenticated priesthood." If this means a priesthood assuming Divine authority, it hardly requires the assertion, being self-evident. But if it repudiates the Divine sanction and origin pertaining to the office, it seems inconsistent with the foregoing. If there he, as admitted, a general "order in the Church," and that order be "from God," it follows that there must be a Divinely authenticated administrant thereof.
A true "individualism" would obtain where each one applied himself to his own function, thus contributing to the sphere of co-operation which makes it possible for the administration of the Divine Truth to prevail among all governors and governed. Finite though those instrumentalities and recipients be, the Truth has been accommodated to them.
If we put aside the conception of a Church as an instrumentality for effecting merely natural uses, or for serving personal ends, and discern how completely its continuance depends upon a community of purpose, not only spiritual in its ends, but therefore affirmative and trusting in its nature, and bound to remain so until absolute ground for change occurs-we can hardly fail to agree with at least this sentiment of the paper: "priestly dominion is simply a bugaboo. If the ministers tyrannize it is because the people want them to." True, this was said in application to the General Convention, a body which gives executive and supreme power to the general vote of the people, thereby holding in hand a check to a government unwelcome to a majority; but it is none the less true of any Church that is founded on the authority of the Truth, and on the love of following it.
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Power based on such acknowledgment and love makes only for good, and so long as those prevail, will remain invulnerable to all natural shocks and calamities, for what is internal is superior to external effects; but remove spirituality and reciprocality of common purpose, and the power falls away like a rope of sand. If either priesthood or people prove false to true Churchly ends, tyranny of the false will ultimate itself in the Church, be its government hierarchical or democratic; for falsity possesses no coherence or enduring power.
Apparently in agreement with our position is another statement, which we quote: "Voluntary restrictions submitted to by the individual because he believes that the benefits of membership are greater than what he can gain by withdrawing, are not tyrannies." We also accept: "All ecclesiastical Forms are for our use."
But the concluding paragraph of the whole we must challenge. "In this non-ecclesiasticism of ours, the New Church, ecclesiastical authority is vested in the individual, the people; and this means, not the overthrow of order, but the establishment of such an order as the people shall have the wisdom to choose, and the will to determine." The question is, whence is wisdom, and how obtained by the people? Answer: from the revealed Truth, by the priesthood. Since "the Divine of the LORD makes the Church" the authority resides in Him alone, and representatively in his own function and office of teaching and lending men to the good of life. The "wisdom of the people" is to accept, that of the priesthood, to teach and lead; and each form of wisdom is of the LORD with them. The acceptance of an order presented to the people, based on the Truth and formulated or expounded by teachers of the Truth, is distinct from choosing and determining the order. No order can obtain without the free consent of the people, for things ecclesiastical have to do essentially with man's free will; but man's faculty and right to decide for himself for or against the truth does not take away the supreme authority of the truth in matters ecclesiastical.
BREAKING THE BONDS OF THE SPIRITUAL MAN. Rev. Enoch S. Price 1897
The Sermon.
BREAKING THE BONDS OF THE SPIRITUAL MAN.
(This sermon is one of a series preached over a year ago by the Rev. Enoch S. Price, expounding the Second Psalm.)
Let us tear off their bonds, and let us cast away from us their cords. He that dwelleth in the heavens shall laugh; the LORD shall mock them. Then shall He speak unto them in His anger, and in His wrath shall He terrify them.-Psalm ii, 3-5.
In a former discourse on the second Psalm you were instructed that it refers to the successive process of vastation, the totally devastated state of the Old Church, and its consequent rejection by the LORD. At the end of each Church the LORD comes again, or manifests Himself in a new way and in another form, and establishes a New Church in place of the one that has perished. These things have happened repeatedly, until finally the first Christian Church, which was Christian in name only, has been consummated, vastated, and rejected, and the New Church has been established by the LORD in its place. In this establishment the LORD glorifies His Human, or, what is the same thing, unites it with His Own Divine from Which it was.
We have said that the New Church has been established: this is true, yet in a very small way. For, considering the Church from its numbers, taking all those that really accept the LORD'S Revelation of Himself by His servant Swedenborg, all those who accept the leading Doctrines of the Church, all those who know something of the Doctrines and are in some manner affected thereby, and all those who have heard something about the Doctrines of the New Church-what are all these as compared with the millions who know nothing whatever of the New Church or its Doctrines? Yet the New Church is established, for the LORD has so provided. There are some, a few, who have accepted the LORD in his Second Coming, in His Glorified Divine Human, that is, in the truths of doctrine contained in the Writings of the Church, and who are in the endeavor to hearken to His voice, and to direct their lives by the personal and individual instruction He lovingly gives to every one who will hearken. And this kind of reception is what it is for a Church to be established. In the sight of Heaven and the LORD the Church is established, for Heaven and the LORD look not at temporal states, but at eternal ends. But if I be addressing those few just described this warning will not be untimely: Consider not the Church as established, but as being established; for nothing that is good and true will ever be finished to eternity; but will go on ever becoming more and more perfect. So let not the New-churchman say, "Now the Church is established, let the conflict cease, and let us sit at home and enjoy tranquillity." The conflict must go on, for real tranquillity is the resultant of battles won and evils overcome.
The Old Church, as a Church capable of reforming, saving, and leading men to heaven, no longer exists. It is vastated and dead. But its mass of falsified doctrines, like putrid exhalations from a dead body, fill the spiritual atmosphere of the present day, and its evil practices, like horrid worms bred in that body, creep about everywhere. If it were true, as some Newchurchmen fondly believe, that the Old Church is being revived, and is fast approximating to the New, the warning of our text, so far at least as the Church in general is concerned, would have fulfilled its mission and would be no longer necessary: Let us tear off their bonds and let us cast away from us their cords.
But this warning is as pregnant of necessity for the man of the Church now as ever it was; for although open persecution has ceased, and there are for the spiritual man no ultimate bonds and cords to tear and cast off, yet if he allows the adversary to take him, the bonds will be drawn tighter and the cords twisted harder than ever before. For old-fashioned persecution was applied to the body, now it is the soul that is in danger. It is a law of regeneration that so far as external evils and falses and their bonds and cords are cast off, so much the more interior the temptations for the man of the Church become.
The bonds and ropes or cords that are to be torn off and cast from us are those of tumultuous nations, people meditating vanity, kings standing together and rulers consulting together against the LORD and against His Anointed, namely, evils and falses of every degree. Evils and falses bind, and they are the only things that can bind the spiritual man or can take away his freedom.
Concerning these nations, peoples, kings, and rulers, the LORD says, Thou shalt not make a covenant with them and their gods. They shall not dwell in thy land, lest peradventure they make thee sin against Me, when thou shalt serve their gods; because it shall be a snare to thee. The enticements and deceptions of evil are snares that bind.
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Evils entice and deceive, because all evils originate with that most cunning foe, the love of self, and with that most plausible one, the love of the world; these loves are connate with man, and from them he is sensible of the delights of his life from first nativity; yea, from them he has life; wherefore those loves, like the latent current of a river, continually draw the thought and will of man from the LORD to Self, and from heaven to the world, thus from the truths and goods of faith to falses and evils. Reasonings from the fallacies of the senses then principally prevail, and also the sense of the letter of the Word perversely explained and applied; the latter and the former are the things that are meant by snares, fetters, pits, nets, ropes, gins, also by frauds and deceits, in the spiritual sense of the Word, as in Isaiah: Dread and a pit and a snare are upon thee, thou inhabitant of the earth, whence it shall come to pass, he that flieth from the voice of dread shall fall into the pit, and he that cometh up out of the pit shall be taken in a snare; for the cataracts from on high are opened, and the foundations of the earth are moved (xxiv, 17, 18); and in Jeremiah Fear, the pit, and snares are upon thee, O inhabitant of Moab; he that fleeth from the fear falleth into the pit, and he that cometh up out of the pit shall be taken in the snare (xlviii, 43, 44), where dread and fear denote disturbance and commotion of the mind, whence it sticks between evils and goods, and thence between falses and truths; the pit denotes the false induced by reasonings from the fallacies of the senses to favor the delights of the loves of self and the world; the snare denotes the enticement and deception of evil thence. These things may be evident to all; for ensnarings and are from no other source than that just described; neither does the diabolical crew, which delights in these' things, assault anything else with man except those his loves, which they render delightful by every method, until he is taken, and when he is taken he reasons from falses against truths, and from evils against goods; and then he is not content with his own false reasonings and evil doings, but also takes delight in enticing and ensnaring others to falses and evils; the reason why he takes delight in this is because he is then one of the diabolical crew.
Inasmuch as a snare, a gin, a net, signify such things, they also signify the destruction of spiritual life, and so perdition; for the delights of those loves are what destroy and lead into perdition, since in those loves, as was said above, all evils originate; for in the love of self originates contempt of others in comparison with self, and next a scornful look and abusive speech, afterward enmity if they do not favor oneself, at length hatred, the delight of revenge, thus the delight of tyrannical behavior, yea, of cruelty. This love in the other life rises to such an excess that unless the LORD favors it and gives them dominion over others, they not only despise Him, but also treat with scorn the Word which speaks of Him; and at length, from hatred and revenge they act against Him, and so far as they cannot effect their purposes against Him, they practice them with fierceness and cruelty against all who profess Him. These are the bonds and cords from which the LORD teaches us in His Second Coming that we should separate ourselves if we would be of the Church He is establishing; Let us tear off their bends and let us cast away from us their cords.
What then are some of the forms in which these fetters, cords, bonds, gins, and snares present themselves? They are, then, to begin with, all the false doctrines of the Old Church, and the immense train of falsities and evils directly or indirectly arising therefrom. For the falses of the Old Church arose in the love of self with those who originated the doctrines of three Divine persons from eternity, one of whom took upon Himself the penalty of the sins of men to appease the anger of the other, thereby taking away man's responsibility before God. This is indeed an enticing doctrine, that man is not responsible for his sins, and can do nothing toward his own salvation; that therefore he may be saved, no matter what kind of life he may lead.
These bonds and fetters present themselves in the false science, arising not directly from the doctrines of the old Church, but indirectly from the evident injustice of those doctrines, driving thinking men into the naturalism to which they are only too prone, since it is very flattering to the natural man to think that he can discover things without the aid of Divine Revelation. Science has cut loose from the moorings of the ultimate and literal sense of the Word, In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth, and launched forth upon the ocean of investigation, intent upon discovering the origin of all things by personal observation, forgetting entirely to take along the compass and chart of rationality derived from the Internal Sense of the Word. What has it discovered? That instead of an all-wise, all-powerful, all-merciful God, there is an impersonal, formless, and blind force, a kind of vegetative soul of the universe, a mere evolutionary impulse. It discovers man, not a form created by the Author of all life, to be recipient of life from Him, and to be made happy to eternity, but a result of this blind evolutionary impulse, from mere dust to mere dust returning.
But does this trouble the Newchurchman? Certainly it does, for he is beset with it on all sides. Except within the yet narrow bounds of his own literature-narrow as to amount rather than quality-where shall he find anything better? Is he not beset all along the line of the physical sciences? Must he not use the evolutionist's terms if he discourses of Anatomy, Physiology, Botany, Zoology, Geology, or any other recognized science of the present day? There will never be a better science of Anatomy until New- churchmen study the Anatomy of the Gorand Man end its functions, and learn how to transfer the knowledges thence derived to the study of the little man or individual in his ultimate body and its functions. There will never be a true science of Zoology until men cease to study Darwin, and learn the correspondences and uses of animals from the Word in its internal sense. There will never be a true science of Geology until the Principia of Swedenborg-that wonderful system of science into which the LORD led His servant in preparing him for his higher spiritual work-is studied by Newchurchmen. If there is ever to be a true science of medicine, it must be founded by a Newchurchman, who is willing to give up man-made science and sit humbly at the feet of the Divine Teacher-the Master of all healing, spiritual and physical. Truly in the field of science the warning is necessary: Let us tear off their bonds, and let us cast away from us their cords.
Is the state of things in literature and art any better? None whatever; it is perhaps worse, as it is more insidious and more difficult to discover wherein lies the fallacy and error. Literature at present glorifies natural good and merely natural generosity so skillfully that it seems as though the very elect might be deceived thereby to think it the only good. Or it excuses evil so cunningly, or retrieves an evil life by a sudden burst of generosity, brought about not by any spiritual motive or principle, but by a sudden excitation of the feelings, lest the evil person himself should be obliged to suffer on seeing pain in another-that even the rational man is for the moment carried away-nay, more, he may even be obliged to fight his own impulses to natural sympathy, or pity, or interest, in order to enable him to see the truth in regard to the matter.
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Again, how many authors picture life as they conceive it ought to be, rather than merely as they find it? Is not mere realism, which means mere materialism, the ruling spirit of the literature of the present day? The poet glorifies nature, and the beauties of nature, and the voices of nature, as God, and the only God. With the latter class there may be something more of integrity in their productions than with others; for they no doubt frequently allow themselves to be swayed by influences that are better than they would consciously call about them. But even here let us tear of their bonds and let us cast away from us their cords, and not allow ourselves to be deceived by a false idea, because it is clothed in a well-turned phrase. In the fine arts how many are there who believe that they ought to consider the use, internal and external, of the objects they wish to put upon canvas, or chisel in stone? In other words, how many are they who consider that in order that anything may be true and good it must have a soul, and not a mere outside shell? In the world of art, then, we might be held bound with ropes and fetters; and here again, Let us tear off their bonds and let us cast away from us their cords.
By these things let it not be understood that the man of the New Church is not to have anything to do with the literature, art, and science of to-day. No, he is to enjoy, study, admire, and use all and each of these, just so far as it is legitimate that he should do so-that is, just so far as these things are good, true, beautiful, and useful. But what the warning means to him is, that he is to continually discriminate, and receive or reject all these according to the quality of each.
But man's worst enemies, those that will bind him tightest, are always within himself; yea, if it were not for the enemies within man, those without him could not hurt him. Man is born into the tendency to all evils, and until he is regenerated by the LORD he is held bound hand and foot by the adversary. These are some of the evils or evil tendencies, by which every man is bound until he is delivered by the LORD: Intemperance, undue levity, dishonesty, malevolence, enmity, immodesty, insincerity, discourtesy, incivility, carelessness, laziness, dullness, dilatoriness, niggardliness, illiberality, ungenerousness, inactivity, cowardliness, imprudence, hatred of religion, lack of charity, falsity, lack of conscience, wickedness. All these bind and hold man, more or less, to the end of his life in this world; at least, there are but few who become entirely freed of them in this life. Yet man must be separated from these before he can enter heaven. Let us tear off their bonds, and let us cast away from us their cords.
But while this separation is indispensable to man's regeneration, he can never separate himself from the evils of self-love and the love of the world, for, as was shown above, he feels the delight of his life in them from first nativity. The LORD alone can tear off the bonds and cast away the cords from the man of the Church; but this He is ever ready to do for those that ask Him.
The doctrine of separation takes a large space in the doctrines of the New Church. The regenerating man must be separated from his evils, or his evils must be separated from him, before he can enter heaven; for heaven consists of the reception of the Divine of the LORD in the Angels, and this Divine can never be received in anything but good and truth from Itself. Further, to take anything of evil into heaven would be to take hell into heaven, for hell consists of evil and the false of evil, and cannot exist in the atmosphere of heaven, This separation is what it is to be set free from bonds and cords.
In times about the beginning of the Christian era, there obtained the horribly cruel practice in war of chaining a prisoner hand and foot to a dead body on the field of battle and leaving him there to die. Paul in one of his epistles, discoursing of the proneness of the natural man to violate and oppose the law of God, cries out, "Who shall free me from the body of this death?" The LORD alone; He is able to break the chains and set the spiritual man free from the dead body of the natural man and its horrid filthiness.
The evil must be separated also; and this also follows, for when the good are separated from the evil, the evil are separated from the good and cast into hell. When the evil are separated from the good, in their impotent rage and hatred, it appears to them that the LORD laughs and mocks at them, that He is in anger and wrath toward them. This arises from their own state, for they receive the mercy of the LORD, which is eternally directed toward them, as toward all His creatures-as a mirror with an uneven and crooked surface receives the image of a beautiful face, making it appear distorted and ugly. It is said that they are nothing before the LORD, and they will be destroyed. They are nothing before the LORD or t e LORD knows of evil only from its opposition to good, and not from any cognizance of evil itself. The evil are destroyed not by the LORD, for He never destroys, but by themselves by their own opposition to good and truth: He that dwelleth in the heavens shall laugh, the LORD shall mock them. Then shall He speak unto them in His anger; and in His wrath shall he terrify them.
It is said in the Internal Sense that the LORD has thanksgiving and joy that the evil are judged and destroyed, and yet this is spoken from the appearances of the infirm Human, for the thanksgiving and joy is because the good are saved, which could not be done except by the destruction-that is, the separation-of the evil.
May the LORD in His infinite mercy grant that we be partakers of His thanksgiving and joy. Let us tear off their bonds and let us cast away from us their cords. -AMEN.
PASTOR'S LIMITATIONS. HOMER SYNNESTVEDT 1897
THE LORD is man's Pastor, the shepherd or feeder of his soul. But to support spiritual life, various media are made use of. In general, the Divine influx and operation is made effective with man through three degrees or successive mediations or accommodations of the influent life-stream.
The spirit of man itself is a triple vessel or sort of three-story house. Access to the inmost, where the soul sits, is effected only by entering upon the lowest plane, and climbing thence to the second, and from this by another ascent to the third. So in feeding man, the LORD furnishes scientifics of good and truth on the lowest or natural plane, in which are involved interior teachings for the middle or rational plane, and inmost truths, or goods and truths of faith itself, for the highest or spiritual plane. "For scientifics are media, and as it were mirrors in which an image of interiors presents itself, and in this image, as again in a mirror, there put themselves forth and thus re-present themselves, the truths and goods of faith, hence those things which pertain to heaven and are called spiritual.
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But this image, because interior, does not appear to others than those who are in faith and charity" (A. C. 5201).
Man's spirit is fed or nourished by instruction, and, as we see, it is truth itself which instructs, as far as it is imbibed from the Word through the affection of the interior things therein. But this feeding is not effected without human means also-teachers, through whom the Word may be communicated, and its waters drawn out and set before the thirsty. A Pastor or feeder of the flock must lead to pastures where the tender herb may be found-that is, scientifics which have spiritual nourishment within them; he must lead them to the well of living waters and draw for them. They, on their part, must follow, must eat and must drink-a sufficiently difficult duty when Satan is so apt to enter into us and drive us hither and thither.
Title Unspecified 1897
A. C. 343. "That the Shepherd of the flock is He who exercises the good of charity may be known to every one, for this is familiar in the Word of the Old and New Testament. He who leads and teaches is called Pastor, those who are led and taught are called the flock. He who does not lead to the good of charity, and who does not teach the good of charity, is not a true Pastor; and that which is not led to good and does not learn good is not a flock."
They who lead the flock to the good of charity are the ones who gather (congregate) the flock. But those who do not lead to the good of charity are the ones who disperse. For all gathering together (congregation) and union, are from charity, and all dispersion and disunion from non-charity.
A pastor is a pastor so long as he is a leader of sheep. If he leads by the wolf nature in men he is not a shepherd. Nor will his flock remain a flock, but will become like a pack of animals, who can in the end be held together only by the lust of prey or some other evil greed. Sheep under such a pastor are either destroyed or scattered, and, if possible, adjoined to other flocks. So in any case he ceases to be a shepherd. The mere ability to keep together a body of any kind and to control it, does not make a shepherd.
A flock, on the other hand, is only a flock, and thus a unit, in the sphere of innocence from the reception o the good of charity and from the desire to be led thereby,' and not to lead themselves.
Consent to unity from love to the LORD and mutual love is the very conjunctive principle of heaven. It leads men to look for a leader, and to desire to follow rather than to lead; and the same quality in the leader makes him easily led by indications of Providence; while all together because they know the voice of their real Pastor, refuse to follow any other.
This quality of wise innocence is true charity. It is the emanation of the Divine which makes heaven-love wedded to wisdom. To ultimate this sphere in the Church, Levi is chosen as the priestly tribe. Levi (meaning to adhere) signifies conjunction. "By Levi is signified charity, wherefore also the tribe of Levi received the priesthood and represented the pastor of the flock" (A. C. 342). Without the priestly functions among men there is no means of effecting conjunction into any permanent unity, because one of the LORD'S chief instrumentalities in the natural is lacking. And as it is only on the basis of the natural and through human as well as angelic media that the LORD operates the virtues of His saving Spirit, it will readily appear how important it is that such a function be maintained and perfected among men.
Title Unspecified 1897
Man is gregarious. He cannot be rationally viewed otherwise than as a factor in some larger unit or society, for so he was created. Hence it is not the right and orderly way to rely upon the priestly in each man without co-ordination or subordination for performing these functions for the whole, which is the real unit to be regarded. This principle lies at the foundation of civilization. It is the law of society that different ones should take on special functions and perform these for the whole, thus rendering possible a far greater perfection in everything. Most especially must this he true of the Priesthood, which above all other earthly functions has a directly spiritual use, and is hence called the LORD'S own office among men, and which, when in order, is promised a special illustration in order to accomplish its work of transmitting the Holy Spirit, the LORD'S own sphere, to men.
Title Unspecified 1897
To what extent then do priests represent the Pastor of the flock? Are they not men and thus in reality sheep of the flock themselves?
The difference is that by being selected and ordained-separated and set apart from the rest unto the holy office, and prepared by long study, they come into the sphere of the use itself and thus like Aaron into the ability to get responses from the LORD (through the intellectual faculty common to all men), and become more or less capable of being elevated above and out of the sphere of their own lives. Then, by the special influx of the Holy Spirit promised to the clergy, they come into a light from the LORD direct-an insight into what is involved in the teachings of the Word, which the rest of the flock can only obtain in such fullness through them. Thus it is not they as persons who become the Shepherds, but they serve as intermediations, to administer the pastorship. It is the PASTOR Himself who makes use of their professional abilities and illustration to lead His flock.
As it is written in Arcana Coelestia, n. 10,797:
"No honor of any function is in the person, but is adjoined to him according to the dignity of the thing which he administers. And that which is adjoined, this is separated from the person, and is also separated with the function. Honor in the person is the honor of wisdom, and of the fear of the LORD."
The same law holds true of all other functions.
Every man becomes a recipient of light from heaven in the sphere of his use, which is a gift to him according to preparation to receive it into his understanding. It is given to him in his professional capacity, and not otherwise, as it is for the sake of the society's good that it is given, and not for his own sake.
From all this we may see how it is that a pastor cannot lead a flock contrary to their sheep nature. Neither ought he to drive them. He cannot make what he pleases of a flock, or it ceases to be a flock of sheep. The fact is, the LORD entrusts to man only the uses of the external man. He uses human faculties, as administering means, in greater or less degree, for the accomplishment of His own eternal and beneficent ends. But over and above all, He himself is the Pastor. "Behold, He that keepeth thee doth neither slumber nor sleep." "The LORD is my Shepherd, I shall not want" The limit of what He can for us do is determined solely by the degree of our co-operation and trust in Him.
HOMER SYNNESTVEDT.
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ANNALS OF THE NEW CHURCH. 1897
THE PERIOD OF SWEDENBORG'S DIVINE INSPIRATION.
1747-1772.
1747.
January-June.-Swedenborg remains in Stockholm, attending to his duties in the College of Mines. In the spring, he is unanimously recommended for promotion to the rank of a "Councillor of Mines." This elevation, however, he positively declined, "lest his heart should be inspired with pride" (Doc. I, 7, 464).
February 9th.-Date of the closing entry in the Adversaria. At this time he is undergoing fearful assaults from evil spirits, but new light is given to him on the doctrine concerning the LORD.
He now begins to write down his spiritual experiences in the Spiritual Diary, of which nos. 1-148 are missing (from February to July, 1747). This missing manuscript, of which an Index is preserved, is known as "Memorabilium, pars prima" Doc. II, 957).
Some time during the early part of this year occurred Swedenborg's vision of the Temple in Heaven, which represented the New Church, and above the gate of which were written the words "Nunc licet" (T. C. R. 508; I: 1871, 229).
June 2d.-Stockholm. Swedenborg's letter to the king, declining the suggested promotion to a councillorship, and requesting permission to retire from his office, retaining half of his salary (Doc. II, 464).
June 12th.-Royal decree, accepting Swedenborg's resignation from the assessorship, and granting the favor suggested by him. The king in this letter expresses his assurance that the work upon which Swedenborg now is engaged-for the completion of which he feels it necessary to go abroad-"will in time contribute to the general use and benefit, no less than the other valuable works written and published by him, have contributed to the use and honor of his country." This work, to which Swedenborg had referred in his letter, was the "Arcana Coelestia," on which he now had begun to work (Doc. II, 465).
July 17th.-Swedenborg is present, for the last time, at the College of Mines, taking leave of his colleagues (Doc. II, 466).
July 26th.-This is the first date occurring in the preserved portion of the Spiritual Diary. This first part is known as "Memorabilium, Pars secunda," MS. 516 pp. (The Spiritual Diary, nos. 149-3427. Doc. II, 970). Some time during this month Swedenborg leaves Stockholm, entering upon his sixth foreign journey (Ibid).
August (beginning).-Arrives in Holland.
August 7th.-On this day he makes the following note in the manuscript of his "Index to Isaiah and Jeremiah:" "There was a change of state in me, into the celestial kingdom, in an image." This would seem to indicate that the celestial degree of his mind had now been opened, and that henceforth he would be able to receive the revelation of the celestial sense of the Word. From this date, therefore, maybe counted the end of the period of Swedenborg's preparatory illumination, and. the beginning of his full state of inspiration.
During this year he writes the following treatises:
"Fragmenta notarum ad Prophetas" (Fragments of notes on the Prophets). MS. (Doc. II, 962).
"Nomina Virorum, Terrarum, Regnorum, Urbium, in Scriptura Sacra" (an Index to the spiritual signification of the names of persons, countries, kingdoms, and cities? mentioned in the Sacred Scriptures). This work constitutes part of the "Index Biblicus," and was published separately by Dr. R. L. Tafel, in London, 1873.
"Index Biblicus Librorum Propheticorum Veteris Testamenti, etc. (a Biblical Index to the Prophetical Books of the Old Testament, the Psalms, Job, the Apocalypse, and also to Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy) MS., 636 pp. (Doc. II, 966). This Index is one of the four works which constitute the whole of "Index Biblicus."
"Index Biblicus Novi Testamenti" (a Biblical Index to the New Testament). MS., 435 pp. (Doc. II, 969).
1748.
January.-Swedenborg still in Amsterdam, working on the "Arcana Coelestia" (Doc. II, 972).
September 1st.-Still in Holland; brings the MS. of the "Arcana Coelestia," vol. I, to a close. On this day Swedenborg witnesses "a general Glorification throughout the spiritual world, on account of THE NEW ADVENT OF THE LORD" (S. D. 3029; L, 1881, Aug.).
October.-Swedenborg leaves Holland for England, bringing with him the MS. of the "Arcana Coelestia" (Doc. II, 972).
October 2d.-Date of first entry in "Memorabilium, Pars tertia" (The Spiritual Diary, part third), MS. 372 pp.; nos. 3428-4544 (Doc. II, 977).
November 23d.-Arrives in London (Doc. I, 386; II, 608.)
1749.
January-May.-Swedenborg remains in London, superintending the publication of the first volume of "Arcana Coelestia, quae in Scriptura Sacra, seu Verbo Domini sunt, detecta" (Heavenly Arcana, which are in the Sacred Scripture or the Word of the LORD, disclosed. Genesis i-xv; nos. 1-1885). London: John Lewis, 630 pp. 4to (Doc. II, 971.) See also Professor Odhner's history and bibliography of this great work. L. 1893, pp. 171, 188; 1894, p. 13.
June (about).-The publication of this volume having been completed, and arrangement having been made with Mr. Lewis for the publication of future volumes of the same work, Swedenborg leaves England, spends the summer and autumn in Holland, and the winter at Aix-la-Chapelle (Doc. II, 608, 973).
August or September.-John Lewis inserts an advertisement of the "Arcana Coelestia" in some of the London newspapers, public attention being thus, for the first time, drawn to the Doctrines of the New Church (Doc. II, 498).
October 15th.-Dartmouth, England. Mr. Stephen Penny writes to John Lewis, expressing his great pleasure in reading the Arcana Coelestia. This date may be said to mark the beginning of the reception of the Doctrines among men on earth. Mr. Penny's letter was published by John Lewis in the London Daily Advertiser on Christmas day, 1749 (Doc. II, 496-499. See also Prof. Odhner's biography of Stephen Penny, in L. 1895: 73).
Some time during this year, probably, Swedenborg begins to compile "Index verborum, Nominum et Rerum in Arcanis Coelestibus." (Index to the words, names, and things in the Arcana Caelestia). MS. This work was finished in 1756, and was published in London, 1815, by John Augustus Tulk, Esq. (Doc. II, 980.)
1750.
January-February.-Swedenborg remains at Aix-la-Chapelle (Doc. II, 224).
February 5th.-Publication of "Arcana Caelestia," vol. II. Genesis xvi-xxi; nos. 1886-2759. London. John Lewis. 4to. (Doc. II, 971.)
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Concurrently with the Latin edition, Mr. Lewis published an English version of the same volume. This publication, which was the first appearance of the Doctrines of the New Church in English, or in any living tongue, appeared in six consecutive numbers, each paged separately. Nos. 1 and 3 have special prefaces. The translation was the work of Mr. John Marchant, a literary man in London, at Swedenborg's own expense. Only two copies are now known to exist of this edition (Doc. II, 974; L. 1893: 171).
In the spring Swedenborg returns from Germany to Stockholm. During this year and the one following he writes "Memorabilium, pars quarta" (Part IV of the Spiritual Diary. Doc. II, 978).
1751.
January-December.-Swedenborg appears to have remained in Stockholm during the entire year, occupied with work on the Arcana Coelestia.
In the meanwhile John Lewis publishes "Arcana Coelestia," vol. III. Genesis xxii-xxx; nos. 2760-4065. 643 pp. 4to.
April 5th.-Stockholm. Death of king Frederic I. (Concerning his character and lot in the spiritual world. see S. D. no. 5799, and Diarium Minus, pp. 47, 70, 73.) He is succeeded on the throne of Sweden by Adolphus Frederic, Duke of Holstein Gottorp.
August 31st.-Death of Christopher Polheim (Doc. II, 978).
1752.
January-December.-Swedenborg appears to have remained the whole year in Stockholm, working on the Arcana Coelestia, and continuing his Spiritual Diary (Doc. II, 980). John Lewis, in the meantime, publishes at London "Arcana Coelestia," vol. IV. Genesis xxxi-xl; nos. 4056-5190; 559 pp. 4to.
1753.
Swedenborg appears to have remained in Stockholm during the whole of this year, as also during the four next following years.
John Lewis publishes, this year, the fifth and sixth volumes of the "Arcana Coelestia" (Genesis xli- Exodus xv; nos. 5191-8386).
1754.
The seventh volume of the Arcana Coelestia is published at London by John Lewis (Exodus xvi-xxiv; nos. 8387-9442).
J. G. Hanish, in Hildburgshausen, Germany, republishes "Prodromus Principiorum Rerum Naturalium," and "Methodus Nova inveniendi Longitudines." This is the third edition of these works (Doc. II, 901).
September.-The "Gentlemen's Magazine," of London, published an English translation of Swedenborg's letter to Dr. Nordberg, containing memoirs of the author's intercourse with King Charles XII (Doc. I, 558; L vol. II, 259).
1755.
November 3d-Stockholm. Swedenborg presents a "Memorial respecting the liquor traffic" to the Houses of the Swedish Diet. (Doc. I, 493.)
1756.
John Lewis publishes, at London, the eighth and last volume of the "Arcana Coelestia " (Exodus xxv-xxxiv; nos. 9443-10,837. 695 pp. 4to).
1757.
"The Last Judgment upon the old Christian Church commenced in the spiritual world at the beginning of the year 1757, and was fully accomplished by the end of that year" (L. J. n. 45).
Concerning "the state of the Christian world in 1757" see R. M'Cully's articles in I. 1872: 435; 1873: 121.
See also the essay on the "Historical significance of the contemporary events during the year 1767," by Rev. W. B. Hayden (M, n. s. x, 168, 193), and "Historical evidences of the Last Judgment," by the Rev. B. D. Daniels (M., n. a. x, 400).
Swedenborg appears to have spent the whole of this memorable year in Stockholm, while witnessing, daily, the cataclysmic occurrences in the spiritual world.
1758.
In the spring Swedenborg enters upon his seventh foreign journey, traveling from Stockholm to London, where he publishes the following treatises:
"De Coelo et ejus Mirabilibus, et de Inferno, ex auditis et visis" (Concerning Heaven and its wonders, and concerning Hell, from things heard and seen). London. John Lewis, 272 pp. 4to. A. L. (See Prof. Odhner's bibliography of this work. L. 1891: 85, 128, 190, 226.)
"De Equo Albo, de quo in Apocalypsi, Cap. XIX, et dein de Verbo et ejus sensu spirituali sen interno, in Arcanis Coelestibus" (Concerning the White Horse, mentioned in the Revelation, Chap. xix, and, further, concerning the Word and its spiritual or internal sense, from the Arcana Coelestia). London. John Lewis. 28 pp. 4to. A. L. (Doc. II, 982.)
"Dc Nova Hierosolyma et ejus Doctrina Coelesti: ex audit is et visis" (Concerning the New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Doctrine, from things heard and seen). London. John Lewis. 156 pp. 4to. A. L. (Doc. II, 982.)
"De Telluribus in Mundo nostro Solari, quae vocantur Planetae, et de Telluri bus in Coelo Astrifero; deque illarum Incolis; tum de spiritibus et angelis ibi; ex auditis et visis" (Concerning the Earths in our Solar System, which are called Planets, and concerning the Earths in the starry heavens, their inhabitants, and the spirits and angels there; from things heard and seen). London. John Lewis. 72 pp. 4to. A. L. (Doc. 11,983.)
"De Ultimo Judicio, et de Babylonia Destructa; ita quod omnia, quae in Apocalypsi praedicta sunt, hodie impleta sint; ex auditis et visis." (Concerning the Last Judgment and the destroyed Babylon; that all things, foretold in the Revelation, have been fulfilled at this day; from things heard and seen.) London. John Lewis. 55 pp. 4to. A. L. (Doc. II, 983.)
Copies of these five works were presented to all the English Bishops and to all the Protestant lords in the Parliament (S. D. 6131; A. R. 716).
Title Unspecified 1897
IN the demise of the Rev. Peter Joseph Faber, of Baltimore, February 17th, the German New Church lost an earnest and efficient member. To many of our readers it may not be known that at least one chapter in Mr. Faber's life reads like a romance. Years ago he was a monk in Cologne, Germany, but when the decree of Papal infallibility was promulgated he was one of the many Catholics who rejected the enslaving doctrine. Condemned to undergo the discipline of excommunication, including imprisonment, he seized a moment during the service of excommunication when all were on their knees, to make his escape, and once under the shelter of the civil law he was safe. Germany proving uncongenial, he emigrated to America, and after fluctuations of religious belief and "many ups and downs of fortune," he became a convert to the New Church, and settled in Baltimore.
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DISEASES OF THE FIBERS. 1897
CARUS.
433. CARUS is a preternatural, very deep sleep; by it the living become as if dead, and although they are awakened, no sooner are the eyelids raised than they relapse.
434. From well-known signs it appears that the cause of this morbid sleep is the dryer and hotter, and therefore harder, nature of the red blood, so that insoluble globules or clots adhere in the smallest vessels; the vessels being thus obstructed, the cortical substance of the cerebrum, which is the common sensor and motor, is deprived of its spirits and the faculty of acting singly; wherefore this heaviness of sleep for the most part is accompanied by fever.
435. From a blood so dry, hot, feverish, and insoluble, it follows that scarcely other than a useless humor, accompanied by a paucity of spirit, is secreted, by which the interstices of the cortex, of the fibres in the medulla of the cerebrum, and of the fascicles in the nerves, are blocked up; nor are they bedewed by the arachnoid fluid, hence the tenacity and torpor from the beginning, even in the universal nervous system. Thus this is the secondary cause of carus, which nevertheless acknowledges its first cause in the nature of the blood.
436. Hence it is clear that carus is not a species of apoplexia; for there is no compression of the cerebrum either externally or internally, no excessive stoppage or inundation from a superfluity of phlegmatic humor in the convolutions, medullary substance, or ventricles between the meninges, nor is there flaccidity, nor too great rigidity, of the dura mater; therefore there is not a removal of the common animation in the cerebrum, which action is observed from the respiration of the lungs; for in apoplexia the breathing is very deep, with compression of the alie nasi and struggling, and thus of the cerebellum alone without the aid of the cerebrum in general; it is otherwise in carus where the respiration of the lungs is natural, and the cerebrum itself is offended without being injured (offenditur illcsautn).
LETHARGY.
437. LETHARGUS or LETHARGIA, called by some VETERNUS (torpidity), is a species of preternatural sleep that is lighter than carus. Those affected by this disease can be awakened by divers means, especially by those which excite and stimulate the animus and external senses; and so also those which restore the blood to its soundness.
438. It is observed from discoveries made, that the cause of this disease is an abundance of serum in the blood; consequently its nature is cold and sluggish, and thus not easily introducible into the smallest arterioles of the cerebrum, for the copious serosity, which first is to be expelled, blocks the way; hence there is obstruction because of cold, that is to say from causes opposite to those in carus; for, the cortical substance requires a copious supply of soluble blood, for its glands lure forth thence its spirits, which they transmit into the fibres, as also partly between the fibres. Nevertheless the common animation remains, that is to say of the inferior part of the cerebrum, corpora striata, medulla oblongata, and medulla spinalis, which is known from the state of the respiration of the lungs; for the more facile is the respiration, in the more friendly manner concords the general animation of the cererbrum.
439. The secondary cause of lethargy likewise arises from a serum vivified by no spirits between the convolutions and folds, and at the same time secreted between the arachnoid tunic and the pia mater, with which the lesser folds and little spaces of the cortex, being anointed, unwillingly suffer themselves to be elevated, but as it were from a sort of cold, become torpid. Thus lethargy is not a species of apoplexia, but rather approaches the nature of dropsy.
CATAPRORA AND COMA.
440. CATAPHORA and COMA [in Swedish dvala] is also called WAKEFUL COMA [coma vigil] and DROWSY COMA [coma somnolentum], when those affected neither sleep nor wake. Sometimes they open the eyes, sleepily reply to those speaking, and sink back into their rest; the one so affected is cold, and without any desire or thought of the animus towards motion.
441. When such coma is a disease it is a species of carus; for it arises from inspissated blood, for which passage through the smallest arterioles is impeded, and which remains in the larger ones. It also arises from viscid excretion of blood, poorly irrigated by the lymph of the arachnoid membrane; anointed by that viscous blood, the folds between the cortical congeries stick together, so that they can be elevated with difficulty except by something strongly stimulating the senses, the animus, and the mind, or by something else which I dilutes the blood and disperses that slightly glutinous substance.
442. If the disease arises from a heat or fever of the blood it is called FEBRILE COMA [coma febrile]; or it even heralds an approaching fever, and is a species of earns; but if it arises from coldness of the blood it is a species of lethargy.
443. There is also wakeful coma, which is not morbose, as when having awakened in the early morning, so far, at least, as concerns the external senses, still we, as it were, fall asleep, and the mind itself reflects upon the resting of its members and the delight of sleep. Such state sometimes appears exceedingly pleasant: but we are fully awakened as soon as some motion invades [the animus or some desire the mind. For the lesser folds of the cerebrum, which in sleep are collapsed, have not yet been well separated, but he conjoined, although they are readily separable. And if it be permitted to speak from interior anatomy, it will be seen that the vertex of the cerebrum, which first collapses and is first erected, has been raised from sleep, while its lower lobes spread out over the cerebellum, are still lying, as it were, in slumber, wherefore the respiration of the lungs is natural, not yet being blended with the respiration of the voluntary
444. From these things it is evident that the cause of drowsiness arises from too protracted or bug-continued sleep; similarly the cause of dullness arises thence; for the thinnest commisures of the cortical glands coalesce more firmly, and during sleep are so conglutinated with fatty [pinguedinosus] juice that they suffer themselves to be mutually separated with difficulty, and the smallest arterioles passing into the cortex through these commisures, being compressed, are expanded with difficulty, so that with the distinctness of the cortical substance, which are many little sensories, the distinctiveness of that interior corporeal life perishes.
INSOMNIA.
445. INSOMNIA (Pervigilium*) or want of sleep is for the most part an attendant and harbinger of fever, and is therefore called FEBRILE INSOMNIA [Pervigiliumfebrile].
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Likewise from much wakefulness the circulation of the spirits, blood and other humors through their fibres, vessels, and ducts, are continually interrupted in their glands, muscles, and viscera, both of the head and of the body; some of them also cease to circulate; nor de they perform their natural functions; whence results a depraved condition of the humors [cacochynia], heat, and hardness of the blood, and thus many imminent evils.
[* From the context it is evident that by pervigilium the author means what is now called insomnia. With the ancients pervigilium meant a voluntary watching during the whole night for religious or other purposes; this also is its meaning as an obsolete word in English dictionaries.-ED.]
446. The causes of preternatural wakefulness, which prevent the cerebrum from becoming heavy and collapsed, are opposite to the causes of carus and lethargy; such are all burning emotions of the animus, and indeed sicknesses themselves, all which keep the cerebrum expanded, light, and subdivided; as joy, wrath, anxiety, and care, which is obvious to every one; likewise the desires of the mind bring about the same result if they be conjoined with the cupidities of the animus. Moreover a too-fluid blood, which speeds along at the least beck of its mind, is also a cause, therefore the plethora likewise. Too great a fullness of the blood-vessels, also of the convolutions and foldings, from which evacuation is refused in the cerebrum, which depends upon the evacuation in the body being refused, as that of the perspiration and effluvia by the pores of the skin, also by the bladder, bowels, etc.
447. PERVIGILIUM and INSOMNIA are commonly present in fevers, because some of the dregs [crassarnentum] of the agitated and parched blood sticks in the arterioles; likewise heat itself, acridity, angularity, and inequality of the red blood and purer blood, also in the serum and lympha, in the vessels and fibres and also outside of them, perpetually stimulate, vellicate, inflame, and excite the animus of the cerebrum; thus there is no peace and quiet in the internal sensorium. A medicine is prepared for these from those things which emend the blood; also from NARCOTICS, from PAREGORICS which are milder SOPORIFICS, from anodynes, etc.
"A DANGER TO EUROPE." 1897
Communicated.
(The following article is translated from the April issue of Nya Kyrkans Tidning, edited by the Rev. C. J. N. Manby.)
ONE of the daily papers of Gottenburg has lately published a series of articles under this heading which appeared originally in Revue des deux mondes. Things worthy our serious reflection are here pointed out, showing that a danger is actually threatening our part of the world.
But the danger to which attention is thus called is of an external kind. Behind it lies another one, and of a much more serious character. For though we may indeed be in danger of being overwhelmed by the cheaper industrial products of the far East, and especially of the new Japanese power, yet the other danger is deeper and goes to the very root of European society. This danger is of a religious nature, and it is to this that we would now devote some attention.
The Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs stated not long ago that "Europe showed signs of decay, and that the next century would witness the disintegration of her social system and her kingdoms." These are serious words, and the prediction has a real reason of which the Oriental statesman probably was not aware, and which, alas! the people of the Occident are not willing to consider. We do not ourselves propose to express any predictions, but it behooves us all to open our eyes to those serious realities which the Doctrines of our Church, in union with history, lays before us.
It is, after all, religion which is the chief cause of the changes in history. Our Doctrines, as well as a glance at the state of Christianity in the world, show that the latter is now in close correspondence with the state of the Jews after the first establishment of Christianity. Externally considered the difference is indeed great. The Jewish dispensation was a merely representative one. When the Jewish Church was consummated, the representatives necessarily ceased; Jerusalem was razed to the ground, and the temple was torn down, and whereas Judaismen consisted of one nation only, Christianity embraces many nations. This, however, is no reason why corresponding external upheavals may not fall also upon the Christians in order to sweep away such things as no longer answer to their purpose. Such an upheaval we had, in fact, in the French Revolution, which, singular to notice, occurred just about the same length of time after the great judgment in the spiritual world (1757) as the destruction of Jerusalem after the crucifixion of the LORD, at which time also a general judgment took place in the spiritual world. But we might now expect other more fundamental and extensive upheavals in the countries of Christianity.
What is the lesson of history? Does it not teach us the same in regard to our world which we know takes place in the other world? When the good leave a certain place it is at once occupied by the evil. We find many instances of this in history. When Christianity had lost its savor, and had become enfeebled or destroyed in the once flourishing churches in Asia, what happened then? These churches were swept away, and their place was occupied by other elements. The same took place in Egypt. And the Arabs, fired by a new faith, and later on the Turks, made a comparatively easy conquest of these ancient centres of Christian civilization, and the danger pressed closely upon the very heart of Europe, as in Austria and in Spain.
Circumstances have changed since then. The danger was happily averted from Europe. Mohammedanism has become weak from old age, even as Christianity became, and the Last Judgment has been passed upon both of them in the spiritual world. We may now expect to witness the after effects of the Judgment, reverberating in our own world. There can exist but one way by which to avoid such ultimations of the Judgment, and this is that the Christians receive the LORD now in His Second Advent. Then, but then only, can they receive power to resist the external dangers, which are so fearful because of the internal ones, which lie behind.
It might be supposed, from our statement that religion is the chief cause of the changes in history,- that only a higher form of religion would be able to sweep away the moldering ruins of the old, corrupted civilization. But when an interior and true religion has become corrupted, nothing more than enkindled minds are needed to gain victory over the degenerate descendants of those who at one time carried the standard of the true religion. Mohammedanism was a very imperfect form of religion, but it kindled a fire which caused its devotees to rush forth to victories over Christian nations and lands. The Oriental nations, with Japan at their head, which now are beginning to attract the serious and anxious attention of Europe, do not possess any more exalted form of religion than the Mohammedans.
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But they, and especially the Japanese, are deeply inspired by that low form of worship which they do possess, and this to the degree of a complete contempt for death and mortal danger. Shintoism, or the worship of ancestors, makes of them a people which consciously lives with the departed ones, and which longs to give their life in death for the fatherland.
What are our Christian nations able to do in opposition to such a national genius? They have most of them, little or no faith in another life. They are fired by no such love of country for the sake of departed ancestors. They do not go into battle with a living courage. They go because they are driven into it, or because the lower or natural courage has been awakened for the moment. They are animated by no religious idea. They want that spiritual courage which can be awakened only by the genuine faith in a spiritual life. Ah, it is here that the danger lies. It is the want of faith in the Christian Religion. It is the want of faith in the LORD. It is the want of faith in another life, in its immediate nearness, in its connection with us, in the blessedness of being able to pass over into that life. Did there exist such a faith among us, would we then tremble at the dangers? Would we then fear to go into the combat? Would we not, rather, go into it like heroes, confident that the LORD is watching over us, and that He knows best the time and manner of our removal to the spiritual world? Then would all cowardice be banished, and at the same time all unmercifulness toward our brothers and sisters of the human race. We would then go to war, when religion and fatherland demanded it; yet we would ever be humane; we would fight without hatred in the heart, but with that sacred fire within which drives away timidity and makes of each one a hero.
But as it now appears that this sacred fire has mostly been extinguished, there is no longer any defense against the dangers, and we may expect that the Christian nations, under such conditions, will fall a comparatively easy prey before the millions of the Orient, when they break forth. But then it would not he their industrial competition that will bring death upon us, nor any higher forms of religion, possessed by them to take the place of Christianity; but it will be our own want of faith in our own religion, in another life, in God. This will make us impotent before the fiery confidence of the heathen hosts in the presence of a spiritual world, a world from which victorious power will flow to them.
This will be a repetition of its own kind of what took place when our ancient Northern ancestors broke forth with fiery faith in their Valhalla, conquering all opposition. Yet they themselves were conquered by Christianity. But after that "Ragnarok" ("the twilight of the gods" or final and universal cataclysm), which now may be expected, a new morning will undoubtedly dawn, when "the Sun of Righteousness" will rise upon the nations of the East, when the genuine Christianity will gain entrance and dominion amongst them, and that new Era, which already has begun to dawn amongst a little remnant with the old Christian nations, will arise and grow into the clear light of day among other heathen nations, the Era of the New Jerusalem among the inhabitants of the earth.
(Translated from the Swedish by EMIL CRONLUND.)
PASTORAL DUTIES H. S 1897
IT has been thought by some within the Church that a pastor's duties consist solely in teaching, and that, when he has preached his sermon, held his classes, and answered whatever doctrinal questions may be asked him, his work is done, and he is free to follow his natural bent; either to shut himself up in his study, to delve in his garden, or to mingle in society, as his taste may be, with no further concern as to his flock. This somewhat perfunctory performance of his functions seems to have come as a reaction from the Old Church idea that a Pastor is in some way personally responsible for the spiritual welfare of his flock, or that he is to lend them by his example and by the influence of his own good life.
The falsity, nay, profane presumption, in the latter positions, are well understood. We know that the LORD alone saves men, and that He makes use of the truths of the Word for this purpose. It is by truth that He leads to good; but to properly teach the truth, in such a way as to lead a flock to the good of life, must surely require a closer contact with the people, and interest in their states, individually and collectively, than can he secured by the more formal teaching. The Pastor's duties are not only to teach, but also to lead, and in order to bring the truth into the rational in such ways and at such times as to be effective in leading, there should be established between priest and people all possible planes of communication.
A Shepherd is one who feeds and waters the flock- that is, leads them to pasture and to water, going before them in the way. He keeps them, by his rod, from going astray, seeks the lost, drives away the lion and the wolf, binds up the injured, cares for the young, and gathers all into the sheepfold at night, himself keeping watch at the door.
"Priests who teach truths, and by them lead to the good of life and thus to the LORD, are the good pastors of the sheep. But those who teach and do not lead to the good of life, and thus to the LORD, are the bad pastors" (A. C. 10,794).
Of course every priest who teaches sound doctrine, without perverting or misapplying it, is leading to some extent in the right direction; but by relaxing his efforts and the sense of his own responsibility to so teach as to lead, he may fall short of his purpose. The angels, who are most fully aware that it is the LORD who leads, act most freely according to the appearance that they themselves lead man. H. S.
Notes and Reviews. 1897
FROM a timely article in the Messenger, by the Rev. Gustave Reiche, attacking the deadly heresy that man as being from God is part of God, we quote the concluding sentences: "The truly regenerating man will finally experience that the new birth does not consist in a simple correction of errors, by which the original goodness of man is liberated from its imaginary obstructions, but that it consists in an entirely new creation of spiritual substances from the LORD."
Title Unspecified 1897
AN interesting point made by Mr. James N. Whiston, Ph.D., in "Immortality Demonstrated," is, that martyrdom proves immortality. If the martyr gives up life he does it for something surely not less than life. "The most unique and wonderful phenomenon in the living world is the martyr's willing, nay joyous embrace of death as the preserver of moral life. Can any one say that the martyr preserved his integrity, but preserved no life of integrity?"
Title Unspecified 1897
THE eternity of the Hells is ably discussed in the Messenger for February 17-31, by the Rev. E. D. Daniels.
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In the second paper he says: "Character, as the inevitable result of voluntary and responsible development, is immortal. How can this be the case after repentance and not before it?" That is, that which contains possibilities of an immortal character must be immortal. The human faculty once created is imperishable.
Title Unspecified 1897
THE Swedenborg Publishing Association, in its Twenty-fourth Annual Report, shows 215,350 pamphlets and books printed during the year, of which over 200,000 were tracts and pamphlets. Of a gross annual income of over $5,000, $2,400 were from the Bissell Annuity and $1,200 from the will of Dr. Ellis, the balance remaining being over $2,800.
Title Unspecified 1897
ONE contributor to the Messenger ("E.") wishes for an elevation of ideals of life. Following the reaction against puritanical prohibition of innocent amusements has come too great a fondness for those amusements which the fostering Church herself has been affectionately providing or encouraging. Self-denial and duty should not be neglected and they should be carried into the little things of life, and into the spheres outside the home. The LORD "came not to be ministered unto but to minister," and His Divine example has been left for us to study and follow.
Title Unspecified 1897
AN editorial from the Boston Herald, which the Messenger copies, entitled "Denominational Self-Consciousness," likens those smaller bodies which give especial attention to their own distinctive beliefs and customs, to a morbid child, which needs to be taken out of its shell and thrown in closer contact with the larger religions thought of the world. The editorial lacks practicality for the Newchurchman, inasmuch as it fails to discriminate between that which is of God, which really makes the Church, and what is of man, which only gives ultimate form to the Church; it practically assumes that there can be no such thing as a Divine seal set upon the doctrine of any Church, and hence that the Church is merely human. Distinctions, when drawn by the LORD, do not produce narrowness.
Title Unspecified 1897
AT Beaufort, South Carolina, exists an institution unique in its way, of which the Rev. Jabez Fox has given a very interesting account in the Messenger. The Mather Industrial School consists of a home school, in which about forty colored girls live and are instructed in home work and industries and in the rudiments of education. The founder, Mrs. Mather, is a New-churchwoman who, originally a teacher of the slaves, for over twenty-five years has been conducting this non-sectarian charity, aided by various denominations, owing to which fact she has not been free to give the distinctively New Church character to the school which she would like. During the past year she has opened another school at Riverside, ten miles distant, and two miles south of this place she is building a large school and home, which she calls "Peace Haven," hoping to make it the resting- place of her later years. At Riverside Mrs. Mather has an efficient assistant in the person of a young New Church lady brought up on the plantation, to whom the colored people look up confidently. Mr. Fox regards the possible influence of the work in a missionary way as entitling it to New Church financial support, which is solicited.
Title Unspecified 1897
THE American New Church Tract and Publication Society in its thirty-first annual report, states that financial straitness was relieved during the year, and the uses carried on with full vigor. Through The Helper sermons are sent out (kindly donated by their authors)," which present the teachings of the New Church clearly and affectionately, especially those which lead to a practical recognition of the divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ, and to a reverent and loving regard for the Bible." A Practical Catechism for Little Children, by the Rev. William H. Mayhew, was supplied at the same low rates as the society's other tracts. Two German tracts also were issued. The important use of publishing pocket editions of the Writings is not neglected; five thousand copies each of the Heavenly Doctrine and the Doctrine of the Lord having been printed during the year. A friend of the society inserts in local newspapers an advertisement of the Laws of the Divine Providence, offering it free to all who will apply to the society's agent. During a few weeks the applications amounted to 72. 3,000 copies of "The Life of Swedenborg" were printed in co-operation with the "Iungerich Gift Fund," and demands for 832 copies supplied. 717 copies of Heaven and Hell, and 632 copies of Mr. Giles's Progress in Spiritual Knowledge. Another small volume by the same author, The Sanctity of Marriage, was printed.
Title Unspecified 1897
APROPOS of some interesting articles on the destiny of the wicked, in the Messenger, "T. M. M." writes to that journal on the point, not often noted, that the evil are not damned until they know and are convinced that they are in evil and utterly incapable of being in heaven, and though given the opportunity of desisting from evil (which, however, they cannot do on account of the confirmed slavery to evil) power is then taken away from them of doing evil by falsifications of truth and pretenses of good, and this successively until hell is reached. A. C. 7795.) It may be well to note that this number applies to those who have been of the Church but have lived evilly. Such as have lived an openly wicked life on earth have no such means of falsification and deception, but are cast into hell at once, after resuscitation. These have not the opportunity that former members of the Church have for contrasting good (in which they have lived as to externals) with evil, which had all along lain hidden in their internals; yet it would seem that even those openly evil ones also must have the chance of recognizing the element of free-choice in the final cast of their lot. The latter part of the number cited suggests to the correspondent some reflections on approach of that dread day of judgment when the removal of external restraints shall leave us all helpless to do other than either to acquiesce in the justice of our fate or the infinite mercy of the Heavenly Father.
Title Unspecified 1897
AGAIN we draw from our rich supplies of our larger contemporary, in quoting from an extract of Prof. J. Irving Manatt's essay on "Science and Immortality." Analyzing Haeckel's "Confessions of Faith of a Man of Science," the author says:
"Haeckel starts with the moneron (for short, moner)-'a small globule of mucus or slime, at most as large as a pin's head,' which was its own father and mother . . . And this is not all. The moner has evicted God and sat down on the throne of creation. Haeckel proclaims 'the atom of carbon' [i. e., his moner] 'the real maker of the organic world.' . . . 'The oldest moners,' he says, 'originated in the sea by spontaneous generation, just as crystals form in the mother-liquor.'
"There you have the de profundis of science and the root of our family tree.
"'This assumption is required,' adds Haeckel, 'by the demand of the human understanding for causation. He who does not assume a spontaneous generation of monera, in the sense here indicated, to explain the first origin of life upon our earth, has no other resource but to believe in supernatural miracles.'
"Is not this very much like the theological bugaboo of which we have heard so much from the side of science? 'Beware' (says the theologian of the past) 'lest accepting geology undermine your faith in Genesis.' 'Look out,' says Haeckel, 'if you don't swallow my moner you may be driven to believe in a God. Either a bit of carbon and a touch of chemistry begat organic nature-that is, the living universe; or, there is a final cause. Take your choice.' Theology never uttered a rasher ultimatum."
Title Unspecified 1897
AMONG prominent Newchurchmen who have been removed from this world since the New Year, a marked figure is M. Charles Ferdinand Humann, who passed away on January 25th. Formerly one of the oldest and most distinguished of the avocats or barristers of the High Court of Appeals of Paris, and at one time one of the principal editors of a prominent French law journal, he devoted the later years of his life to the New Church. His wife, Mme. Louise Humann (a lady of American birth and parentage), was equally ardent in the cause, and between them the Circle in Paris has been supplied with a place of worship-the temple in Rue Thonin-with library and organ, and with instruction in the Doctrines. Their efforts do not seem to have been met with entire appreciation and reciprocation; restiveness under their direction of Church affairs developed in the society founded through their efforts, and take It altogether, the state of the Church there has been such as to strengthen the doubt more and more entertained at this day, as to how far assistance which is not reciprocated nor appreciated is of value to the recipients. It is possible for the growth of a true individualism to be checked where there is a giving of aid faster than the power to appropriate is developed; and we believe that this is coming to receive some attention by those who give Church affairs most thought. M. Humann never realized the wish of his later years to be ordained by the late Rev. Chauncey Giles. He was scholarly in his form of mind, and was the author of the New Church works La Nouvelle Jerusalem, and L'Evangile Social; he was editor and publisher of the journal L'Eglise de l'Avenir.
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Title Unspecified 1897
"EXTERNAL Doctrine from an Internal Point of View." Under this title a writer signing himself "E," in the Messenger, deprecates a tendency to undervalue the more external doctrines, and makes a plea for a broader spirit, which shall better appreciate the state of receptivity of those who cannot grasp the more interior teachings. Those who would teach the Doctrines to those not familiar with them should especially consider the states of those who do not as yet receive.
Title Unspecified 1897
IN the same line of thought more fully worked out is a series of three articles on "The History of Absalom and David," by the Rev. C. Th. Odhner, published in the New Church Messenger, beginning April 28th. "Absalom" is the Letter of the Word, and David, who represents the LORD, gave command to deal gently with Absalom: the incongruities in the letter are not to be treated otherwise than with reverence, for they are Divine, and the simple perceive this. But Absalom becomes tangled in the twisted oak branches of sensual thought, and Joab,-the spirit of modern rationalism, Biblical criticism, etc., gives faith in the Letter, the death-thrust.
Of at least equal interest is the conclusion, which explains the conflict between Absalom and David as representing the temptation-combats of the LORD, Absalom being the first faith arising from appearances of the Word: these the LORD as a man had to receive and later dissipate. These appearances are of the finite human and must die, as, indeed, must all first and temporary truths. But these with man, in the meantime, the patient LORD does not break or destroy: a bruised reed will He not break. "Deal gently with the young man Absalom, for My sake."
Title Unspecified 1897
THE Journal of the Thirtieth Annual Meeting of the Massachusetts Sabbath-school Conference of the New Jerusalem, held in Boston Highlands, February 22d, 1897, has been received. The report of the Chairman of the Committee on Instruction the Rev. J. E. Werren, inquires into the efficiency of present modes of instruction in the Sunday-schools, and finds them not satisfactory. Attention was drawn to the fact that there is a general falling off in attendance, and to a very general feeling of incompetency by the teachers themselves. Teachers' meetings are inadequate; present papers and lesson helps are insufficient; teachers feel the need of a better understanding of the Word in the letter, and of a more comprehensive insight into the spiritual sense, from which to meet the requirements of especially the older pupils; also the need of better understanding of the states of children in the various grades, and of an insight into the character of pupils. A serious loss of pupils is experienced at the age of sixteen to twenty, the present annual courses not seeming to interest the young people. Teachers are untrained and methods are not adapted to the respective periods of the life of the young, being incomparably behind the dayschools in child-study and in ability to meet childish needs. As all this naturally points to professional teachers a natural suggestion as to compensation is presented.
It is gratifying to see the increasing recognition of the importance of early formative states; but we should suppose that the growing realization of the vast scope of education for the New Church would suggest that nothing less than New Church Day-schools will meet the requirements, and promise adequate return for the grave outlay of time, strength, and money required by proper training for teachers of the young of the Church.
Title Unspecified 1897
Among the useful suggestions made was one that better work may sometimes be done in smaller schools. Certainly there must be greater opportunity in such cases for individual study of the pupils' character. Reading for the young received thoughtful consideration. In the Reports of Schools we note some interesting thoughts and items. In that of Abington the Sunday-school is considered as a school for instruction, properly distinguishing it from a place of worship, which is provided by the Church. In the Boston report we note the cooperation of parents in the work of the school, by holding mothers' meeting, etc. Boston Highlands (Roxbury) makes it a point to introduce each Sunday some fresh interest to enliven the regular routine-such as a story, a relation of experience, a talk on the lesson of the day, the showing of pictures or objects illustrative of Scripture, or the use of map or blackboard: such a feature introduced at the close of the session seems a very legitimate way of securing the enlivening element of novelty which should tend to cultivate regard for the school and fix its lessons in the mind. The Sunday-School Hymnal, by Charles L. Hutchins, is recommended as having more character than most of the song-books in use. Bridgewater is looking for helps the better to meet the states of little children. The blackboard method of instruction is warmly advocated. Brockton is pleased with the results of recently-purchased kindergarten material. East Bridgewater presents an interesting report- children are encouraged to talk, and their attention is secured by methods which keep the Bible prominent in the mind, and reverence for it seems to be carefully inculcated; they are shown the repository in the Church made for the Word alone, and taught not to place any other volume on top of that sacred one. An earnest tone pervades the reports, and the spirit of desire to be given needed light in this field of interior work is the best promise of improvement. The Normal Class for Sunday-school teachers, conducted by the Rev. T. F. Wright, meets at the Arlington Street Library, on Saturday afternoons. All persons who desire to study the assigned lessons are welcome to attend, but few besides teachers avail themselves of the opportunity.
Title Unspecified 1897
THE affection with which the late Rev. Abiel Silver was regarded by his parishioners and New Church friends was evidenced in a gathering at his former home in Roxbury, Mass., on April 3d, the one hundredth anniversary of his birth. Accompanying the account of the occasion, published in the Messenger of April 14th, is a cut which we should presume to be an excellent likeness of the man. Both interesting and affectionate were the letters rend from absent friends, and the Rev. James Reed contributed the following unaffected but affecting tribute to the friend gone before:
"To grow old in heaven is to grow young."-Swedenborg.
How old has he grown, I wonder-
Our friend of the olden days,
Who suddenly went up yonder
To tread the heavenly ways?
We counted his years at parting,
They numbered eighty and more;
But we said, while the tears were starting,
'Tis better that he's passed o'er.
For strength is but labor and sorrow
That goes beyond fourscore years,
And dawns an endless to-morrow
When earth's brief day disappears.
Oft told he the wondrous story
Of passing from death to life,
Of grief that is lost in glory,
Of peace that is gained through strife.
He loved to relieve our sadness,
Our courage and faith to renew,
To picture the scenes of gladness
Which heaven will bring to view;
To tell of the joys supernal
That never will fade away,
Of vigor and strength eternal
Increasing from day to day;
How younger and ever younger
In heaven old men will grow,
While stronger and ever stronger
Love's fires within them glow.
Long since didat thou pass the portal,
Dear friend, and behind thee leave
Thy body and all things mortal.
Where now is that empty sleeve?
Where now are the years that, advancing,
Were making thee gray and old?
Thou sawest them, backward glancing,
Depart, like a tale that is told.
So, gathering here, my brother,
Recalling sweet memories flown,
We wonder and ask one another,
How young has our old friend grown?
94
CHURCH NEWS. 1897
Philadelphia.-THE last monthly meeting of the congregation here will conclude the Wednesday evening classes for the season-June 9th. Services will continue until the 20th.
Huntingdon Valley.-DURING May the Monday evenings of the Civic and social Club have been devoted to a symposium on Greece, her Mythology, the Heroic Age, Sparta, Athens, Thebes (or the career and character of Epaminondas), Marathon, Thermopylae, and the Peloponnesian War, the Macedonian Conquest, the Decline of Greece and the Christian Church, and the Greek Revolution. The efforts of the various speakers have been warmly appreciated. A prominent object of the Civic Club is to develop its members in civil and worldly knowledge and life. The symposium idea is likely to be followed up.
THERE is much anticipation of the June Assembly here, and the members are hoping for an opportunity to entertain a very full attendance. As stated in the announcement, all friends will be cordially welcome.
Chicago and Glenview.-THE Immanuel Church has been recognized by Bishop Pendleton as a particular church of the General Church of the New Jerusalem all of its members having sought and obtained admission into that Church. A meeting of the Society was called on April 16th to choose a pastor. Four candidates were named by the Bishop, The Rev. Messrs. Bostock, Hyatt, Synnestvedt, and N. P. Pendleton. To secure greater freedom for the expression of preference the ballot was used, but Mr. Pendleton received the unanimous vote. When notified and brought into the room, he testified in touching words his appreciation of the confidence reposed in him, after working almost eight years in our midst.
A MEMORIAL meeting was held the evening of the death of Mrs. Lindrooth, and memorial services on the third day. The undoubted sympathies of all went forth to the bereaved husband and family.
About the 1st of May Mr. and Mrs. Smeal and family moved into their new residence in Glenview. This makes fourteen families now in the Park, to say nothing of the Club House, the abode of the "orphans," as the young bachelors who are there are pityingly called.
On April 16th a delightful social was held in the old school-room in the city church. Twenty-six of the young folks' from Glenview came in to help make the occasion a festive one. This social was to some extent the outgrowth of a sentiment that those of the Chicago Society who have not moved with the majority to the country will form a nucleus for vigorous growth, not into an independent society but as an active part of the society. As the Pastor expressed it in response to the toast, "To the Permanency of the Immanuel Church in the City." "We must have two legs to stand upon." The increase of the church will come from two sources, principally of course from the children, but there will always be some coming to us from the world. Both must be cared for. The move to Glenview was made to better care for the children which are given us, but in the city we can better receive those who come to us from without. Already a few have come.
A dramatic entertainment was given at the Club souse in Glenview, May 15th. The programme consisted of a burlesque of opera, a vaudeville act, and the one-act comedy, "A Game of Cards." The acting was cleverly done and very much enjoyed. The proceeds from the sale of seats, and afterwards of ice cream, donated by one of the boys, was given to the school.
The school will soon close the most prosperous term of its existence, not only in number of pupils, but in the progress made and the activity and interest taken in the work by pupils, teachers, and all the society.
MRS. OSCAR LINDROOTH.
MRS. ANNA A. LINDROOTH passed away from our midst on Easter morning, April 18th, having given birth to a little daughter, who followed her into the spiritual world a few days later.
Mrs. Lindrooth was the youngest daughter of Mr. and Mrs. C. F. W. Junge, and a sister of Mrs. E. C. Bostock, and Mr. William H. Junge and Miss Susie Junge.
She was born in Frankfort-on-the-Main, Germany, on April 9th, 1869, while her parents were visiting that country. But she lived almost all her life in Chicago, within the Immanuel Church, having been educated in the New Church school here. In 1890 she was married to Mr. Oscar T. Lindrooth, a young man who had also grown up within the society. Four children have blessed the union, two of whom survive to comfort the father in his bereavement.
When the movement to Glenview was made, Mr. and. Mrs. Lindrooth were among the first to make their home there, and from that home, named by its mistress "Rose Cottage," there has always emanated a most cordial sphere of hospitality. To entertain the young folks was a special pleasure to Mrs. Lindrooth, and many parties there have been made delightful by the inexhaustible fund of wit and good humor shed forth by its genial hostess.
Pioneering in Glen view entailed unavoidably many inconveniences and privations, but by none were they borne with more courage and less complaint than by Mrs. Lindrooth. Contentment with her lot was perhaps one of her most notable characteristics, and her many friends will miss the sunshine of her presence. A. B. N.
FRANCE.
EASTER Sunday was a memorable one in the history of the little band of New Church people residing in and near Paris, in consequence of a visit they received from Pastors Ottley end Tilson, of London.
Divine worship was held at 11 A. M., at which two adults were baptized and a sermon delivered by Rev. G. C. Ottley. Two selections were also sung in English.
In the afternoon another service was held, when the marriage of M. and Madame Vinet was solemnized (the first of its character in France), and the Holy Supper administered. On this occasion "Vivat Nova Ecclesia" was sung in Latin, and the Ten Commandments repeated in Hebrew.
Both these services were attended by Mr. John Pitcairn, of Huntingdon Valley, Pa., U. S. A., who was staying in Paris at the time, and also by three friends from Colchester, fifteen persons in all being present.
After the morning services all the friends took lunch together. During the repast, Mr. Pitcairn addressed the company in French, emphasizing the importance of recognizing and adhering to the authority of the Doctrines and of seeing the LORD in them. His remarks evidently made a deep impression upon the French brethren; the expressions of assent and approbation with which his remarks were received gave striking evidence of the deep and sincere thought of the people, and of the firm and valuable guidance of their pastor. Much earnest conversation and interchange of thought followed, and many spiritual friendships were formed.
Altogether, a most useful, instructive and enjoyable time was experienced by those privileged to be present, and the meetings cannot fail to cement a closer bond between the believers in England and France, and thus conduce to the growth and welfare of the Church they all love so dearly.
FROM THE PERIODICALS.
Massachusetts.-AT the spring meeting of the Massachusetts Association the President, the Rev. John Worcester read an address upon the "The Word as a Whole," which he outlined into seven periods. The paper will be published in The New Church Review. The ordination of Mr. Thomas S. Harris has been described as very impressive. The reports of societies gave interesting accounts of matters pertaining to the Church life of those bodies. The Cambridge report made special mention of the cordial relation between the community and their pastor, the Rev. T. F. Wright, whose public good offices and popularity have been referred to by the Messenger, during the winter. Missionary work has been done in Mansfield Worcester, Lowell, and other places, and progress made in Concord, Contoocook and Manchester, N. H. The Rev. G. F. Stearns has been employed in this work, and the Rev. A. F. Frost "has continued his good work in Fitchburg.
In order better to meet financial obligations, it was recommended by the business corporation that the Association consider the subject of assessing its several societies on the basis of membership. The expenses include the salary of the General Pastor, dues to Convention, and printing the Journal. The recommendation was adopted. Papers were read bearing the following interesting titles: "Revelation in the Earliest Times" (Rev. L. F. Hite); "Representative Worship" (Rev. A. F. Frost, and "The Transition from Representative to Christian Worship" (Rev. T. F. Wright). The General Pastor, in conclusion, briefly summarized the subjects of the day.
A MEMORIAL window has recently been put into the building of the Boston Highland Society, in memory of Mrs. R. B. Bobbins; the subject is, Mary sitting at the feet of Jesus.
ON May 10th the Rev. J. K. Smyth announced to a gathering of the two congregations, Roxbury and Brookline, that he had finally decided to remain with them, declining the call to the New York pastorate. The occasion seems to have been a decidedly moving one.
Pennsylvania.-FROM interesting accounts in the Messenger, it would seem that Stormville, Monroe County, has become a promising field for Missionary work, the efforts of the Rev. J. B. Smith having met with a gratifying reception. His opening discourse there (February 8th) was on "The Second Coming," and despite stormy weather about one hundred were present, some from a distance. On April 6th, 6th, and 7th he lectured on "The Bible and How to Understand it," "Beyond the Grave," and "Judgment and Heaven and Hell." The lecturer seemed to carry his audiences with him, and further services have been asked for. Writes a correspondent to Mr. Smith: "I was surprised to hear one of the pillars of the Methodist Church say that he had never seen so much knowledge imparted in so short a time, and all a revelation to him."
95
On a third visit Mr. Smith delivered three discourses, May 3d to 5th. A Methodist minister, who was induced by his parishioners to attend, is reported to have said, "What he says Is all true, and two-thirds of what we preach is not true," and to have stated his determination to study. The absence of opposition in Stormville seems remarkable. Mr. Smith has found the greatest interest, however, at Montgomery Ferry. At Fishing Creek and at Benvenne (near Duncannon, Perry County) he found that a large proportion of the inhabitants were not church members, and in a sort of Gentile ignorance. He says: "Ten to one is the proportion of those in country places who will listen to the New Church missionary as compared with those in cities."
AT the ninth annual meeting of the Pennsylvania Association, held in Philadelphia, April 16th, Frankford Society reported a membership of SO (Rev. Louis Rich, Pastor); Pittsburgh, 46 (Rev. H. von Crownfield, Pastor); Harrisburg, 16 (attendance of 24 at worship). Lancaster, 24; Philadelphia, 421; Vineland, N. J., 77; Montgomery's Ferry, 8 (attendance, 60 to 100; services monthly). The Rev. J. E. Smith spoke of the missionary work at Fishing Creek, Allentown, South Bethlehem, and Stormville. At the latter place a chapel was built five years ago by a lady as a thank-offering for health and useful life. Designed for the use of all denominations, it was now being put to regular use for the first time in the cause of the New Church. In Chester and at Bacton also encouraging results have followed labor expended.
Washington, D. C.-THE Rev. Frank Sewall; some time since, delivered an address in the Saturday morning course of the Columbia Kindergarten Association (Columbia University) on "The Return to Nature." By invitation of the Superintendent of the Public Schools of the District of Columbia he has delivered also two lectures on "The History of Christian Art" (illustrated with photographs) before the Normal School of the District.
THE "Scudder Memorial" window has now been set in the large west window of the National Church, and the cut (published in the Messenger, April 7th) presenting the central figure of the Angel of the Garden of Eden indicates a very effective treatment of the impressive subject, "The Creation."
ON April 17th the Rev. Jabez Fox arrived at Washington from the South, and next evening preached to an attentive audience of about seventy-five in the African New Church Mission building.
Ohio.-THE members of the Second New Church Society, of Toledo, who three years ago withdrew from the established Society, that they might worship in greater freedom, have recently completed a very neat chapel. -Messenger.
THE Rev. J. E. Bowers has been making a missionary tour in Ohio. He was welcomed in Vermillion, where he preached once last November, and in the Methodist church in Napoleon he had a congregation of over three hundred and fifty, who gave close attention to a discourse on "The Mystery of Death and the Future Life of Man."
Indiana.-THE seventh missionary visit of the Rev. J. E. Bowers to Kokomo was made April 8th to 11th. Although the meeting had been well advertised the audiences did not at any time exceed thirty-five, but showed interest in the new gospel.
Illinois.-THE Rev. L. P. Mercer has been conducting a class in the internal sense of the Word, by request of the Esoteric Extension of the World's Congress.
MISSIONARY ministrations are regularly extended by the Illinois Association to centres of New Church worship, and also to New Church people scattered over the State, as at Wilmington, Jacksonville, Pontiac, Springfield, and Hannibal; also at Peoria, Olney, Mt. Vernon, and McLean, as well as at Jefferson in Wisconsin. Places of worship exist at Henry, Pittsfield, Canton, and Wellsville. The work seems to be hampered with lack of adequate financial response, the all-too-frequent experience in missionary and indeed other church work.
The Chicago Society reports an active winter's work.
Michigan.-THE ministrations of the Rev. E. J. E. Schreck seem to have been very satisfactory to the Detroit Society, and the temporary arrangement has been succeeded by his acceptance of a call to continue for at least the remainder of a year in the pulpit of the Society.
Kentucky.-ON April 28th, at Louisville, the Rev. Howard C. Dunham and Miss Mary S. Beynroth were joined in marriage by the Rev. E. A. Beaman.
THE Rev. T. T. Eaton, of Louisville, recently preached on "Swedenborgianism," to which Mr. Dunham replied it, a sermon published in the Commercial. Judging from quotations in the Messenger Mr. Eaton was strictly accurate in confessing his inability to understand the doctrines he undertook to refute.
South Carolina.-AT Beaufort, the Rev. Jabez Fox, on March 31st, delivered three lectures to congregations of colored people, one numbering over a hundred. The Rev. Messrs. Chavis, Manson, Green, and Wright said they would read the Writings, which they could do through the volumes owned by Mr. James Wigg, of whose conversion so moving an account was given in Convention last year by the Rev. J. K. Smyth.
MRS. MATHER is giving up a large part of the work of the Matherton Industrial Home and Schools, because of advancing age, but looks to removal to the Riverside School and Home at Broad River, where she hopes for greater freedom to express her religious convictions to her pupils, and more Independence, pecuniary and otherwise.
California.-"THE society which was temporarily organized under the name of 'The Third New Church Society of San Francisco,' became permanently organized at its first annual meeting in January and its name changed to that of 'The Swedenborg Mission Society of San Francisco,' the latter name being more expressive of its objects."-Messenger.
This body is constituted of members of two Societies, one in San Francisco and one in Oregon, and its objects are, "To study spiritual truth, especially the Heavenly Doctrines of the Word as revealed in the Writings of Emmanuel Swedenborg, to disseminate them among men, and in every available way to apply them to the service of humanity." The latter aim takes concrete form in undertaking to sustain a minister who could spend a considerable portion of his time traveling and lecturing. The society holds that "differences of opinion in matters of doctrine should not be made a cause of schism or separation so long as the two great essentials are acknowledged and made the basis of action."
THE COUNCIL OF MINISTERS OF THE GENERAL CONVENTION.
THE Council of Ministers met in St. Louis, Mo., May 11th, the Rev. S. S. Seward in the chair. No especially noteworthy action of the meeting has been reported, but there was no lack of interesting material for discussion, if the titles of the papers presented is any indication.
The publication of some of these we shall await with special anticipation; for instance, "The Doctrine of Ultimates," by the Rev. John Worcester; "The Relation of Woman to the Work of the Church," treated by the Rev. John Worcester and Rev. J. C. Ager; "The Translation of the Word," by the Rev. Whitehead; and a series on "The Life after Death, and the Relation between the Natural and the Spiritual Worlds." Also, "The Structure of the Word not from the same Source as its Materials" (Rev. E. D. Daniels); "Was all Scripture Dictated?" (T. F. Wright); "The work of Elisha" (applied to the state of the Church to-day, Rev. E. D: Daniels); "How far is it Advisable for a Clergyman in the New Church to Draw his Illustrations in Sermons and Lectures from Existing Social Conditions?" (Rev. W. L. Gladish); and a series on mission work: "The Importance of Books and Tracts in Mission Work" (Rev. J. Fox), "House to House Work" (Rev. L. G. Allbut), "The Receptivity of People living in Country Districts Compared with those Living in Large Cities" (Rev. J. E. Smith), and "The Mission of the New Church to the Afro-American" (Rev. L. P. Mercer).
THE GENERAL CONVENTION.
THE seventy-seventh annual meeting of Convention was held in St. Louis, May 15th to 18th. There were in attendance thirty-two ministers and thirty-two delegates. The session strikes the reader of the report in the Messenger as having been rather less eventful than usual. The return of the name of the Rev. E. J. E. Schreck to the roll of ministers is, however, an incident out of the ordinary run; the reasons for this step on his part being given in his letter of application as "maturer reflection on the priestly use of having souls and on the laws of the Divine Providence according to which that use is operative, and a riper regard for the freedom and good will of men," leading him to modify his former views of the General Convention, and to "appreciate more fully the operation of the Holy Spirit into and through this body." This letter was accompanied by another from the Detroit Society making the same request, and being cordially and unanimously approved by the General Pastors present, it was favorably acted upon by Convention, together with the following changes in the roll of ministers: The names of Joseph December and Thomas Stark Harris were added to the list; also of Candidates Samuel Worcester, Manfred Liliefors, and Soien Christian Bronniche; the names of Revs. George Nelson Smith, Peter Joseph Faber, and Stephen Wood, all deceased, were removed; also that of George M. Davison, recently ordained into the priesthood of the Episcopal Church. The names of Charles Samuel Mack and G. W. Wiley were removed from the list of Authorized Candidates on account of expiration of license.
The Committee on Swedenborg's Manuscripts reported that work on phototyping the "Diarium" would probably begin next October, under superintendence of Dr. Dahlgren, Librarian of the Royal Academy.
96
Title Unspecified 1897
NEW CHURCH LIFE.
PUBLISHED MONTHLY BY THE ACADEMY OF THE NEW CHURCH.
TERMS:-One Dollar per annum, payable in advance.
FOUR SHILLINGS IN GREAT BRITAIN.
ADDRESS all communications for publication to the Editor, the Rev. George G. Starkey, Huntingdon Valley, Montgomery Co., Pa.
Address all business communications to Academy Book Room, Cart Hj. Asplundh, Manager, No. 1521 Wallace Street, Philadelphia. Pa.
Subscriptions also received through the following agents:
UNITED STATES.
Chicago, Ill., Mr. A. B. Nelson, Chicago Agent of Academy Book Room, No. 565 west Superior Street.
Denver, Col., Mr. Geo. W. Tyler, Denver Agent of Academy Book Room, No. 544 South Thirteenth Street.
Pittsburgh, Pa., Mr. W. Rott, Pittsburgh Agent of Academy Book Room, 4726 Wallingford Street.
CANADA.
Toronto, Ont., Mr. R. Carswell, No. 47 Elm Grove.
Waterloo. Mr. Rudolf Roschman.
GREAT BRITAIN.
Mr. Wiebe Posthuma, Agent for Great Britain, of Academy Book Room, Burton Road, Brixton, London. S. W.
PHILADELPHIA, JUNE. 1897=127-128.
CONTENTS. PAGE
EDITORIAL: Notes 81
The Rev. John Presland 82
"A Non-Ecclesiastical Ecclesiasticism," 82
THE SERMON: Breaking the Bonds of the Spiritual Man 83
A Pastor's Limitations 85
ANNALS OF THE NEW CHURCH 87
Diseases of the Fibers 89
COMMUNICATED: A Danger to Europe," 90
Pastoral Duties 91
NOTES AND REVIEWS 91
CHURCH NEWS 94
From the Periodicals 94
The Council of Ministers of the General Convention 95
The General Convention 95
Assembly 96
BIRTHS, MARRIAGES, AND DEATHS 96
Attention was called to the fact that work would continue only so long as funds can be secured.
The Iungerich Gift Books have been distributed in a proportion of one-half more than during last year.
The German Missionary Union report the withdrawal of the German Society in Brooklyn, under the Rev. F. Muhlert, but its place has been filled by the German New Church Circle in Buffalo. A fund is being raised here and in Switzerland to further the publication of the German translation of the Word by the late Dr. Leonard Tafel. "The Wedding Garment" has been translated by the Rev. L. H. Tafel, and will appear in book form.
The Second African New Jerusalem Church, in Washington, D. C., requested the ordination of their pastor, Mr. W. N. Warner, into the ministry of the New Church. (Referred to the Council of Ministers.)
The Annual Address, by the Rev. John Goddard, on "The Conditions of Power from on High; or, The Church's Weakness and its Remedy," will appear in the Messenger later.
An effort to place the Convention on record on the "Male Delegate Question" was laid on the table.
Convention adopted the recommendation of the Council of Ministers to memorialize the American Swedenborg Publishing Society to print a Latin edition of the Psalms according to Swedenborg's Latin.
The Council also reported that the consideration of the subject of Short Pastorates was still in tentative stage, and that information to that effect had been returned to the inquiries of the New York Association.
Continuation of the "Messenger" was discussed in connection with the report of the Board of Publication. The lowering of price and the enlargement of the scope of that journal seem not to have met with adequate response on the part of the Church at large, leaving one of four courses to be pursued: either suspend the paper, or give it to some firm or body to carry on, or to raise the necessary income (say by general action as to the subscription list), or to reduce the cost (and size) of the paper, or increase the price. It was finally decided to appoint a committee to labor in the interest of the Messenger, especially to secure the support of all general and local organizations (including isolated receivers) of the Church, and to authorize the General Council to undertake such measures for the relief of the Board of Publication as they may deem advisable. The Life must remark upon the surprising indifference to the variety and quality of the material supplied to the Church by this well-natured "messenger" to the New Church.
The Committee on the "Principia" reported subscriptions for one hundred and sixty copies. It was decided to send out a circular to men of science, anticipating thereby a large increase in the size of the list.
The subject of New Church Education was continued in the hands of the Committee by request.
Missions.-The Rev. W. L. Worcester spoke of the missionary work of the Rev. J. E. Smith, of Pennsylvania, referred to elsewhere in these columns. The Rev. Howard C. Dunham gave an account of his work in Kentucky and Tennessee, with Louisville as a centre. The Society in that city had grown in numbers, and the interest was increasing. The general prospects in the two States seemed not very bright from this report. The Revs. P. C. Louis, J. B. McSlarrow, and J. P. Parmelee, also spoke on the interesting mission theme. The Convention then adopted a resolution to raise an Endowment Fund of not less than $60,000 for the use of the Mission Board.
Rotation in Office.-The Rev. A. C. Ager introduced a resolution in favor of an annual change in incumbency of the offices of President and Vice-President of the Convention, which was referred to the General Council, with the request to report next year.
Memorials.-A notable feature of this meeting was the number of Memorial Resolutions occasioned by the removal to the other world of several prominent New churchmen-namely, the Rev. George Nelson Smith, M. Charles F. Humana, the Rev. Stephen Wood, the Rev. Peter J. Faber, Dr. John Ellis, Mr. Lyman S. Burnham, the Rev. John Presland, and Mr. Richard Gunton. Appropriate tributes to the lately deceased were made by gentlemen qualified to speak, and appropriate messages of sympathy were ordered to be sent from the Convention to the bereaved families.
The French Society of the New Church reported that its work in Paris showed a slow but steady increase of numbers and interest. From forty to fifty attend communion services. Many strangers attend. "The journal, The Church of the Future, published by the Society, is an excellent means of propaganda. It is sent all over France to those in search, of the truth. Recently public conferences have been organized to introduce Swedenborg and his Writings to the French people; the first was held in a theatre situated in the centre of Paris, and was a decided success."
The Australian Conference sent an affectionate address to the Convention. In consequence of bard times several societies are without ministers in Australia. New Church literature has a larger sale than formerly. The American serial, The New Church Review, finds great favor with Australian readers.
The address closed with an earnestly expressed desire for fraternal intercommunication with the Church in America, there now being no official association between the two Churches.
Election of Officers.-In spite of a desire, communicated to Convention, not to serve longer President John Worcester was reelected, the Rev. S. S. Seward being the candidate selected for the Vice-Presidency. The present Secretary and Treasurer were re-elected. (The Report does not mention them by name.)
The Rev. W. A. Lamb-Campbell reported that he had been removed from the public schools, and was preaching more regularly to a small society of colored people in Galveston, Texas.
After passing an appropriate resolution of thanks to the Church in St. Louis for the hospitable entertainment of this, the first session of the General Convention ever held west of the Mississippi, the meeting adjourned.
ASSEMBLY. CARL HJ. ASPLUNDH 1897
ANY who may be expecting to attend the General Assembly of the General Church of the New Jerusalem, to be held at Huntingdon Valley, June 25th to 29th, will please notify the undersigned as soon as possible, in order that accommodations may be provided during their stay.
CARL HJ. ASPLUNDH,
1821 Wallace St., Philadelphia, Pa.
Title Unspecified 1897
NEW CHURCH LIFE
Vol. XVII No. 7. PHILADELPHIA, JULY, 1897=128. Whole No. 201.
FIRST GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE GENERAL CHURCH OF THE NEW JERUSALEM. 1897
EDITORIAL SUMMARY AND COMMENTS.
THE General Assembly of the General Church of the New Jerusalem, held in Huntingdon Valley, Pa., June 25th to 29th, at the call of Bishop Pendleton and his council, effected the purpose designed, namely, the formal recognition of the initial steps already taken in this movement and of the uses represented; and the taking of further steps in the same direction. It did not result in an ultimate and complete organization, for such a step was not thought desirable at this stage, which is still one of generalization and development of ideas and methods. But the vital question, whether the Church itself is a one-whether the disturbed states following recent events had left unbroken the unity of churchly spirit among those so long associated in the uses of the Church-was emphatically answered in the affirmative. The whole sphere of the meeting was one of intense interest, hope, and desire; in the deliberations both frankness and toleration were strongly in evidence;, and the uncertainty of the first day soon began to yield to a growing conviction that those who were there were practically a unit as regards the essentials of a Church whatever form of organization might finally be adopted in accommodation to varying states of understanding. The perception that all were free was the best possible guarantee against any attempt at binding the freedom of others; and with the spectre of domination-whether of forms or of will put aside, the way before was seen clear for organization for those practical uses about which there has been all along, no essential difference of view The various speakers were freely and warmly applauded and this vent probably served a real use but in general we think that rationality and dispassionate discussion are best promoted by more self-repression on the part of adherents of differing views. There was that about the meeting which, though its close found important questions yet to be answered and problems to be solved, assured all, that the LORD was leading the Church and would hot fail to give light in the time of need. Probably no view presented but was either modified or more clearly defined by the debate. When, at last, Bishop Pendleton's plan of organization was unfolded, preceded by a most elevating consideration of principles, and crystallizing into simple practicable form those elements of agreement in which all were ready to unite-the relief and enthusiasm of the meeting found vent with an unanimity and spontaneity that can be appreciated by anyone who has ever come through a similar period of doubt and fear as to the stability of his spiritual home on earth. Bishop Pendleton prefaced the paper with the remark that he had been unable to present a digested treatment of the subject of government, preferring to call what he had written, simply "Notes on the Government of the Church." (The paper and Plan of Organization are given on pages 106-8.) The Assembly promptly adopted his concluding recommendations, not to take final action now, but to continue the provisional government for another year with the single added feature of an Executive Committee, to administer the civil affairs of the Church in the interim.
To accommodate those who were obliged to come by train daily from the city, the meetings did not begin till 10.30 A. M., the noon recess being from one o'clock till half-past three. The afternoon sessions averaged about two hours.
The social side of the meetings was a delightful feature. The congregations in Huntingdon Valley and Philadelphia had provided for serving diner and supper at a common table and the two and a half hours which was given to the noon recess, and also the interval between the close of the afternoon session and supper, were so fully occupied as to make the whole of each day seem like a reunion.
Every evening was pleasantly occupied. On the evening of the 24th, a general social was given in the Club House, which was largely attended, the sphere being an auspicious precursor to the more serious business to follow. On Friday evening the Rev. C. T. Odhner delivered a lecture on the "Life and Ministry of the Rev. Richard De Charms." Saturday evening was the occasion of another social, in which dancing was a prominent feature. Sunday evening was left open for rest, but quite a number gathered in the hall of the Club House (as well the meeting-place for worship and for assembly as the temporary home of the schools) to listen to impromptu practice in the new church Music under the conductorship of Mr. R. M. Glenn. With the large number of voices, stimulated by the spirit of the occasion, the Eighteenth Psalm was rendered as perhaps never before. On this and on all the social occasions, the violin playing of Messrs. William and Robert Caldwell was a very pleasant feature, while Messrs. David and Samuel Klein also contributed much to the general enjoyment by violin and vocal performance. On Monday evening Mr. and Mrs. Glenn gave a lawn party, and as this followed immediately after the happy presentation and reception of Bishop Pendleton's paper and Plan of Organization, the warmth of the occasion may be imagined; it was the old Academy brotherhood revived and refreshed, but with a certain chastened earnestness which gave promise of better things to come. It may be permissible to comment, here that the participators in the Academy movement seem to have come to recognize certain fallacies and even evils which have attended it in the past which need not be enumerated here, but which may be freely acknowledged as injurious to freedom, to charity, and to humility. It is to be hoped that in this case repentance, as it always should, presages advance in charity humility and willingness to follow the Truth.
One thing which this Assembly may be said to have definitely settled, is, that the spirit of the entire movement is for freedom-freedom for all. To the unwritten constitution of the past has been made a further contribution or development-a fuller interpretation of the doctrine of the priesthood, by a better understanding of the principle of reciprocation by the Church, without which, priestly government is but a name and a delusion.
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A balance was needed: the ministration of the LORD Himself can effect nothing of eternal life without the reciprocation of man, and this must be represented in the functions and organic life of the Church.
While this has been acknowledged all along it has not been sufficiently developed, and of late it has suffered.
That freedom is a distinguishing element in the movement was recognized even by men who came to the Assembly as onlookers, skeptics, critics-but who became convinced, not only by the simple but masterful stroke by which Bishop Pendleton provided for freedom and banished the phantom of fear, but also by the evident justness, toleration, and invitation to frankness, which characterized his presiding and were reflected in the assembly itself. One visitor spoke of the "stupendous patience" of the meeting, and another admitted that he had come prepared to test the proffered freedom of speech to the verge even of abuse, and that he was fully satisfied with the results: however this mode of investigation may be regarded, its results have a certain convincing value. The opportunity for individual freedom of thinking and expression has arisen out of necessity, in which may be recognized a Providence. It may be admitted, we think, that something severe was needed to rouse to the exercise of the privileges of intellectual adultness those who had grown up under the overshadowing awe and prestige of a master mind. The value of the preparatory stage of the past is recognized; let us hope that it will now bear-is now bearing, fruit.
If what we have said be well founded, what has the Church to fear? Differences of view? No; they will only develop and strengthen us in the presence of freedom, for freedom involves charity, and both involve obedience to the truth according to conscience. The common conscience of this Church is formed on certain principles of use, based on such fundamental doctrines as, The Second Coming of the LORD effected by and in the Writings of the New Church, The Consummation of the Old Church and the distinctiveness of the New, Government by the Priesthood, Distinctive New Church Education, The Doctrine of Conjugial Love as given by the LORD "unimproved" by man's prudence; with the inseparable corollary, Marriage within the Church. No individual view which harmonizes with those doctrines can seriously disturb the Church. With freedom of speech guaranteed there will be every opportunity for the ventilation of errors, the clearing up of appearances, and a continually closer coming together in the common light which will ever surely prevail where there is the freedom of charity and mutual trust. It is to be noted that every discussion which results in elevating the priesthood above the personality of the men who are permitted to functionate in it, and which more clearly points out that it is the LORD'S own means of bringing the Divine among men, tends to remove all invidious comparisons, and unites all on the common ground of brotherhood-tends to open the eyes to see that all uses are the LORD'S, not man's.
Nevertheless, there is scant room for self-complacency or indolent security as to the future. Greater freedom inevitably brings greater responsibilities and temptations. The path is clear before us, but the "natural man" will start on the journey with us, nor will he allow us to lose sight of him. Greater freedom means greater power to abuse freedom. The most difficult government to secure is self-government-voluntary suppression of concupiscences, self-conceit, and self-will. The LORD in His Mercy has, we believe, vouchsafed to the Church greater freedom for the individual; can she-will she bear it? It rests with each of her members to look into his heart's loves and answer for himself.
It must be understood that the following account is simply an attempt to publish as soon as possible the chief features of the spirit and proceedings of the Assembly. As it has finally taken shape it has outgrown the original design, and has added the names of those who engaged in the discussions, for the sake of the accruing interest. But there is not now time to submit the various abstracts of papers or remarks to the original speakers for correction. We can only ask indulgence, and leave for correction by the official record or Journal, soon to appear, such misrenderings as may have resulted from condensing language or from imperfect notes and recollection.
The Roll of the Assembly is given as being likely to be of general interest.
ROLL OF THE ASSEMBLY.
MEMBERS. Canada, Ontario: Berlin.-Rev. J. E. Rosenqvist, F. B. Waelchli, Mrs. Lizzie Bellinger, Mr. Adam Glebe, Miss Annie Moir, Jacob Stroh (and wife). Ontario: Parkdale.-Mr. William Caldwell. Toronto.-Rev. J. E. Bowers. England: London.-Rev. E. C. Bostock. United States. Georgia: Valdosta.-Messrs. A. S. Pendleton and C. R. Pendleton. Illinois: Chicago and Glenview.-Revs. N. D. Pendleton, W. H. Acton; Messrs. Alvin Lindrooth, J. W. Marelius (and wife), H. S. Maynard, Seymour Nelson, Miss Augusta Pendleton. New York: New York City.-Mr. J. A. Fraser. Ohio: Middleport.-Rev. Rich. H. Keep, Misses C. Grant and Frances McQuigg. Pennsylvania: Allentown.-Mrs. J. Ebert, Messrs. John Kessler, John
Waelchli and C. D. Weirbach. Huntingdon Valley.- Rt. Rev. W. F. Pendleton, Revs. C. Th. Odhner, E. S. Price, Geo. G. Starkey, H. Synnestvedt, Miss Ella Aitken, Mr. C. Hj. Asplundh (and wife), Miss Irene Bellinger, Henry B. Cowley, Emil Cronlund, Gustav Glebe (and wife), Misses Martha and Mina Glebe, Mr. Robert M. Glenn (and wife), Misses Mary Glenn, Alice Grant, Annie Hachborn, Mr. Samuel H. Hicks (and wife), Mrs. M. Johnson, David H. Klein, Miss Viola Klein, Alex. Moir, Miss Jessie Moir, Mrs. M. A. Moir, Mrs. C. T. Odhner, Mrs. W. F. Pendleton, Misses Emma Pendleton, Luelle Pendleton and Venita Pendleton, Mr. John Pitcairn, Misses Alice Potts, Edith Potts, Ellen Potts, and Jane Potts; Mrs. B. S. Price, Miss Barbara Rhodes, Messrs. O. B. Schwindt (and wife), Chas. S. Smith (and wife), Sobieski C. Smith (and wife); Misses Charlotte E. Smith and Mary Snyder; Mrs. G. G. Starkey, Mr. Ernest J. Stebbing, Mr. Henry G. Stroh (and wife), Mrs. Homer Synnestvedt, Miss Laura Waelchli, Mr. John A. Wells (and wife), Misses Elizabeth Xandry, Emma Ziegler, Laura Ziegler, and Marie Ziegler. Jeffries P. O., Clearfield County.-Mr. Stacy Bowman. Philadelphia.-Revs. Alfred Acton, Chas. E. Doering, and L. G. Jordan; Mrs. A. Acton, Mrs. Susan B. Aitken, Mr. E. P. Anshutz, Miss H. S. Ashley, Dr. Felix A. Boericke, Mr. Walter C. Childs, Dr. George Cooper, Mr. Robert Caldwell, Mr. Adam Doering (and wife), Mrs. C. B. Doering, Mrs. B. A. Farrington, Dr. Harvey Farrington, Miss Helen Farrington, Mr. W. A. Farrington, Mr. C. E. Forsberg (and wife), Miss Mary Fox, Dr. Frederica B. Gladwin, Miss C. A. Hobart, Mrs. C. Hobart, Mrs. T. P. Henderson, Dr. J. T. Kent, (and wife), Mr. K. Knudsen, Miss Eliza Mitchell, Mr. Louis B. Pendleton, Miss Zella Pendleton, Mr. F. Pflueger, Miss E. E. Plummer, Mr. Rudolph Potts, Miss Sophie Roehner, Mrs. W. F. Roehner, Miss Adelaide Stankowitch, Dr. Rosalie Stankowitch, Mr. Arnold Steiger, Misses Laura Vickroy, India Waelchli, and Stella Waelchli; Mr. Herbert Walker (and wife), Mr. Reuben Walker (and wife), Miss Laura Walls, Mr. W. H. Zeppenfeld (and wife), Mrs. George Ziegler.
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Pittsburgh.-Revs. Andrew Czerny and John Stephenson. Renovo.- Rev. Ellis I. Kirk, Mr. J. R. Kendig, Miss Florence Kendig. Scranton.-Mr. A. G. Gilmore (and wife), Miss Leila Gilmore. Williamsport.-Miss J. C. Kendig.
VISITORS. Ontario: Parkdale.-Rev. E. S. Hyatt, Mr. Charles Brown, Reginald Brown. Connecticut: New Haven.-Mr. S. Warren Potts. New York: Brooklyn.-Miss Ida Klein, Mr. Samuel Klein. New York City.-Mr. Anton Sellner, Miss Mary Wolf. Ohio: Middleport.-Dr. Benjamin Bogges, Miss Clara Hanlin. Pennsylvania: Erie.-Mr. Arthur Cranch. Huntingdon Valley.-Mr. Charles Ebert, Mr. Ralph Hicks, Curtis Hicks, Miss Amena Pendleton, Rev. John F. Potts (and wife), Miss Lucy Potts, Mrs. G. B. Starkey, Mr. Alfred Stroh, Mr. J. F. Van Horn (and wife), Mr. Walter Van Horn. Philadelphia.-Miss Beatrice Childs, Mr. Harold Childs, Mr. C. Edro Cranch, Mr. J. K. Cumming, Mr. Ernest Farrington, Mr. Ernest Gilmore, Dr. C. L. Olds, Mr. W. H. Roehner, Miss Eva Schill, Mr. B. Glenn Smith, Mr. A. Steiger, Miss Addie Zeppenfeld, Mr. Bennett Yarnall. Pittsburgh.-Mrs. D. M. Cowley, Mrs. S. Faulkner, Mr. Walter Faulkner, Miss Maria C. Hogan, Mr. George A. Macbeth, Mrs. E. Norris. Scranton.-Mr. Clarence Gilmore.
OUTLINE OF THE FIRST DAY'S PROCEEDINGS.
AFTER the opening services, conducted by Bishop Pendleton, that gentleman called the meeting to order at 10.50 A. M. Bishop Pendleton recounted the fact of his being called upon to take charge of the Huntingdon Valley congregation, as Bishop, last January, and the subsequent request of five ministers, who, like himself, were not at that time connected with any other body of the Church, to be accepted under his episcopal ministrations.
He then announced that this General Assembly, the natural outgrowth of this movement to form a general church, was now competent to express its voice upon the principles and government of the Church, to consider and decide upon the uses of the body, to determine its policy and perfect its organization; and that in order to contribute in the fullest measure to the freedom of the Assembly in the doing of those things the Council of the Clergy, together with the Bishop, having performed the office of bringing a provisional body into existence, and of calling the members together, now withdrew from external connection or collective relation with the General Assembly, retaining at the same time their places as individual members of the same. He further announced his own retirement from the leadership of the movement, his resignation being then in the hands of the Council of the Clergy; and stated that the selection of a permanent chairman of the meeting was now in order.
On motion of Mr. R. M. Glenn, the Assembly unanimously resolved that the Chairman should be a priest. It is an index of the strong affirmative attitude of the meetings that every question passed was a unanimous action. Bishop Pendleton was nominated and elected permanent Chairman. The Rev. C. Th. Odhner and Mr. L. B. Pendleton were nominated and chosen permanent Secretary and Assistant Secretary. It was re- solved that only members of the General Church vote upon questions, but that visitors be invited to take part in the deliberations.
The Secretary read a brief account of the beginning of the movement last February and of the subsequent external development up to date. He reported a membership of 287, adding that blank applications for membership were now ready for any who might desire to join the body.
The Docket prepared by the Committee on Business included the following subjects: "Government and Organization," "The Choice of a Bishop," "The Name of this Church," "The Uses of this Church," "Evangelization," "Relation of this Church to other General Churches," "Relation of this Church to the Academy," "Translation of the Word," "Preservation of Swedenborg's Manuscripts," "New Church Life," "Arrangement of the Civil Affairs of this Church," "Support of the Bishop's Office," "Publication of the Journal of this Meeting."
The first subject to be taken up was,
ORGANIZATION AND GOVERNMENT.
Communications on this subject wore read, from Dr. Edward Cranch, of Erie, Pa., and Mr. Rudolph Roachman.
Rev. Enoch S. Price read a paper on the subject. After outlining the trinal order of the priesthood as held among us, he referred to the recent "earthquake," and asked whether we should now repair the breaches and rebuild the wall upon the old foundation, or tear up, root out, and rebuild from the very bottom. If the old foundation was good it should be retained. He reviewed the history of the Academy and of Bishop Benade's teachings to and government of the Church, and also recent events. He made some reply to criticisms against the priests who first acted in the matter, especially the charge that they had been too slow in acting against oppression, the speaker defending the right of every man to act from conscience and just when conscience dictates, and not from the judgment and conscience of another. He then took up constitutional government, stating that he had at first favored it (after the revolution), but finally had been forced to repudiate that and other provisions for extricating the Church from an unfit ruler; now declaring, first, against government of the people, by the people, for the people; and second, for government of the Church as being of conscience, by conscience, and for the sake of conscience. The government of the priesthood is over the spiritual things of the Church; this is the LORD'S own appointed means whereby spiritual things may grow, bear fruit, and be in order among men; civil things of the Church are in the hands of laymen, who are, as it were, kings and magistrates. Let each be absolutely free in the respective functions. Progress and growth depend upon the free action and reaction of priesthood and laity, and this reciprocal relation depends upon mutual confidence, each individual member of the Church being left to act in freedom according to his own conscience. The Bishop must be left in freedom to act according to his own conscience, with no law above or around him but the Law of God, which is the law of conscience. If you bind the Governor you will have no government, and this is anarchy. Government in spiritual things is a leading and not a binding. Both the evil and the good seem to themselves to be free, but only the good are in true freedom. Only conscience can compel the spiritual man, and if a Governor endeavors to do so-to bind his conscience-he need not obey.
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Who can compel him? If the Governor has no conscience, or is incapacitated, or a heretic, the law of conscience permits him who has it-conscience-to avert himself. What wore protection to him could a law over the high priest afford? Would any one obey the law if his conscience were not convinced? But if the Bishop's government is to be by conscience and not by compulsion, it may be asked, where is his rule? Answer: by the excitation of good and truth in his flock, and leading thereby. We have no right to legislate on the probability of the Bishop's becoming an evil man; and as to his becoming infirm, we ought not-according to Aristotle's teachings-form rules on the contingencies of human action. You cannot by legislation prevent accidents. On the civil plane, among the affairs of the laity, legislation is proper; and when such things are in the hands of an intelligent, conscientious laity, the property of the Church is safe. The speaker referred to the views of Swedenborg on government, quoted by a recent pamphleteer from the Documents Concerning Swedenborg, as being excellent as regards civil affairs, but as not pertinent in relation to government over spiritual things. He concluded by saying that he believed that the uses of the Church could be carried on under a democratic government, but not so well, and by hoping that the Church would adopt a government of conscience. Subsequently Mr. Price explained that in his paper he had spoken for himself alone, and had not committed his colleagues in the movement in any way.
Rev. N. D. Pendleton took the floor and said that in the action taken by himself and colleagues last February various considerations had influenced different ones. He himself had thought then that there was a tendency to rush pell-mell into democracy, but be had wished to follow order even in revolution-to act with the accepted and acknowledged conscience of the Church-to meet in assembly later, when cool and calm, to thoroughly consider the past, and if possible see its errors; but not hastily to make any vital change. But now the men who before had seemed rushing into democracy appeared to be rushing in the opposite direction, leaving him somewhat alone. He could not agree with Mr. Price's conclusion; he had come to see that the priesthood of the Church was not a spiritual but a natural institution-a representative of what is spiritual. We are confusing the spiritual and the natural. From indulging in abstractions, true enough in themselves but incapable of being applied to natural conditions without modification and adaptation, error arises. The crisis hinges around the right to remove a governing Bishop. He thought the Church could do this. This Assembly is here to choose a head, and if it can so choose, it can also remove. That which is given can be taken away, whether it be made a rule or not. He was opposed to supervision of the Bishop's functions, but said that in the doctrine concerning subordination and ordination in the priestly government we had had a great amount of subordination, but had lost sight of the word "ordination." He acknowledged the priestly authority, but believed that there should be agreements between any priest, high or low, and those to whom he was to administer, which would be recognized as a bond or covenant, which would act as a law, in the fear of which all should stand. All men, especially so long as they remain in this world, should be in that fear of the law. He that causes disturbance must be separated, but according to our former position if the Bishop causes disturbance he could not be separated, but all others must separate themselves,-a very indirect and unfortunate way of applying the law of disturbance to him. This may be considered a natural rational view, but the natural rational has its place and cannot be totally disregarded safely. It precedes the spiritual, which comes through it; and there must be effected a correspondence. [Mr. G. G. Starkey asked what would be the nature of that compact spoken of, but was answered that it was too soon to go into particulars. Mr. Starkey stated, however, his view, that the real mutual relation being spiritual the compact would have to be so-i. e., of conscience only].
Rev. J. F. Potts introduced considerable humor into the discussion by referring to himself as having been badly bottled up,-but it was by his work on the Concordance, which he was happy to say was within sight of the end-two or three years. Proceeding seriously, he said that the Writings are the court of ultimate appeal. Government is there fully treated of. They never state that priests are governors of the Church, but that they "are governors to administer the things which are of the Divine Law and of worship." The Divine Law is the same as the Divine Truth, or the Word. Priests are to govern by teaching the truth and administering the sacraments. The administration of rewards and punishments which belongs to their office is effected by the preaching of the Word. He thought there would be no trouble. You may have autocracy in any form of government-even in a republic. It is not so much the form of the government as the way in which it is administered which causes trouble. With true charity among us almost any form of government will be successful; but without that there will be failure in any form of government.
Title Unspecified 1897
THE afternoon session was chiefly occupied with the paper of the Rev. L. G. Jordan, who has kindly furnished the following abstract:
The principles of government are to be derived from the laws of the Divine Providence of the LORD, but applications vary with the states of men. In general all government should be for the sake of the governed, that what is above may descend and be received. The LORD is not a Governor but a Giver. "I am among you as the one who serves."
Heaven and Hell, n. 213, et seq., shows government in the heavens to be that the less wise may receive of the wisdom of the wiser. In the celestial heaven government is of justice and directly from the LORD. Officers and Dignities and Honors of Place are unknown and impossible. This is made still clearer from Arcana Coelestia, n. 10,160, where it is said that, like the inhabitants of a second earth in the starry heavens, the most ancients of our earth did not live under princes or kings, or even know what governments were. They lived under themselves. The Jews put off representation of the celestial when they chose a king (A. C. 8770). The inhabitants of Jupiter do not like the name Christ applied to the LORD because the idea of king in it savors of the world (A. C. 8543). There were no dignities save those of love in most ancient times, but in the decline of the race first arose governments by judge, prince, king, or emperor and degrees of official dignity and honors (D. P. 215). N. 173 of Earths in the Universe, is similar, and gives a view of patriarchial government on earth.
Thus the noblest heavenly type is seen to be direct relation to the LORD without human intermediaries, at least, without official or perfunctory intermediaries. All that we know as government by official rulers came in with the fall of man and is not of the direct will of the LORD.
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But as men fell the LORD adapted Himself to them and permitted them to choose governors. He even established the spiritual heaven for the sake of men no longer fit for the full freedom of His immediate control.
So in Heaven and Hell, n. 215, the spiritual heavens, unlike the celestial, are said to have governors. They also have formulated laws according to which they live among themselves, and their governors administer according to those laws. Among the few or many governors must be some answering to legislators on earth, set apart to their office, like other officials there. The governors do not rule from individual illustration, else there would not be "laws according to which they administer," nor would there be "various forms of government" in the various societies.
But all the varied governments there "look to the public good as an end," or, as in Divine Providence, n. 217, "the king is for the sake of the kingdom, and not the contrary." The governors "do not rule and command, but minister and serve," and make themselves less than others. They do not care for the dignities and honors of office save for the sake of obedience.
But all here said of government in the spiritual kingdom is on the civil side; for there Church and State are separate. They should be separate in this world, and will continue separate so long as men need governments.
All this militates against absolutism in particular. The patriarchal form is not government in the ordinary sense because it is the rule of love. "One is your Father and all ye are brethren."
On earth there are governments because men so tend to love of rule that without them the race would perish (N. J. H. D., n. 312, et seq.). Yet the higher ideal is revealed as that toward which to strive. On earth even the officers have to be restrained. Some would except the chief from restraint, but the Doctrines place him, equally with the subjects, under the enacted law. As governors compel the subject to obey the law so there is a power inherent in the body to compel the rulers to obey the law.
Three functions of government, the executive, the judicial, and the legislative, are provided for (N. J. H. D.). All who participate in these functions are "governors." The chief is highest individually, but not superior to the body of law-enactors collectively.
To conclude: The LORD desires immediate relation with each man, the self-control of the individual, and hence the freest possible government or absence of what is commonly called government. But if they are not fit for this nobility of guidance by Him, and need a show of public functionaries, He allows them to have such dignitaries and all the paraphernalia of the court; not as of His Will, but because of man's own degradation. But man should continually strive for higher and freer government, setting aside the person of the governor, looking only to his wisdom in administering, and going as directly as possible to the LORD Himself as the Supreme and only Head of the Church and the world.
SECOND DAY-SATURDAY, JUNE 26TH. 1897
THE first paper presented on the subject of Organization, was that of the Rev. J. E. Rosenqvist presenting the doctrine concerning the trinal order of the priesthood-mitred prelate, parish priest, and curates-as set forth in Coronis, n. 17. He stated that those offices exist in the Church not by creation of man, but by the Divine Law; but for the sake of the understanding he explained that the reason for the trine is that there may be communication among the degrees and thence perfection of function. This being the Divine Order we should not seek to test its reliability by actual experience, this being liable to interpretation by each one according to his own affection and inclination, for these determine the methods of observation. There should be no experimenting with the Divine Law to find out whether it works well or not; it should simply be obeyed. Past results do not prove that the order is wrong; order is always order. It is the abuse of order which becomes disorder. Doubt as to that order does not come to the simple-hearted, but to those who for external reasons come to doubt its applicability, owing to an appearance of imperfect results, whereby the prevailing human distrust in Divine Providence becomes awakened.
The paper summarized the various positions now held among us in regard to government in the Church-some being in favor of restricting the representative head-some more, some less; some advocating democracy and congregationalism; and finally those who prefer the LORD'S Own form of government, without human restrictions laid upon it-favoring it because it is Divine and not human. The Writings say: "The acknowledgment of what is Divine is the first thing . . . even though this be not comprehended." It is legitimate, I however, for man to want to know not only that a thing is, but also what it is and how it is, for the sake of rational confirmation (A. C. 3388), but if he will acknowledge as Divine the teaching of the LORD concerning government, he will abhor the very idea of meddling with what belongs to the holy office of the priesthood. He can then rationally confirm the teaching as a merciful provision of the LORD for the preservation of true order in the Church.
As to confidence: in order to have trust in the priesthood as a whole, the greatest possible confidence is necessary in him who holds the highest office in the priesthood. Lack of confidence in his government is lack of confidence in the leadings of the Holy Spirit, which the LORD communicates "to the laity through the priesthood."
Rev. W. H. Acton agreed in general with the paper, but cautioned against the practice of drawing a conclusion, calling it Divine, and then reading passages which will condemn those opposing that position as being opposed to the Divine. We have been so taken up with government and the theories of government that he feared we had lost sight of the real end of government, which is the preservation of liberty, under order. Men love liberty-natural liberty-because it is a divine gift of the LORD; because where there is that there spiritual liberty is possible. The fear of democracy and with it anarchy, entering the Church has frightened the people against constitutional government; but it is under constitutional government that the highest degree of freedom is enjoyed. He did not favor placing any limit upon the rightful authority of the high priest, but he wanted to feel that the high priest would not go ahead so far as to part company with the Church. He would be satisfied if the high priest had council, and had no power to abolish it. The Academy troubles began when the Chancellor abolished council. The doctrine of intermediates-represented by council-has been neglected.
The tone and method of Mr. Rosenqvist's paper were criticised also by Messrs. B. C. Bostock, John Pitcairn, W. C. Childs, and E. S. Price, there being emphatic disapproval of a certain ex cathedra utterance which seemed to reflect a tendency to close the understanding and destroy rational freedom with a "thus saith the LORD"-a tendency which was believed by some to have been gaining ground in the Church of late.
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One speaker said that the idea of a governing Bishop supreme in illustration seems to involve a fourth degree in the priesthood.
Mr. Rosenqvist showed some sensitiveness over the strictures on his position, which, he contended, was not correctly represented by his critics, and next day he took occasion categorically to deny that he had ever taught, (1) the infallibility of the Bishop; (2) keeping the understanding subordinate to faith; (3) that the Holy Spirit does not pass immediately to the laity, as well as through the clergy; or (4) that there should be four degrees in the priesthood; and (5) he stated that he repudiated and renounced Popery. In his paper he had simply tried to point out the doctrine of the Writings, and these we should never tire of listening to.
This was the only occasion during the meetings when there was any visible ruffling of the "natural man,"-(with a few members) and even here the outward manifestation was strictly within parliamentary bounds.
Rev. F. E. Waelchli read a paper on the main subject, advocating unrestricted freedom of the high priest. He was against legislating to meet possible emergencies, as being futile and apt to induce a negative state. He vigorously opposed a government which practically makes the governor inferior to the governed. On the civil plane laws are to be framed, but the Divine Law which priests are to administer is already formulated in the Writings, and in this law the illustration of the high priest excels. Do not throw over the principle of confidence because in one case it has been lost. Do we do that in our own regeneration? Dissent from what is taught is permissible, even in Heaven (H. H. 223), but do not incorporate dissent in a code of laws! In times of temptation look to governing principles, learned from the Word and from Doctrine and confirmed, into which the LORD flows and thence rules all the rest (A. C. 5044). In the presence of conflicting views let not a mere majority rule, but trust to the guidance of the wisest; but give him time to reflect. Let us not decide the question now, but wait a year. (Great applause.)
Mr. W. C. Childs made some remarks in which he introduced an extract from a letter of the Rev. E. J. E. Schreck, expressing interest in the meeting and advancing some reflections on government, looking to a constitutional form. Mr. Childs thought the causes of the recent collapse in the government of the Academy and of the General Church lay in loss of confidence, the lack of which had been very manifest by the very demand for it that had been made so often. The root of the trouble lay in the system itself. Autocracy produces lack of confidence. Among men of earthly mold unrestricted freedom to do as they please is contrary to common sense.
Title Unspecified 1897
AFTER dinner an extract from a letter was read from Mr. A. C V. Shott, of Pittsburgh, favoring unrestricted priestly government of the Church.
Mr. John Pitcairn congratulated the Assembly on the new epoch and state now beginning, in which freedom of speech is to prevail; and he referred to the suppression under which the Church had been suffering. He thought the subject of government was not clear as yet, and believed that it would not be until there was a better understanding of the doctrine of degrees. Differing from Mr. Price, he said that we can legislate against accidents-that is, we can take precautions. He would have less talk of confidence and more done in way of winning it. He had been much disturbed by the appearance of absolutism in the position held by some of the priests in the past.
Mr. Rosenqvist protested against the spirit of some of the criticisms made on his paper, as tending to stifle freedom of speech and of opinion.
Mr. N. D. Pendleton also protested against any disposition to frown a man down as "unsound," and spoke of his old fear of that term in his student days. He said that all here are united on fundamentals, and should have liberty to differ as to non-essentials. The speaker dwelt upon the point that charity, and its uses, are what we should look to.
Rev. G. G. Starkey said that charity is certainly needed, but that it is to be attained only by following the truth; and that the LORD'S method of imparting that truth is particularly by the ministry of the priesthood; and that this should be governed only by spiritual laws or the restraints of conscience.
He read numbers illustrating the gentle and peaceful but effective operations of the interior atmospheres upon the lower air, where storms and disturbances are-restoring all things to order imperceptibly, but with a certainty which external influences could not at all effect (S. D. 418; A. C. 5396). Even so with the rule of conscience as contrasted with the crude, futile efforts of external restraints. He quoted from the Messenger, and declared that "Priestly domination is a bugaboo." If the priests dominate it is because of something in the people that makes them vulnerable. Every man is free if he will but recognize it. (It may be stated that other speakers dissented from the idea that priestly domination is not a very real danger, but the point was waived in the presence of others more pertinent to the object of the meeting.)
Rev. E. C. Bostock read a very instructive series of passages from the Writings covering many points in the discussion, but especially discriminating government from God through the Word by a supreme head in the Church, from the rule of arbitrary determination (A. R. 742); also that the laws of order which are to govern the Church are as many as are the truths in the Word (T. C. R. 55); that the priesthood is to be honored only in so far as it serves (T. C. R. 415); that among the angels are some higher, some lower, some wiser, some less so, and also that there are governors over societies, but that the government is really of the LORD alone (A. E. 735:2); that so far as a priest puts off the representative of the holy priesthood by evils of life, he represents the opposite (A. C. 3670), which involves the right to recognize the fact when priests do not represent the LORD; that over every function there must be one supreme universal, and thus one supreme governor (T. C. R. 10; 679). The LORD is the Priest of the Church, but He has appointed an office to represent that function among men. Governors are to keep assemblies in order, and that involves power to do so: disturbers of order are to be removed.
He brought out the idea that influx from a higher degree down into a lower does not compel, but leaves the lower free to react as of itself. Also that there is the right of withdrawal of co-operation or of consent on the part of the lower. Every member of this Church should recognize that we do not renounce the right to exercise our judgment on the natural plane; and that when occasion arises we will exercise it.
Mr. Odhner said that it would not do to think it indifferent what kind of a government we have. Charity can be better exercised under some forms than under others.
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No one advocates a rigid form, wishing to force' it upon any one else, but the desire is to present the government of conscience as an ideal, to be received in freedom if it can be seen to be best. It is the government of conscience versus the government of force. He then read a short paper giving the historical aspect of legislation in other bodies to protect the Church, and declaring that all the efforts made have failed to prevent either splits or abuse of power. He affirmed as inherent rights of the Church, the practice of holding council and assembly; and also the removal of an unfit head.
Mr. W. H. Acton mentioned that the Conference and Convention are still in existence, while this body is making its third or fourth attempt to establish a practicable government.
Mr. Price agreed that a high priest can be removed, but not by legislation. The Court of Appeal must be the conscience of the Church, met together in assembly and bringing their complaint to the Bishop. It is there that he can be tried, but conscience must be convinced.
THIRD DAY-SUNDAY, JUNE 27TH. 1897
ON Sunday, the 27th, Bishop Pendleton ordained Candidate Richard Hamilton Keep into the first degree of the priesthood. The Rev. E. C. Bostock, of London, preached on The LORD'S Resurrection Body, or the Glorification of the Natural Degree in the LORD (Luke xxiv, 39).
In the afternoon the Holy Supper was administered to one hundred and fifty-six communicants.
FOURTH DAY-MONDAY, JUNE 28TH. 1897
ON Monday, June 28th, the discussion of the subject of Organization was resumed.
Mr. John Pitcairn made a withdrawal as to a statement regarding a supposed utterance of Mr. Rosenqvist's, on the absolute authority of the high priest, some two years ago, having discovered that it was another person whose utterance he had had in mind.
Rev. J. F. Potts, in criticising Mr. Odhner's criticism of Conference legislation, explained that the measures adopted by that body were all required by the nature of the business to be transacted. Let us not cast slurs on other bodies or on what we may consider failures. As to priestly domination, he thought the danger to be not that any man should lose his freedom-not that "I" shall lose my freedom-but that the Church may be destroyed by love of rule, which, if it infect the head will pass through the whole body.
That is the danger; it is no "bugaboo." It assails the whole Church. It is not fair to lay the burden of what has happened on the shoulders of one man. All have had a "finger in the pie."
We want to avoid getting hold of a single doctrine and inflating it till it shuts out the whole prospect. Something like that has been done with the doctrine of illustration of the priests. But the bladder has burst. We do not want to push the idea of the superiority of the head till it is pushed up out of sight, for the neck-the intermediate offices-finally snaps, and down comes the head. Let us not puff up the high priest. Don't spoil your best men: take care of them.
The expression High Priest has been much used here. I do not like it, and I will tell you why. I fear there is something behind it. What is that? The fourth degree of the priesthood. Is there not something here which you have not yourselves recognized? Do not suppose you are going in for three degrees when you are really going in for four. If you want a pope, have him and try him; but do it with your eyes open.
As to a "government of the people and by the people," please remember that you are not "people." Take a net and scoop up any two hundred people out of Market Street and dump them into this building, and that will be "the people." You are not that. Every true Newchurchman is a church in the least form.
Adopt the way you think best, but do not say that your way is the only right one. The doctrines of the New Church are such that we have perfect freedom of choice in the form of government. I do not see why your old form of government should not work well provided it is carried on in a proper manner. But if your adopting it now means that you are passing condemnation on every other form of church government, remember that all suppressed wrong feelings and all shafts of ridicule will return upon and injure yourselves. You have my full sympathy in your special department of New Church work and activity; but not as against the other general bodies of the New Church.
Rev. Alfred Acton objected to the term High Priest (in which other speakers concurred), and to the doctrine which it involves, viz., of a fourth degree in the priesthood. According to the old idea a minister can be tried, a pastor, or a bishop, but not the high priest. This trouble has brought us into freedom to use our own reason. Just laws would be no check to a right-minded high priest. (To the interposition of Mr. Price, that there should be no man-made laws above the Bishop [a term he preferred to "high priest"], Mr. Acton replied that any law we can enact, if it be a just law, can bind the Bishop; yet it does not bind him if he is just. A just law can harm no one.) If the chief officer of the Church goes wrong it is our duty to depose him and set the office free.
[Here Mr. Rosenqvist made the explanation of his position referred to in connection with Saturday's proceedings.]
Rev. Charles E. Doering touched on Mr. Potts's reference to all three degrees being in man, constituting him a Church, said that there is a difference between the priesthood as an office and the state to which the priesthood administers, represented by the office. The LORD set apart Aaron and the priesthood for Himself. The LORD is not only the Head but the All in all of the Church, and He is in it externally by His own office. This is not conjoined to man but adjoined to him, and I hence the priesthood is not from the Church, but the Church from the priesthood. The Church cannot supervise or remove that which is not from it. The LORD alone introduces a man into his office, and He I does not transfer that office to any man or number of men. They cannot separate it, except from themselves, as individuals. The high priest is not irresponsible; he cannot escape the consequences if he does wrong; but there is a radical difference where he is responsible to the people.
Rev. Homer Synnestvedt made a lengthy address from notes, which commanded closest attention and much enthusiasm. He said in substance, Let us apply fundamental and acknowledged principles to the states existing among us, recognizing the distinctive quality of this body, without contempt for others. The rational faculty has an appearance of contempt when it compares qualities, but the quality of the lives of the men who are absorbed in the uses we love will show whether there is really contempt.
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If we see that we can have a better form of government than other bodies, where distrust affects the form adopted, it is not contempt to recognize it. Each man really should think his Church the best if his love is really enlisted in the uses it represents; he should be whole-hearted in his love The Church as a greater man is the unit which ought to be regarded, each organ having its special function set apart and distinctive. So with the organized priesthood. Each individual has the functions in himself; but he must not impose his priesthood on others; this would dissolve and I not build up the Church. In the larger body there must be an office to represent that function. This is not a new movement. There have been "inflations" and "elongations," but the basic principles have been all right. Nothing has been brought against this movement but the abuse of a good thing. Abuse does not take away use. There has been contrition for the errors; even by them the LORD has been leading us. We should avoid bringing the movement further into doubt; it is dangerous to look back, to "descend from the housetops." Should we in this period of temptation back to the position of those who have always been in doubt? Let each repent for himself for that which has been wrong. The LORD leads us to repentance in the effort to go forward. Remorse is a spurious repentance. We should not shrink from the consequences of going forward on account of possible difficulties; the LORD opens a way when you reach them, and not before.
The spirit is the essential thing. The Academy represents to us love of authority of the Writings and of the New Church. Our duty is to see that that spirit prevails. Keep the movement intact and do not allow it to go backward. The responsibility of the high priest is a real obligation, not to individuals as persons, but to the use each represents, thus to the LORD. In forming an organization (which is a putting forth or embodiment of spiritual laws-the laws we love-on the natural plane) how can we so fix it that the high priest will be free to follow the LORD alone, and in his dealings with men look to use and not to person?
The speaker's especial point was that we should be guided by interior principles, not appearances; not invert order, and base legislation or action on the negative, but keep in the stream of Providence. A court of appeals would be a permissive measure, not of will or good pleasure. The right of revolution is not of order, but of permission. For us, therefore, to regard it as a part of our order would be in spirit to be "revoluting" all the time (see D. P. 81). We are to rely on the LORD'S positive leading, not on our own prudence and fears. We have had greater freedom than any other body, and enjoyed a greater light, which is due to our having been in the acknowledgment of one head. "Our uses have been suffering; it is time to get to work under a common leader. I believe the LORD has raised one up for us. Every priest feels the need of episcopal ministrations. We need to get together. We have here a well-trained and trusty leader and a willing, eager laity. Let us go forward."
Title Unspecified 1897
AFTER dinner the Secretary announced that Bishop Pendleton had a paper and plan of organization which he would read whenever it was called for. The Secretary also read a letter from Mr. Jacob Schoenburger, expressing affection for the movement, advocating constitutional laws taken from the Writings, a court of am peals, and majority rule; protesting also against blind obedience for adults, and in favor of New Church education.
Mr. John Pitcairn spoke appreciatively of the more interior view presented by Mr. Synnestvedt's remarks; but thought that on his part, and with others, there was, perhaps, not a proper understanding of the relation of the Academy and the Church of the Academy. The Academy, when organized, was no more a church than the Swedenborg Printing and Publishing Society. It had a charter to perform certain uses. Its governor was called "Chancellor," which is not an ecclesiastical term. The Corporation and the Church had never worked together satisfactorily, and it was finally decided to separate them. The Academy has been reorganized, consisting now of nine members; the By-Laws have been revised, the Chancellor having no more power than other members. The speaker agreed that we should hold hold fast to that which was good and true, but false principles which had been introduced should be rejected. The view that there should be no law but the Doctrines he considered questionable. The law should be simple, and not put the head under restriction that would impair his usefulness. He hoped we would continue the provisional government for the present.
Mr. R. M. Glenn, President of the Corporation, explained that that body had never accepted the late Chancellor's assumption of complete control, and had strictly maintained its independence as a civil body.
Bishop Pendleton then called Mr. Bostock to the chair, in order to read his paper, which, he explained, was not a fully digested presentation of the subject, and hence he had entitled it simply, "Notes on the Government of the Church." The paper and plan of organization are printed in full on pages 106-8. The reading was followed with rapt attention and followed by an enthusiasm (vented in prolonged cheering) rarely seen in an ecclesiastical gathering, in the New Church, at least.
In answer to a question as to the formulation of laws, Bishop Pendleton said that the Academy doctrines are our laws.
PROVISIONAL ACTION TAKEN.
Mr. Pitcairn moved that this assembly request the Council of the Clergy to provide for the administration of the ecclesiastical affairs of this Church until the next meeting of this General Assembly, and that the Assembly elect an Executive Committee of laymen to conduct the business affairs of this Church until the next meeting of the General Assembly. Seconded and carried. The Council subsequently met and "gladly assumed the responsibility of administering the ecclesiastical affairs of this Church until the next General Assembly," and secured the withdrawal of Bishop Pendleton's resignation, previously tendered to the Council. This was reported to the meeting, and their action was formally approved, with thanks.
The Executive Committee, provided for in the resolution, consists of Messrs. John Pitcairn, H. M. Glenn, F. A. Boericke, John A. Wells, S. H. Hicks, C. Hj. Asplundh, W. C. Childs, J. T. Kent, M. D., Richard Roschman, Hugh L. Burnham, and A. S. Pendleton, and the Committee was empowered by the Assembly to add to their number at discretion.
Rev. L. G. Jordan, among others, indicated his accord with the general conclusions of the Bishop's paper, but suggested the advisability of continuing the distinct operations of the Corporation of the Academy, leaving the schools in their hands.
He then proceeded at length to explain his own previous attitude toward the movement on the grounds of lack of consistent action on the part of those engaged in it.
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There had been, at this time, recognition and confession of past evils, and this was all the repentance he could require. He was satisfied, in particular, with the restored freedom of speech, which must lead to cure and prevention of disorders. He entertained the greatest respect for his fellow-ministers, and could be happy under the independent pastorate of any one of them of whom he had had experience, but certain collective action he did not approve. He yielded to none in respect and affectionate appreciation of Bishop Pendleton, in more particulars than could easily be recited. But he had felt like criticising his attitude on the subject of the two Churches, and also in regard to the turning away from us of Mr. Schreck. The latter gentleman he had considered far too able and loyal to be lost to our communion, notwithstanding differences from him in which the speaker joined as fully as any. He hoped that so valuable a worker would be welcomed back again.
FIFTH DAY-JUNE 29TH. 1897
THE first subject of general discussion was the
NAME OF THIS CHURCH.
Mr. Odhner read a paper on the subject, in which he objected to the present title, "General Church of the New Jerusalem," as being properly descriptive of the whole New Church, and therefore liable to at least the appearance of exclusion and assumption when applied to a single organization. Exclusion was not at all in the intention in the provisional adoption of the name, but the article "the" suggests it, and will give offense to other bodies. It may even operate against our brethren in England, who are understood to be contemplating organizing what might be a "Church of the New Jerusalem" within their own borders. He proposed a substitute name, which should indicate the principle on which we diverged from the Convention, namely, the application of the authority of the Writings to the government of the Church, the freedom of the priesthood, and especially of the episcopal office. He proposed the designation, "Episcopal Church of the New Jerusalem in America," or "The New Jerusalem Episcopal Church in America." The episcopal form of government is that under which we desire to live and perform our uses.
Other gentlemen objected to the present name on similar grounds. On the other hand, by others considerable affection for the name was shown, the words "New Jerusalem" being thought to describe a movement which it was hoped was of the LORD; the title, "General Church," preserves the sequence in connection with the past; we want it to be a visible organization of the New Church, and it is quite proper that there should be emulation among the churches to establish their worthiness to the title, "New Jerusalem." We cannot aim too high. The Rev. J. F. Potts proposed the title, "Academy Church of the New Jerusalem." Decision of the matter was deferred until another meeting.
PUBLICATION OF THE JOURNAL.
Rev. N. D. Pendleton made a strong plea for a full report of the proceedings and speeches of this meeting, on the ground that in view of the fear in some parts of the Church almost of despair at the possibility of disintegration, that it was most important that all should have a chance to realize the unitedness among us that had been demonstrated by this event, which had surpassed the hopes of any. We should communicate to all believers in "the Authority" the tidings of joy. Sympathizers in other bodies had regarded with fear and regret the apparent downfall of the Academy, and would be interested; and the whole public are entitled to a full account of what had been done here. It is still the "red and white," and we can go forward with our banners carried high.
Rev. L. G. Jordan testified to the charity shown by other bodies, in allowing us to wash out linen in our own laundry, without comment or interference. We should tell them officially as to the conditions that have existed, acknowledge those things most reprobated in the past, and give assurance as to the continuance of the movement.
Rev. F. C. Bostock spoke to like effect, saying that such a publication would tend to restore confidence in the Church here to our brethren in England. Others spoke in the same strain, and it was voted to be the sense of this meeting that the Journal should be published, with a recommendation to that effect to the Executive Committee.
OFFICERS.
It was voted to continue until the next meeting the present incumbents in the offices of Chairman, Secretary, and Assistant Secretary. Mr. John Wells resigned as provisional Treasurer, and Dr. Felix A. Boericke was elected to take his place.
SUPPORT OF THE BISHOP'S OFFICE
was the next subject taken up. The great need of episcopal supervision and aid to the pastors was urged, and the necessity that the Bishop be independent of other sources of income in order to adequately meet the needs, and thus keep the Church together. All the Centres needed his visits and care, and also smaller Circles and isolated members. Let us begin right away. We have asked the Ecclesiastical Council to provide for the priestly government; they have responded by asking Bishop Pendleton for his episcopal guidance, and he has consented. Let us place that Bishop in a position to discharge the important duties belonging to his office. The matter was referred to the Executive Committee.
TIME AND PLACE OF MEETING.
It was decided to hold the next annual meeting of the Assembly in Chicago, at the kind invitation of the Immanuel Church, which was received with indicated appreciation. June was held to be the best time.
OTHER RESOLUTIONS.
Resolutions of appreciation were parsed in regard to the beautiful music being written for the Church by Mr. C. J. Whittington; for the work of Reproducing Swedenborg's Manuscripts, being done by the General Convention and the Academy of the New Church in conjunction; and for the work of the Rev. J. F. Potts on the Swedenborg Concordance, (this was carried by a rising vote).
FREEDOM OF SPEECH.
Rev. Alfred Acton expressed thanks to the Chairman and to the meeting for freedom of speech accorded during the Assembly, and this the Rev. L. G. Jordan seconded. He paid a warm tribute to the manner in which Bishop Pendleton had restored to the Church the boon of freedom of speech.
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When at dinner the first day the toast had been offered by that gentleman to "Freedom of Speech"-the speaker had seen the silver lining to the dark cloud so long above us. Now that cloud had been rent asunder, and we were again under the light and warmth of the Sun of Heaven and the Church. Perhaps as fully as any in this meeting he had tested this restored right, probably further than he should ever again feel it necessary to go. He was thankful to have lived to see this day. Mr. Potts spoke in similar strain, referring to the "stupendous patience of the meeting."
Rev. E. C. Bostock, on behalf of the visitors, moved a vote of thanks to the local congregations for their entertainment and cordial welcome.
Mr. R. M. Glenn announced that the Corporation, the Academy of the New Church, had declared the Theological School and Collegiate Departments open, including the Girls' School, and that classes would resume in the fall. In reply to a question Mr. Pitcairn explained that there are no external relations between the Academy and this Church.
Mr. Glenn added that as the uses of the Academy are for the advancement of the Church, there must necessarily be the closest relation between those bodies, of a spiritual kind.
It was decided that the minutes of this meeting be placed at the service of the Ecclesiastical Council.
Rev. G. G. Starkey asked and received permission to consult the minutes of this meeting for the use of New Church Life.
The Assembly adjourned, to meet in Chicago, next June, at the call of the Chairman.
NOTES ON THE GOVERNMENT OF THE CHURCH. 1897
BY BISHOP PENDLETON.
THE quality of a Church is according to the quality of its government, or according to the idea of government which rules within it; if a natural idea of government rules then the Church will be natural, but if government is seen under a spiritual idea, this idea reigning in all its parts, then the Church will be a spiritual Church. A true idea of government, which is a spiritual idea, is then of supreme importance to the members of the Church.
It may be said in general that the natural idea of government is that of government by command, and that the spiritual idea of government is that of government by influx. But influx is mediate and immediate, and the influxes meet in the interior of the human understanding. Government by command is the government of man, and government by influx is the government of the LORD; government by command is government from without and below, but government by influx is government from within and above; government by command is government by external bonds, which are of fear, but government by influx is government by internal bonds, which are of conscience and perception; government by command leads to compulsion, closes the understanding, and takes away liberty, but government by influx leads man to compel himself in freedom according to reason; government by command, or by compulsion, or by fear, or by the restraint of external bonds-is the government of hell, and is necessary in hell, and where hell is, but government by influx is the government of heaven, or government by the LORD in heaven, and such is the government of the Church, when the Church is ruled by the LORD and not by man. The Church is ruled by man when man rules from himself and not from the LORD, but the Church is ruled by the LORD when man rules from the LORD and not from himself; the Church is also ruled by man when the man who rules is himself ruled by man, and not by the LORD. To be ruled by man is government by command, which is slavery; to be ruled by the LORD is government by influx, which is freedom. Government by influx is government by conscience and perception. The Church is therefore a spiritual or internal Church in the degree that a spiritual or internal idea of government reigns within it, or in the degree that the Church is governed by the LORD and not by man. Flowing from this, government in the Church is, to see uses, by influx from the LORD into doctrine, and to provide for them.
The Church is a spiritual body, whose soul is the LORD; and as the soul governs the body so does the LORD govern the Church, and whatsoever interferes with this order causes pain, disease, death.
The Church is not a spiritual Church until it is under such a form of government as exists in heaven; before this it is a natural Church. The angels of heaven govern-still they do not govern, but the LORD through them (A. C. 8728). In the Church the priest is to govern, and yet he is not to govern, but the LORD through him. Government in heaven is the government of mutual love (H. H. 213); from mutual love springs mutual confidence, which flourishes only in an atmosphere of freedom, where external bonds have been removed. There must come a time when the Church cuts loose from external bonds, and freely trusts the LORD and the neighbor.
Heaven is ruled by influx and hell by afflux. When the Church is in evil, the LORD rules it by afflux, or from without, or from the world; but when the Church is in good, the LORD rules it by influx, or from within, or from heaven. To endeavor to rule the Church from without, to place it under bonds from the world, whether this be done by one man or by many men, involves the belief that the Church is in evil, or under no internal bond, and that it cannot be held together unless it be held by external means. Is it not better therefore to have no external bonds, in order that the Church may be free to disperse if it be in evil, or that it may be held together by internal bonds, if it be in good?
A Church, to be spiritual, must be under the laws of the spiritual world, and not under the laws of the natural world, or laws like those in the natural world; and it is a law of the spiritual world that the removal of external bonds causes a breaking up and dispersion of the evil, and a more close drawing together of the good; this is because there is no internal bond with the evil as with the good (A. C. 1944, 5002). External bonds are removed in the other world because man is not free until he is held only by internal bonds (A. C. 6207).
The heavenly government, which also is to be the government of the Church upon earth, has in it neither the rigid forms of autocracy nor of democracy; government by either being government by compulsion, having as its inmost distrust. If it be claimed that there is no alternative but autocracy or democracy, then it follows that there is no government but that of compulsion, and that compulsion by democracy must be substituted for compulsion by autocracy; and it is undoubtedly true that the principle of popery, or absolutism, distributed among a number, has in it less of danger to human liberty than when limited to one. Neither form of human absolutism can be in a spiritual Church; the government of Him Who alone is absolute can be there.
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The teaching is that the LORD rules the Church by internal bonds when there is charity, but by external bonds when charity is extinguished (A. C. 1011). The internal bonds are the truths of faith and of conscience; external bonds are laws and penalties. External bonds are for those who have no internal bond; and to place an external bond on the Church is a negative act that involves the assumption or fear that there is in the Church no internal bond.
External bonds are for the civil state, but the bonds of civil government should not be introduced into the government of the Church; for the Church is the LORD'S Heaven upon the earth; it must therefore be under heavenly law, and the bond of heavenly law. Let the bond of the civil law come in where the civil law is approached, and let external bonds be applied where disorder confessedly exists, but do not place external bonds on the Church for fear that disorder may exist; to make fear the motive of action is to distrust Providence; to implant fear and distrust in the inmost of the government and working of the Church is to inflict a paralysis on its spiritual activities. Is it the rational conclusion of a calm and reflecting mind that a humanly devised contrivance can protect and save the Church? A calm and reflecting mind will consider that the ingenuity of man can avail nothing against the cunning of evil spirits, and that the Church is protected and saved in the degree of its trust and confidence in the LORD; not according to the degree of its confidence in the ingenuity and perfection of human contrivance. If any movement in the Church is of the LORD, He will protect and save that which is His own, nor does He need the help of man.
No external bond should be placed upon any member or official or part of the Church; a bond so placed is a bond placed upon the whole Church. You cannot bind a part without binding the whole. You cannot bind another without binding yourself. This is the inevitable spiritual law.
If the Church is interiorly in evil it cannot be held together, except by external bonds; but if it is in the process of being made internal by reformation and regeneration is in the way of spiritual growth-then an external bond is unnecessary and hurtful; it is better to run the hazard, yea, to suffer many evils, than to establish and confirm so great an evil as the voluntary suppression of the freedom of the Church, by introducing the principle and practice of external compulsion into its workings, whether this proceed from one man or from a number of men together. It is for this reason that we are taught that the internal man, or the man under internal bond, does not swear, for this involves compulsion; and what is true of the internal man is true of the internal Church.
Government is influx, and influx is according to order, and at the same time according to correspondence; that there may be true government in the Church the order of heaven must be in it, and at the same time correspondence with heaven. As for instance, the trine in the ministry must be a trine in essence and in form, corresponding with the trine of the heavens must be an image of the heavenly trine; the lower degrees subordinate to the higher, and the highest subordinate to the LORD. Influx into the lower heavens, and also into the lower degrees of any trine, is mediate and also immediate; but influx into the highest heaven or highest degree of a trine, is not mediate but immediate. As it is with influx so it is with government. The same law is seen in the influx of the soul into the body, mediate into all parts of the body by the brain, and also immediate; but immediate into the brain itself.
If the Church would have the heavenly form and be in heavenly order, it must be governed in an image as the LORD governs the heavens, or as the LORD governs the individual, regenerating man, or as the spiritual world governs the natural, or as the soul governs the body-according to the law of spiritual influx and not of physical influx, from within and not from without, from above and not from below, from heaven and not from the world. "A man can receive nothing except it be given him from heaven" (John iii, 27).
The Church does not institute the priesthood, but the priesthood the Church. This principle, seen in a complete analysis, solves the entire question of government. The members of the Church do not impart to the priest perception, illustration, ability to govern, or endow him with any priestly gift whatsoever; hence they do not ordain him or appoint him to govern in the Church. The LORD gives them to see that the priest has these gifts from Him, and moves them to give expression to their consent that he should govern, thus to recognize him in his function to which he has been appointed by the LORD; which function he may exercise over them on their invitation to do so. Since the members have not imparted these gifts they cannot take them away; He only can take away who gives. But their internal consent to his government may recede, in the presence of incompetency or disorder, which may eventually lead to an open withdrawal of their invitation to exercise his functions over them. They can withdraw or take away that which they have given, and no more. But what should constitute a legitimate cause or occasion for such withdrawal, as well as the manner and method, it would not be wise to attempt to determine at this time, or perhaps at any time in advance of the conditions which call for it. The question is one of application to conditions which actually exist; it is unprofitable to seek to apply a principle to hypothetical conditions or contingencies, or attempt a foresight which is the prerogative and attribute of Providence alone.
To incorporate distrust in the organic life of the body makes the Church natural, and it cannot become spiritual so long as such an incubus is laid on its internal activities. Still we have a knowledge that there is such a thing as human frailty and human weakness; we know that there is such a thing as perversion of truth and abuse of power. How far should this knowledge influence the manner and character of the organization of the Church? It is clear that this knowledge is negative, and a negative principle should never be laid as a heavy weight on the uses of a Church that is to be come spiritual; all the principles and workings of a genuine Church are affirmative. A knowledge of human weakness and error, and the dangers arising therefrom-which are very great-present all the stronger reason for a plenary trust and confidence in the Mercy and Providence of the LORD. All the ills of the Church, from the most ancient times, have arisen from the conceit or persuasion that man can care for the Church. Let us beware.
It may be said, however, in general, that the organization of the Church from use, for use, and to use, will tend to its safety and perpetuation. Use is conservative and preservative, for the LORD is present in it, and where He is there is health and perpetuity. The Church must be organized for use according to order, for order is use in form. Order without use is a dead form, and use without order does not exist; but use exists according to the love of use, and according to the perfection of the form which it takes according to order.
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If the Church be organized in use for use, according to order, there will result guards, checks, and balances, in the very nature of things, or flowing from the very form itself; and it will not become necessary to adjoin arbitrary guards, checks, and balances, for the sake of the preservation of the body. It may be that such an organization can be gradually formed in the Church, or the Church be placed in such a position that such an organization can be allowed to grow; for a true organization is the result of growth, and is not built in a day. It is proper, however, that a beginning be made, of some kind of organization, for the sake of the uses that are to be done, and in accommodation to those uses. I would therefore beg leave to present to the Assembly for consideration at this time the following
PLAN OF ORGANIZATION.
I would lay down, to begin with, two general propositions: First, that organization must be from order according to use; and, second, that a Church is not free unless all its parts, members, and organs are free; or, to put the second proposition in another form, that if the head be free the body can be free, and that no other wise is the body free; and, conversely, if the body be free the head can be free, for the head and body are no otherwise free than when they are free together.
Now when we examine the nature of the organized uses of the Church we find that they are three-fold in form, or may be classified under three general heads:
1. Those performed by the clergy distinctively and separately; or ecclesiastical uses.
2 Those performed by the laity distinctively and separately; or civil uses.
3. Those performed by the clergy and laity together, or in common; or uses intermediate between the ecclesiastical and civil, partaking of the nature of both.
Ecclesiastical uses, or those performed by the clergy alone, are mainly administrative, but also deliberative.
Civil uses, or those performed by the laity alone, are mostly executive, but also deliberative.
The intermediate uses, or those performed by the two together, or conjointly, are mostly deliberative.
Does not this indicate a three-fold body, or a threefold form of organization? Does it not indicate three co-related and co-ordinate bodies of the Church, a body of priests, a body of laymen, and an intermediate body composed of both?
The body of the clergy, composed of all the ministers of the Church, to constitute a distinct department, house, or chamber, to consider, determine, and administer the purely ecclesiastical affairs of the Church.
The body of the laity, composed of the active laymen the Church, to constitute also a distinct department, house, or chamber, to consider, determine, and carry into execution the civil or business affairs of the Church.
The intermediate body, composed of ministers and laymen, to constitute an assembly of the members of the Church, to perform the uses of a public deliberative body, to discuss the principles and measures of the Church; and, when a conclusion is reached on any given question, to refer it to one of the other bodies for final deliberation and action. Such a body brings the clergy and laity together on a common plane in common assembly, it provides for freedom of speech, and will be an instrumentality for bringing before the members at large the principles and uses of the Church,
It is proposed that each body shall be a complete house in itself, with all the elements of a deliberative body, free and self-perpetuating, one not dependent on another, and exercising no control over another; independent in external control, but dependent, co-operative, and united in the acknowledgment of common principles, in the performance of common uses, and in the recognition of a common head.
The use of the clerical body seems to be expressed by the term administrative, being charged with the administration of the affairs of the Church in all that pertains to the priestly office, with its internal government, with its worship, and its instruction.
The use of the assembly, or intermediate body, seems to be expressed by the term deliberative; a term indicating clearly the office of intermediation.
The use of the body of laymen seems to be expressed by the term executive, being charged with the administration of the Church in its civil affairs.
As to the government of these bodies it may be said, in general, that the body of laymen, or executive body, will be under the government of civil law, that is, under the government of the law of the State, and the rules of business; that the intermediate body, or the Assembly, will be under the government of parliamentary law, that is, under the government of what is ordinarily called parliamentary law, and of such rules of procedure as every deliberative body is competent to adopt; that the body of priests, or administrative body, will be under the government of ecclesiastical law, that is, such laws and usages as are more directly deducible from spiritual law and applicable to priestly administration. It is not meant, however, that there may not be something of ecclesiastical, parliamentary, or even of civil law in all the bodies.
In respect to the two distinct bodies of priests and laymen I have not used the old terms of Council of the Clergy and Council of the Laity; because these terms as used in the past would express the idea of dependence on the middle body, or Assembly; and it seems well at this time to remove the element of external control from all the workings of the Church. Under the form herein presented the Assembly will have no control over the other bodies, nor they over the Assembly, save such as is internal, rational, or moral. Besides, the very nature of the uses performed distinctively by the clergy and the laity seems to require, not only complete freedom, but that their meetings should have in them an element of Assembly, to constitute them an entire form. It is competent, however, for each body to have its own Council, or General Committee, for the more efficient transaction of its business.
These three bodies, although distinct, and, as it were, separate and independent, are still to be considered as parts of one general body, or, if you please, of one General Assembly, and must therefore have, as has been shown, a common bond of union-must have one principle, one doctrine, and one use; when they have these they are three and yet one, formed from use and equipped for use.
It has been said that they must also have one head. This is important; for, as we read, "What would a kingdom, state, or house be, unless some one in each should act as supreme?" (T. C. R. 679). Without a common head such a three-fold body as is here proposed would be subject to the condemnation visited in The True Christian Religion (n. 141) upon the Roman republic, which had a divided government without a common head, namely, the consuls, the senate, and the tribune of the people. This image of a divided trinity is provided against when each part, and all the parts together, recognize a common head.
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The recognition of a common head should be a voluntary act of all the parts that constitute the common body; indeed, the internal strength of such a form as is herein proposed rests in the fact that all the parts are free, and thus free to come into order by voluntary act; no restriction imposed upon any member or part, and no pledge required of any one, from the highest to the lowest, to observe the laws of order.
As to the form and manner of such a recognition or expression of a choice, let this begin or be initiated in the house of the clergy, and when the clergy have acted let them inform the Assembly, which then should act, and finally the executive body. This choice, with the clergy, should take the form of invitation to some one priest to exercise the office of Bishop over this Church; in the other houses it should take the form of recognition of the one so invited by the clergy as Bishop over the Church. And, as has been indicated, these bodies may for cause withdraw that which they have given, and no more: the clergy may withdraw their invitation, and the other houses by vote may cease to recognize. But, brethren, let us not pass any laws-let us attempt to provide no machinery-at this time for carrying this into effect. Let us rest satisfied in the fact that these houses, supposing them to be formed as herein indicated, have the power to withdraw their consent, leaving the question of the right of such withdrawal, and the manner of it, to be determined under the Divine Guidance, by the men who are on the stage of action when the occasion arises; for let us trust, with a firm faith, that the LORD will not forsake His Church, and that for every occasion He will provide men, and endow them with wisdom, to do that which is for the welfare of the Church.
Finally, I would make to this Assembly three suggestions:
1. That no action be taken upon the question of government, or organization, at this meeting of the General Assembly.
2. That this Assembly pass a resolution requesting the Council of the Clergy to provide for the administration of the ecclesiastical affairs of this Church until the next meeting of the General Assembly.
3. That this Assembly elect an Executive Committee of laymen to conduct the business affairs of this Church until the next meeting of the General Assembly.
ANNALS OF THE NEW CHURCH. 1897
1759.
July 19th.-Swedenborg arrives at Gottenburg, from England. Being invited for dinner to the house of Mr. W. Castel, he witnesses there the great conflagration, which on that day devastates the southern part of Stockholm; this at a distance of more than 800 miles; his own house and garden are saved from the fire. The various versions of this occurrence are discussed in Doc. II, 613-632.
August 21st.-Swedenborg returns to Stockholm (Doc. II, 227). During the winter he takes a very active part in the deliberations of the Swedish Diet, and forms a warm political and personal friendship with Count Andrew von Hopken, then the prime-minister of Sweden (Doc. I, 632; II, 991).
December 13th.-Swedenborg beholds King Louis XIV, of France, in the spiritual world, who, on that day, speaks with his great-grandson, Louis XV, reigning king of France, warning the latter from obeying the papal bull "Unigenitus." As the result of this conversation, the Jesuits are prevented from continuing the persecution against the Jansenists. (See Contin. L. J. n. 60, I. 1848, 25, and M. n. s. I, 24).
Two of Swedenborg's early essays in the Acta Literana Suecics are, this year, translated into English and published in the "Literary Memoirs of Germany and the North" (L. 1890: 140).
From this year (or thereabout) date the following works by Swedenborg:
"Apocalypsis Explicata secundum sensum spiritualem ubi revelantur Arcana, quae ibi prcedicta, et hactenus recondita fuerunt" (The Apocalypse explained according to its spiritual sense, wherein are revealed the mysteries there foretold, which hitherto have been hidden. MS. 1992 pp., 4 vols. 4to. See Prof. Odhner's bibliography of this work. L. 1895: 46, 59.)
"De Athanasii Symbolo" (Concerning the Athanasian Creed). MS. 42 pp, 8vo (Doc. II, 988).
"De Domino" (Concerning the LORD). MS. 7 pp. (Doc. II, 989).
"Summaria Sensus Interni Librorum Propheticorum et Psalmorum Veteris Testamenti" (Summaries of the Internal Sense of the prophetical books and the Psalms of the Old Testament. MS. 125 pp. See Prof. Odhner's bibliography of this work. L. 1893: 26.)
1760.
Swedenborg remains in Stockholm during the whole of this year; he takes an active part in the Swedish Diet, to which body he presents the following papers:
"Memorial in favor of a return to a pure metallic currency" (Doc. I, 496).
"Appeal in favor of the restoration of a metallic currency" (Doc. I, 504).
"Additional considerations with respect to the course of exchange" (Doc. I, 505).
"Memorial to the king, against the exportation of copper" (Doc. I, 507).
"Memorial declining to become a member of the Private Commission on Exchange" (Doc. I, 509).
These and others of his political papers are collected into one volume entitled "Riksdagskrifter" (papers for the Diet). MS. 100 pp. (Doc. II, 991.)
About this time it becomes publicly known that Swedenborg is the author of the Arcana Coelestia and other theological writings, and that he has communication with the spiritual world. Among the many distinguished gentlemen who visit him at this time are Baron Tilas and Count Tessin, both of whom have written accounts of their visits (see Doc. II, 397, 400, 401).
April 10th.-Swedenborg's letter to Count Hopken, presenting a copy of Swammerdam's Biblia Naturtae (Doc. II, 233).
August 7th.-Swedenborg receives a letter from Baron von Hatzel, of Rotterdam, who announces his intention of translating all the Writings of the New Church into German and French, at the same time asking for information as to the means of entering into open communication with spirits (Doc. II, 228).
August 11th.-Swedenborg replies to Baron von Hatzel through Count Gustav Bonde, warning against intercourse with spirits, and explaining his own exceptional case (Doc. II, 231).
During this year he writes the following treatises:
"De Ultimo Judicio" (Concerning the Last Judgment). MS. 100 pp. (Doc. II, 992).
"De Mundo Spirituali" (Concerning the Spiritual World. MS. 30 pp. Doc. II, 992).
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Concerning Swedenborg's relations with the Lutheran Church at this period, and his partaking of the Sacrament in the Church of St. Mary in Stockholm, see Doc. I, 36.
About this time Mr. William Cookworthy, a celebrated chemist and Quaker of Plymouth, England, becomes acquainted with the Doctrines of the New Church, probably through the instrumentality of Mr. Stephen Penny (I. 1856, 412; Doc. II, 966).
1701.
Swedenborg remains in Stockholm during the whole year, attending the Diet and writing the following works, which have been published posthumously:
"De Scriptura Sacra seu Verbo Domini, ab experientia." (On the Sacred Scripture, or the Word of the LORD, from experience. MS. 42 pp. Doc. II, 993.)
"De Praeceptis Decalogi." (On the Precepts of the Ten Commandments. MS. 6 pp. Doc. II, 994.)
"Varia de Fide." (Observations on Faith. MS. 5 pp. Doc., Ibid.)
January-February.-Swedenborg's political controversy with the Councillor Nordencrantz in defense of the Swedish government (Doc. I, 510-535).
March 1st.-Swedenborg's Memorial to the Diet in behalf of the Prime Minister, Count von Hopken (Doc. I, 536).
March or April.-Swedenborg's Memorial to the Diet on "the maintenance of the country and the preservation of its freedom" (Doc. I, 588).
April or May.-Probable date of "the lost receipt" episode. Swedenborg is instrumental in recovering a lost receipt for Madame de Marteville through communication with her lately deceased husband. The story discussed in its various versions in Doc. II, 617, 633-646; L. 1890, 216.
November.-Probable date of the "Queen's Secret" episode. Swedenborg announces to the Queen of Sweden a secret known only to herself and her deceased brother, Prince Augustus William of Prussia. The story discussed in its various versions in Doc. II, 646-666.
During this year a portrait of Swedenborg, in oil, was taken by Fred. Eichorn. It was subsequently presented by Swedenborg to the Royal Academy of Sciences, where it is still preserved. (Doc. II, 1196.)
1762.
In the beginning of the year Swedenborg leaves Stockholm for Amsterdam on his eighth foreign journey, to have the manuscript of "The Four Doctrines" printed in Holland. He returns to Stockholm in the summer. (Doc. II, 616, 623.)
July 17th.-While in Amsterdam Swedenborg announces the death of Emperor Peter III, of Russia, on the very hour when this event takes place in St. Petersburg, and relates the exact circumstances of the death. His statement is corroborated three days later (Doc. II, 490).
August 25th.-Stockholm. Swedenborg writes to Bishop Mennander, of Abo, in Finland, presenting a set of the Arcana Coelestia (L. 1896, p. 186).
During the year Section 1 of the Regnum Subterraneum, treating of the method of smelting iron in Sweden, is translated into French, and is published in Paris by M. Bouchy (Doc. II, 911).
About this time the prelate OEtinger, of Murrhard, in Wurtemberg, becomes acquainted with the theological writings of Swedenborg, and partly accepts the Doctrines (Doc. II, 1027, 1135).
DISEASES OF THE FIBRES. 1897
CRAPTER VIII.
CATALEPSY.
448. CATALEPSY, CATOCHE (Gallice), CATOCHUS, is a disease in which, wonderful to relate, when any one is attacked by it, suddenly becoming as immovable as a statue, he continues in the state which he held when he fell, inflexible as a rock, wherefore some of the ancients called it CONGELATION. Not only is he held fast in the external state, as to the trunk and muscles, but even as to the internal state, that is to say, the animus and mind, infixed with the ideas which he conceived before the sickness; and still less does he turn aside from the object, because he is dead as to the external senses. The pulse is perceived, but it is feeble, and the respiration of the lungs weak.
449. Every one acknowledges that the proximate cause of such a disease is the sudden quiescence of the common sensories and voluntary motors; likewise that it is of the cerebrum itself; for who doubts but that the cerebrum is that common sensory and motor. But if he inquires further, he will acknowledge that it is the cortical and cineritious substance of the cerebrum which becomes so rigidly quiescent, for that substance is the beginning of the fibres, and the end of the arteries, and to that substance, by the fibres, flow sensations, and from it the determinations of the will into act. Consequently this will be the substance which is quiescent in this disease, and if, while it is quiescent, such immobility and insensibility exists, it follows that otherwise it is not quiescent, but that it is moved in alternations, such as the diastole and systole of the heart, or as the lungs while respiring; this, its motion, is called animation; consequently upon the animation of the cerebrum depends the faculty of sensating in the organs, and of acting in the muscles. Thence it is clear that the causes of catalepsy, apoplexy, carus, epilepsy, and other diseases which invade and affect the cerebrum, cannot at all be understood, still less explained, unless we know what the cerebrum is, and whence is its life, namely that it is from animation, or alternate contraction and expansion of its cortical substance, and that this taken concretely is the common sensory and motor of the body, and also the voluntary.
450. Thus we may easily discover what is the cause of epilepsy, or what is the cause of immobility of the cortex of the brain-that is to say, that the return of the blood from the arteries into the veins and sinuses, is refused. Therefore the animation, or the alternate expansion and contraction of the cortical substance suddenly ceases, and in consequence the circulation of the spirits into the fibres and through them.
451. The reflux of the arterial blood is not permitted if the longitudinal sinus is suddenly obstructed, as at the place where, by anastomosis, it is joined to the lateral sinuses, into one of which the passage appears solitary or narrower than into the other. Thus the sinus becoming turgid rejects the constantly coming blood of the cerebrum. That Nature might meet these obstacles, she has added a lesser sinus under the greater, which in most subjects is also called the longitudinal, and moreover has fabricated in some a communicating sinus between the two lateral sinuses.
452. The superior longitudinal sinus also is wont to relax, and thus likewise to decline the blood of the cerebrum, if by chance the ligamentary bands of its panties, which are called the cords of Willis, are deprived of their power of acting by reason of too great tension.
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Hence it is that in the bodies of those who have died from catalepsy, the arteries and veins appear turgid from impacted thick blood.
453. Thence the effect suddenly returns into the cerebrum, and indeed into the dora mater, which is likewise distended with blood and inflamed; it similarly returns into the pin mater, into the whole cortex, as also into the medulla, which springs from the cortex, into the corpora striata, into the thalami of the optic nerves, and into the medulla oblongata; only a small amount of humor is expelled through the fourth sinus or torcular Herophili; that is to say, that which the cerebellum has introduced into the common viscera; for the cerebellum still vibrates, though slightly, as the pulse of the heart and the respiration of the lungs.
454. If, when there is an obstruction of the longitudinal sinus, or even of the fourth sinus, which also may occur in catalepsy, the reason is because the blood adheres in the vessels of the cerebrum, from which it cannot return through the arteries, it is asked, What is the cause of the obstruction? The answer is, Everything which renders the blood dry, inspissates, coagulates, pollutes it with heterogeneous matters, fills it with rubbish and fibres, as melancholia itself, too great sadness, burning fever in plethoric subjects, quartan fever, and retention of the ordinary evacuations, as the menses and hemorrhoids; for the better blood attracted into the cerebrum is bestowed upon the cortex and fibres, but the coarser, cruder, and blacker blood is cast into the sinus, which is again vivified with spirit on the threshold where it is poured in by the jugular veins. Likewise sudden terror, which contracts the cerebrum and cortical glands, and expels all the blood into the sinuses which are venous receptacles, from which it cannot make an exit; when the other sinuses become turgid by a similar increase of blood, and the heart, timid and palpitating, is unable to admit and force out as much as comes to it. Moreover, the inflammatory rigidity of the dura mater may also be alleged as a reason that the sinuses do not intromit the blood of the cerebrum; for the sinuses are situated in the duplicature of the dura mater, nor can they be expanded and contracted except by the mediation of this membrane; when the sinuses remain immovable, the veins and arteries become turgid, and powerlessness to act suddenly seizes upon the cortex, whence is catalepsy. Hence it appears that this disease is for the most part deadly, or atrophy, dementia, epilepsy, or convulsions follow it.
455. But it is of importance that we reduce the causes into order: The verimost cause is that the cortex of the cerebrum cannot be expanded or contracted, and thus cannot transmit its animal spirit into the fibres, and by the fibres into the sensory and motory organs of the body or into the muscles, consequently they singly remain in the same state in which is the cortex of the cerebrum in general and in part. The reason that the cortex cannot be expanded and contracted, is, the blood remaining without motion in the arteries and veins and in those innumerable receptacles within the medulla; and the reason that the blood remains without motion is that the sinuses of the dura mater do not receive it. The cause of this is obstruction or too great relaxation of the sinus; but the cause of this last is the dryness and crudity of the blood, and inflammation of the dura mater; but the cause of this is intemperance in living, but of this, unrestrained cupidity of the animus, and finally the cause of this is the too great indulgence of the mind toward its animus, and the condescension of the soul.
456. A sort of natural catalepsy, which is undoubtedly known by many, is frequently observed, in which as in a mirror we may view the nature of morbid catalepsy. For there are those who, when intent upon some profound meditation, suddenly stop, are transfixed, the body, countenance, and senses being in the same state of immobility, and thus distracted they scarcely see anything except through a shadow, nor do they hear, except a sort of murmuring; they also retain the breathing [anima] of the lungs for a long time, and when they respire, the alternations act tacitly and softly: In the meantime the mind is intently fixed upon one object or thought, nor is it dispelled by any motion of the body, or any image of the sight, or any wandering idea of the memory, just as in preternatural catalepsy. The effect is similar, nor is the cause dissimilar; for the cortex of the brain, to which the cerebellum now appears to be subject, sleeps deeply, and holds the blood at a distance from its little cavities and thalami, nor does it send it forth, except sparingly, into the sinus of the falx cerehri, which is very slightly elevated and compressed. From these things it may appear that profound meditation tempered by no variety may also be the cause of catalepsy, which many physicians also relate as having been observed.
INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY. 1897
IN one of our contemporaries we note a contribution touching on the cure for class distinctions in the New Church, and charging that the Church does not teach sufficiently concerning the larger life of man in the great community-family, the details of its affairs, and how they are to be arranged according to the laws of brotherly love. The article manifests a very common idea nowadays, that it is art of the duty and responsibility of every man, in addition to the discharge of his private affairs, to do his share in discharging the organic functions of the state, if not by strength of hands at least by counsel. But the Writings say that the sum of charity is to perform one's own use sincerely and faithfully, for when every one does this those whose duties involve either the consideration, or direction, or active performance of matters affecting the common welfare will do all that is needed and nothing will be neglected. But the natural man is possessed with the idea that without a more general scrutiny, criticism, and counsel than this, things will not be done right, and the additional care he thus takes upon himself is partly compensated for by the greater sense of importance which accrues to citizenship under such an administration of public affairs. We believe that by such lack of definite bounds to the uses of each, all would suffer.
The LORD'S immediate influx operates into each man as infinitely as into a nation or a race. The descent of His mediate operation is first into greater bodies and so down to particulars; but with man the return is by inverse mode. Man learns first to provide for himself, then for the family, and so on to the larger uses according to his fraction. But for this limitation all the good would strive, from conscience, to fill the highest office of all, as most expressive of love to one's kind. Any one who supposes that he has this love in any but the feeblest degree is liable to be in phantasy. Love comes not alone from the scope of the outward use, but from the quality of regenerative effort employed in one's calling. The humblest peasant, occupied in most simple uses, may be prepared thereby for the celestial heaven, whence flow the most essential uses received by man.
It would not be far out to say that the spiritualization of our motives in seeking salvation is the very source of all good which can come to society through us, and, therefore, in that direction lies the field for our best efforts. That spiritualization can result from nothing else than our confining our energies to our uses, shunning the evils that would hinder, and looking more and more submissively and entirely to the LORD.
Title Unspecified 1897
ANENT the call for more warmth in the teachings of the Messenger, the Rev. W. L. Gladish pertinently suggests that the warmth may be supplied by the readers. Even the hard doctrine that man is only evil glows with spiritual fire to him who by it is led to the one Only Good, the Sun of heaven.
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CHURCH NEWS. 1897
NEW CHURCH LIFE.
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PHILADELPHIA, JULY, 1897=128.
CONTENTS. PAGE
The First General Assembly of the General church
of the New Jerusalem 97
Notes on the Government of the Church 105
ANNALS OF THE NEW CHURCH 109
Diseases of the Fibres 110
Individual Responsibility 111
CHURCH NEWS 112
From the Periodicals 112
The Swedenborg Mission Society of San Francisco 112
Resignation 112
Announcement 112
BIRTHS 112
Philadelphia.-THE Academy of the New Church announces that the degree of Bachelor of Arts has been granted to Mr. Emil Cronlund and to Mr. Reginald Brown; and the degree of Bachelor of Theology to Messrs. David Klein Ernest Stebbing, and Henry B. Cowley. The Theological School and College Departments, including the Girls' School, are declared reopened, and will resume work in the fall.
Huntingdon Valley.-ON May 27th* Bishop and Mrs. Pendleton gave a reception to the members of the two congregations- Philadelphia and Huntingdon Valley-but without announcing that it was the anniversary of their silver wedding. This fact was known to some, however, and was communicated to all long beforehand; and so during the evening expression was given, through Mr. John Pitcairn as spokesman, to the universal affection of the people for the Pastor and his wife, accompanied by an ultimate token in the form of silver table-ware.
* The printed text of NCL reads "June 3d," but it has been corrected.
JUNE 4th was the last evening of the Friday suppers and Doctrinal Classes for the season.
THE Closing Exercises of the Theological School, College, and Girls' School conducted under the auspices of the new General Church since the closing of the Academy Schools, took place on June 11th, 10 A.M. Mr. Emil Cronlund and Mr. Reginald Brown completed their Collegiate course and are now prepared to enter the Theological School. Messrs. David Klein, Ernest Stebbing, and Henry B. Cowley were declared to have completed their theological studies and to be entitled to the degree of Bachelor of Theology. [See "Philadelphia," above.] Mr. Cronlund read a thesis on "The Stoic Philosophy," and Mr. Brown one on "The Blood," while Mr. Klein delivered the Valedictory for his class.
Appropriate remarks were made by both Professor Price, Read of the Collegiate Department, and Bishop Pendleton, Head of the Theological Department, expressing full appreciation of the generally good work and excellent spirit on part of teachers and pupils. Professor Price testified that the study and work in his Department had been better than in town. The plan of doing the studying in the morning and reciting in the afternoon-the result of necessity in this case-had worked very well.
THE Closing Exercises of the Local School in Huntingdon Valley took place on the morning of June 16th. The walls of the hull were decorated with specimens of the children's work, neatly mounted with name of the pupil, and date. The exhibits included charcoal and pencil sketches, and water-colors, both from nature and from the flat, specimens of handwriting and of relief-maps in putty, besides the kindergarten work of the younger classes. After the usual opening worship, the curtains were drawn across the chancel and the exercises proceeded in usual Friday afternoon school fashion. The boys each spoke a piece and compositions written by the girls were read. School songs were interspersed, the whole concluding with the Star-Spangled Banner, in which each pupil waved a flag. Parents were then invited to inspect the work exhibited, and also the compositions. A dinner followed, at which only the pupils- thirty-six in number-besides the four teachers, took part. Miss Grant and Miss Moir received well-merited praise for their work during the year.
ENGLAND.
FROM Colchester we have received a cheery account of the Circle's celebration of New Church Day, at Trenton-on-Sea, on June 22d.
FROM THE PERIODICALS. 1897
Missouri.-The Alumni Society of the Convention's Theological School (Rev. L. G. Landenberger, president), held its annual meeting in the house of worship of the St. Louis Society, May 13th. The Messenger speaks of the interesting character of the addresses and the affectionate good-fellowship of the occasion. Rev. S. S. Seward gave an address on "The Advantages of Extemporaneous Preaching" and Rev. T. A. King one on "Expository Preaching, or How to Unfold the Spiritual Sense of the Word."
THE American New Church Sunday- School Association opened its thirtieth annual meeting in St. Louis, May 14th. Among other matters The Sower was discussed, the fifth volume of which has recently been completed. In the last three years it has been self-supporting, the solitary instance of such a thing in New Church journalism. The further continuance of the paper depends upon adoption of a Lesson scheme and arrangement for the preparation of Notes. The Association subsequently determined not to republish the Lesson Papers of the last five years. The Committee on Lessons were requested to bring in lessons for Christmas and Easter. In the evening an address, illustrated by charts, on "The Storing of Remains," was delivered by the Rev. L. P. Mercer; also one on "The Use of the Word in the Implantation of Remains," by the Rev. John Whitehead. Miss Ellen Andrews and Miss Ednah Silver were appointed Associate Editors by the Standing Committee. The address of the President, "The New Church Idea of the LORD'S Message in His Word," was generally discussed and commended.
THE American League of New Church Young People's Societies held its tenth annual meeting in St. Louis, on May 15th. Among other business, upon recommendation of the Correspondence Committee, it was decided to lay the report of that Committee before the General Convention, with the suggestion that the work of caring for isolated receivers be taken up and carried forward by that body. (The report of Convention shows that this suggestion was received and referred to the Board of Missions.) It was also voted to take necessary steps to put the various isolated members in touch with those societies most conveniently located. The subject," How Shall we Make our Field of Work Provide for and include the Younger Members," was introduced by five brief papers, followed by discussion. These papers are to be offered to the Messenger for publication. The subject of "Uses," in the light of the Doctrines, with a view to more general consideration at the next annual meeting was suggested for discussion by the Societies during the year.
SWEDENBORG MISSION SOCIETY OF SAN FRANCISCO. J. S. DAVID 1897
Editor New Church Life:
The statement in the June Nest, Church Life that the Swedenborg Mission Society of San Francisco "is constituted of members of two Societies, one in San Francisco and one in Oregon," is not quite correct. The members of this body are nearly all residents of San Francisco, and none reside in Oregon; yet the movement, as a missionary work, is in part supported by members of the Portland (Oregon) Society. My letter in the Messenger describing the work was not sufficiently definite on this point, and the error arising from it was a perfectly natural one.
Hoping the correction will find a place in your valuable journal, I am
Yours truly,
J. S. DAVID.
RESIGNATION. 1897
MR. Charles D. Weirbach, of Allentown, Pa., hereby announces his resignation of the treasurership of the General Church of the Advent of the LORD.
ANNOUNCEMENT. 1897
Mr. and Mrs. L. G. Jordan cordially invite members and friends of the Church to the marriage ceremony of their daughter Emily and Mr. L. D. Good, at Academy Hall, 1826 North Street, Philadelphia, on Wednesday, July 21st, at five o'clock P. M.
Title Unspecified 1897
NEW CHURCH LIFE
Vol. XVII. No. 8. PHILADELPHIA, AUGUST, 1897=128. Whole No. 202.
Editorial. 1897
NOTES.
THE Journal of the General Church of the New Jerusalem, which is about to be published, will present a full and carefully corrected account of the proceedings and discussions of the General Assembly of that body, held last June in Huntingdon Valley. Chief in interest and importance will be the discussion on Church Organization and Government, which will occupy the larger part of the more than one hundred pages of the brochure, although there will be other matters of interest which could not even be touched upon in the very abridged account already given in this paper. The debate on the main question, from the variety of lights thrown upon the subject, from minds which, however diverse in genius and methods of thought, were united in interest and zeal for the teachings of the Church, constitutes a study on Government which should prove suggestive to thoughtful minds. Of even such as were present at the Assembly only those who read the Journal itself will be prepared to realize how bare and inadequate as a chronicle of the event is the report published in the July Life. We think that the modest price which the Committee have decided to ask for it will not materially restrict its circulation among those most likely to find it useful.
Title Unspecified 1897
IN Chapter IX of the "Diseases of the Fibres," appearing in this paper, Swedenborg, in his characteristically rational manner, gives a satisfactory explanation of the true nature of epilepsy, which all through the centuries has baffled the medical faculty. In true (or, technically "essential") epilepsy, there is no discoverable lesion of the brain as there is where the symptoms arise from tumors, bone pressure, abscesses, etc. These are, of course, easily detected by autopsy, if by no other means. But where no such gross causes could be found pathologists have in vain dissected and explored, with all the methods and instruments that science affords, for any condition of the parts or microscopical tissues which would account for the violent and repellent phenomena of epilepsy. Their obscurity was inevitable with their inadequate conceptions of the brain, formed largely from what they observed in its relaxed, flabby state after death.
But Swedenborg, dispensing with the gruesome features of the post-mortem, depicts for us the brain as a living, active organ, with a motion all its own, performing its functions by means of fluids of various degrees of subtlety and purity, showing how its health depends upon the free circulation of these precious life juices, and how their obstruction causes disorders of many kinds, grave according to the nature of the fluid involved and to the degree of the obstruction itself. Thus epilepsy is shown to be the effect of violent throes of the cerebrum, the origin of sensation and motion-striving to free itself from the accumulations of vitiated lymph lodged in the folds of the cortex, which, turned into dregs by stagnation, become so much poisonous material, irritating those most sensitive of all structures, the fibres and cortical glands, and exciting them into a furious tossing and convulsion of the cerebrum, of which an external image is reproduced by the dependent muscles, in the contortions of the body. Thus we find the master, here as elsewhere consistent in depicting nature ever the same in her operations, in greatest as in leasts, the convulsed brain being the prototype and primary organ, the body the representative and servant.
It would not be strange if a more intelligent understanding of the causes of epilepsy should lead to the discovery of more efficient curative measures; of which at present the "regular" school of medicine really does not profess to have any for this disease.
Title Unspecified 1897
AGAIN the New Church appears as the originator of a World's Congress of Religion. In connection with the exhibition of art and industry to be given in Stockholm, this fall, commemorating King Oscar's twenty-fifth year on the throne of Sweden, a Universal Congress of Religions is to be held, to which the world is invited. It appears from the New-Church Messenger, of June 2d, that this movement was inaugurated by the New-Church minister, the Rev. Albert Bjorck, of Stockholm. In the circular-letter of invitation, as reproduced in the Messenger, the object of the Congress is "to put forward and discuss in a larger auditorium important religious problems and questions of the day, from a scientific point of view. . . . The intention of this Congress is not to in any way compete with the conferences or meetings of different churches or denominations of different religions-Jewish, heathen or Christian-but that it should have an entirely free scientific character, where nobody either needs to or should give up his peculiar standpoint."
In extending such invitations, does the New Church seek for light from other sources than the Writings, on account of the insufficiency of the latter? or because she hopes that others, coming in the expectation that she is thus willing to learn, will themselves discover that she has the true light? Passing by the former supposition as unlikely-certainly as unworthy a Church with such a heritage-we are impelled to say that the latter course seems lacking in candor.
But more serious than this point of morality is the deliberate proposition to enter into the things of religion from a "scientific point of view." The Writings teach that they who inquire into heavenly things of faith from the light of this world, which is the scientific and natural rational, the more they desire to grow wise the more they blind themselves, for that principle of investigation is internally destructive of belief in what is spiritual. A man should take the affirmative position that the LORD reveals spiritual truth, not that man can discover it scientifically. But, so soon as he does the former he removes himself from the scientific platform proposed by this Congress, and places himself on the ground of pure theology, which is apparently forbidden ground in the Congress.
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Indeed, it was a recognition of the unprofitableness of men coming together to cross swords as champions of irreconcilable theological views, especially where "nobody either needs to or should give up his peculiar standpoint"-that has led our Swedish friends into the greater mistake of essaying the impossible and doctrinally condemned effort to enter scientifically into the mysteries of faith. Would it not be better, as a Church, to confine ourselves to legitimate missionary efforts, in which the appeal is made to the affection of truth (not of science)? for where that seed is lacking, it is hopeless to try to awaken spiritual life.
DISPERSION OF THE FALSES OF EVIL. Rev. Enoch S. Price 1897
The Sermon.
(One of a series of sermons by the Rev. Enoch S. Price expounding the second Psalm. The one which treated of verses 6, 7, and 8, appeared in the January Life, 1898.)
Thou wilt crush them with a sceptre of iron; as the vessels of a potter Thou wilt disperse them.-Psalm ii, 9.
IN previous discourses which you have heard on the second Psalm, we have endeavored to show somewhat in particular what is signified by the first eight verses. It was shown that those who should be in the goods and truths of the Church are against the LORD-that is, that those who are accounted the intelligent and wise, and who, owing to their superior advantages, might really be such, are against what is Divine, for they either deny or pervert Divine revelation, or apply it to their' own selfish ends. They study the Word and things Divine in order to appear wise, in order to gain power, in order to control the actions of others and to subject them to themselves. Then the learned who are naturalists deny a personal God in toto, but claim to believe in an all-pervading power or intelligence, not knowing that neither power nor intelligence exists outside of a subject which is its form, thus its person. All such- they that pervert and misapply Divine things, and they who claim to believe in an impersonal God-in heart altogether deny God, and they will deny Him openly in the other life. All these are against the LORD: Why are the nations tumultuous and the peoples meditating vanity? The kings of the earth stand together, and the rulers consult together against the LORD and against His Anointed.
From all such as just described the spiritual man ought to separate himself-not only ought to separate himself from such persons, but also from the principles which they represent, enough of which he will find close at home, if he look for them: Let us tear off their bonds, and let us cast away from us their cords.
The reason why the spiritual man should separate himself from these is that they are nothing before the LORD, and have no place in His Kingdom, either here or hereafter; and the spiritual man, or, what is the same, the man who is regenerating, will become like them unless he separates himself: He that dwelleth in the heavens shall laugh, the LORD shall mock them.
Finally, all those who are against the LORD, and who are nothing before His sight, will come into hell of their own will, but to them it will appear that they are cast out and condemned by the LORD. Then as to all things of good and truth, which are in reality the only things that are, they will be destroyed: Then shall He speak unto them in His anger and in His wrath shall He terrify them.
In our last discourse we endeavored to show that after separations and rearrangements-in other words, at the end of each church-the LORD appears anew, and establishes a new Church, or the representative of one, which appearance or Coming of the LORD has occurred repeatedly, until now, in the end of days, or the consummation of the Christian Church, the LORD has come to establish the New Church, which shall stand forever. With those in this New Church who are in humility-that is, separated from the falses and evils of the Old Church-the LORD inflows with celestial love: And I, I have anointed My king upon Zion, the mountain of My holiness. These He gifts with the perception that thought concerning God, that is true and just, is the most essential, and that this thought is to be that the LORD JESUS CHRIST is the only God of Heaven and earth: I shall announce concerning the statute, the LORD said unto Me, My Son art Thou, I today have begotten Thee. To the humble the LORD gives to perceive that the Word and the scientifics of the Writings of the Church are the Divine Human of the LORD, appearing to the very senses of men: Seek of Me and I will give nations for thine inheritance and for thy possessions the ends of the earth.
This now brings us to our text for special consideration to-day: Thou shalt crush them with a sceptre of iron, as the vessels of a potter Thou shalt disperse them. This signifies that the LORD in His Divine Human, will disperse the falses of evil that infest those who will be of His New Church; that He will disperse and destroy the hellish crew who are in those falses from their own evils and who desire to persuade all others to be like them. In the supreme sense this passage signifies the putting off of the falses from evil in the human which He assumed in the Virgin Mary, for that human was born and educated like the human of another man, and in the first instance was full of all the accumulated evils of the worst race on earth; second, He was educated by Joseph and Mary, and all they had to teach was the falses of the Jewish religion, then utterly vastate, for the Jews by their traditions had made the word of God of none effect. All these the LORD dispersed and crushed by truth from His own Divine Inmost coming down and infilling the natural sense of the Word, so that He alone fulfilled all things of the Law in its very letter.
To the regenerating man this is a promise that he shall be able as of himself to disperse the falses of evil that infest him; to him it is said, Thou shalt crush them with a sceptre of iron, as the vessels of a potter Thou shalt disperse them, which signifies that the regenerating man, or the LORD for the regenerating man, will castigate or cleanse away evils by the truths which are in the natural man, and this will be continued until there is a total dispersion of the falses of those evils.
A rod, staff, or sceptre is a mark or sign of power, and also signifies that. The nations to which "them" refers are the evils of the natural man; they are also all those evil men who will not be regenerated and saved by the LORD. These the LORD will crush with a sceptre of iron-that is, in the other life they will be confounded and dispersed by such truths as are of the literal and natural sense of the Word. No evil can withstand the truth of the Word in the other life, nor could it even in this life but that there has been a complete separation between the will and the understanding, so that a man in this world has the power to appear to be one thing while he is really quite another.
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This irresistible power in the truth of the letter of the Word, or truth such as is in the natural man, is signified and represented by the staff or sceptre of iron, the most unyielding of the metals, all of which in a good sense signify the various degrees of good and truth, in heaven and in the Church.
It must necessarily be in the external or natural man that truths are to castigate or cleanse away falsities, for in the internal man are neither falses nor evils, but remains of good and truth, which, in man is to be regenerated, become actual goods and truths when the falses of the natural and their evils are crushed, broken in pieces, and cast out of the central place which they have hitherto held in the mind.
The whole battle of regeneration is this: Shall the falses of evil, which occupy the natural of every man, be left to rule there, like idolatrous savages in a wild country, which savages live idle and useless lives, sacrificing the human to their demon gods? or shall the LORD of Hosts enter with His armies-the truths of the Word-and crush those savage nations, and in their stead plant colonies which shall make of that wild country fertile fields and pastures, capable of supporting orderly, law-abiding peoples and their flocks and herds, the goods and truths of heaven and the Church? Yea, the LORD shall crush them with a rod of iron, as the vessels of a potter He shall disperse them.
The truths in the natural man, by which the falses of evil are to be dispersed, are scientifics and cognitions, from which man can think, reason, and conclude naturally about the truths and goods of the Church, and about the falses and evils which are the opposite to those, and thence can be in a certain natural illustration when he reads the Word. For the Word in the letter without illustration is not understood, and illustration is either spiritual or natural; spiritual illustration finds place with those alone who are spiritual, who are they that are in the good of love and of charity, and are thence in truths, but only natural illustration is given with those who are natural. With those who are spiritual while they live in the world, there is illustration in the natural, but that illustration exists in their spiritual-that is, their internal man, for with those (the spiritual or regenerating) the LORD inflows by the spiritual or internal man into the natural or external man and illuminates it. This is what always takes place when the spiritual man reflects upon his evils and falses with a desire to be rid of them, although at the time it appears to him that his reflection and thought are entirely from himself. From the illumination he is in at this time man sees what is true and good, and what is false and evil, and when man sees those things-that is, acknowledges and confesses them-then the LORD disperses the evils and falses which are in the natural man by the truths and goods which are also there, and make one with goods and truths in the internal man or the spiritual.
This whole Psalm treats of the establishment by the LORD of the New Church in place of the Old, and this is done by the subjugation of the external man, in which the Old Church rules, to the internal man, where the New Church rules, or ought to rule. This subjugation is effected by the dispersion of the falses of evil of the Old Church in the natural man, and the establishment of the genuine truths of the Letter of the Word in their place, thus uniting the external to the internal man. When the internal and external, or the spiritual and the natural are conjoined, then the LORD castigates the evils and falses which are in the natural man, and this He does by cognitions of truth and good.
With those, however, with whom the internal and external man are not conjoined, evils and falses cannot be castigated and dispersed, since they receive nothing by the spiritual man from heaven; but all things which they receive are from the world, to which things their rational shows favor and furnishes confirmations.
As the vessels of a potter Thou shalt disperse them. The dispersion of falses will be a total one. The vessels of a potter are such things as are in the natural man, which he has contrived from his own intelligence, as a potter makes vessels of clay; all things from self-intelligence which are about heaven and the Church are falses in the natural man. The things which man contrives about heaven and the Church from himself are vessels that contain falses, as all things that he learns from the LORD about heaven and the Church are beautiful vessels that contain celestial and spiritual goods and truths. The potter's vessels, which are here to be broken in pieces and scattered abroad, are not such as are made by the LORD to hold the noble wine of Divine Truth, milk, honey, and other good and wholesome fluids for nourishing the spiritual life of man, but they are vessels intended to contain only the water of natural truth, and that the water of a bog or sewer, full of all uncleanness and unwholesomeness, that are poisons to the life of the spiritual man; these vessels Thou shalt crush with a rod of iron and shalt disperse them.
They who think from self-intelligence think from the world, for man from what is his own does not love anything except those things that are of the world, and that are his, and what he loves he also sees and perceives; what he loves he calls goods, and what he thence sees and perceives he calls truths. But the things which he from love thus calls goods are evils, and the truths which he sees from that love are falses, since they flow forth from the loves of self and the world (which loves are opposite to the loves of heaven, which are love to the LORD and love towards the neighbor), and those things which flow forth from opposites are opposites. Wherefore they who read the Word only for the sake of the name of learning, or for the sake of acquiring fame in order that they may be elevated to honors, or that they may gain wealth, never see and perceive truths, but, instead of them, falses; and the truths which are there extant before their eyes they either pass over as though they did not see them, or they falsify them. This is because reading the Word only for the sake of the name of erudition, end for the sake of fame, that they may be elevated to honors and may gain wealth, is for the sake of self and the world as ends, thus from the loves of self and the world. Because these loves are of the proprium of man, therefore what he sees and perceives from them are from self-intelligence; but they who read the Word from the affection of spiritual truth, which affection is the love of knowing truth because it is truth, they see truths therein, and rejoice in heart when they see them; this is because they are in illustration from the LORD. The illustration descends from the LORD by heaven from the light there, which is Divine Truth; therefore it is given them to see truths from their own light, and this in the Word, for the Word is the Divine Truth, and in it are hidden all the truths of heaven. When this illustration flows down into the Letter of the Word, then it is that this natural of the Word, in the natural of man, becomes a rod of iron, that breaks and scatters all the evils and falses of man's conceits and inventions: Thou shalt crush them with a sceptre of iron, as the vessels of a potter Thou shalt disperse them.
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But they alone are in this illustration who are in the two loves of heaven, which are love to the LORD and love towards the neighbor, for those loves open the in- interior or superior mind, which is formed for receiving the light of heaven. By that mind, which they have who are in those two heavenly loves, the light of heaven inflows and illustrates; but they do not perceive truths in that mind, the interior or superior, while they live in the world, but they see them in the inferior mind, which is of the external or natural man; these are they who do not think from self-intelligence while they read the Word. The special reason why these do not think from self-intelligence while they read the Word is because their interior or spiritual mind looks to the LORD, and then the LORD elevates that mind, and, at the same time, the inferior or natural mind, to Himself; and thus lifts it up from the proprium of man; this could not be done with those who look principally at themselves and the world. From these things, now, it may be seen that man, from self-intelligence, does not perceive anything but evils and falses, but that the goods and truths which are of heaven and the Church he perceives and sees from the LORD.
When man thinks from his proprium, when he says to himself, "I am going to be my own master, and do my own thinking," then he is allowing tumultuous and idolatrous nations to colonize the fields of his natural mind, and he is also filling his house with worthless and hideously designed pottery; but when he says to himself, "I will be led by the LORD, and it is the desire of my life to learn His will," then he opens the internal or spiritual of his mind, and no longer thinks and acts from the proprium; and the LORD, with Divine Truth, flows down by that interior or superior mind and says to the man, Thou shalt crush those nations with a sceptre or rod of iron, and as potter's vessels thou shalt disperse them, and in that state, in the light of Divine Truth in' his natural mind-that is, accommodated to the natural mind-man perceives the qualities of his evils and falses and shuns them as of himself; and, to all appearance, he does himself crush and scatter those persuasive falsities, arising from his own evil propensities, by the power of that accommodated truth. The truth, however, is that at such times the LORD tames the evils and disperses the falses which are in the external or natural man.
One of the evils which the LORD crushes with a rod of iron at such times-that is, after temptations when man looks to the LORD and prays to be delivered-is the conceit of goodness, or, in other words, the vain imaginings on the part of man that he is regenerated to a certain perceptible degree, which induces him to look with contempt, or pity, which is usually the same thing, on those whom he considers to be his less fortunate neighbor, for then the LORD gives him to see that he is in himself too vile and pitiable to have contempt or pity for anybody, and all he can do is, like the publican, standing afar off, to smite upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a inner.
One of the falses that as the vessel of a potter the LORD then breaks and scatters is the pseudo-doctrine that man can be conscious of the opening of the interior or superior planes of his mind, that he can see, perceive, and think consciously as the angels do, for if this were allowed his spiritual sight would be opened into the other world, and this in the Divine Providence is not done until death, the gate of life, is passed, except with those who are called of the LORD for special missions.
If this were commonly allowed it would take away man's freedom in spiritual things, and would also foster pride of superior wisdom. In this state, succeeding temptations, when man again turns to the LORD, he sees in the light, unconsciously to him, pouring down through the windows of his mind from the interior that the truths of the Word are so many and so profound, even such as are in the natural, that all he knows, has learned, or ever will learn, are as a tiny spark about to be extinguished as compared with the glorious light of the sun at full noonday. Truly, the conceit of superior wisdom will be dispersed as the vessels of a potter, crushed into dust with an iron rod. Let us pray: LORD, our wisdom is mere foolishness; teach us Thy Truth.
What need, then, for man to fall into the pride of goodness and the conceit of wisdom? Thou shalt crush them with a sceptre of iron, as the vessels of a potter Thou shalt disperse them. Imagine not, O man, that you have, unsought by you, a spontaneous gushing up of goodness in your heart; fall not into the fantasy that wisdom is inflowing into you without the study of revealed truth. Do not think that you have passed a line beyond which the commandments of the Decalogue are no longer applicable to you. Never for a moment consider that your wonderful rationality makes the study of the Heavenly Doctrines unnecessary and inadequate for you. You can never be regenerate, never prepared for heaven, never enter heaven, unless you do the works of repentance; and there is but one way to do repentance, and that is by shunning your evils as sins against God; and there is but one way to shun evils, and that is to recognize that they are evils, and therefore desist from them; and there is but one way to recognize evils, and that is to study the qualities of all self-derived thought and affection in the natural words of the LORD'S revelation to His New Church, which revelation is the internal sense of the Word of God. This is the eternal Divine Truth in the natural, the resistless sceptre or rod of iron which shall purge away and castigate the evils, and their engendering falses, in your unregenerate will and understanding.
Reviewing this Psalm, then, let us note these things: When we find that in our minds there are nations tumultuous, and the peoples meditating vanity, and kings of the earth standing together and rulers consulting together against the LORD and against His Anointed-that those things in us which should be the goods and truths of the Church are, on the contrary, evils and falses against the LORD, then let us tear of their bonds, and let us cast away from us their cords; let us pray the LORD to enable us to separate ourselves from those things, for He that dwelleth in the heavens shall laugh, the LORD shall mock them; for such things are nothing before the LORD, for the LORD knows nothing of evil and the false, except by their opposition to good and truth; and He shall speak unto them in His anger, and in His wrath shall He terrify them, and those evils and falses will be destroyed out of our minds and hearts. Then will the LORD say, I, I have anointed My King upon Zion, the mountain of My holiness; then will the LORD make His Advent with us, and establish the Church with us; further, He will say, I will announce concerning the statute, The LORD said unto Me, My Son art Thou, I today have begotten Thee; He will gift with the perception that the LORD JESUS CHRIST is the only God of heaven and earth forever, and that He alone is to be worshiped; and again He will say, Seek of Me and 1 will give nations for thine inheritance, and for thy possessions the ends of the earth; if we ask Him He will gift us with all goods and truths in all abundance, even to the ultimates of our life on earth, and when we turn to Him in humble state, desiring that He regenerate and save us, Then will He crush the tumultuous nations in us with a sceptre of iron, as the vessels of a potter He will disperse them; with His own Divine Truth, accommodated to and in the natural, He will disperse the falses of evil that strive to persuade us into hell. Amen.
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BIOGRAPHY. 1897
IN the New Church biography derives at once its interest and its value from the truth that every man's life is an embodied use.
Man in himself is but a cipher, his individuality but the resultant of a combination of paltry trivialities; but use is the manifestation of Divine ends, and it is by capacity for use that man is capable of being conjoined with the Divine. This thought bears as well upon the reading as the making of biography. Since all things which pertain to the individuality of a man bear some relation to his qualification for use, it is with reference to that that the features of his personality merit consideration Knowledge of the man is to be regarded as introductory means to a knowledge and understanding of use-the particular use for which his life stands. Whatever serves to reproduce the man as he appears to others, is legitimate material for the history of his life, for it all partakes of the discharge of his mission on earth; but the combining of the various and often conflicting elements, so as to produce a harmonious whole and one which shines with real meaning, requires a special gift possessed only by the true biographer. Such work will materially supplement that of the clergy and of other teachers, in elevating the mind from temporal to eternal things, turning it away from the merely natural, lifeless substances and forces of nature to the world of spirit, of causes, and of essential uses; away from person to the LORD and His Kingdom. It is for the sake of those real essential uses that all things in that higher world exist; so likewise with the things of the natural world, for it exists from the former world and for the sake of it. Man is a dual being, a citizen of two worlds, and a just estimate of him can be formed only when this double aspect is taken into account, and when his existence is recognized as part of the stupendous Divine design, to understand some obscure infinitesimal part of which pertains to the work of the historian and biographer.
The birth of a man in this world means that the LORD sees it to be of order and of desirability for a new form of use to come into existence in the other world, or at least to have the opportunity to come into existence; and so He clothes that use with a material form, the likeness of a man, having qualifications capable of being developed to perform the use. The man may never fulfill his destiny, but it is of the infinity of the LORD'S operations that the possibility of man's averting himself from the living use mercifully made possible to him, in no way defeats the Divine Will of Good-of Use-but the very opposition presented by the inverted, infernal, and dead use of which the man in such case becomes the embodiment, is as it were a reacting basis which becomes prolific of other possibilities for genuine good or use, whence other men are born; and so ad indefinitum.
So the possibilities of spiritual use latent in man raise him above the trivial, sordid, unedifying existence which his would otherwise be; and as those spiritual possibilities are to be realized by natural agencies, natural uses, and all the natural thoughts and affections and surroundings which make up life and give individuality, even so we may learn how to estimate the man by his adaptability to use, not merely natural use, but such as represents the realities of heaven furnishing a meeting ground for heaven and earth: I mean the uses of the Church, the LORD'S Kingdom on earth. All a man's faculties and qualities, his very foibles and peculiarities, have each its particular influence on his capacity for use, and according as they modify it they will command the attention of the thoughtful and discerning biographer. Such a one will draw his pictures to the life, and with benevolent art sway to his purpose the natural affections of his readers-will make them love the natural good of the characters he portrays, averting the face from their evils, where these must be shown; and at the same time he will lead the mind up to those higher planes of thought where personality becomes only a background before which stand out in relief the living and eternal things of good and truth; for these make true character-these constitute the LORD'S own indwelling in His Kingdom. True art and science must lever serve as a ladder leading man finally to the LORD alone. Biography in the New Church is only in its rudimentary stage, and there are few, if any, who have been able adequately to develop it, but it is never too soon to begin to form ideals and conceptions; for in proportion as the members of the Church habituate themselves in the spiritual themes of true biography, the sooner will it develop into a science and art, an embodied use, with men ordained by the LORD'S Providence to functionate in it.
REV. JOHN PRESLAND. 1897
THE life of the Rev. John Presland, his character, position, and influence in the organized New Church well illustrate the idea that a man is a form of use. These have been so fully set forth in the periodicals of the Church that for our purpose it is only necessary to gather from the material thus affectionately brought together, and without any attempt at originality, convey to the readers of the Life something of the impressions of the man taken from the sources mentioned. From these, and from the testimony of friends who have known him, we understand the character of Mr. Presland to have been especially marked by a kind and gentle-heartedness that impressed and warmed all who came in contact with him; and from this, added to his high-mindedness and intelligent grasp of the truths he taught, may be inferred something of the predominating influence of his life's work in the field of his labors, the visible New Church, where gentle charity and kind good-will struggle against so many foes resident in the natural man. Throughout a calm career of usefulness, based on the high standards of Christian gentle manhood and graced by its amenities in no ordinary degree, his voice in the Church was ever for peace, and anything like dissension among his brethren gave him an amount of suffering which, though it did not appear on the surface, was well known to those who knew him best. He was for healing up the breaches and forwarding the constructive labors of love.
Mr. Presland was born in London, November 18th, 1839, of an old-established New Church family, his grandfather having been one of the founders of the "London Printing Society," now the "Swedenborg Society." His disposition from the very beginning, in childhood, was gentle, retiring, modest, and studious, early showing the literary bent which was so eminently characteristic of his maturer years. Very pleasant seem to have been his relations with brothers and sisters, and when at the age of thirteen he was placed at the school of Mr. Robert Applebee, at Belper, his father's weekly letters, carrying along some portions of a story spun for his benefit, testify to the existence of a paternal solicitude and sympathy the potent influence of which may be traced in the blamelesness of the life now closed.
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In his studies, history, travels, and poetry were favorite subjects, and in French, Latin, and mathematics he did well; but it was in English composition that he excelled. His teachers have testified to his obligingness and cheerful performance of duty, endearing him to his elders, while among his comrades, though little adapted to the more active and rough sports of boyhood, he was nevertheless regarded with affection. He early' developed a strong love for the drama, and in later years his readings afforded entertainment of a high order to his many friends, among which may be included the inmates of the Royal Normal College for the blind, at Upper Norwood, which institution he served as member of its General Council. The picture of his' readings to these humble friends given by Mr. Seward, in the Messenger (June 9th), presents in pleasing light the kindliness of his nature.
The years of early manhood were occupied, first at Belper, where he succeeded Mr. T. C. Lowe, B. A., as Assistant to Mr. Applebee; and afterward, in London, where he assisted in the compilation of Townsend's Manual of Dates, and as sub-editor of a weekly journal called The Press, now defunct. But his active connection with the Argyle Square Society, then in charge of the Rev. Dr. Bayley, brought to the notice of the pastor his natural qualifications for ministerial work- his intelligence in the Doctrines, his studious and literary style, and moral and social worth. Still, it was characteristic of his modest self-depreciation, and of his high conceptions of the priestly calling that he hesitated long before finally acting upon the urgent suggestion of his old friend and pastor. In 1865 he married Miss Martha Jane Pulsford, and his union with her is said to have been a life of unbroken domestic happiness. It may be safely inferred that her unfailing faith in his qualifications for the responsibilities and duties of the ministry had great weight in deciding him, the following year, to comply with Dr. Bayley's request that he would occupy the pulpit of the Argyle Square Society for the summer during the other's absence on special functions. In the course of the same year he was called to the pastorate of the Derby Society, then vacant by the removal of the Rev. John Hyde to Manchester. Concerning his ministrations to this church, which began January 1st, 1867, the account given in the New Church Magazine (signed "B."), says:
"He was already personally known to many of its members; as a preacher his intelligence and eloquence were universally appreciated by both the older and the younger members; but they were scarcely prepared for the admirable manner in which so young a leader performed the other duties of his new position. His sympathy with the sorrowful and sick was so genuine and unostentatious that the confidence in the pastor was commensurate with the respect for the teacher."
These pleasant relations lasted for five years, when he accepted an invitation to act as co-pastor with Dr. Bayley, in the Argyle Square Society, a few months later becoming sole pastor upon Dr. Bayley's resignation. Here, notwithstanding some pressing and even tempting offers, he remained during the rest of his life, and it is noted in the account just referred to that in addition to deeper ties that kept him, must be added an unusually strong attachment to the city itself, with its bustle, active intellectual life, and innumerable privileges. His connections here seem to have been continuously happy. To quote again:
"Rarely has the union between pastor and people been more actively harmonious, and one of his dearest friends and helpers, writing about him after the funeral, said, 'All I can say is, we loved him, and he knew it, as we knew he loved us. It is the best aspect of our personal loss.'"
In the general body of the Church in England Mr. Presland's part has been an active one, he being qualified for this not only by characteristics already noted, but also by an orderliness of mental habits and a faculty for dispatching business as well as by a devotion to duty, which made him valuable both as a member of committees and as a presiding officer-positions which he frequently was called upon to fill. His connection with the General Conference began with the first year of his ministry, and two years later, in 1867, he was formally ordained. In 1872 he was called to Argyle Square, as stated. In 1875 he was elected President of Conference, a position which he again filled four times, in 1880, 1884, 1890, and 1893. In 1881 he was appointed theological tutor of the New Church College, the duties of which office, however, according to recently-adopted usage, have of late been largely supplemented by instruction given in different localities by other ministers. Especial mention is made of his valuable training of others in the branch of ministerial work which most appealed to his own preferences, the preparation and delivery of sermons. In 1882 he was consecrated ordaining minister by the Rev. Dr. Bayley, who had already officiated at the important occasions of his marriage and ordination. Since 1886 he has been the editor of the New Church Magazine, a post for which his scholarly and ministerial ability eminently qualified him. The Swedenborg Society, the Missionary and Tract Society, the New Church Evidence Society, and the New Church Orphanage all have profited by his efficient services; and of the work of preparing the English Liturgy, and compiling the Conference Hymn-book, a considerable and important share fell to his competent hands.
Mr. Presland's published works include, a volume of sermons on The LORD'S Prayer, a course of centennial lectures entitled New Truths for a New Age, and his most considerable work (of nearly 500 pages), The Creed of the New Church; and he translated the Swedenborg Society's last edition of The Intercourse of the Soul and of the Body. The author of the article in the New Church Magazine says:
"He did not pretend to the possession of exceptional creative powers; he had no extraordinary taste for metaphysical discussion, and his disquisitions were, as a rule, luminous and clear, careful and accurate, rather than profound. His ambition was rather to be understood, not less by the simple than by the learned, and to teach the truth as he found it in the Doctrines, than to be considered original; and it would have distressed him to be called eccentric. But he wrote a great deal in the course of his life, and his published lectures will be valued not only for their own sake as instructive doctrinal statements, but as characteristic memorials of their high-minded and eloquent author."
From the same interesting and sympathetic account we quote again:
"About-the style and character of his sermons and lectures it is not necessary to say much to this generation. There was always one leading idea in his discourses; the subject was set forth clearly and simply; the doctrinal lessons were conveyed in simple language; and the Scripture illustrations were always admirably selected. Well chosen, too, and pointed, were the references to secular writings, which sometimes illustrated his arguments; but the great end of all Mr. Presland's preaching was the application of true doctrine to conduct in life. If we turn to his published sermons we may almost hear him speaking; the deep tones of his sonorous voice come back to us as we read, and the echo of his stately eloquence, measured and dignified in rhythm, perhaps rather than melodious in its flow, seems to haunt us still.
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His speeches at the Conference public meetings were invariably masterly and instructive; sometimes rising, indeed, to the loftiest and most dignified level of eloquence. From his earliest appearances at these meetings, Mr. Presland's addresses created a profound impression, and none of his hearers were more deeply impressed than the older and more instructed among his audiences. For controversy of any kind Mr. Presland had not the slightest taste, and though under a strong sense of duty he more than once entered into controversial discussion, he was never unmindful of the decencies of debate, and he never forgot the respect due to the conscientious convictions of others. This thoughtful regard for the position of his opponents was sometimes attributed to lack of strength of purpose, but this was an utterly unfounded supposition. It is true that in controversy he was more serene than keen, that irony was distasteful to him, sarcasm hateful, and invective impossible; but he was none the less firm because he was never obstinate; none the less strong in principle because he was never unreasoning; his firmness in fact was due to the strength of his convictions, and never to the impulse of personal or party feeling. It may be that his native modesty, his mistrust of his own judgment, sometimes prevented his coming to a conclusion and asserting himself as speedily as others did; but those of us who remember him when debatable subjects were before him are never likely to forget his silent watchfulness, his earnest attention, and his conscientious desire to understand both sides of the question. And in doctrinal discussion, the reverent humility of his character was strikingly conspicuous. He was a Newchurchman-a Swedenborgian if you will, first and foremost-and though as a life-long student of the Doctrines of the Church he always distinguished between clear and well- defined statements and narrow applications, based on isolated passages, he would have nothing to do with opinions and arguments which could be shown to be inconsistent with the faith he avowed when he signed the Conference roll.
"To give a faithful portrait of Mr. Presland, to describe him as he was in the unconstrained sphere of social life, would try the powers of a practiced artist. He was one of the most hearty and lively of companions, either at home or abroad. His conversation, in the company of his intimates, sometimes serious, sometimes humorous, was always interesting; never conventional, or stiff, or stilted; it was often enlivened by quotations from favorite authors, or by flashes of improvised drollery. . . Then there was a depth of tenderness in his nature which not only made him considerate of his weaker brethren, even when most distressed by their failings-but, illuminated by the glow of spiritual charity, made him one of the most lovable and loving of men."
The Rev. S. S. Seward, having heard Mr. Presland in one of his readings at the Royal College for the Blind, writes of him:
"I was told that in his busy life he was frequently in the habit of reading for the students, but it was not the fact that so much struck me as the manner-his delight in the delight of his listeners. It revealed the heart of the man as nothing else did in my acquaintance with him. He was, as others will tell you, a man of great natural ability, of deep and wide culture, and of untiring fidelity and industry. But it was the kindly spirit and genial sympathy of the man that drew us all to him, and gave to his official labors that inner warmth and glow that excited our admiration without arousing our envy. I agree with a remark made in a private letter by a friend now in London: `His place cannot be filled."'
The Rev. G. L. Allbutt, testifies:
"Sincerity and affability added to his intellectual accomplishments, made him very approachable."
And the Rev. T. F. Wright makes this comment, among others:
"Well-rounded men do us more good than those who excel only in one gift. And he was well-rounded, as all who knew him will testify."
It is with pleasure that we refer to the likeness (said to be excellent) of Mr. Presland, published in the New Church Magazine for June, and to the smaller cut given in the Messenger, June 9th.
In reading the graphic descriptions and affectionate tributes of Mr. Presland's old friends and associates we must all feel that we have found a friend just when others seem to have lost him. But for them as for us, such lives must continue to bloom in imperishable fragrance. Surely it is pleasant to think of a life so smoothly passed in the Master's service, and of the gracious and unfading memories it leaves behind; it is stimulating and uplifting to dwell upon the actual uses `done for the Church, and upon the tangible evidences thereof, of many kinds, that survive him; but especially happy and sublime is the reflection that in embodied uses-and in their inseparable regenerative processes- of such human lives, the LORD is ever being born anew on earth, and establishing in ever greater fullness His own glorious Coming and indwelling among men, by His own mediation, the New Church, the spiritual mother of the sons of God. When at last all shall be gathered as one flock, in tender green pastures and by restful, living waters, the lives of the heavenly dwellers all will be so many lovely reflections and revelations of the One Life from Whom all live.
ANNALS OF THE NEW CHURCH. 1897
(Abbreviations: A. L., Academy Library; Doc., Tafel's Documents Concerning Swedenborg; I., Intellectual Repository; New Church Life; M., New Jerusalem Magazine (Boston); O., The Monthly Observer (London); Tottie, Tottie's Life of Jasper Swedberg.)
1763.
January 6th.-Stockholm. Swedenborg writes a friendly note to Bishop Filenius, who had married the daughter of Eric Benzelius (Doc. II, 285).
April-June.-Swedenborg's "Description of the mode in which slabs are inlaid for tables and other ornaments," published in the Transactions of the Royal Academy of Sciences, for these months (Doc I, 586; II, 997).
June (beginning).-Swedenborg leaves Sweden, on his ninth foreign journey, to superintend the publication of the following works in Amsterdam:
"Doctrina Novae Hierosolymae de Domino" (The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem concerning the LORD). 64 pp. 4to.
"Doctrina Novae Hieroaolymae de Scriptura Sacra" (The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem concerning the Sacred Scripture). 54 pp. 4to.
"Doctrina Vitae pro Nova Hierosolyma" (The Doctrine of Life for the New Jerusalem). 86 pp. 4to.
"Doctrina Novae Hierosolyma de Fide" (The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem concerning Faith). 23 pp. 4to.
(These four treatises are described in Doc. II, 994.)
"Continuatio de Ultimo Judicio: et de Mundo Spirituali" (Continuation concerning the Last Judgment, and concerning the Spiritual World). 28 pp. 4to. (Doc. II, 996.)
"Sapientia Angelica de Divino Amore et de Divina Sapientia" (Angelic Wisdom concerning the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom). 151 pp. 4to.
(See Prof. Odhner's bibliography of this work. L., 1891, 48)
Sometime during this period Swedenborg wrote, also, two other treatises, entitled:
"De Divino Amore" (On the Divine Love). MS. 22 pp.
"De Divina Sapietztia" (On the Divine Wisdom). MS. 46 pp.
(Both of these works are written, in the manuscript, as if part of the Apocalypse Explained, but are, in substance, quite independent of it. See Doc. II, 997.)
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The first public notice of the Writings of the New Church, with Swedenborg named as their author, appeared this year in a Swedish work, entitled, "Anvisning til ett utvaldt Theologiskt Bibliotek" (Aid to the selection of a choice theological library), by J. S. Alnander. (Doc. II, 977.)
1764.
While still in Amsterdam, Swedenborg publishes:
"Sapientia Angelica de Divina Providentia" (Angelic Wisdom concerning the Divine Providence). 214 pp. 4to. (Doc. II, 999.)
In the spring he makes a journey to England, in order to deliver his late publications to the "Royal Society." (Doc. II, 623.)
July (about)-Swedenborg returns to Stockholm, where his Writings had been noticed and ridiculed in the journal "Svenske Mercurius" (Doc. II, 705).
August 19th.-Stockholm. Swedenborg's second letter to Bishop Mennander, presenting one of his late publications (L. 1896, 186).
August 28th.-Swedenborg receives a visit from the Royal Librarian Gjorwell, to whom he describes the nature of his inspiration (Doc. II, 402).
In the autumn he begins to work upon the Apocalypse Revealed, and writes, also,
"Doctrina de Charitate" (The Doctrine of Charity). MS. 49 pp. folio (Doc. II, 999).
1765.
January-June (about).-Swedenborg remains in Stockholm.
April 29th.-Last date noted in the Spiritual Diary.
June or July.-Swedenborg undertakes a tenth foreign journey. On his way abroad he stops for a few days in Gottenburg, where he meets the Rev. Gabriel A. Beyer, who, with the Rev. Johan Rosen, are made acquainted with the Writings of the New Church, and who, within a short period, become the first receivers of the Heavenly Doctrine in Sweden, probably the first actual Newchurchmen in this world, next to Swedenborg (Doc. II, 699, 707).
From this time, perhaps, dates the anecdote concerning Swedenborg's revealing the whereabouts of a book, which Dr. Rosen had forgotten, and also concerning the warning which Swedenborg gave to the manufacturer, Bolander, about a fire which had broken out in the mills of the latter. (See L. 1884, 45; Doc. II, 724.)
September.-Arriving in Gottenburg, Swedenborg begins to publish the Apocalypse Revealed, of which, on October 1st, he sends the first printed sheets to Dr. Beyer, together with a friendly note (Doc. II, 236). He remains in Amsterdam during the rest of the year.
The prelate C. F. Oetinger, of Wurtemburg, publishes this year a work entitled, "Swedenborg und Anderer irdisehe und himmlische Philosophie" (The Earthly and Heavenly Philosophy of Swedenborg and Others). Frankford and Leipzig. (A. L.) This work, which contains also a German translation of the "Mirabilia," occurring between the chapters in the Arcana Coelestia, was the first appearance of New Church Doctrine in Germany (Doc. II, 977, 1028).
1766.
"Apocalypsis Revelata, in qua deteguntur arcana, quae ibi praedicta sunt, et hactenus recondita latuerunt (The Apocalypse Revealed, in which are Disclosed the Mysteries therein Foretold, which have hitherto remained Concealed). 629 pp., 4to. (A. L. Doc. II, 1000).
This work is reviewed at length by Dr. J. A. Ernesti, in the Neue Theologische Bibliotek, Leipzig, 1766, n. 8.
About this time Swedenborg writes, also:
"Index Verborum, Nominum et Rerum, in Apocalypsi Revelata" (Index of Words, Names and things in the Apocalypse Revealed). MS. 75 pp. 4to. (Doc. II, 1002.)
While still in Holland, he publishes a new edition of his
"Methodus Nova inveniendi Longitudines" (original edition published in 1721). 8 pp. 4to. (A. L., Doe. II, 1002.)
March 4th.-Wurtemberg. Oetinger's "irdiache und himmlische Philosopie," which had been condemned in unmeasured terms by Ernesti, is confiscated as heretical by the government of Wurtemberg, and the author is called upon to defend himself. Oetinger delivers a defense before Duke Charles, but the work remains confiscated, and the author is officially reprimanded. This is the first persecution of any one for publishing New Church teachings (Doc. II, 1029, 1032).
March 18th.-Gottenburg. Dr. Beyer writes to Swedenborg, expressing his reception of the Heavenly Doctrines (Doc. II, 237).
April 8th.-Amsterdam. Swedenborg's second letter to Dr. Beyer: sends copies of the Apocalypse Revealed, and speaks of an intended visit to England (Doc. II, 239).
April 15th.-Amsterdam. Swedenborg's third letter to Dr. Beyer: explains the difference between the inspired books of the Word and the Writings of the Apostles (Doc. II, 240).
April.-Amsterdam. Swedenborg's letter to the Swedish Ambassador in Paris: sends twenty copies of the Apocalypse Revealed, for distribution to the Cardinal de Rohan and various learned institutions in France (Doc. I, 242).
April.-Amsterdam. Swedenborg's letter to the Secretary of State in Stockholm: sends seventy copies of the Apocalypse Revealed, for distribution in Sweden (Doc. I, 243).
April (end).-Swedenborg leaves Holland for England (Doc. II, 240).
May 19th.-Swedenborg in London; calls on Lord Morton, the President of the Royal Society, in reference to a premium of L20,000 for the discovery of the correct method of finding the Longitudes, but Swedenborg's method is not accepted by the committee of the Society (Doc. II, 591; O. IV, 22).
May 20th.-Linkoping, Sweden. Death of Anna Benzelius, Swedenborg's eldest sister (Doc. I, 88).
June 22d.-Gottenburg. Dr. Johan Rosen's memorandum to the Consistory of Gottenburg; reports a plan for a volume of sermons, to be published by him and Dr. Beyer (Academy Archives, L. 1895, 182).
August 22d.-London. Swedenborg's fourth letter to Dr. Beyer: sends sets of the Arcana Coelestia to Dr. Beyer and Bishop Lamberg (Doc. II, 244).
September 1st.-Swedenborg leaves London for Sweden; is said to have foretold the exact date when the ship would arrive in Stockholm (Doc. II, 532, 560).
September 8th.-Swedenborg arrives in Stockholm (Doc. II, 250).
September.-The Rev. Nicholas Collins, afterwards pastor of the Swedish Church in Philadelphia, calls upon Swedenborg in Stockholm.
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His memoirs of the visit published in Doc. II, 421-424.
September 16th.-Stockholm. Swedenborg's letters to his nephew, Bishop C. J. Benzelius, and to the Academy of Sciences, respecting his method of finding the Longitudes (Doc. I, 592; 0. IV, 22).
September 16th-Stockholm. Swedenborg's third letter to Bishop Mennander, formerly of Abo, now Archbishop of Upsala; exposes the general falsities of the Theology of the Old Church (Doc. II, 245, 1134).
September 23d.-Stockholm. Swedenborg's first letter to the Prelate Oetinger, in reply to a letter of October 13th, 1765: explains the nature of his mission; states that his Writings "cannot be called prophecies, but revelations" (Doc. II, 248).
September 25th.-Stockholm. Swedenborg's fifth letter to Dr. Beyer: subscribes to Beyer's intended publication of sermons; suggests caution, inasmuch as the New Heaven has not yet been fully established; states that he has never read the writings of Jacob Bohme (Doc. II, 250).
October 7th.-Stuttgart. Oetinger's second letter to Swedenborg: describes the persecutions against him, and offers various objections to certain of the Doctrines of the New Church (Doc. II, 252).
November 11th.-Stockholm. Swedenborg's second letter to Oetinger, on theological subjects (Doc. II, 255).
December 4th.-Stuttgart. Oetinger's third letter to Swedenborg: describes, among other things, the recent attack upon Swedenborg by the philosopher Kant (Doc. II 258).
From this year, probably, date the following works and papers by Swedenborg:
"Quinque Memorabilia" (Five Memorable Relations). MS. 13 Pp. (Doc. II, 1002).
"Colloquia cum Angelis" (Conversations with Angels). MS. 3 pp. (Doc. II, 1003).
"Arcana Sapientiae Angelicae de Amore Conjugiali" (Arcana of Angelic Wisdom concerning Conjugial Love).
This is the probable title of a large work, which Swedenborg is supposed to have written, but of which only two indexes have as yet come to light. The nature of this "missing work on Conjugial Love" is discussed in L. 1892, 25. Sec also Doc. II, 1003.
"Memorabilia de Conjugio" (Memorable things respecting Marriage). MS. 19 pp. (Doc. II, 1005).
During the year the famous philosopher, Immanuel Kant, publishes a satirical attack upon Swedenborg, under the title
"Traume sines Geistersehers, erleutert durch Traume der Metaphysic" (Dreams of a spirit-seer, explained by dreams of Metaphysics). Konigsberg.
The work is a shallow pretense, containing gossip and falsified dates. Its nature is discussed in Doc. II, 620; N. I, 200; I. 1830, 61; Mess. 1897, Jan. 6, p. 11; New Church Review, April 1897, p. 257.
1767.
January-December.-Swedenborg remains in Stockholm the entire year, writing on the subject of Conjugial Love (Doc. II, 623).
February.-Stockholm. Swedenborg's sixth letter to Dr. Beyer: tells the reasons for his not having read the writings of Bohme and Law; describes the gradual beginning and increase of the New Church: "The universities in Christendom are now first being instructed, whence will come new ministers;" expresses his pleasure in reading Dr. Beyer's new volume of sermons, and gives the spiritual signification of a manger, of shepherds, and of John the Baptist (Doc. II, 260).
March 22d.-Lund. Letter of Professor Nils Schenmark to Swedenborg, offering certain criticisms on the latter's method of finding the Longitudes (Doc. I, 593).
April (about).-Swedenborg's reply to Professor Schenmark (Ibid., p. 596).
COLLATERAL PUBLICATIONS DURING THE YEAR.
Beyer, Dr. G. A. (with Dr. J. Rosen and some others): Nya Forsok till uppbygglig Forklaring ofver Evangeliska Son och Hogtidsdagstexterna" (New Attempts towards a Devotional Explanation of the Gospels). Gottenburg. This first exegetical work of the New Church was published by the authority of the Consistory of Gottenburg, where the Heavenly Doctrines at this time had a number of secret admirers. The collection of sermons was used for many years at the private worship of Newchurchmen in Sweden (Doc. II, 262, 320; Sundelin, p. 61).
Clemm, H W. "Vollstandige Einleitung in die Religion und Theologie" (Complete Introduction to Religion and Theology). Tübingen, 4 vols.
Vol. IV. of this work contains the first published collection of documents concerning Swedenborg (Doc. II, Preface p. vi).
Christian Johansen, a steel manufacturer in Eskilstuna, received the Heavenly Doctrines about this time. He visits Swedenborg in Stockholm, and has described the results of his interview (Doc. II, 710, 1246; I. 1870, 134).
The anecdote concerning the visit of Bishop Halenius to Swedenborg, related in Doc. I, 67; II, 723.
DISEASES OF THE FIBRES. 1897
CHAPTER IX.
EPILEPSY.
457. THE epileptic is suddenly prostrated, the external and internal senses are lost, and the respiration is intercepted; the body is tossed about in violent movements, and the ground is beaten with blows; thus muscle rises up against muscle, and rages in paroxysms-it is like a combat of the present life with death, such as is usual in the struggle of death with life.
458. That the cause of so dire a disease is in the cerebrum, this, I believe, no one doubts; for whence the life of sensations and actions springs forth, thence also does the death of the same, for the cerebrum alone holds sway over the sensory and motor organs; therefore, we are to recognize from effects the state of the efficient cause. Hence, it follows that epilepsy is a furious tossing and convulsion of the cerebrum, or inordinate fluctuation, elevation, and constriction of its cortical substances, an entire idea of which cannot be represented on account of the dissonance of motions in the body. Oh, to how many changes is not the human cerebrum subject, and into what differences does not this voluntary and intellectual, which is properly our own and is of the cerebrum alone-precipitate us! Wherefore, whatever excites the cerebrum into such convulsive motions, and farther exasperates its mode of accustomed vibration and the harmony of its parts, is a cause of this disease.
459. The proximate causes are contusions of the cranium, or fractures of the spine; exfoliations, or excrescences, of the whole [integri] which prick and pinch the cerebrum with their sharp points.
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Likewise particular rigidity and irregular inflammation, or even ulceration of the dura mater; also, the tearing away of the cranium from its connections, especially about the bones of the bregma* and about the coronal suture. Besides, there may be a collection of corrupt blood, pus, acrid and fetid ichor adhering somewhere between the meninges, but especially under the pia mater and between the divisions of the cortex, among the depressions and lesser sulci, and finally passages are excavated and recesses formed into which the malignant humor either violently bursts forth, or, instilling itself by degrees, stagnates and becomes putrid, and thus so often distends these spaces that it cannot be forced out except by a convulsion of the whole cerebrum. There are also similar collections of fluid, excavations, and abscesses in the medullary substance of the cerebrum, in its superior, middle, and inferior part, near and within the ventricles, or in the medulla oblongata and its beginnings and crura. There are also frequent little pools and asyla of blood everywhere in the medullary part, which, beset by a vicious and foul humor, include within them the very root of the evil; from thence come dilatation, dislocation, distorsions of the parts, erosions, and ulcers. But these causes pertaining to the cerebrum are external, for they are outside of the cortex or above it in the integuments, or below it in the fibrous compages. But the internal causes can be predicated of the cortex itself, which, if it become scirrhons, is inflamed, indurated, putrefles, is eroded, destroyed,-is then rendered incapable of throwing off or dislodging the lymph insinuated in the plicatures, whence the receptacles for the matter are turned into purulent dregs by the delay arising from stagnation of the degenerated epileptic material.**
* That paint on the vault of the skull where the coronal and sagittal sutures meet.-Standard Dictionary.
** The latter portion of this passage does not seem clear.-ED.
460. But the causes which bring about cerebral ulceration, excavation, or corrosion, or which effect and generate these evils, are innumerable. The CONTINGENT causes are fractures, contusions, luxations, or the boring through of the cranium. The NATURAL or REREDITARY causes are unusual interstices and cavities in both substances of the cerebrum, the passages leading to them being constricted and very much narrowed, the cranium not being of proper proportion to the mass of the cerebrum itself; a bad distribution of the arteries, a radical defect of the blood. The ACCESSORY causes are malignant fevers, both hot and cold intemperateness of the blood and its serum, too great excretions, concretions, and innumerable other things. The VOLUNTARY causes are awkward motions, furies, and tempests of the animus, arising from insanity of the mind or intemperance of the pleasures of the body. But the causes from which the mentioned evils exist are the same as those from which they subsist and are excited.
461. The causes which excite into effect this evil, which is generated in the cerebrum (for the disease, once becoming deeply rooted, breaks forth by turns), are, as was said, similar to those which produced it: as, for instance, in the BODY, the acrimony of things eaten, irritations and eating away of the viscera; especially of the stomach and intestines, as by worms, latent ulcers, abscesses, pains, great and periodical; retention of the urine, lochia, menses, hemorrhoids, pestiferous gases and fumes infesting the blood and nerve juices, as also the roots of many diseases, etc. In the BRAIN: there are sicknesses of the animus, which are so many motions, disturbances, expansions, constrictions, and contorsions of the whole cerebrum, and sudden alterations of its animation; thus the impurities concealed in its recesses, and the abstruse seeds of the evil, are roused into activity, whence is collision, extension, contortion. And thus the fibres and cortical glands, which are the most sensitive of all structures, are irritated. So the disease breaks forth, and just as an armed body where the gates are opened, it rushes out.
462. When the evil excited by these causes breaks forth, the entire cerebrum directs and engages all its forces toward repelling it; for when a sharp point pricks one part of the cerebrum, it causes the whole to contract, just as a nerve, muscle, or membrane does; for every part, for the sake of bringing aid, for the sake of exterminating the evil, and of evading death, constringing itself closes the exit, or opens wide the narrow passages, urges and exasperates while moving, and so pours about convulsion that the whole cerebrum labors and seethes with vertigo; but this takes place to a greater extent in the allied and neighboring parts; thus all the fibres are affected, and consequently the nerves and muscles which depend upon the fibres. For the medullary fibres of the brain flow together variously from every part of the periphery toward the centrum ovale, and meet again and again before they finally separate; hence the twitching of one fibrous congeries at the same `time excites into paroxysms many muscles in the body. All power of acting is likewise taken away from the cerebellum by such a confused agitation of the cerebrum, because as often as it happens the cerebrum acts from itself, for when one is active the other is passive, and thus alternately asleep and awake. Then also where the action of all is confused, there is no action, for one fibre acts against another, and one muscle against another; consequently the unfortunate is overthrown, he beats the ground, firmly closes the mouth, the respiration is intercepted, but fury rages with the respiration, the fury ceases raving, and the wrath of the otherwise intractable cerebrum subsides.
463. The effects upon the nerves, muscles, glands, vessels, circulations of the blood and spirits, result in a chemical change of all, but this effect is especially upon the cerebrum, whence is dullness, stupor, loss of memory, foolishness, paralysis, apoplexy, and many other things.
VALEDICTORY. 1897
(Delivered by Mr. David H. Klein, on June 11th, on the occasion of his graduation as Bachelor of Arts.)
BISHOP PENDLETON AND FRIENDS:
We have come here to-day to receive the formal notification of the close of the period of instruction in our preparatory work for the priesthood of the LORD'S New Church, and to say to you a few parting words ere we go from among you to do the work which the future may provide for us.
To the Academy of the New Church, under whose care we have now or some years been permitted to do our work, we feel under a sense of great obligation for the inestimable privileges granted to us. As an institution the central use of which is the preparation of men for the LORD'S work of the salvation of souls, its position in the world is one commanding the respect and sympathy of all who have at heart the welfare of the LORD'S Church on earth.
But besides this there is, with us who have received so many of its benefits, a feeling of gratitude toward those who have been the means in the LORD'S hands of giving us this preparation for our life's work and love.
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We wish to testify publicly our appreciation of this, but inasmuch as they who have given so much of their sympathy and support to this use have had for an end the better and fuller performance of the things peculiar to the priestly office, we are conscious that the only true appreciation of this must come from a sincere and faithful discharge of the work which the LORD may put before us to do. Thus only may we hope to repay in some measure that which we have received.
It seems proper on an occasion like this to express to you, sir, especially, and to the friends assembled here, a few thoughts most prominent in our minds in connection with your teaching, and to show in some measure our conception of the duties or responsibilities which you have sought to impress upon us as essential to the success of that use for which we have been preparing.
The Church of the LORD upon the earth is, and is to be, of all those who are in the good of charity. This is the Church Universal, and to this Church and to those who are to be of it, it is our duty to go forth and teach the LORD'S truth as He gives us to see it, in the Writings of His Church. In the Ancient Church, members were one as to charity but many as regards doctrine, I and therefore, in that Church, there were many societies. So the New Church, though one as to charity, will ever be marked by organizations within its pale, whose use is the promulgation or teaching of peculiar doctrines cherished by themselves.
We, sir, have been prepared especially to teach and preach to the members of a Church founded upon the acceptance of certain distinctive doctrines drawn from the Word of God in its letter and spirit; and it is our steadfast belief that they are to be the fundamental doctrines of the Church on earth as they are of the Church in heaven. The first of these doctrines is that of the Divine Human of the LORD. We believe in this doctrine because it alone teaches where we may find the visible God in Whom is the Invisible, Whom we are to worship. We believe that it teaches the Divine Human to be first the Revelation of the LORD as the Divine Man JESUS CHRIST; and secondly, the Revelation of Him at His Second Advent in the Writings given to the world through Emanuel Swedenborg, His servant.
Because we regard these Writings as the appearance of the LORD to men, we believe them to be Divine and infallible. Their authority, therefore, we regard as unquestioned, and this is the distinctive doctrine upon which we are to lay the foundations of all our work.
A second distinctive doctrine which we have been taught is that the Old Church as a Church is consummated and has been consummated since the Second Advent of the LORD; and that therefore the New Church as such can in no wise affiliate with it in the worship of the LORD; for where the LORD is not acknowledged in His Divine Human there can be no true worship. This doctrine is especially to guard against the error that the New Church is permeating the Old and infilling it with a new and glorious life by a silent but no less certain influx of the spirit of its truth. But the living can have no consort with the dead. The New Church, the Bride of the LORD, the Lamb's Wife, must needs be arrayed in her own white garments of purity and innocence, and can never walk in the bedraggled livery of the Old, a partaker of her degradation and shame.
As a logical outgrowth of this doctrine there follows a doctrine of application: that children are to be educated apart from the sphere of the thought and influence of the dead Church-dead because it deals only of the things of earth which have no life apart from the things of heaven,-and that they are to be trained under an influence which shall have first, a loving regard for their eternal life, and from this their life as men and women of the world performing uses of love to the neighbor.
This is a part of the doctrine of the distinctivness of the New Church.
Another distinctive teaching and one most important as a factor of church government and polity, is the trinal order in the priesthood of the Church, in which there shall be ever operative the law of subordination as taught in the chapter on government in The New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly Doctrine. It is not of order that men newly entering on the work of the priesthood should be entrusted with duties and responsibilities which can be discharged only through the judgment of experience, and the illustration which it brings. And while it is a primary truth that each priest singly and separately is responsible first of all to the LORD Who is the High Priest of the Church, and must act in freedom according to the dictates of his conscience, he is responsible officially for his acts to those in the higher degrees of the office under whom he is in subordination-a subordination which, to be of heavenly order must have in it love and confidence.
To what has been said we wish to add one more teaching most essential to the welfare of the Church, on which, in fact, its life depends. It is the doctrine of Conjugial Love, and especially of marriage within the Church. Between two of different religions there can be no love truly conjugial. Hence we believe it to be a heinous thing for one who acknowledges the LORD in His Second Coming to marry one who does not receive this first essential of the Church. These, sir, in brief, are the truths most prominent in our minds. They are capable of indefinite expansion and application. They are not new to those gathered here to-day, but they are mentioned to indicate to you that we realize their import, and in order that by ultimating them in speech we may the more firmly be impressed with the responsibilities which the teaching of them involves. We accept this responsibility and accept it hopefully. We accept it hopefully because we believe that the future of the Church is in the LORD'S hands, and that if it be well for our work to be blessed with increase, the LORD will cause that blessing to fall upon it.
We are responsible for the salvation of no man or body of men. This is the LORD'S work through the ministry of His truth. But we are responsible to the LORD lest we lay violent or profane hands upon that truth, or traduce its fair form in deference to the opinions of men. We assume a most momentous responsibility in this, that as the use of the priesthood is a most high gift of the LORD to men, so does the abuse of it in seeking to apply it to any but the Divine end become a most grievous sin. We are responsible to the LORD for keeping this Divine end pure and inviolate in the inmost shrine of our thought and purpose. As surely as we swerve from this shall our work suffer. When we shall cease to regard it, and look, instead, toward our own advancement and the applause of men, then surely shall the right hand forget her cunning and the tongue cleave to the roof of the mouth.
It is possible for men to preach truth from the memory alone, and the LORD may even in His mercy make use of such men in his work of saving souls. But true progress in spiritual knowledge comes from affection. Through affection man comes into consort and conjunction with the angels of heaven, lives in their life and sees in their light.
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In this light he has illustration, and from this, the perception of the priestly use-a perception which enables him to grasp the spiritual needs of the Church, and provide for it by applications of truth to the ever-varying conditions of its life.
Before we close we wish to state a simple law of conduct of which you have spoken to us in regard to the performance of our use. "Do thoroughly and earnestly the work which is before you, and be prepared to take the opportunities as the Divine Providence presents them."
Dear friends, we say to you farewell. We have been among you so long that our departure will mark a very distinct period of our lives; one which is full of pleasant memories, and the thought of many kindnesses received at your hands. We thank you for your generous treatment of us, and wish to express our appreciation of what we owe to the home influence which we have enjoyed while visiting you from time to time. As we all, we trust, have at heart the life and welfare of the Church, it may be of Providence that we meet ofttimes again to renew old friendships.
Toward you, sir, who have been our teacher and friend, we look with the feelings of sons toward a father; for, indeed, such you have been to us, watching us in the infancy of our preparation, and guiding us, until now, at its close, we are ready to go forth and make use, of the riches you have placed in our hands. You have taught us to stand erect and walk. You have also indicated to us the way where we shall go. That which remains to be done is for us to do ourselves. We have been affected by the earnestness of your zeal, and have been inspired by the affection within it, with a sense of the exalted nature of the use for which we have been preparing. You have treated us as rational men, allowing us the greatest freedom within the limitations of our work, and have ever been ready to extend to us the hand of encouragement by an affectionate and interested response to all our inquiring states. We do most sincerely thank you for this. We go from the sphere of obedience to enter more into that of authority. God grant, however, that we may ever be obedient to His law and suffer ourselves to be led by it to the way of His appointing.
STOIC PHILOSOPHY. 1897
(A thesis by Mr. Emil Cronlund, B. A., read on the occasion of his graduation from the College course of the Academy Schools, June 18th, 1897.)
THE Stoic school of philosophers was founded at the close of the fourth century, B. C., by Zeno of Citium. They received their name from the Stoa, or the corridor on the north side of the market place at Athens, where Zeno gathered his disciples. This corridor the painter Polygnotus had adorned with frescoes representing scenes from the Trojan war.
Stoicism was at first confined almost entirely to Athens, but did not achieve its crowning triumph until it was brought to Rome, where its doctrines were better appreciated, and where, for two centuries or more, it was the creed, if not the philosophy, of all the best of the Romans.
The Stoics defined philosophy thus: "Philosophy is no idle gratification of curiosity, no theory divorced from practice, no pursuit of science for its own sake; but knowledge so far as it can be realized in virtuous actions, the learning of virtue by exercise and effort and training." Thus it may appear that they placed no value in knowledge by itself, but valued it only so far as it was ultimated in actions. They believed not only in theory, but also in practice, as is very evident from the actions and modes of life of the ancient philosophers. This was the case not only with the Stoics, but also with the philosophers of other schools, for they placed more merit and value in actions than in words.
The Stoics made wisdom and the application of wisdom to life inseparable, for a man that did not live a virtuous life they did not consider wise, but considered him a fool and a madman, and a slave to his lusts and cupidities. They taught that wisdom is the common element which includes the other virtues. Wisdom, in distributing to others is justice, in endeavor it is temperance, in endurance it is courage or fortitude.
The Stoics taught that virtue is the only good, the only thing that is real and worth having, and that the virtues embrace all objects of all thought, the verity of all things that are. Socrates, for whom the Stoics had great reverence, and amongst whose followers they counted themselves, said that only virtue and that which comes from virtue confers any real good, and that only vice can really do harm. And Seneca says that a wise and virtuous man cannot really meet with misfortune, for he does not consider that he loses much if he loses his worldly possessions, and his spiritual possessions no one can deprive him of. Cicero says that a wicked man may be terrified with threats or with exile or with death, or with losing his wealth, but a good man-him neither the outrages of fortune nor the injuries of enemies can shatter. "Do you threaten me with death," says Cicero, "which is separating me from mankind? Or with exile, which is removing me from the wicked? Death is dreadful to the man whose all is extinguished with his life, but not to him whose glory can never die. Exile is terrible to those who have, as it were, a circumscribed habitation, but not to those who look upon the whole globe as one city."
That no misfortunes can befall the wise and virtuous man is a fact which none but those who are wise and virtuous can realize. They may have what appears like misfortunes, but they know that the Divine Providence is governing everything, and that everything that happens to them is for their own eternal good. Only those who have a perfect trust in the Divine Providence are `in this state. In Heaven it is universal, but on account of the lack of trust in Providence on earth it exists there with very few.
According to the Stoics all mankind is divided into two classes, the wise or the virtuous, and the unwise or the wicked. He who possesses virtue possesses it whole and entire; he who lacks it, lacks it altogether. For they said that if a man does any `evil he is a wicked man, it does not make any difference what kind of an evil it is or how far he does it, for they said that all misdeeds are in themselves equal, and also all good works are in themselves equal. They seemed to judge altogether by the external acts and took no cognizance of the will in the matter.
Pain and pleasure were equally despised by the Stoics, and indifference to all external conditions generally was considered the highest type of virtue. They divided the things of this world into three classes, the things that are good, those that are evil, and those that are neither good nor evil. Pleasure they classed among the things that are neither good nor evil, and consequently as something that was unreal and not worth taking any notice of. Cicero says that virtue makes a man better and more praiseworthy, but does pleasure?
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Does any man extol himself in boasting or self-recommendation for having enjoyed it? Pleasure therefore, he says, is not to be ranked among good things, for the greater it is the more it dislodges the mind from its habitual and settled position. Aristotle also says that the highest activities are without pleasure, and that it is invariably of no significance where it is found. The Stoics therefore declared that it never appears at all except as a mark of decline or relaxation of vital energy, the bloom which is indeed a mark of ripeness, but also the certain precursor of decay.
This doctrine, in itself wrong and condemnable, had the detrimental effect of making some altogether indifferent as to their surroundings and as to their own external appearance. It produced a monastic spirit and a tendency to renounce this world altogether. Historians say about the Roman Emperor, Marcus Aurelius Antonius, who was a stoic philosopher, that though he was in this world he was not of it, for he gave himself up to meditation about God and the vanity of this world. As said before, some cared nothing about their own external appearance, as Socrates, who wandered about in the streets of Athens, shabbily dressed and barefooted, in all weathers and at all hours, asking and answering questions.
But the most heretical doctrine of the Stoics, and which condemns the whole system, was their doctrine concerning God. They were pantheists and also materialists. They taught that divinity must be ascribed to God's manifestations, for they said that there is a parallel between the microcosm and the macrocosm, which is that as the human soul pervades the body and is everywhere present in it, in like manner the soul of the world fills and penetrates it. This doctrine, in itself true, was perverted by them. The soul is present everywhere in the body, but there is a discrete degree between them. The soul is contiguous with the body, but not continuous with it. In like manner the Divine of the LORD is inmostly the soul of the universe, but that does not make matter Divine. The heat and light of the sun inflow into the things that grow upon the earth and gives them life. But because the heat and light of the sun permeate the things on the earth, it does not turn our earth into a sun. But the Stoics did not see this. They were led to believe that matter was infinite and eternal and self-existing. And Chrysippus, who developed and systematized Stoicism, said that there was no real difference between matter and its cause, which is always a corporeal current and therefore matter, although the finest and most subtle matter. They defined being as that which has the power to act or to be acted upon, and when they began to believe that matter was the only thing that had power to act they began to fall, and it is said that none of the ancient systems fell as rapidly as the Stoic.
But it is to be noted that the better class of the Stoics, such as Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Seneca, and Socrates, did not share in these pantheistic and materialistic views. Swedenborg mentions in several places in the Writings having spoken with Cicero. In Heaven and Hell, n. 322, Swedenborg says that he spoke with Cicero concerning wisdom, intelligence, order, the Word, and concerning the LORD, and Cicero affirmed that he believed in the Supreme God; and when Swedenborg told him that the LORD had come into the world and put on a human and glorified it, Cicero said that he' understood well, and said that it could not he otherwise. From what is said in the Writings about Cicero, we have reason to believe that he is among the blest.
Swedenborg also mentions Plato and Aristotle, and he says that they did not believe in Jupiter and the other gods, but they believed that they were attributes of the one God. Swedenborg says that he spoke with Aristotle about the Supreme Diety, and that while in the world he had represented Him to himself with a human face and encompassed about the head with a radiant circle, and that he now knew that the LORD was that very Man, and that the radiant circle is the Divine proceeding from Him.
While Swedenborg was talking with Aristotle, a woman was seen, who stretched out her hand, being desirous to stroke his cheek. Swedenborg wondered at this, but Aristotle said that while he was in the world, such a woman often appeared to him, who as it were stroked his cheek; and that her hand was beautiful. An Angelic spirit who was with Swedenborg, said "that such women were sometimes seen by the ancients, and I were called by them Pallases; and that such a one appeared to him from those spirits who when they lived men in ancient times, were delighted with ideas and indulged in thoughts, but without philosophy; and because such spirits were attendant upon Aristotle, and were delighted with him in consequence of his thinking from an interior principle, therefore they representatively exhibited such a woman." Swedenborg also says about Aristotle that he is amongst sane spirits in the other life, but that many of his followers are amongst the foolish.
In regard to the wisdom and knowledge about God, which the ancient philosophers, such as Aristotle, Cicero, Seneca, and others possessed, who have written about God and the immortality of the soul, Swedenborg says that they did not receive their first information from their own understanding, but from others, to whom the information was successively handed down from those who had it originally from the Word.
BLIND OBEDIENCE. L. G. LANDENBERGER 1897
Questions and Answers.
EDITOR OF NEW CHURCH LIFE:
While I appreciate the many good things in your valuable paper there was one thought in the issue of June Life, that should not be left unchallenged. On the first page-about half-way down the second column-you make the following statement: "There should be willingness to sink one's self-intelligence in the presence of the truth even to the extent of blind obedience." The part I have italicized, it seems to me, is not at all in accord with the spirit of the New Church, nor do I think it agrees with the letter of the Writings. Will you kindly point out in the Heavenly Doctrines where there is anything said about "blind obedience"? According to my understanding of the genius of the New Church there is never to be anything like "blind obedience" in it. In fact, the characteristic feature of the New Church is the acceptance of a truth only when seen as a truth by the individual. The idea of exercising "blind obedience" in the presence of the truth is to make it appear as if truth and the understanding were not intended for each other. It is this doctrine of a "former Church" that things of the Church must be blindly believed and thus the truth received on authority, that the editor of the Messenger repudiates and contends against when he says: "We have renounced a divinely authenticated Priesthood." That he is contending against the blind acceptance of truths taught by those in authority is evident from the words that follow:
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"No one has any authority to tell us what we shall or shall not believe." I think the editor is in accord with the teachings of the New Church. The LORD alone has all authority in His Church above and below. In the truths of the Word and in the Writings of the New Church the LORD comes as authority to each individual. He does not delegate His authority to councils or popes. The use of the priesthood is to teach truths and lead into the ways of heaven, but the only authority they have is the authority there is in the truth. There is nothing personal in it-there is not even authority in the office. This makes the New Church consist of members whose eyes are opened and who feel their responsibilities and make use of their privileges.
You may make use of this in any manner that you desire.
With fraternal greetings,
Your brother in the New Church,
L. G. LANDENBERGER.
1113 N. GORAND AVE., ST. Louis, Mo.
July 10th, 1897.
REPLY.
WE are indebted to our correspondent for this opportunity of stating definitely our position, and we hope to show that blind obedience not only has its place in the New Church, but that the recognition of this truth is of prime importance, if the Church is to become spiritual.
Let it be premised that the blindness referred to is not in itself the goal, but that it is indispensable as an intermediate between the state of darkness and damnation and that of light and of regeneration. It does not even belong to the New Church proper, but only to the threshold; and therefore Dan, who represents it, is not included in the enumeration of the tribes which represent that Church, as given in the Apocalypse (A. R. 362, A. E. 450). It is that state in which man renounces the leading of the natural rational and simply affirms that the truth is so; and because man then n' longer seems to himself to be wise from the light of the world, but has not yet come into the light of heaven, he is in blind obedience. But this blindness, because it contains the affection of truth, will surely be healed by the LORD. If the man from affection affirms that there are such things as good of life and the holy of faith, the LORD then can give him spiritual truths of life in full measure, according to the extent of his applying them to life.
Our correspondent's use of the word "understanding" is ambiguous, and seems to us liable to confirm a common misapprehension concerning the reception of truth-where he says that the understanding and truth are "made for each other;" as if the human understanding were always ready or able to receive and transmit truth, as a crystal does light. The statement is true only of the angelic or regenerate understanding. But as commonly used the understanding means only the natural rational, that which is formed prior to regeneration, being derived from the light of this world. This understanding, which is the only one man is conscious of is wholly blind in spiritual things, although it may be stored with the scientifics and doctrinals of the Church and with the ability to reason therefrom. Its development necessarily precedes that of the true rational, just as the natural body must be developed before the spiritual, for it is by it that man seems to himself to live, to think, and to will as of himself; and hence to be able freely to receive as of himself the scientifics and doctrinals of faith, But having served this use it must as it were die, in order that the new rational may be born. For the natural rational is derived from earthly loves, and does not admit heavenly light, because that does not agree with the affections from which that rational chiefly sprang.
"Before regeneration [man] is possessed, as to his natural man, by genii and infernal spirits, however it may appear to him that he is like another, also that he may be with others in what is holy, and may reason about the truths and goods of faith, yea, and may believe himself established in them" (A. C. 3928).
By the natural rational, man can acquire the doctrinals of faith, which are natural vessels into which spiritual things may descend. But that descent is not `possible without a new state as to affection; for it is the quality of man's affection that determines the character of his sight. If the affection be natural the sight will be natural, but if the affection be spiritual so will the sight be. The natural affection of understanding must give place to the spiritual affection of truth, before man can become spiritual. He must descend from the throne of his natural reason-from which he formerly passed judgment on truths-and become as a little child, in order that the LORD may truly illuminate him with spiritual truth which shall nourish and refresh the first green shoots of affection of truth springing up within him. He must reach the point where he recognizes his own blindness, and simply affirms what the LORD says, not because he understands it but because it is the LORD'S Word.
"There are two principles, one which leads to all fully and madness, another which leads to all intelligence cud wisdom. The former is to deny all things, or to say in one's heart that he cannot believe such things until he is convinced of their truth by what he can comprehend or be sensible of. This principle is what leads to nil folly or madness, and may be called the negative principle. The other is, to affirm the things which are of doctrine from the Word, or to think and believe with himself that they are true because the LORD has said so; this may be called the affirmative principle (A. C. 2568).
"The rational is for the most part merely human, as may appear also from its nativity; hence, then, it is that from it no doctrinal of faith can be divined, still less established" (A. C. 2516).
Time affirmative is very fully treated of in Arcana Coelestia n. 2568 and 2588, and abundantly elsewhere throughout the Writings. As to who is in the true affirmative the LORD alone knows, for, as is indicated in the citation above (A. C. 3928), a man may be in the counterfeit, arising from natural loves, and not even know it himself; yet he mat, know if he will but attend to his delights, observing whether or not he is affected with what is "just and equitable in his function," and with the "good and true in society and in life."
Humility is the ground in which innocence may be implanted, the universal recipient of spiritual life; and this state of affirmations which is the first thing with the man who is to be regenerated, is primarily humiliation of the natural rational.
But "they who are only in the affirmative respecting truth and also good, and go no further, are not in the LORD'S kingdom-that is, among the sealed" (A. C. 3923). Of such some are simple or gentiles, those who are in ignorance of truths; also children, whose affirmativeness cannot be said to be of the natural rational (which opposes spiritual truths); and also those who are represented by Dan in an evil sense, who affirm from evil motives (A. C. 3923).
But he who is to be of the New Church, when he reaches the adult affirmative state, is given by the LORD to see his evils, and to see in spiritual light the truths which are their cure. Thus he is let into temptations-signified by Naphtali-and into the good of faith and its good works, which are Gad.
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By love the internal rational is opened, and the spiritual truths thus incorporated into man's spiritual nature become the means of re-forming or re-arranging the natural mind, even so that from being opaque it grows translucent; and then the rational, scientific, and philosophical things which caused so dense a shade when the merely natural loves prevailed become means for establishing and strengthening spiritual things in the natural, greatly enhancing its light and power.
"The case with doctrine is this: so far as it is of the human-that is, so far as it is of the sensual, scientific, and rational, from which it is believed that it is so-so far the doctrine is none; but so far as the sensual, scientific, and rational is removed-that is, so far as it is believed apart from them-so far the doctrine lives, for so far the Divine flows in; the things proper to the human are what hinder influx and reception. But it is one thing to believe from the rational, scientific, and sensual, or to consult these in order to believe; and it is another thing to confirm and corroborate what is believed by rationals, scientifics, and sensuals" (A. C. 2538).
With those who are not, like the gentiles, in ignorance of the doctrinals of true faith, a genuine affirmative concerning faith and charity will seek to carry out the LORD'S injunctions concerning good works, and this exercise requires the employment of the reformed rational and its confirming doctrinals; for even the natural understanding was "made for truth," which teaches what good of life is and so leads to it. It was natural that the Old Church, which denied the efficacy of the works of charity, should pervert this doctrine of blind obedience in spiritual things, by halting at the very threshold of the good of life, and forbidding man to enter there. Thence has descended a tendency, even with the well-disposed, who are in obscurity, to fall into the same error.
"This likewise is the reason why such persons are desirous that the things of faith should be believed simply, without any intuition from the rational, not being aware that not anything of faith, not even its deepest arcanum, is comprehended by any man without some rational idea, and also a natural one, but of what quality line does not know (see n. 3310); hereby indeed they may secure themselves against those who reason from the negative concerning all and single things of faith, whether it be so or not; but to those who are in the affirmative concerning the Word, namely, that it is to be believed-such a position is hurtful [damnosus], inasmuch as they may take away one's freedom of thinking, and bind the conscience to what is most heretical by thus establishing dominion over man's internals and externals" (A. C. 3394).
The state of blind affirmation-a blindness in which is, however, the obscure of dawn-is the first state not only of regeneration but of every new state thereof; which is why we have not changed our preliminary statement that blind obedience has its place in the New Church, although not of the New Church, strictly speaking. The most interior states to which man or angel attains are relatively external as compared with those to follow. Every state is imperfect, from the presence of finite, human elements, making man blind in the LORD'S sight, and this must ever continue to be so. These elements in themselves are not of the Church or the LORD'S kingdom. But each new state is a new Coming of the LORD, before Whom man must first prostrate himself, renouncing as it were that which is no longer adequate, and looking wholly to the LORD for the light that is to raise him into the glory of a new day.
It will be seen that the foregoing does not agree with our correspondent's statement, that "the characteristic feature of the New Church is the acceptance of a truth only when seen as a truth by the individual." If he had said "appropriation of a truth" we would have accepted, qualifiedly; for though man may accept blindly what the LORD says, he cannot make it his own except by its entrance into the marriage of his will and understanding.
As to the editorial of the Messenger referred to, surely our correspondent shuts his eyes to its statement, "In this non-ecclesiasticism of ours, the New Church, ecclesiastical authority is vested in the individual, the people." Does he not see in this more than merely an effort to protect against domination over the understanding? that it makes the individual the only true form of the Church, in which the priestly is presumably the centre, while in the organic Church it reverses the order, and makes the circumference the origin of the centre? It is difficult to see how those who profess to hold that the priestly office is the LORD'S can bring themselves to attribute its source of authority to man. Is it the LORD'S truth or the priest's which leads the Church? Is it practically the LORD'S function, or only theoretically?
If the office is recognized as the LORD'S then a man does not stultify his rationality by yielding even implicit obedience to what he believes to be the LORD'S leading, effected through that office. There is no more loss of freedom here than in the case of Divine Revelation. Man is free to acknowledge or not. If the priestly leading be from proprium or against the man's conscience, he ought not to acknowledge it, and so long as he does not disturb others he is to be left undisturbed.
We have been led into a didactic as well as lengthy reply by the consideration that some readers might not find the matter so familiar as much of it must be to our ministerial correspondent.-THE EDITOR.
LIGHT SEPARATE FROM HEAT. 1897
MR. W. F. ROEHNER asks for an explanation of that part of Apocalypse Explained, n. 406, which speaks of the light of heaven, separated from the heat of heaven, flowing into the natural only through "chinks;" whereas elsewhere it is taught that the light and heat of heaven, or Divine good and truth, proceed from the LORD as one.
The separation is in the recipient. If man had not the power to receive light separately he would be not an image and likeness of God, capable of knowing good and evil, and of choosing between them as a free being-but would be a lifeless image, moved by God without any reaction or life of his own. The sunlight is a perfect blending of heat and light, but the earth receives sometimes more, sometimes less of the heat, according as she turns herself; and even so with man. The light which shines in the mind in its winter-time is really not the same spiritual truth which, conjoined to heat, gives life to all recipient forms in man, but is a something, partly natural, partly spiritual, which is capable of acting as an intermediate between the darkness of man's falsities and the sunlight of heaven, which he is destined to receive if he does not reject it.-EDITOR.
Title Unspecified 1897
EXTERNALLY revelation is fixed and complete in form-internally it is progressive with man, individually and collectively, according to state. Without external revelation, the internal has no permanent basis-without internal revelation external revelation is dead. The form of the Word is fixed for all time; the understanding of the Word will progress to eternity, according to reception in the hearts and lives of men.
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CHURCH NEWS. 1897
NEW CHURCH LIFE.
PUBLISHED MONTHLY BY THE ACADEMY OF THE NEW CHURCH.
TERMS:-One Dollar per annum, payable in advance.
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ADDRESS all communications for publication to the Editor, the Rev. George G. Starkey, Huntingdon Valley, Montgomery Co., Pa.
Address all business communications to Academy Book Room, Cart Hj. Asplundh, Manager, No. 1521 Wallace Street, Philadelphia. Pa.
Subscriptions also received through the following agents:
UNITED STATES.
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CANADA.
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GREAT BRITAIN.
Mr. Wiebe Posthuma, Agent for Great Britain, of Academy Book Room, Burton Road, Brixton, London. S. W.
PHILADELPHIA, AUGUST. 1897=128.
CONTENTS PAGE
EDITORIAL: Note 113
SERMON: Dispersion of the Falses of Evil 114
Biography 117
Rev. John Presland 117
ANNALS OF THE NEW CHURCH 117
Diseases of the Fibres 121
Valedictory 122
The Stoic Philosophy 124
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS: Blind Obedience 125
Light Separate from heat 127
CHURCH NEWS 128
From the Periodicals 128
BIRTHS, MARRIAGE 128
ORGANIZATION OF A LOCAL CHURCH IN HUNTINGDON VALLEY.
A MEETING of the adult members of the congregation worshiping in Huntingdon Valley was held on the evening of July 18th, and Bishop Pendleton, according to the unanimous action and request of the meeting, received the members collectively as one of the constituent societies of the General Church of the New Jerusalem. For the first time this congregation now exists as an organized body.
Choice of a Pastor.
Bishop Pendleton then reviewed the occasion of his having assumed, by request, the episcopal charge of the congregation last February, and stated that as the necessity for his pastoral supervision no longer existed in the same way, and as other duties would now engage his full time and strength, he would ask them to choose a pastor. Since the various eligible ministers are well known to all he would not make any nominations himself but desired the members to express their preference. Mr. Robert M. Glenn nominated the Rev. Homer Synnestvedt, seconded by a number of speakers with appreciative remarks concerning the candidate's character and abilities. No other nominations were offered, and on ballot Mr. Synnestvedt received thirty-four votes, one vote being cast for another pastor. Mr. Synnestvedt made a few remarks, evincing a sense of the responsibility involved in taking up such work as Bishop Pendleton had been doing, but intimated his hope that by his own earnest efforts to meet the needs of the people collectively and individually, and by their willing and affirmative co-operation his own deficiencies might not stand in the way of progress together.
Mr. Pendleton then took Mr. Synnestvedt by the hand and recognized him as pastor of the newly-formed Society and invited the members to come forward and do the same, which was very cordially acted upon.
In conclusion, Mr. Pendleton spoke feelingly of his inability to express how much the congregation and his relations with them had been to him; and he frankly admitted that if he were to consult his own inclinations no other use would have sufficient attractions to draw him away from those relations and the pastoral work which was most to his taste; but indications seemed to point to other duties. He expressed gratitude for their confidence and co-operation in the past. Mr. John Pitcairn made a brief response on behalf of the congregation, but the occasion was one in which many words seemed hardly what was needed. Certain it is that the new pastor enters upon his work assured in advance of receiving no small degree of that affection which has been so freely extended to Mr. Pendleton.
Pittsburgh.-THE Rev. Edward C. Bostock has accepted the call of the society in this place. Mr. Bostock, who arrived in this country before the General Assembly, last June, returns to England on August 4th, to bring his family to the United States
Glen View.-ON July 22d the Immanuel Church celebrated the twentieth anniversary of its founding. A super was served in the club building in Glen View, and toasts were drunk to the memories of past states through which we have struggled, and to the success of the new state of the Church into which we are now entering. Six of the gentlemen present who had attended the Assembly in Huntingdon Valley, recounted many of the interesting things and inspiring scenes that took place there, and by their enthusiasm brought to us much of the sphere of that meeting. Every one here is in thorough accord with the results of the Assembly and eagerly looking forward to next year, when the honor of entertaining the General Church in assembly will be ours.
The Rev. E. C. Bostock has been visiting here for the past two weeks, preaching for us on the Sundays before and after the celebration. A. E. N.
General.-SINCE attending the General Assembly at Huntingdon Valley, the Rev. J. E. Bowers has visited several places in Western Pennsylvania and Ontario, Can. On July 18th, near London, Ontario, Can., he held a meting and baptized a young lady. He hopes to be at home again in Toronto, by August 10th.
CANADA.
Berlin-ON June 17th the school connected with this congregation closed for the summer. A special programme for the closing exercises had been prepared, which consisted of songs, plays, and charades, all executed by the children in a very creditable manner, the whole closing with a very beautiful May-pole dance by the little ones, while they sang "Life Let Us Cherish." The school is expected to reopen in September.
THE 19th of June celebration was this year held in the hall of worship, on Sunday, the 20th, and consisted of a choral service, based on the service in use for the last three years. The orchestra rendered a beautiful programme of music, and in the evening a very enjoyable social was held.
ON June 22d the congregation held the annual picnic along the Gorand River. The day was fine and the outing much enjoyed.
ON the evening of July 5th, the congregation listened to an account of the doings of the Assembly from the pastor and members of the congregation who had returned from that important meeting. A general expression of satisfaction was the result of the information given at this meeting.
ON Sunday, July 25th, the pastor visited Milverton. Services were held in the house of Mr. Henry Doering, the attendance being unusually large and much interest in Church matters being expressed on this occasion all were very pleased with the visit and the uses derived from it. The services in Berlin on this occasion were necessarily interrupted.
ON July 27th, at a special meeting, the congregation, after some discussion, unanimously passed a resolution asking the Bishop of the General Church of the New Jerusalem to form the congregation into a Particular Church of the General Church of the New Jerusalem, and also to install their pastor, the Rev. Joseph E. Rosenqvist, as pastor of the Particular Church thus to be formed. J. E. R.
FROM THE PERIODICALS. 1897
Pennsylvania.-THE Rev. J. E. Smith reports a growing interest in his missionary work in this State, especially in Perry County. Naturally enough, those members of the established churches who took no interest in his teaching have at last taken active steps against the new propaganda. In Newport a futile effort was made by the Lutheran Synod to close the church against Mr. Smith; but the building trustees favored the new movement. Then a minister of Newport, without authority, changed the door lock and posted a warning notice. Further developments are not stated, except that Mr. Smiths preached from the church steps.
"A somewhat similar experience was met with in Benvenue near Duncannon, the opposition being from those who did not attend the meeting."
Ohio.-AT the annual commencement of the Urbana University, the Rev. John Goddard delivered the address, in which he treated of secular education as inseparably connected with instruction in the things of heaven, the practical application of which principle had led to the founding of the University. Very pertinent is the paragraph: "An ounce of loving and wise guidance in the true principles of living during childhood and youth is worth a thousand pounds of corrective theory after the principles have been formed and the habits established."
Title Unspecified 1897
NEW CHURCH LIFE.
Vol. XVII, NO. 9. PHILADELPHIA, SEPTEMBER, 1897=128
Whole No. 203
Editorial.
NOTES. 1897
THE benefits of so notable an event as the English Jubilee celebration extend beyond the borders of the "Tight Little Island," for patriotism is a virtue which in its manifestations rouses kindred feelings wherever there exist right-minded men, and at the same time excites an affection of charity toward those in whom it appears. A fellow-feeling makes the whole world kin. If ever nations can afford to put aside petty jealousies, it should be when a neighbor is demonstrating her appreciation of the goods of government and of progress. Although at this day we cannot go hopefully much below the surface of these natural goods, on their planes they should be recognized, for they constitute a nest or cradle within which it is possible for spiritual things to grow.
Title Unspecified 1897
A THRILLING account of the narrow escape from drowning of the Rev. J. K. Smyth and daughters, at Ocean Park, Me., on July 30th, appears in the Messenger for August 11th. Mr. Smyth's heroic efforts to save his daughters, their self-possessed co-operation with them, and the perilous rescue in the last extremity by three brave young men in an open, ill-equipped boat through a rough sea, read like a page from a romance, with the living interest added, for New Church people, due to the known character and position of the chief actor in the scene. The Life extends sincere congratulations to Mr. Smyth and to his parishioners.
Title Unspecified 1897
THE simple but effective woodcuts with which the New Church Messenger, for some time past, has been illustrating many subjects of interest to the New Church public, have become a valuable feature of the paper. It is now giving a series by which it proposes to present the likenesses of the English New Church clergy, accompanied by biographical sketches. For the gratification of those who are unable to attend the general gatherings of the Church, or in other ways to become acquainted with the men whose names are identified with the life of the organic Church, it is to be hoped that the Messenger will supplement the present series with one of the American ministers. So far, the introductions to the American public include the Rev. Messrs. John Presland (deceased), Joseph Deans (Secretary of Conference), J. J. Thornton (present President of Conference), R. R. Rodgers, Joseph Ashby (retiring President of Conference), William Westall, J. R. Rendell, and Richard Storry.
Title Unspecified 1897
IN response to a general demand for a restoration of the longer editorials of former days, the New Church Messenger, in its issue for June 23d, announces for the new volume, beginning June 30th, the inauguration of a larger scope of editorial treatment, in which the editor will be assisted by other writers. We hail this step with much satisfaction, but wish that the management might have seen its way to publishing initials of the various contributors. Contrary to our former opinion, we now think not only that the people have an interest, almost a right, to know who is talking to them, but that, on the other hand, the usefulness of any individual teacher in the Church is likely to increase in growth, in proportion as the character and quality of his teaching become generally known. It seems as if the forming of congenial pastoral relations would be facilitated by whatever tends to make the people acquainted with the ministers.
Title Unspecified 1897
BLUE laws can never prevail in the New Church, but that the spirit exists among us has been made very evident in a recent onslaught on "Smoking Parsons," recently made in the Messenger, and followed up by a controversy which for a while seemed all on one side. The subject of fishing as a sport, was drawn into the discussion, and a number of gentlemen expressed themselves on the cruelty of such sport in a way that in one or two cases suggested obtuseness as to the feelings of their brethren who might conscientiously hold different views. Freedom of speech is a good thing, but those who use it with reckless disregard for the views and feelings of their differing brethren must accept the consequences, which may be summed up in the expression, "stunted growth." Consideration, for the feelings of non smokers, or of helpless forms of animal life, is not most felicitously advocated by intemperateness of language and exaggeration of the seriousness of the opposing faults.
Title Unspecified 1897
ALTHOUGH it is not well to reflect upon one's own good, it is of concern to every one to observe whether or not he is conforming his life to the heavenly flow. One excellent way to test the influences at work with us is to observe how we are affected by the evils of others, not merely when viewed coolly from a distance, but when our rights or feelings have been invaded and the whole nature is stirred by the assault upon our delight of life. If evil arouses answering evil, certainly it is not well with us-we are not in the heavenly gyre. "Spiritual indignation itself does not take anything from the natural man, and still less does celestial indignation-but from the interior essence of zeal, which zeal in the external form appears like anger, but in the internal form is not anger, not even the indignation of anger; but is something of sadness, with a wish that it were not so; and in a still interior form it is only a somewhat obscure which intercepts heavenly delight, from what is not good and true in another" (A. C. 3909). If the pain caused us by the evils of others have within it somewhat of compassionate thought of those who are the prey of such evils, we may have strong hope that the angels have us in guard; but if the grief regards only self, and still more if we feel strong resentment, contempt, vindictiveness, or a certain self-exaltation and satisfaction in dwelling upon the other's departure from honesty and justice-we may know that we are in the one case being infected with hell torment, and in the other with infernal delight, which contains the seeds of torment.
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In proportion as we inwardly desire and seek angelic society, we will rather avert the mind from the wrong done us than, as is so often the case, brood and as it were, gloat over it. From all contemplation of evil which is not required by use, the angels turn away; their example has been revealed for man's benefit.
DIVINE AMONG HUMAN AFFAIRS. 1897
THE August number of this journal contained the letter of a correspondent who requested doctrinal grounds for the idea, advanced in the June editorial notes, that in the presence of the Truth even "blind obedience" is in order. In the last paragraph of our reply, published with the letter, we used an expression which has led to some further questioning-in private-seeming to indicate that we had not been sufficiently explicit. We refer to the last paragraph of the reply, where it is stated that when the priestly office is recognized to be the LORD'S "a man does not stultify his rationality by yielding even implicit obedience to what he believes to be the LORD'S leading effected through that office."
To clear ourselves, once for all, of any thought of extending the divine authority of the priestly office to the human incumbent. It should be observed that the whole theme of the "reply" in question concerned deliverance from the domination of the merely human. rational-and impliedly of the human will also; hence it would have been extremely inconsistent in us while inculcating the surrender of one's own merely human guidance, to advocate the substitution of the rationality and will of some other man-even though a priest-for the one thus surrendered. This surrender was shown to be permissible only to the will of the LORD as revealed in His truth. If any of the language of the paragraph involves the appearance of such inconsistency as referred to we desire to remove the appearance.
We are aware that the profundity of the subject of the mediate operation of the Holy Spirit, and the added difficulty of our own defective power of expression, lay considerable tax on the reader's attentiveness and intuitive grasp, in order rightly to conceive the point we would make. If he have enough interest and patience to hear us to the end we would suggest that he bear in mind the statements which immediately follow. Our theme is simply the acknowledgment of the mediate, invisible operation of the Holy Spirit among things visible and finite, and in and by them. The truth we have been seeking to set forth concerns rather a mental attitude and state of life, than a course of conduct toward the priesthood, and the importance of that attitude is chiefly to the individual himself as a factor in his reception of the Divine ministry through that office. The "blind obedience" toward the Divine truth to be observed by the natural rational so far as its own self-leading is concerned-as applied to the priesthood, relates only to the LORD'S Own ministry by that office, not to the finite clothing of human words and deeds by which that ministry appears among men. To recognize that ministry requires perception, which then first is born when the natural rational is seen to be blind. This birth was alluded to in the August number, as the "obscure of dawn" (page 127).
The LORD is infinitely present in each circumstance of our lives, not only immediately but also mediately, constituting that circumstance a part of His Divinely provided means for the upbuilding of spiritual life. By our co-operation in thoughts, words, and acts, He effects marvelous things within us; but though the work of uprearing the fabric of the human-angelic soul, is divine, the words and deeds in themselves are not, nor any element of that finite co-operation. Even so, the priest's participating in a divine function no more gives divine authority to his words and deeds than does the participating of man in the regenerative life. Nevertheless, divine things are effected thereby, and the office in itself is divine and of divine authority. If it is of importance for us to acknowledge the actuality and authority of Providence teaching us and ordering our daily lives, according to our co-operation in finite things, is it of less importance for us to acknowledge the actuality and authority of that more particular manifestation of the Holy Spirit, which is the LORD'S presence in His Church in His own representative and ministry? But let us analyze somewhat priestly government.
The Essence of Government.
By divine authority in the priesthood we mean simply authority to teach and govern those who wish to be governed.
What kind of government should those who seek the LORD and His kingdom, desire? In other words, what kind of government tends to foster and increase true rationality and liberty, rather than impair them?
"Government in the Church is to see uses, by influx from the LORD into doctrine, and to provide for them."
Unless the men of the Church as well as the governor, see those uses, there is no rational co-operation, thus no free government. But the sight of the individual is limited; that of the governor is extended. The illustration of the former concerns the things of his own life-that of the governor, the things of the organized Church.
The LORD gives to every man who looks to Him, ability to see uses of charity, which are the means of opening to him the kingdom of heaven. But uses for their growth and perfection need to be associated in an organic relation-that is, in the Church, which is a complex of uses. With the individual, illustration in use is effected by the operation of the LORD.-(called the Holy Spirit) upon man's reason, formed from the affection of truth. With the Church that illustration is secured by the divine institution of the priesthood, in which, again, the Holy Spirit operates upon the affection of truth, producing illustration. By this mediation-that is, by means of finite, human leaders and instructors, without the manifest and faith-compelling presence of the LORD before the senses-things divine can be present among men without taking away freedom, for by this mediation divine light can be accommodated to man's rational reception and to his conscience formed thereby, without compulsion of either reason or conscience; and thus entire freedom in co-operation is secured. But if human uses were to be ordered by manifest and continuous revelation, or by any other infallible authority, there would be left to man no judgment or free choice, thus only blind obedience of an evil sort-that is, not based on the reception of truth from affection. The only source of light in the mind, is the affection of truth.
Thus the priesthood, instead of being an engine of enslavement, is really a divinely perfect means of preserving the freedom and rationality of the Church-the human "as of itself"-even while being led by the Divine. What the priest utters or directs becomes the LORD'S teaching and leading to him who sees that they agree with the Word. He may be mistaken as to the agreement; but when man-layman or priest-is led by his conscience, though it be based in part on fallacy the LORD is leading him.
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And so He leads the Church when it conscientiously seeks to follow order. Priest and layman both co-operate with the LORD'S administration of His office, each according to the part assigned him, each indispensable to the other, both indispensable to a true human co-operation with the LORD.
The spiritual nature of the uses of charity which make the Church, is in itself a guarantee of the liberty of those who engage in them; for to see such uses and provide for them-that i5, to govern-would be impossible without the free and rational co-operation of those who carry out the uses, nor, without it, could such uses possibly be effected. Imagine such a thing as providing for instruction, and for the various exercises and amenities of charity, among a people who did not desire instruction nor cultivate charity!
Leading by illustration in Use.
As with each individual man, or "least church," there must be not only exercise of judgment but also illustration from the LORD to direct him in the spiritual and natural uses of charity, so over the complex of such uses, which makes up the composite life of the Church there must be not only general supervision but also an illustration adapted thereto. If we recognize that the leading of man by his finite, erring reason is nevertheless Divine, we may conceive how the leading of the Church by the priesthood is likewise Divine. Without both illustration to guide and the judgment to execute, man would be spiritually impotent. In his individual life man has no choice but to assume the responsibility and trust the illustration which the LORD vouchsafes him through his reason, else he would be without any rational guide whatever. When in humility he comes to lay down his natural rational at the LORD'S feet it is only to take it up again in His Name. Under his new Master he must follow the guidance of rationality, for then when he is sincerely endeavoring to be faithful to the truth, the LORD is using that poor, frail reason of his to lead him; and its very errors and slips will be made the means of purifying it from falses which could not otherwise be seen and shaken off. Knowing that his understanding is most feeble and imperfect, to rely upon so fallible a thing might he said to be even "blind following;" yet if his motive be right and he look to the LORD in the Truth, he is a rational human being. To receive Divine teaching and live it is to be rational and human.
Even so in the Church there may be trust in the illustration and leading of the priesthood, for that is the means by which the LORD teaches that "larger man" and initiates it into uses. If man in his private life can trust the Holy Spirit to open, correct, and illuminate his understanding in just the degree necessary for his receiving his spiritual" daily bread," can he not trust Him to illustrate the Church itself-through its finite but authorized leaders-in just that degree necessary for its real growth in discernment of uses and in performance of them? When the Church does so trust, the amendment of priestly deficiencies will be worked out by natural processes accompanying the performance of use,-just as takes place in the individual life.
If, then, a man recognize his own function, and confine the exercise of his rationality to the appropriation of the truths applicable to his own function, and to his needs both as a man and as a member of the Church-will he not give a full and hearty support to the priestly guidance of the Church, without limiting that support to only those measures and teachings which he can take cognizance of, or wholly understand and approve? Need he fear the stigma of irrationality or of "blind obedience" (in an offensive sense) in such support?
In all that we have said we have assumed conditions proper to a genuine Church, where both priest and layman only seek use, and trust each other, and where a deliberate infringement of freedom would be abhorrent to both alike, as destructive of the spirituality of the uses, and so of the Church itself. We have not at all addressed our thoughts to the problems presented by a disunited Church, nor to suggesting a remedy for the layman who finds himself with confidence shaken or lost as to his pastor or, still worse, as to the whole priesthood under whose general ministrations he may be. In these days, when charity and faith are as yet feeble with the man of the Church, such occasions may indeed arise, for on both sides deficiencies are all too common. Such questions open up very interesting and practical problems, but they were not directly involved in our present consideration, which deals rather with the ideal. And let us set our faces against a cynicism which would suggest that such an ideal is unattainable even now; nor doubt that human virtue is able to rise superior to manifestations of human frailty; let us pray never to become blinded to sincerity where it exists.
In this connection, however, it may be said in passing that on the layman rests a weighty responsibility-to defend at all hazards his freedom of thought and of action, not only on his account but for the sake of the Church; for she will surely fall unless provided with men-those who cherish as the apple of the eye those faculties which make them human. Let him realize that without the sufferance or support of apathetic, pliant, or designing laymen priestly domination is impossible, a veritable "bugaboo." Not but what well- meaning and intelligent laymen, even the most alert, may be deceived by cunning; for with growth in interior knowledges of doctrine evil men will acquire unprecedented abilities for deception; but if the men of the Church do their duty, go steadfastly on to perform the uses that present themselves, no more harm will come to the Church than is useful for fermentation and purification. When trials come in the performance of duty-that is, in the stream of Providence-only good can result, though the appearance may be otherwise. We are taught to shun, not pain and temptation, but the things which bring these-namely, evils. Shun them as we may, the removal of such as may have already found lodgment, or of those which may be excited from our hereditary, cannot other than cause pain. Even so in the Church exist many elements and states, the removal of which cannot be effected except by trials and disturbances, and, indeed, it is not a favorable sign where the Church is totally free from these; there there is not apt to be growth. "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." We cannot be delivered from evil but by a life of uses, for it is in the discharge of uses that evils, which oppose use, arise, and until they arise they cannot be put away. The Church's safety lies in the path of use, and therefore it stands her in hand to make all her uses free, and thus prepare herself most effectively to correct evils and excrete them.
We have tried now to make our position clear that the only blind obedience incumbent on the rational Newchurchman is obedience to the Truth; that the "blindness" refers to the unreformed natural rational; and that the obedience, so far as it specifically relates to the ministrations of the priesthood, refers solely to what is of the LORD there, not what is of man.
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The practical application of this latter point lies with the judgment and conscience of the individual. To see the LORD is of freedom and rationality; and just as He does not appear the same to any two minds, so the ministrations of the Holy Spirit through the priesthood will appeal differently to different men. This is not a matter of concern, for variety exalts perfection. What is of concern is that, having the doctrine, we do not remain in the darkness of the natural rational, but seek and acknowledge the LORD wherever He may reveal Himself-that we do not remain perversely blind to the presence of the Divine among men, uniting temporal with eternal ends. Man inclines to think that the sight of natural reason is sufficient to interpret the LORD'S teaching and to thus lead to good; but that is possible only to the new sight of the new rational formed by' spiritual faith. "If ye were blind ye would have no sin; but now ye say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth."
ACKNOWLEDGMENT, WORSHIP, AND TRUST OF THE DIVINE HUMAN. Rev. Enoch S. Price 1897
(The concluding sermon of a series preached by the Rev. Enoch S. Price, expounding the second Psalm.)
"And now, O kings, be ye intelligent, be instructed, ye judges of the earth. Serve the LORD in fear, and exult in trembling. Kiss the Son lest He be angry, and ye perish in the way; for His anger will burn shortly. Happy are all that confide in Him."-Psalm ii, 10-12.
THESE closing words of the second Psalm signify in general, in their internal sense, that the man of the New Church must acknowledge and worship the Divine Human of the LORD, or he will be in danger of perdition, and also that if he does acknowledge, worship, and trust the LORD all happiness to all eternity shall be his.
But since this discourse is intended as one of the series on the second Psalm, it may be allowed to recapitulate, in order to bring the whole series into connection. In summary, then, the former discourses have been to this effect:
They who should be in the goods and truths of the Church; they who are accounted the intelligent and the `wise; they who, owing to superior advantages, might really be such, are against the LORD and what is Divine; for they either deny or pervert Divine revelation or apply it to their own selfish ends. Such, if they be religious, study the Word in order to appear wise, to gain power, to control the actions of others. The learned, who are not religious, deny God wholly, although they claim to believe in an all-pervading power or intelligence. All such, they that pervert and misapply and they who claim to believe in an impersonal God, deny God in the heart, and in the other life will deny Him openly. All these are against the LORD: Why are the nations tumultuous and the peoples meditating vanity! The kings of the earth stand together, and the rulers consult together, against the LORD and against His Anointed.
The spiritual man ought to separate himself from persons and principles such as above described; from such persona with caution and care lest he injure from misunderstanding-from such principles with energy and perseverance lest evils enter from negligence; plenty of these principles he will find within himself if he look for them: Let us tear off their bonds, and let us cast away from us their cords.
The reason of the necessity for this separation is that these persons and these principles are nothing before the LORD, and have no place in His' kingdom; nor will the man of the Church have any place or lot therein, if he allows himself to be conjoined with such persons and principles-that is, does not separate himself: He that dwelleth in the heavens shall laugh, the LORD shall mock them.
In the end those principles of the false and evil represented by nations, peoples, kings, and rulers, will find their own places in Hell, whither they then appear to be condemned by the LORD; and at the same time all appearances of good and truth will be stripped from them; this is what is to be destroyed: Then shall He speak unto them in His anger and in His wrath shall He terrify them.
After separations and re-arrangements, after the judgments that occur at the end of each Church, the LORD app ears again and establishes a New Church in the place of the one that has been judged and separated. This has occurred repeatedly, until now, in the end of days-the consummation of the Christian Church-the LORD has come to establish the New Church which shall stand forever. With those who will. be of this New Church in humility, the LORD inflows with celestial love: And I have anointed My king upon Zion, the mountain of My holiness.
These will have the perception that thought concerning God, which is true and just is the essential of all thought, and this thought will be that the LORD JESUS CHRIST is the God of heaven and earth: I shall announce concerning the statute, the LORD said unto Me, My Son art Thou, I to-day have begotten Thee.
The humble in the Church will perceive that the Word, and the Scientifics of the Writings of the Church, are the Divine Human of the LORD; the LORD Himself revealing Himself to the very senses of men: Seek of Me and I will give nations for this inheritance, and for thy possessions the ends of the earth.
When man humbles himself and shuns evils as sins against God by studying in the revealed Word of the LORD the qualities of all evils and falses, and thereafter discovers by self-examination the qualities of the evils and falses in himself, acknowledges them and shuns them as of himself, then it is that the LORD delivers him, sets him free from the hellish crew, and destroys and disperses them: Thou shalt crush them with a sceptre of iron; as the vessels of a potter Thou shalt disperse them.
The LORD'S revelation of Himself to man takes, in many cases, the form, first of the exposition and dispersion of falses and the denunciation and destruction of evils, and after that, the revelation and illustration of truths, and the implantation and cultivation of goods. Psalm ii is a striking example of this, for it begins with the nations, peoples, kings, and rulers, who are in falses and evils, or in the abstract the falses and evils themselves of those who are within the pale of Christianity, and who ought to be, or who might be, in truths and goods; and it closes with the kings and the judges of the earth, who are those who are intelligent and wise within the New Church; or, abstractly, the wisdom and the intelligence of the New Church. To these the LORD vouchsafes the admonition, And now, O kings, be ye intelligent, be instructed ye judges of the earth, which signifies that the rational thought of the man of the Church, as also the correspondent affections, ought to be formed and brought forth from the revelation of the LORD, in fear and trembling, or in a state of holy reverence for the LORD'S teachings, and in a holy joy in the reception of good from the LORD by His teachings: Serve the LORD in fear and exult in trembling.
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The LORD furthermore warns the men of the Church that, as they wish for heaven and are averse to hell, they must acknowledge and worship Him in His Divine Human, by loving Him in His manifestation of Himself to angels and men, which manifestation is the Divine Human: Kiss the Son. If they do not do this, evils will invade, and they will be condemned: lest He be angry and ye perish in the way; for to be angry when it is about the LORD signifies the aversion of men from Him, thus their anger and not the LORD'S; and the things which avert themselves and are angry, are evils. All who allow themselves to be invaded by evils, in the last judgment which comes to every one at death, will cast themselves down among kindred evils into the hells; for His anger will burn shortly; this again signifies that such men cast themselves down to their own, at which time it appears to them that the LORD'S anger burns against them; this is because their own anger burns with deadly hatred against the LORD. But to all the intelligent and wise in the Church, who are the intelligent kings, and instructed judges of the earth, who do the precepts of the LORD in holy reverence, and who rejoice in a holy manner containing nothing of self, over the results of the carrying of those precepts into daily life, who serve the LORD in fear and exult in trembling, comes this glorious promise: Happy are all that confide in Him.
To kiss the Son signifies to acknowledge and worship the Divine Human of the LORD. Those are conjoined with the LORD who acknowledge His Divine Human, and who live according to His precepts. These are the ones that are described in the Apocalypse as those who follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth. A kiss is a conjunction from love. To kiss the on, therefore, signifies to be conjoined to the LORD from love. As no one can be conjoined to an invisible, unapproachable, and incomprehensible God, therefore here is meant the LORD in His Divine Human, for this is meant by the Son. This Divine Human of the LORD, or the LORD revealed and made man-that is, accommodated to the grasp of the human understanding-is what is to be kissed, that is, it is that to which man is to conjoin himself by love. How is man conjoined to the LORD by love? Not as one man is conjoined to another by an affection of friendship, but more as a man is conjoined to his king or the ruler of his country, whom, it is more than likely, he has never seen, but whose laws and whose rulings he accepts and obeys, and perceives them to be the best that can be for his land. So man is conjoined with the LORD, Whom he has never seen personally-that is, with physical eyes, but only with his rational and spiritual eyes-by acknowledging that He has come into the world and glorified His Human-that is, united it to the Divine from which it came forth, so that now He is in the world as Man and as God; and that whoso seeth Him seeth God Himself as truly as any man sees the man himself when he meets the person of his friend, yea, much more, for the friend may not reveal himself at all, but show himself to his friend as an angel of light, while the real man is a fiend from the pit. The LORD never reveals Himself other than the LORD, though the appearance is otherwise to the evil.
But mouth acknowledgment of the Human of the LORD is not enough; this is nothing unless it be stamped with the seal of obedience to the precepts of the LORD'S Law, which the LORD promulgates by His Divine Human, yea, which is His Divine Human; for In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and God was the Word . . . and the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. Men in this world cannot see the LORD physically, and yet they can see Him physically. They cannot see him physically as a man walking about among them, but they can see Him physically in His Word, which is Himself in His Divine and Glorified Human. In the Word, in the books we call the Bible, and in the Writings of the Church, man does see the LORD physically, not in the paper, binding, ink, words, and expressions of the Word, but in the truth contained and sustained therein; and since these, binding, paper, ink, words, and expressions contain the truths of the Word and sustain them, they are as a body to them, and from them are holy, are the LORD on the physical plane. Let no one fear that this is meant to involve the idolatrous worship of the physical books, as was done by the Jews, but to teach the reverence due to them. The Book is the Human of the LORD because it is the LORD speaking in a Human manner to human beings. But the acknowledgment is of avail only when obedience accompanies acknowledgment; then a man is said to follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth, and he also kisses the Son.
No man can follow the LORD of himself, but only- from the LORD Himself; for the LORD draws the man of the Church after him when from freedom he is willing to follow. This willingness to follow constitutes the conjunction of the man with the LORD-herein again he kisses the Son. The LORD cannot draw any one who is not willing to follow Him; for the LORD so operates with man that it appears to the man that he follows of himself, thus the LORD flows into the free-will of man. This is for the sake of the implantion of truth and good with him, and thence reformation and regeneration. Unless it appeared to man as if he followed the LORD of himself-that is, as if he acknowledged His Divine, and did His precepts as of himself-there would be no appropriation and conjunction, and thence no reformation and regeneration.
As said above concerning the books composed of bindings, paper, words, and expressions, it is not intended here to teach that the precepts which one is to obey from free-will are to be worshiped as in themselves, but again as the utterances of the LORD Himself, therefore again, on a little higher plane, embodying Him, serving as a body to the contained truths which are the Divine Human of the LORD, and as such, holy, and to be revered and worshiped.
The LORD is in the Heavens and in the world among angels and men in the form of books-the Word in its letter, and the Word in its internal sense; the one external and ultimate, the other internal and spiritual, yet neither the letter and its ultimate expressions, nor the internal sense and its rational expressions, is the LORD; but the spiritual and celestial truths contained in both and sustained by both. And these spiritual and celestial truths are revealed only to those who are in the genuine truths of Doctrine-that is, to those who are in some degree conjoined by love with the LORD, who are those who acknowledge the Divine Human of the LORD and obey His precepts from freedom; and these are they who kiss the Son.
They that read and study the Word and the Writings to confirm ideas preconceived, and derived from other sources than revelation, do not acknowledge the Divine Human of the LORD, do not obey his precepts, are not conjoined by love with him, do not kiss the Son.
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With such the Son is angry-that is, they are angry if they do not find the confirmations sought, or if others attempt to show them that their ideas are erroneous and false. Such are all who would measure the spiritual doctrines of the Church by merely human rationality. Such when they find the doctrines opposed to them, declare the doctrines to be mistaken, or at least obsolete, and they burn with anger against those who oppose their views; and this is to burn with anger against the doctrines themselves. Let all such beware lest in the final judgment, that comes to every one, the anger of the Son burn shortly and they come among those whose chief delight is in hatred of all that is good and true, men, angels, yea, even the LORD Himself
To be conjoined to the LORD from love and to follow Him, which is to kiss the Son, and to follow the LAMB whithersoever He goeth,-is to acknowledge the Divine Human of the LORD, and to obey His precepts. No others than they who do these things can be conjoined to the LORD. Every one is conjoined to the LORD' according to acknowledgment and confession of Him from the heart, and according to life; all the angels of heaven acknowledge no other Divine than the LORD'S Divine, and all live according to the laws of order which are His precepts-that is, they live in the Divine which proceeds from the LORD which is called Divine Truth. Inasmuch as they live thus, they live in a celestial aura, or a celestial ether, into which no one can be admitted who is not in life from the LORD.
But to follow the LORD is to be led by Him and not by self, and no other one can be led by the LORD than he who is not led by himself; and every one is led by himself who does not shun evils as sins, because they are against the Word and thus against God, consequently, because they are sins and from hell. Every one who does not thus shun evils, and become averse to them, is led of himself. He it is that is warned to kiss the Son-that is, to repent and order his life according to the LORD'S precepts, and in acknowledgment of His Divine Human, Lest He be angry and he perish in the way.
The reason why the man who does not shun evils is led of himself, is because the evils into which man is born constitute his life, for they are his proprium, and before they are removed he does all things from them, thus from himself; but it is otherwise when evils are removed, which is done while he shuns them because they are infernal, for then the LORD enters with truths and goods from heaven and leads him. In this state of suffering the LORD to lead him, man is conjoined by love with the LORD, for love is of the Divine good, and, as just above said, this flows in from the LORD while wan as of himself shuns the evils that are against the LORD'S commands and teachings, thus against the LORD'S Divine Human.
This passage-namely, Kiss the Son, lest He be angry-has always been one of the obscure things to the Jews and to the Old Church, and all sorts of fanciful and fallacious interpretations have been proposed in explanation of it. This now, to repeat once more, is the simple explanation of it: The man of the Church ought to be conjoined with the LORD by love, which is accomplished by acknowledging the LORD as He has come into the world and manifested Himself to angels and men, in His own proceeding Divine Truth, which is Himself, and is what is called His Divine Human; and by obedience, willing and affectionate, to the commands of the Divine Human-that is, by conforming the life willingly to the truths of doctrine which the LORD has revealed for the guidance and salvation of His New Church. And this is not difficult, for the LORD does all the work for man if he will but dispose himself and suffer the LORD to enter. Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any one hear My voice and open the door, I will enter in unto him, and sup with him, and he with me. That the life of charity and faith, which on the part of man is essentially the life of shunning evils as sins, is not difficult, is further signified by this: Come unto me all ye that labor and are burdened, and I will revive you. Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me, that I am meek and humble in heart, and ye shall find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden light. If a man interiorily acknowledges his LORD, and resists the evils that are with him, the way to heaven is not difficult; for then he is led by the LORD and not by himself, and the LORD resists and removes the evils.
Of those who interiorly acknowledge the LORD, and resist evils, it is said: Happy are all that confide in Him. [Hebrew phrase]. In the original the first word of this sentence (ashra), which is the same as the first word of the first Psalm, signifies happinesses. It is exclamatory in its use, and the sentence might well be rendered: Oh the happinesses of all that confide in Him!
What are the happinesses that wait on those that confide in Him? Tongue cannot tell nor pen describe! If you want to know, to that measure that it is possible to be told in the words of human language, read all that is told in the vast literature of the inspired Writings of the New Church concerning heaven and the life of the angels there. Read and reflect, on their life of mutual uses, not for gain nor merit, but for love of the LORD and the neighbor; on their most delightful social intercourse: on their exalted worship; on their never-ending delights in learning new truths and experiencing new affections; on the ineffable beauty and endless variety of their surroundings; on the myriads of myriads of blessedness of conjugial love with them.
But the happiness of the man who trusts the LORD comes to him even in this world; for he who really trusts the LORD, and is regenerate, will have prosperity in the things of this world; and if he does not, his trust gives him to know that his regeneration needs adversity in order to its completion, and he therefore has what is better than all worldly prosperity-a contented mind. Furthermore, his contentment is not what is known as "the consolation of philosophy"-that is, that whatever happens is merely inevitable, and that therefore it is useless to complain; but it is the loving confidence and trust in the LORD, that He wishes well to all His creatures, and that, therefore, there is no evil thing can hurt him, no adversity crush him, if he kiss the Son, acknowledge and worship the LORD in His Divine Human, and become conjoined with Him by love, by obeying His precepts, until the precepts become delightful.
"Happy is every one that feareth the LORD; that walketh in His ways.
"Thou shalt eat the labor of thy hands; happy shalt thou be, and it shall be well with thee.
"Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine at the sides of thine house; thy sons like olive plants round about thy table.
"Behold, that thus shall the man be blessed that feareth the LORD.
"The LORD will bless thee out of Zion; and thou shalt see the good of Jerusalem all the days of thy life.
"Yea thou shalt see the sons of thy sons. Peace be upon Israel" (Psalm cxxviii.)-Amen.
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ANNALS OF THE NEW CHURCH. 1897
1708.
January-May.-Swedenborg remains in Stockholm.
April.-Gottenburg. Dr. Johan Rosen, in his journal, the Prestetidningar (Clerical News), defends Swedenborg and the Apocalypse Revealed against Ernesti's attacks. This defense causes great excitement in the clerical circles of the diocese of Gottenburg (Sundelin, p. 63; Doc. II, 1001).
About the same time the Rev. Dr. Roempke, of Gottenburg, publishes a disputation "On Reprobation," in which he advocates the New Church teachings concerning Justification and Mediation. The paper receives the approval of Bishop Lamberg (Sundelin, p. 64).
According to the doubtful authority of Johan Halldin, a "Swedenborgian Society" is formed at this time in Gottenburg. Swedenborg himself, and Beyer, Rosen, Halldin, and others, are said to have been members (ibid.).
May (about).-Swedenborg leaves Sweden for Holland, on his eleventh foreign journey. On his way he stops at Elsinoer, in Denmark, where he is visited by General Christian Tuxen, who has preserved minute memoirs of the visit and of Swedenborg's personality (Doc. II, 432, 1151).
August 24th.-Zurich, Switzerland. First letter of John Caspar Lavater to Swedenborg, asking for information concerning the spiritual condition of a deceased friend. The letter was not answered (Doc. II, 264).
September.-Gottenburg. The Rev. P. Aurelius, at a meeting of the clergy, demands that the Consistory should employ the most stringent measures to stop the circulation of Swedenborg's Writings in the diocese, but the Consistory pays no attention to this proposition (Sundelin, p. 66; Doc. II, 284).
During this month, Swedenborg publishes at Amsterdam, "Delitiae Sapientiae de Amore Conjugiali; post quas sequuntur Voluptates Insaniae de Amore Scortatorio, ab Emanuele Swedenborg, Sueco" (The delights of wisdom respecting Conjugial Love, after which follow the Pleasures of Insanity respecting Scortatory Love, by Emanuel Swedenborg, a Swede), 328 pp. 4to. See Prof. Odhner's Bibliography of this work in L. 1892, pp. 25, 46.
This is the first of Swedenborg's theological works, published under his own name. On the last page he acknowledges himself to be the author of the other theological works previously published by him (Doc. II, 707, 1014).
October 1st.-Amsterdam. Swedenborg's sixth letter to Dr. Beyer; presents a copy of Conjugial Love (Doc. II, 267).
October 12th.-Gottenburg. The Rev. A. Kollinius submits a memorial to the Consistory, asking that the clergy be informed "whether there be any real evil in Swedenborg's Writings." The Consistory appoints Dr. Beyer to write a report on the subject, in reply to the memorial (Sundelin, p. 67; Doc. II, 284).
November 4th.-Amsterdam -Swedenborg becomes acquainted with John Christian Cuno, a prominent citizen of Amsterdam, who under the pseudonym of David Paulus ab Indagine, has written valuable memoirs of Swedenborg (Doc. II, 441-485).
November, 8th.-Amsterdam. Swedenborg's second letter to Oetinger, enclosing a paper on "The Natural and the Spiritual Sense of the Word" (Doc. II, 268, 1006).
During the year Swedenborg writes the following two short papers:
"De Justificatione et Bonis Operibus" (On Justification and Good Works). MS.
"Colloquia cum Calvino" (Conversations with Calvin).
"Sciagraphia Doctrinae Novae Ecelesiae" (Outlines of the Doctrine of the New Church). MS. (Doc. II, 1006).
1709.
January-April.-Swedenborg remains in Amsterdam.
February 15th.-Gottenburg. Dr. Beyer presents a favorable and conservative report to the Consistory, on the subject of Swedenborg's Writings (Doc. II, 286).
March 1st.-Amsterdam. Swedenborg, on this date, publishes "Summaria Expositio Doctrinae Novae Ecclesiae, Quae per Novam Hierosolymam in Apocalypsi intelligitur, ab Emanuele Swedenborg, Sueco" (A Brief Exposition of the Doctrine of the New Church, which is understood by the New Jerusalem in the Apocalypse). 156 pp. 4to. (Doc. II, 624, 1007).
"When the Summaria Expositio was published, the "Angelic Heaven, from the East to West, and from the South to the North, appeared crimson, with the most beautiful flowers." By command of the LORD, Swedenborg wrote, on two copies of this work, "Hic Liber est Adventus Domini." One of these copies has been found, and is now owned by Mr. James Speirs, of London. (Words from the New Church. No. I.)
March (beginning)-Amsterdam. Swedenborg's letter to a gentleman in Leyden, presenting a copy of the "Summaria" (Doc. II, 272).
March 8th.-Amsterdam. Cuno's letter to Swedenborg, offering certain objections to the "Summaria" (Doc. II, 465).
March 15th-Amsterdam. Swedenborg's eighth letter to Beyer: describes the distribution of the "Summaria" in Holland and Germany; desires to hear Dean Ekebom's opinion as to the work; foretells the coming of the New Church (Doc. II, 273).
March 22d.-Gottenburg. Dean Ekebom formally attacks the Writings of the New Church in the Consistory; acknowledges that he is not acquainted with them, yet condemns them as "corrupting, heretical, injurious, and in the highest degree damnable;" suggests that the clergy be officially warned, and that suspected Swedenhorgians be pointed out and punished by the Law; proposes that Bishop Lamberg report the case to the House of Clergy at the Diet (Doc. II, 290).
This unexpected denunciation divides the Consistory into two opposing parties. As a compromise, it is resolved to refer the subject to the Diet, and to warn the clergy to "be careful" in respect to Swedenborg's Writings (Sundelin, p. 69, 70).
March 30th.-Gottenhurg. Dr. Beyer replies to Ekebom's attack on the Writings. Quotes C. L. No. 82, and asks that the subject be referred to the king for decision (Doc. II, 291).
April 5th.-Gottenburg. Dr. Rosen presents a paper to the Consistory, expressing his opinions of Swedenborg's Writings; favorably, but cautiously (Doc. II, 294).
April 15th.-Amsterdam. Swedenborg's ninth letter to Beyer: encloses a reply to Ekebom's charges; speaks of instituting proceedings for libel; announces his intention of visiting Paris (Doc. II, 296).
April 22d.-Amsterdam. Swedenborg's tenth letter to Dr. Beyer, containing an additional reply to Ekebom (Doc. II, 301).
April 23d.-Amsterdam. Swedenborg's eleventh letter to Dr. Beyer: sends copies of Conjugial Love and Brief Exposition; speaks of the latter work as being translated into English in London; intends also to publish an edition in Paris (Doc. II, 276).
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April 26th.-Gottenburg. Swedenborg's reply to Ekebom is read in the Consistory (Doc. II, 297).
April 26th.-Swedenborg leaves Amsterdam for Paris (Doc. II. 276).
May.-Swedenborg in Paris. Seeks permission to have a work published there, but the censor makes conditions which are not acceptable to Swedenborg. (This work was the Brief Exposition, and not the The Christian Religion, as has been reported incorrectly.) Meets the Swedish traveler Bjornstal in Paris; travels thence' to London (Doc. II, 700).
The Abbe Pernety is said to have met Swedenborg in Paris and to have conversed with him there.-N. Jer. Mess., vol. 47, p. 205.
May 1st.-Norrkoping, Sweden. Fifty copies of "Conjugial Love" are confiscated at the custom-house by order of Bishop Filenius (Doc. II, 306, 313, 1005). History of the confiscated copies (Doc. II, 710).
June-October.-Swedenborg in London.
July.-London. The Rev. Thomas Hartley and Mr. William Cookworthy pay a visit to Swedenborg (Doc. II, 539).
August 2d.-East Malling, Kent, England. First letter of Rev. Thomas Hartley to Swedenborg, asking for an autobiography of the latter (Doc. I, 3).
August 7th (about).-London. Swedenborg replies to Mr. Hartley, giving a short account of his life. This letter, soon afterwards, is published by Mr. Hartley, under the title,
"Responsum ad Epistolam ab Amico ad me Scriptam" (An answer to a Letter written to me by a Friend). London, 1769, 3 pp. 4to (Doc. I, 6; II, 1011).
August 14th.-East Mailing. Second letter of Hartley to Swedenborg, offering his services in the cause of Truth (Doc. I, 10).
August 29th.-London. Visit of the Swedish traveler J. H. Liden to Swedenborg, who is called "the New Jerusalem gentleman" by people in London (Doc. II, 703).
While in London, Swedenborg publishes the following works:
"De Commercio Animae et Corporis" (on the Intercourse between the Soul and the Body), 4to (Doc. II, 1009).
"A Brief Exposition of the Doctrine of the New Church." London, 1769, 8vo, A. L. (First English edition, translated by Mr. Marchant, and published at Swedenborg's own expense. Doc. ibid.)
During this year he writes also the following shorter treatises:
"Quaestiones Novem de Trinitate" (Nine questions concerning the Trinity, etc., proposed by Thomas Hartley to Emanuel Swedenborg, with the answers of the
latter). MS. 6 pp. 4to (Doc. II, 1012).
"Canones Novae Ecelesiae, seu Integra Theologia Novae Ecclesiae" (The Canons of the New Church, or the entire Theology of the New Church). MS. 45 pp. (Doc. II, 1012; see, also, Prof. Odhner's bibliography of this work. L. 1891, pp. 164, 189, 195).
"Dicta Probantia Veteris et Novi Testamanti, collecta et breviter explicata" (Corroborating Passages from the Old and New Testaments, collected and briefly explained). MS. 39 pp. (Doc. II. 1013).
From this time, also, dates the short paper entitled
"De Equo et Hieroglyphis" (On the Horse [mentioned in the Apocalypse], and on the Hieroglyphics). MS. 2 pp. (Doc. II, 1002). Dr. Tafel and others suppose that this paper was addressed to the Swedish Academy of Sciences, but this is doubtful. The history of the paper is given in M. XIII, 566.
August 30th.-Swedenborg leaves London for Stockholm (Doc. II, 703).
September 24th.-Zurich. Second letter of Lavater to Swedenborg, requesting information concerning a deceased friend (Doc. II, 277).
October (beginning).-Swedenborg arrives in Stockholm (Doc. II. 806).
October 6th.-Stockholm. Swedenborg sends a memorial to the House of Clergy, requesting the liberation of the confiscated copies of Conjugial Love (L. 1896, p. 186).
October 23d.-London. Dr. H. Messiter, Swedenborg's physician and intimate friend, at his request addresses letters and sends copies of the Writings to the professors of theology at the Universities of Edinburg, Aberdeen, and Glasgow. (The replies from the professors are published in Doc. II, 622-527.)
October 30th.-Stockholm. Swedenborg's twelfth letter to Dr. Beyer; describes his arrival in Sweden, his kind reception by the royal family, the ill-will of Bishop Filenius, etc. (Doc. II, 306).
Dr. Beyer publishes this letter, which occasions great excitement in Gottenburg, and causes some of Swedenborg's more timid friends among the clergy to desert the cause of the New Church (Sundelin, p. 73).
A copy of this rare publication is preserved in the library of the Academy of the New Church.
November 14th.-Stockholm. Swedenborg's thirteenth letter to Dr. Beyer; speaks of his spiritual experiences in early youth (Doc. II, 278).
November 16th-Stockholm. Bishop Lamberg, in a letter to Gottenburg, charges Swedenborg with holding Mohammedan tenets (Doc. II, 311; compare T. C. R. 137).
November 17th.-Stockholm. Swedenborg's letter to Count Hopken; treats of various theological subjects (Doc. II, 280).
November 22d.-Gottenburg. Dr. Beyer is tried in the Consistory for having printed Swedenborg's letter of October 30th, without due permission having been asked (Sundelin, p. 75).
December 3d.-Stockholm. The Ecclesiastical Committee of the House of Clergy considers the case of "Swedenborgianism" in Gottenburg, and recommends this to the consideration of the Chancellor of Justice (Academy Archives; L. 1895, p. 182).
December 4th.-Stockholm. Letter of Bishop Lamberg to the Gottenburg Consistory; reports the treatment of "Swedenborgianism" by the Ecclesiastical Committee; states that "the scandal caused by the publication of Swedenborg's letter is indescribable;" charges Swedenborg with Socinianism (Doc. II, 310).
December 5th-19th.-Stockholm. The case of Dr. Beyer and Swedenborgianism are considered by the House of Clergy (Sundelin, p. 79).
December 9th.-Gottenburg. Assessor Aurell, a bitter enemy of Dr. Beyer and the New Church, writes to Bishop Filenius, asking him "to take the most energetic measures to stifle, punish, and utterly eradicate the Swedenborgian innovation and downright heresies" (Doc. II, 312).
December 28th.-Stockholm. Bishop Filenius' reply to Aurell, thanking the latter for his inquisitorial zeal against Swedenborgianism; describes the progress of the trial against Dr. Beyer (Doc. II, 318).
December 29th.-Stockholm. Swedenborg's fourteenth letter to Dr. Beyer; speaks of the present disturbances, and compares them to the fermentation of wine (Doc. II, 316).
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December 29th.-Stockholm. The Chancellor of Justice presents a memorial to the king, proposing measures against the propaganda of Swedenborgianism (Doc. II, 318).
December 30th.-Upsala. Memorial of the Consistory of Upsala to the House of Clergy, asking that the Theological Faculty of Upsala University be requested to investigate and report upon the nature of Swedenborg's "heretical" writings (Acad. Arch. L. 1895, p. 183).
During this session of the Diet Bishop Filenius, and other enemies of Swedenborg, are said to have planned a strategem to have him tried for insanity and to confine him in an asylum (Doc. I, 47).
COLLATERAL PUBLICATIONS.
Swedenborg. "Oforgripelige Tanekar om Swenska Myntet." (Frank views on the Swedish currency.) Second edition. Stockholm (Doc. II, 906).
Aurell, A. (Assessor). "Excerpta Swedenborgianismi" (Swedenborgian extracts-a collection of extracts from the Writings, maliciously arranged.) Gottenburg (Doc. II, 313, 334).
"Handlingar riirande Swedenborgianismen." (Extracts from the minutes of the Gottenburg Consistory, containing the Documents relating to the trial of Dr Beyer.) Gottenburg. Copy in Royal Library (=R. L), Stockholm (Doc. II, 282).
Penny, Stephen: "An Incentive to the Love of God, from a view of His Goodness in the Creation and Redemption of Man." Bristol. (A volume of poetry. A copy exists in the Forbes' collection in New York, 20 Cooper Union) (=N. Y. L).
"Letters on the Fall and Restoration of Mankind, addressed to all the serious part of every denomination." Bristol. Copy in British Museum. (This little book may be considered the very first New Church collateral work in the English tongue) (Doc. II, 1166).
DISEASES OF THE FIBRES. 1897
CHAPTER X.
ON CONVULSIONS, SPASMS, TETANUS, TREMOR, ETC.
464. MASTERS of the medical art have not yet arranged all the varieties of convulsions into their genera and species, and still less have they distinguished each species by its own proper name; for many convulsions have a similar appearance, but by solicitous enquiries it becomes manifest of what kind they are, and whence they derive their origin. For there are those which descend from the cerebrum, there are those which are proper to, or from the nerves; and there are those which originate in the muscles themselves, doubtless from the state of their motor fibres, membranes, tendons, and aponeuroses. There are also those which are conveyed into the flesh of the muscle by the inflowing arterial and venous vessels. Consequently there are convulsions which must he referred to paralyses, apoplexies, and epilepsies, so that they who, from the things recounted, desire to reduce all convulsions to one disease only, seem to be in hallucination. On account of the variety of species the learned have distinguished between febrile convulsions and the other ordinary varieties which recur by turns, or rigidly remain; likewise those which invade one muscle, or one limb or member, whence come the terms spasm, tetanus, and many others which are to be treated of,
FEBRILE CONVULSIONS
465. A convulsion is called febrile because it is an attendant of fevers, and arises from the same causes as the fevers themselves-that is to say, from those causes which obstruct the arterioles which lead into the substance of the cortex. For the cortical gland depends altogether upon its arteries; from them it likewise derives its essence which it transmits into the fibres; wherefore the state of the fibres, and consequently that of the muscles, is principally deduced from the state of the blood. Therefore if the blood be thick, hard, insoluble, concreted into fragments* and fibres, glutinous, nor easily separable from its serum, the arterioles nearest to those glands are stopped up. Thus the glands are deprived of their essential and vital juice, and either lie half dead or are filled up by a fluid not their own, but from another element. But such a fluid is not adapted for flowing through the medullary fibres and nerves, nor does it comply with the desire of the mind, but adheres and at the same time variously irritates and wounds the little tunics of the fibres; thence result convulsions from an internal cause. They similarly result from an external cause when the cortical glands are encompassed by a tenacious excretion and, as it were, by gluten, so that they cannot reciprocate their animations in their little spaces. This also is an effect of the febrile disease. That purest humor which courses through the arterial tunics of the brain by means of interwoven branches, which we have before called the emulous [emula] vesicles of the fibre, and upon which the cortical glands immediately depend, also is wont to be the cause of convulsions, for there is a great scarcity of it in febrile heat, for it lies imprisoned in the serum and blood, nor is it drawn forth thence, the red blood globules remaining hard and insoluble; in which hap neither is there any humor exuded between the pia mater and the arachnoid tunic, which exudation having vanished, the interstices of the fibres become destitute of their unguent. From the anatomy of the brain it appears that the cortical glands which correspond to the most active muscles in the body, are provided with their own little tubes or arterial trunks in the cortical substance itself', and with receptacles in the medullary substance, in order that they may draw their supply from them according to the degree of activity. When these receptacles become filled with crude and viscous blood they can bring no aid to the beginnings of the fibres, wherefore the medullary fibres, nerves, and finally the motor fibres of the muscles, become destitute of their motor spirit, whence arises convulsion.
CONTRACTION.
466. Contraction is also called convulsion; it does not derive its origin immediately from the cerebrum, but from the nerves themselves, or from the blood-vessels, upon which the muscles depend. For whatever obstructs the meatuses or pores of a nerve, and whatever obstructs the arteries which inflow into the muscle, is the cause of this convulsion- A nerve is obstructed by corrupt, thick, and tenacious humor, adhering between the fibres and the fascicles of the fibres; thus the fibres being compressed, and rendered inert and impotent, cease to act upon the muscle. That humor flows either from its own fountain-that is, the cerebrum; or from its arteries within the nerves, which frequently pass through the interstices; or are the remnants of corrupt blood of diseases.
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Thus in the nerves and ganglia cavities are formed, which by their own movement are filled with ichor, which when collected compresses the fibres themselves, and breaking forth relaxes them; hence there are alternate convulsive motions. A CONVULSION is called TONIC when part of a member or a muscle becomes rigid, and it is feared that it may remain in this state. Likewise a similar effect ensues if an extrinsic nerve be compressed, become ulcerated, or be cut or stretched; similarly in the case of arteries. The cause of convulsion may likewise be present in the muscle itself, as when a nerve or vessel is injured, when it becomes inundated with blood, or inflamed; then its mitor fibre, membranes, tendon, and aponeurosis become rigid.
SPASM AND TETANUS.
467. CYNIC SPASM is similar to convulsion arising from the causes spoken of above concerning febrile convulsion in one hemisphere of the cerebrum, or in one part of the hemisphere, especially of its highest lobe. F or there is distortion of the mouth, sometimes also it contracts the eyebrows, nares, and neck. It is called EMPROSTHOTONOUS, if it moves the scapulae from their natural position; OPISTHOTONOUS, if it invades, twists, and indurates only some single part, or single member. It is called TETANUS when it is universal, and is a species of epilepsy.
TREMOR.
468. TREMOR or TREMBLING, as of the hands, head and other parts, as in the decrepit, arises from diverse causes, as from a detect of the spirits, from extinction, stupor, torpor or sleep of many cortical glands and fibres, so that there are few voluntary (?) to sustain the muscle. From too great relaxation of the same, also from diminished tension, the fibres, incapable of acting, sink down without law and order; for which reason there are spurious glands, as it were, pillars and supports which restore their tension to them, intermingled in the medulla of the cerebrum; so also in the membranes, in the pin and dura mater, in the sinuses, and everywhere in the body. From a similar relaxation in the nerves, that is to say, a relaxation of their ligaments, of the tunics covering the fascicles of the fibres and the fibres themselves, and thus a relaxation of the fibres, which flow as it were wandering, a part of which lies extinguished, a part left to itself without dependence and without general respect to the rest, a similar thing then happens in the muscles and tori, which thence begin to tremble. But the causes of a diminution of the spirits, and of a relaxation of the fibres are many, as too great a use of venery, many kinds of intemperance, approaching paralysis, apoplexy, epilepsy, long continued intermittent fevers, frequent fainting, old age, etc., etc.
STUPOR, TORPOR, AND SLEEP OF THE MEMBERS.
469. These arise from compression of the muscles, vessels, or nerves, so that the limbs are deprived of their bloods, which are respectively their forces and powers;' this may be from congelation, as also from the same causes as those of convulsions, for they exist in convulsions themselves.
HICCOUGH.
470. Hiccough [singultus] is a species of alternate convulsion. It is believed to be of the diaphragm, but the diaphragm sustains the lungs, but it does not rejoice in the power of compressing and dilating them, for that belongs to the intercostal and many other muscles. But it is seen to belong to the oesophagus itself, where it is united to the tracbea, which palpitating, most vigorously attracts the air lest the pneumatic passage of the larynx be occluded. Hiccough, originating from cold food or drink imprudently taken into the gullet, and from weeping and other causes, does not really subsist by itself.
SNEEZING AND COUGHING.
471. Sneezing [stemutatio] is a high elevation and sudden compression of the whole cerebrum and cerebellum; and it is the natural means for dissipating and expelling humors, and for expelling through the exits formed by nature the pituita which clog up the tori of the brains, the interstices, and the meninges, especially if they block up the cribriform plate; this experience itself confirms. It also arises from irritation of the olfactory nerves, the fibres of which ramify about the whole cerebrum. Similarly, the lungs which animate synchronously with the brains, at the same time purify their bronchia and cells. Conon [tussis] is excited by a similar cause, but in the lungs.
YAWNING.
472. Yawning [oscitatio] is a slow elevation and erection of the cerebrum, lest it fall asleep; for when the animus becomes languid, and no motion of it expands and awakens the cerebrum, it naturally collapses into a state of sleep, and the plicatures mutually fold themselves together, and begin at the lesser folds to cohere; care is taken lest this should happen, by such elevation; just as in the early morning when only single plicatures are unfolded.
INTERESTING PROPOSITION. FRANK SEWALL 1897
IN the New Church Messenger, of August 4th, the Rev. Frank Sewall published a communication entitled, "The Recent Meeting of the 'General Assembly of the General Church of the New Jerusalem,'" which in substance is a suggestion for the newly-formed General Church to consider whether any real obstacle stands in the way of joining the General Convention of the New Jerusalem in America. In the same journal, two weeks later, appeared a reply by the Rev. C. Th. Odhner, member of the General Church, entitled, "Unity in the New Church," questioning the expediency of the step proposed, under existing conditions, and giving reasons. Believing that a general understanding of the question of unity in the Church is of even greater importance than the determination of the proposition itself, and that to this understanding an exchange of views might materially contribute, we herewith publish both communications and invite comments:
MR. SEWALL'S LETTER.
Were a stranger to read the report recently published in the New Church Life of the discussions and proceedings of the above-named body, he would probably derive the impression that this was the original and only organized "General" body of the New Church the world had ever seen. Except for a single allusion there is no mention of either the General Convention in this country nor of the Conference in England. Such a reader would therefore be surprised to learn that there has been for over half a century a "General Convention of the New Jerusalem in America," and a "Conference of the New Church in Great Britain"; and he could only conclude that the New Church instead of being "a city that is compact together," is a body given to quarreling and schism like the Churches of the past. On inquiring further into the reason for this schism and duplication of "General" Churches, and being told that it consists in differences as to the authority of the Writings, and as to the organization and powers of the priesthood, should such inquirer look into the Constitutions and debates of the two bodies, he would find lengthy discussions about charity and freedom in both; in the Assembly a large assertion of loyalty to the Writings and of deference to the priesthood as an office representative of the LORD and instrumental to His presence in the Church, and, together with this, the strange fact that the whole body originated in revolt against the "General" Church and its priesthood, and that it is now undergoing a crisis occasioned by its further revolt against its own consecrated High Priest.
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On the other hand, he would find that the General Convention had, long before this revolt of the Academy, adopted as its definition of the powers and orders of the priesthood the very chapter itself of the Heavenly Doctrines on Ecclesiastical Government, and that it provided for a trinal order of the ministry, adapted to present uses and the conditions of the Church, according to the best ability and judgment of the "Council of the Clergy," or the entire ministerial body of the General Church that so organized itself. Candidly examined it would be extremely difficult for an impartial observer to see wherein the newer and seceding body has shown and proved any more real loyalty to either the "Doctrines" or to any lawful "priestly authority" than has meanwhile, and during its whole history, the General Convention from which it withdrew.
In the short history, comparatively, of the Academy episcopacy, there have been probably more cases of direct revolt and withdrawal, and these of many of the ablest of the clergy of that body, than has been seen in the whole history of the Convention up to the Academy's withdrawal itself. Violent as has been the criticism offered in past times against the democracy and "town meeting methods" of the Convention, has there not, in the long run, been shown quite as much regard for true order, to true charity, to true brotherly freedom, and so to a true Church organization in the Convention as in the body that has called itself the champion of orthodoxy and of priestly authority? And in looking over the proposed new organization Outlined by Bishop Pendleton at the late meeting and received with such "unexampled enthusiasm," would not the inquirer he almost amused to find these long-suffering brethren so elated at the prospect of seeing restored to them a Constitution almost identical with the very one from which the Academy had revolted with so much zeal, namely, a Council of the Clergy, an Executive Council, and a General "Assembly"? And would he at last not have to conclude that, so far as the practical performance of the true uses of charity belonging to an organized Church is concerned, there is about as much real difference in the two bodies as there is in the two names of "Convention" and "Assembly"; with the curious reflection, however, that the body which emphasizes its "Episcopal" character should have chosen the name in use by the Presbyterian or non-Episcopal Church, while the old mother-body that is getting on with her uncouth and troublesome, but, on the whole, well-meaning children, as well as she knows how under the sound and simple charter of the Heavenly Doctrines in the Article V of the Constitution-"On the Priesthood or Ministry"-still retains the " Episcopal" title of the "General Convention of the New Jerusalem."
If any one thinks that these observations on the recent meeting of our New Church brethren of the Assembly are prompted by a critical and unfriendly spirit he is entirely mistaken. Every reader of that interesting and able report in the Life must be impressed, and none can have been wore so than the present writer, with the manliness, candor, humility, sincerity, and brotherly consideration that characterized the discussions throughout, and that everywhere appear in the conduct of Bishop Pendleton. Not a single unkind allusion to the Convention, no disposition to criticize others, or to lay the blame elsewhere than where it belongs is manifest in the whole debate. But on carefully and candidly summing up the whole situation, does it not seem as if at this, the close of the first century of the organization of the New Church, it might be reasonably expected of those who call themselves Newchurchmen that they might-having approached so nearly to a practically-working Church Constitution, whose manifest and acknowledged ideal or standard is that of the Heavenly Doctrine itself-unite in a single and so a truly "General" body, instead of crystallizing so needlessly into two "General" bodies, each of which by its very name implies a certain condemnation or "anathema" of the other? Cannot the New Church, the only aspirant after the realization of God's holy city on the earth, become a better ultimation of Church unity in variety, and of Church order and useful co-operation than this? The Academy with its valuable scholastic, literary, and educational work has already declared itself aloof from this newly-organized Assembly. What remains in the line of true Church uses that could not better be carried on by one larger and truly "General" body, than by two standing coldly and critically aloof? Is not the general acceptance among us all of the Heavenly Doctrines as the rule we ought to adopt and be governed by "in freedom according to reason," sufficient to form a basis of organization acceptable to all? Is there, in a word, when seriously and conscientiously considered of good-will, a sufficient raison d'etre to justify our brethren of the Assembly in perfecting a new organization which shall exclude them from incorporation in the General Convention, and so from becoming a part of a truly General Church? Have they not a duty to the Convention as well as to themselves in this matter? And, on the other hand, if there is that in the General Convention which shall necessarily exclude from membership such men as these, ought not the grounds for such exclusion be seriously inquired into? Is not the unity of the Church in ultimates a matter of sufficiently serious and sacred importance to warrant the candid and best reflection by us all as to whether we are taking the right steps to promote it? It is to be remembered that the Convention puts no restrictions or limitations on the freedom of its constituent bodies within the terms of the Constitution to which all consent. The peculiar ecclesiastical organization or name which a body might choose would be no hindrance to its incorporation in the Convention, provided it does no violence to those general principles which the Constitution lays down, and these principles are such as our brethren of the Assembly not only have always acknowledged, but in the main are now enthusiastic in seeing restored to use among themselves. In view of all this may it not reasonably be asked, and in all sincerity and brotherly good-will, of our brothers of the Assembly, that they will, in the year's time wisely allotted to their resolution, to the consideration of the subject of their new organization, embrace among the various propositions that deserve their candid examination that of their application for re-admission to the General Convention, under such conditions as a proper adaptation to the character and special uses of their body may demand?
FRANK SEWALL.
MR. ODHNER'S LETTER.
Without intending to enter upon any general discussion of the kindly observations made by the Rev. Frank Sewall, in the Messenger of August 4th, in regard to the recent Assembly of the General Church of the New Jerusalem, the undersigned, speaking for himself alone, cannot but take exception to the following statement in Mr. Sewall's communication:
It is to be remembered that the convention puts no restrictions or limitations on the freedom of its constituent bodies within the terms of the Constitution to which all consent. The peculiar ecclesiastical organization or name which a body might choose would be no hindrance to Its incorporation in the Convention, provided it does no violence to those general principles which the Constitution lays down, and here principles are such as our brethren of the Assembly not only have always acknowledged, but In the main are now enthusiastic in seeing restored to use among themselves.
Now, as a matter of fact, the chief "principle," for which the members of the Assembly have been striving in their recent movement has been the principle of freedom for all the parts and all the functions of the organized Church. Mr. Sewall, in reading the paper in which Bishop Pendleton has outlined his proposition for the organization of the new body, may not have observed that it is proposed to have a body of the clergy, and a body of the laity, and an intermediate body or assembly composed of both; and, further, that it is proposed:
That each body shall be a complete house in itself, with all the elements of a deliberative body, free and self-perpetuating, one act dependent on another, cart exercising no control over another: independent of external control, but dependent, co-operative, and united in the acknowledgment of common principle, in the performance of common uses and in the recognition of a common head.
It is in this feature of independence that the proposed organization of the General Church differs from the present form of organization of the General Convention, where the clergy as a whole is subject to the "jurisdiction" of the general meeting.
The members of the Assembly are not only not "enthusiastic" in seeing this principle of dependency "restored to use among themselves "but they have for years been strenuously opposed to it in their former connection with the General Convention.
That the Convention has established and is still maintaining such a jurisdiction over the clergy is evident from Sections 4 and 5 of Article V of its Constitution
SECTION 4.-A pastor, after a suitable term in the pastoral office, may,. by request of en Association, and with the sanction of the General Convention, be invested with the office of General Pastor. . . . or an association may, with the sanction of the General Convention, temporarily invest the powers of General Pastor in its Presiding Minister or Superintendent. . .
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SECTION 5.-A minister ordained by authority of the Convention, or one reporting to and acting under the rules of the Convention, shall be considered a minister and member of the Convention, and subject to its juristion, until his connection therewith shall be severed by voluntary act on his part or by authority of the Convention.
The italics in the above quotation are my own, but they speak for themselves.
It is well known that there are a number of New Church ministers to whom the jurisdiction here established is not at all acceptable, and that there are a number of New Church laymen who are totally unwilling to exercise any such jurisdiction over the clergy.
These ministers and members of the New Church have held and still firmly believe that there are functions in the Church which lie entirely and exclusively within the sphere of the laity functions and uses with which the clergy has no power to interfere by virtue of a lack of sufficient experience, knowledge, interest, and illustration. On the other hand, these men believe that there are functions and uses in the Church which lie entirely and exclusively within the sphere of the clergy, over which the laity cannot possibly exercise any authority or jurisdiction, owing to a similar lack of knowledge, interest, and illustration.
These, and, indeed, all members of the New Church who believe in any distinction between the clerical and the lay functions, would never dream of requiring from a minister that he should ask for their "sanction" and "authorization" when about to baptize a person into the Church, or when about to officiate at a marriage or at the celebration of the Holy Supper.
On the same ground, the laymen among these members of the Church consider it entirely outside of their province to interfere in any other purely ecclesiastical and clerical functions, as, for instance, the ordination of men into the priesthood of the Church. For they believe that this office is distinct and self-perpetuating, and that the means of perpetuation reside in the highest degree or function of that office.
In other words, they believe that the "authority" to receive men into the priesthood belongs to the ordaining ministers alone, and that this authority has been received not from any men or body of men, but from the LORD through the office that distinctly serves Him in the divine work of saving the souls of men.
And they believe, also, that this authority to introduce men into the general priesthood of the Church necessarily involves the authority to introduce ministers into any degree or function of that office, and this without having to ask for permission or sanction from any men or bodies of men who ire not themselves in that office
They freely concede that the members and bodies of the Church have the full right and liberty to determine for themselves who are to be and who are not to be their teachers and pastors and leaders, to recognize or refuse recognition; but they deny that laymen have the power to say who shall and who shall not be teachers or ministers or ordaining priests.
It is the same in any profession. Men have the liberty to say who is to be their lawyer or their doctor, but they are in no position to determine who shall be lawyers and doctors in general. The "sanction" and the "authority" to introduce men into these professions, and the "jurisdiction" over them, clearly belong to the professions themselves, and to them alone.
Can it be that the little word "may," which is introduced in each of the sections of the Constitution that have been quoted above, renders these simply recommendatory, and leaves room for the ordination of ministers and of ordaining ministers in any other way than is suggested or prescribed in the Constitution? Evidently not, for when one ordaining minister some years ago introduced another clergyman into the third degree of the priesthood without having asked for the sanction of the General Convention, did not the Convention, then, by resolution, condemn the ordainers as having broken "against the spirit, at least," of the Constitution?
If, then, there is in existence an organized body of Newchurchmen who, according to their conscience, believe in the freedom and the mutual independence of the clergy and the laity of the Church, and who have finally secured this state of freedom after years of severe struggles, is it reasonable to expect this body to give up the fruits of their labors, to give up their freedom and their principles of conscience, in order to secure a nominal union with those whose conscience bids them to oppose that freedom and those principles?
Unity can never be enforced in the New Church. Charity alone can produce unity, and charity cannot exist without the consideration for the liberty of conscience of the neighbor.
It seems clear to me that there is and will he a variety of churches, or of more or less general ecclesiastical associations in the Church of the New Jerusalem, even as there was In the Ancient Church. The great and inevitable diversity among Newchurchmen in the understanding and the application of the Heavenly Doctrines to the things of life demands this variety of churches. As a matter of fact, this variety exists even now, both within and without the Convention. Are not the State Associations in the Convention really so many State Churches, all more or less varying from one another in spirit and even in forms of organization? In some of the Associations ministers are, or have been, ordained by the laity. In others the ordaining powers are invested temporarily in the Presiding Pastor, and in others, finally, they are invested permanently in a distinct ordaining degree of priesthood. And outside of the Convention there is the General Church called the "German Synod," and the General Church of the New Jerusalem.
It is much to be feared that if the Associations, which now are independent of or co-ordinate with the Convention, were to seek fellowship with that body as it is constituted at present, there would be a repetition of the same struggles that disturbed and finally tore the Church asunder some years ago. For the love of spiritual freedom is inextinguishable with the men of the New Church, while at the same time, alas, the love of dominion may not be quite subdued in the natural man.
Were it proposed to form a most general conference of these various Churches, a union, or rather reunion, of a deliberative character, which would leave the regulation of all ecclesiastical affairs entirely in the hands of the component Churches or Associations, and assuming no mandatory control or "jurisdiction" over them whatever-such a proposition could not but receive the earnest consideration of all those who wish for the peace and strength of Jerusalem.
Such a free union would be a meeting together of New-churchmen of all tints and varieties of opinion, but all lovers of the Heavenly Doctrines as they have received them; a meeting of New Church brethren on the broad basis of a common faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, free from all fear of the dominion of man in the things of their conscience. Them,, instead of wasting the time in bickerings about laws and by-laws, there might be a delightful exchange of fraternal salutations, all rejoicing in hearing of the progress made by the LORD'S New Church in its various quarters, all willing to give and to receive instruction and spiritual help from one another, and to enter heartily into the performance of such most general uses as all have at heart.
But even though this lovely state of things may never come to pass in our days or in this world, may there not still be toleration, sympathy, and even co-operation in certain uses between the various independent bodies of the New Church, which, though remaining separate as to external organization, yet constitute one internal Church before the LORD? We believe that such a state has begun to come about. May we not hope and strive for its continuation and increase?
C. Th. ODHNER.
HUNTINGDON VALLEY, Pa., August 8th, 1897.
SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. 1897
A SUMMARY.
THE Seven Churches in Asia, of the Apocalypse, have always presented an interesting theme for students of the Word; of late we have had a series on the several Churches, by the Rev. P. B. Cabell, published in the Messenger, beginning February 24th, in which the writer gives especial consideration as to who at this day-within and without the New Church-are in the states represented by those Churches. With some diffidence we have attempted the not easy task of making a summary without doing the essayist injustice.
The character of the church in Ephesus is one which "primarily respects truths of doctrine and not good of life." This is the first class to be attracted by the truths of the New Dispensation, and of such the early New Church may he supposed to have largely consisted; but unless Ephesus repents and does the "first works," the candlestick of such will be removed out of its place-Ephesus will lose the light of truth even in the external mind.
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Smyrna represents "those who are in the good of life but in falses as to doctrine." Such easily gather from the Gospel the importance of love, but fail to see that without true doctrine there can be no genuine good of life, no real Christian love: the Smyrnians especially lack attention to the doctrine concerning the LORD as the one God of heaven and earth; they say that the doctrine of the Trinity is a mystery. Still the Master says that the Smyrnians are rich in the possession of mutual love. Many of these may only he waiting the ripeness of time to come and bring with them into the New Church greater warmth of love than those earlier Ephesians, whose delight in doctrine it was that made them especially open to the first appeal of the New Light.
Pergamos stands for "those in the Christian world who place the all of the Church in good works, and not anything in the truths of doctrine." More external than the Sinyrnians they regard good works more than either love or doctrine. "All the reform movements of the day, and their advocates, must be spiritually classed as of the Church of Pergamos." With such, belief counts for little or nothing: "a man cannot he far wrong provided his life be right," they say, and by good life they mean ultimate works. In Pergamos were some that "hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balak to cast a stumbling before the sons of Israel" (that is, to eat idol-sacrifices and to yield to the allurements of the daughters of Moab). Our present author tells us: The modern Christian eats idol-sacrifices when in the name of religion he does good deeds under the instigation of self-love and thinks himself a very proper person on account of them. Merely natural good affections, gentle, lovely, and useful in themselves, are nevertheless the daughters of Moab, with whom the sons of Israel form unlawful connections when the mind associates them with the truths of religion, and claims them as genuine affections of truth, ere the work of spiritual regeneration is well under way or even commenced. Twenty-four thousand Israelites died because of their transgressions with the Moabites. He may he said to be of Pergamos who, regarding the world from a merely natural philanthropy, would upturn society, change organic laws, do any outwardly lawful thing, to corrupt merely outward evils, such as poverty, forgetting that He Who said. "The poor ye have always with you." also said, "All power is given unto Me in heaven and earth." Such a one ignores the regulative operation of evil, but restraining conditions, such as poverty, etc., which serve to preserve order among those whose evils would otherwise break out and result in universal poverty and destruction of society. So with the crusader against sickness, who makes pain the great foe to happiness, and who fails to see that pain is essential to the moderation of self-indulgence and of those lusts, salvation from which can be effected by nothing else whatever than repentance and the grace of God in men's hearts. In this Church are the hated Nicolaitans-self-merit. Still the Pergamians are promised, if faithful under temptations, "to eat of the hidden manna,"-the satisfaction that follows good of life; and are promised also a "white stone," which is that affirmative state which acknowledges all genuine truth.
After the series of Ephesus, Smyrna, and Pergamos-faith, love, and good works-comes Thyatira, which represents "those who are in faith grounded in charity, and thence in good works." Here we have faith not lacking in love, love that does not neglect faith, and good works that spring from faith and love and therefore do not despise those heavenly elements. Still, Thyatira is infected by Jezebel, faith separate from charity, not so much as a theory as a practice. A warning is given to those of Thyatira, both within the New Church and out of it, that "to know what is right and not to do it is equally destructive to both."
Sardis is dead worship, "worship which is without the goods of charity or the truths of faith." There are two opposites which each in its own way claim man's worship-God and Self. A man may attend church, study the Bible and religious books, and pray regularly, and still remain little, if any, disturbed in his self-love. Ye cannot serve two masters. The doctrine says in either such dead worship, "worship alone-or else in works alone (Sardis or Pergamos), is the greater part of the (Christian world at this day" (A. R. 107). Ignorance of God leads to false conceptions of Him, as being an angry, vindictive God, to be propitiated by worship, exaltation, confessions of unworthiness, and other forms of piety. Salvation then is looked upon as matter of arbitrary favor. These are features of the old dead worship. The modern dead worship is more spiritual in outward appearance, but internally similar, based upon the same ignorance of God and of the nature of salvation. The Father is to be propitiated, the Son is to plead and secure the sending of the Holy Spirit to sanctify the believing; and this salvation is of immediate mercy, without regard to previous states of heart, mind or life-its benefits are to be secured by piety. The message to Sardis is, "Be wakeful!" which means, Systematically study spiritual truth, from the abundance of the now-opened Word. In that the LORD has revealed Himself as JESUS CHRIST, to Whom anger and wrath are as impossible as freezing cold to the sun.
"Hear what the Spirit saith unto the Churches," concerning what the truth may do for a man:
"By truths comes faith; by truths comes love to the neighbor, or charity; by truths comes love to the LORD; by truths regeneration is effected; by truths comes power over evils and falses and against bell; by truths there is purification from evils and falses; by truths the Church exists; by truths heaven exists; by truths comes the innocence of wisdom; by truths there is conscience; by truths there is order; by truths angels have their beauty, and men beauty of spirit; by virtue of truths man is man . . . . But who thinks this? Is it not at this day a matter of indifference what truths a man knows provided he is in worship? And because few search the Word for the purpose of learning truths and living according to them, therefore nothing is known concerning worship, whether it be dead or living, and yet, according to the quality of his worship, man himself is either dead or living" (A. R. 161). Nevertheless true worship is similar in form, to that which is dead, and therefore those who are in the latter have only to learn truths and live according to them, when they too, shall live (A. R. 159), for "all worship is at first natural, and afterward, by truths out of the Word, and by a life according to them, becomes spiritual" [i. e., alive] (A. R. 161).
The Church in Philadelphia is composed of "those who are in truths from good, from the LORD" (A. R. 172). These see truth from an inward light, whereby falsity is instantly detected. They do not argue, but possess perception. The instruction to them is simply to "hold fast" what they have. To this Church the LORD says: "Behold I have set before thee an open door;" this is the door of communication with the internal man, or with the LORD Who dwells there.
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Those who reach this state, find when they reach the other world an open door leading to heaven. All who would reach that state should begin early, and while yet young give their hearts to the LORD. Every one must begin at Ephesus, advance through Smyrna, Pergamos, and Thyatira, in order to reach Philadelphia. "Behold now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation." This is said to all, especially to the young. To him of Philadelphia who overcometh is promised, "I will write on him My new Name," the clear light of truth and the warmth of love which is the quality written on the heart of him who becomes a temple and tabernacle of God.
Of the Church in Laodicea are "those who alternately believe sometimes from themselves and sometimes from the Word, and thus profane holy things." Those of Sardis (dead worship) are in willful ignorance, but the Laodiceans have the knowledge of the truths of the Word; as to the understanding they are with the LORD, but as to the will they remain under the dominion of self love. They have never allowed the truth to take hold of their lives, never repented. If repentance have actually been experienced, and after that there be backsliding, profanation of the worst kind is committed. The state or Landicen is milder then this, yet if not checked in time, lends to it. To have the understanding enlightened with the truths of faith, while the will is suffered to remain in its native evil, is the state called lukewarm, in which neither self-love, which is spiritual cold, nor charity, which is spiritual heat, wholly prevails; hence neither heaven nor hell affords a home for such being divested of everything human, they are no longer called "he" or "she," but "it." This is the sin against the Holy Spirit.
[We may be permitted to remark that here the essayist is less clear than elsewhere; he states that the state of Laodicca is a non-enlistment of the affections in die truths which the understanding knows, a state of truth in the understanding alone, or in the memory without the will, and that there may be a worse state than this, namely, where the will itself has actually been enlisted in the cause of religion and in the new birth. Then he later speaks in particular about the latter state, with its "it-hood," as being possible only to the Church in Laodicea, those who know God in the head, yet in the heart believe not in Him; in this he returns to the idea of an unawakened will, which in reality precludes the possibility of such terrible profanation of good.
A number of passages from other works than those on the Apocalypse explicitly state that Laodicea is the type of those who have mingled good and evil in the will. In Divine Providence, No. 231 says that those who first acknowledged Divine truths and live according to them, and afterward recede and deny them, commit the worst kind of profanation, and are meant by the lukewarm, in Apocalypse iii, 15; No. 18 states that those who are in evil and at the same time in good are meant in the text referred to. See, also, T. C. R. 651, 437; Life, n. 71; Arcana Coelesta, n. 9210. We would therefore suggest as an emendation of the statement made on the preceding page, second column, near the bottom: "To have the understanding enlightened with the truths of faith, while the will, having been subdued as to its native evil, afterward relapses and mingles spiritual good acquired by life with evil newly confirmed as it were, both by strength of resumed habit and by charm of novelty-this is the state called lukewarm "-the type, of which milder forms of profanation are modifications.- EDITOR.]
Notes and Reviews. 1897
Morning Light for August 21st is calculated to cause almost a sensation. In place of the usual few, staid "editorial notes," that department bubbles over with seven columns of newsy, breezy comments (graphic life-touches) on the recent meeting of "Conference."
Title Unspecified 1897
THE Messenger mentions a very interesting statistical fact, that with the modern decline in definite and positive theological teaching the number of theological students decreases, the relative falling off at the various universities seeming to be in direct ratio with the looseness of the teaching.
Title Unspecified 1897
TO the ranks of educational periodicals has been added Kosmos, the first number of which appeared in August. It is "devoted to cultural ideals, the psychology of education, and the educational values of citizenship." It is advertised as the official organ of the Civics Book Club, is edited by the Rev. A. Roeder, and published by Mr. J. C. Parkinson, in Vineland, N. J.
Title Unspecified 1897
THE New York Mail and Express shows, from the proper authority, that ritualism is making headway in England. The daily Eucharist is celebrated in 500 churches, incense is burned in 337, ritualistic vestments are worn in 1,032, and great advance has been made in the rise of the confessional. The Messenger adds that in our own country many indications point in the same direction, even in the non-episcopal churches, and comments that this is a natural result of the removal of old dogmas and the former exhortation to a spiritual life. In other words, worship is becoming more and more an external without an internal. When the internal of the Church is once established, development of externals follows; but when the internal has become dead the lifeless shell receives all the attention that remains. Thus do extremes meet and produce superficial resemblances.
Title Unspecified 1897
THE Scholar in Polities, a brochure published by Henry Altemus, of Philadelphia, reproduces an address by the Hon. Richard Olney, Secretary of State under President Cleveland. The address, originally delivered before the alumni of Brown University, is an appeal to the true "privileged class" of America, the men of education and intelligence, in favor of politics as a science and profession, in contradistinction to the mere mercenary trading in public affairs so often dignified by that undeserved name. Mr. Obey recognizes the obstacles which tend to deter a man of principle and self-respect from pursuing politics as an occupation-especially uncertainty of tenure of office, and hence of income, and the distastefulness of being placed in a false position by having to solicit from a populace which regards office as "spoils" that which he himself must regard as a sacred trust. For this state of things, however, the educated class are taken to task, as being a potent and responsible factor in forming public opinion, in whose eyes politics have been so degraded; nor will politics be restored to their true dignity and importance until men of thought and culture consent to put aside their own inclinations and comfort, and show by precept and example the nobility of self-sacrifice in the public service. Concerning the logical outcome of a continuance of the present habit of neglect of the science of government, Mr. Olney utters a pregnant warning where he says: "During that time [since his graduation] very many evils have been impressed upon my attention from which the community and each of its members have greatly and wrongfully suffered and continue to suffer. Yet if I ask myself which of them all has been most extensive and pernicious in its influence, I find none which seems to me to compare for a moment with misgovernment." To the New- churchman such testimony as to the importance of an understanding and formulation of true government should come home with double meaning; for he knows that upon the State rests the Church; that the same universal principles enter into the organization of both, and that upon the ordering of both rests the perpetuation of society and the race. It is very clear that government is a topic which by the very nature of human institutions will ever and again surge to the top until our conceptions of it have become so assimilated to the Truth that the resultant crystallization into form will give us something so stable, so based on universal principles, and hence so livingly adapted to human needs, that its problems will become identified with what we call the problems of daily living, simply the application of truths to uses.
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ANNOUNCEMENT 1897
THE Schools of the Academy of the New Church, including the Theological, College, and Girls' Department, will open in Huntingdon Valley on Monday, October 4th, 11 A. M. Applications for admission should be addressed to the Rev. W. F. Pendleton, Huntingdon Valley, Montgomery County, Pa.
The Boys' School and Primary Department have been discontinued.
CHURCH NEWS. 1897
THE GENERAL CHURCH.
IT is announced that the various centres are to have the benefit of the episcopal services of Bishop Pendleton in the form of visits. He expects to begin a general tour this fall.
Huntingdon Valley, Pa.-THE local School of the Particular Church in this place will open on Wednesday, September 5th, at 10 A. M. By the opening of this school some former pupils of the Academy Boys' School and Primary Departments, now discontinued, will be provided for. Mr. Henry B. Cowley will act as assistant to Mr. Synnestvedt, and Misses Alice Grant and Jessie Moir as teachers for the younger pupils.
ON August 15th M. and Mine. Camille Vinet arrived from Paris, and were entertained by the Rev. and Mrs. C. Th. Odhner and later by Mr. and Mrs. R. M. Glenn. M. Vinet was formerly Professor of French in the "Instituut Noorthey," Voorachoten, Holland. His desire is to establish himself in this country in or near Philadelphia, or some other New Church centre. M. Vinet and his wife would be a welcome acquisition in the Huntingdon Valley Society, if business conditions should favor their settling here.
Pittsburgh, Pa.-By request of the Rev. John Stephenson, of Pittsburgh, we hereby add to the notice given last month, as to the call of the Rev. E. C. Bostock, that it was extended by the society connected with the General Church of the Advent of the LORD. Mr. Stephenson informs us that there is another Society in that city, to which he administers.
Erie, Pa.-The Circle here has just had a most delightful visit from Mr. David H. Klein, B. Th., now on his way to Chicago. He was here six weeks and won the affection of young and old by his unaffected earnestness and by the intuitive ease with which he discovered needs and filled them. He sought out the children, assembled them once a week (on Tuesday morning), and visited them at their homes to help them study the Decalogue, which was recited by the class. He illustrated his class teaching by elaborate object-lessons from the Word arranged on the "kindergarten" plan, and was rewarded by a wonderful interest. He preached every Sunday morning, and expounded the "Doctrine of Chant "every Thursday evening, following this by singing the music for the following Sunday, in which nearly every one joined. Before he left we had two notable gatherings, the first a picnic at Glenwood Park, with thirty-three present, including several of the older New Church people from Erie County, some miles out of the city. Games and festivities made the time pass quickly, and all were pleased. The next evening a concert, especially arranged by Mr. Klein was given at one of the residences, with twenty-three present. The programme was supplied entirely within the Circle, and included solos for the voice, violin, cornet, flute, clarionet, and piano; concerted pieces for several together, choruses the school, fancy dances by the younger children, and, in conclusion, the singing of anthems from the Liturgy from the congregation. While we wish every happiness for Mr. Klein in his new field, we cannot but regret that he had to leave Erie so soon, and we assure him that he will have a cordial welcome whenever he visits us again.
(For the Erie Circle)
EDWARD CRANCH.
Glenview, Ill.-Mr. David H. Klein has accepted a call from the Immanuel Church to act as assistant to Pastor N. D. Pendleton.
IT is expected that the school will this year open on September, instead of October, as formerly. Rev. N. D. Pendleton will have charge of the school, with Mr. David H. Klein, Miss Augusta Pendleton, and Miss Jessie Carpenters as teachers. Miss Grace Burt will probably continue her dancing class with the children, and Mr. George Blackman his singing lessons. Dr. King has not yet decided whether he can spare the necessary time for continuing the courses on science which he commenced in the school last term.
Church work in the city will be resumed in September, and an active season is looked forward to. A. E. N.
CANADA.
Berlin.-I write to let you know that Bishop Pendleton now has formally recognized our congregation as a Particular Church of the General Church of the New Jerusalem, at which we all are much pleased. I suppose you know that the Rev. F. E. Waelchli has accepted a very urgent call to the pastorate of the Baltimore German Society. He preached his farewell sermon here last Sunday in German, and our Church will certainly miss him very much when he with his family starts for Baltimore in a week or two. Mr. Ernest J. Stebbing, B. A., is to assist in the school, which will commence on September 6th. Last Sunday I visited Milverton and held, as usual, services in Mr. Henry Doering's house, when the sacrament of the Holy Supper also was administered.
JOSEPH E. ROSENQVIST.
Mr. Bowers' Evangelistic Work.
Ontario.-ON Sunday, July 25th, I preached at the house of Mr. Joseph Izzard, near Clinton, to a company of thirty-three persons, nearly one-half of which number were of the New Church, and the rest neighbors who had been invited to attend the service. On Sunday, August 1st, 1 held a service at the house of Henry Doering, Esq, and baptized a child. On Sunday, August 8th, 1 preached at the house of Mr. John McLuhan, near Conn, Grey County, about twenty-five being present. During the latter service two infants were baptized, and the Sacrament of the LORD'S Supper was administered, in which four married couples took part with the minister. The occasion was much enjoyed by this little circle of New Church friends.
I met with an interesting instance of a new receiver of the Heavenly Doctrines, in the town of Wingham. Without knowing a single individual on arriving in the place, en route for Brussels, I was providentially led to find and make the acquaintance of a gentleman who has been reading the Writings for three years or more. The gentleman evinced having read the Doctrines with great appreciation and profit. A lively conversation was had, and the new-found friend expressed with much warmth his pleasure at meeting with a minister of the New Church so unexpectedly. He said that he would not exchange the knowledge, and consequent gratification, derived from his perusal of the Writings, for the wealth of the world. J. E. BOWERS.
FROM THE PERIODICALS.
Rhode Island.-ON June 20th General Pastor John Worcester installed the Rev. Thomas S. Harris as pastor of the Providence Society. The Rev. Messrs. Wright, Hinkley, Warren, Stearns, and Bite assisted in the services.
Virginia.-A LONG the northern shore of Hampton Roads, between Newport News and Old Point Comfort, are six or eight thousand folks, mostly colored. Over this ground, prepared by books and tracts distributed by Mr. Wm. C. Bailey, the Rev. Jabez Fox has just gone a second time, deepening the impression he made last summer. His ten audiences-five white and five colored-ranged from twenty-five to one hundred. Quite a number of persons have seemed to become interested, especially among the colored people.
Ohio.-THE "Mary Allen Home School for Homeless Little Boys and Girls" will be opened in October. The object is to provide a home for children deprived thereof by any cause whatever,-to form a large New Church family, with attractive surroundings and ample provision for all that is needful to furnish a basis for the implantation of "remains." The expense for those admitted will be low, and a Fund has been begun for the maintenance of those unable to pay, to which contributions are invited. The Rev. Frank Sewall, of Washington, D. C., is Trustee and Director.
Indiana.-AT La Porte July 4th was made the last Sunday for regular services, the evening being given to a Sunday-school entertainment on the subject of "Light." Texts from the Word, on Light, were recited by teachers and pupils, and there were a few other appropriate recitations and readings. Nine girls rendered "The Temple of Wisdom," a piece arranged by the pastor.
A large draft of a temple stood on the platform. The pastor explained the Memorable Relation (T. C. R. 508), and then the girls put letter after letter over the entrance to the temple, each girl reciting appropriately until the motto was spelled, "Nunc Licet." C. S. Mack, M. D., gave a talk on "Correspondences of the Eye," followed by the Rev. T. A. King. The society worship with the Stone Lake Assembly during the hot weather. The resort at Stone Lake is said to be in fine condition and never looked fresher nor more beautiful.
Illinois.-THE annual meeting of the Englewood parish of the Chicago Society was held on June 14th and was a large and enthusiastic gathering. Since the organization, four years ago, the membership has increased from thirty-three to one hundred and forty-three (adults). Including Sunday-school children, most of whom have New Church baptism, one hundred and eighty-eight souls receive the ministries of the parish. Better church accommodations are badly needed.
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AT Pittsfield, June 15th, the Rev. L. G. Landenberger, on a visit from June 12th to 16th, lectured on "Johnny Appleseed," in addition to preaching three times.
ON June 20th Mr. King and Mr. Mercer both preached on the Significance of the Sending Out of the Twelve Apostles into the Spiritual World.
The Missionary Field.
THE Board of Home and Foreign Missions reports, through the Messenger (August 25th), encouragingly from the following fields: (1) The State of Washington, the Association in which held its annual meeting in Rosalia, July 18th, when the Rev. John Goddard ordained Mr. W. P. Harthill. Of the latter's talents and devoted spirit Mr. Goddard speaks warmly. (2) Milano, Tex, where Rev. A. B. Francisco has formed an earnest society. (3) Olney, Ill., where Rev. S. C. Eby has been working among a people who are said to be addicted to study of the Writings. (4) Virginia, where Rev. L. F. Hite has been visiting the cities of Richmond, Petersburg, and Danville. (5) Gladstone, Ill., where Rev. J. W. McSlarrow has been actively employed. (6) Toledo, O., where Rev. E. J. E. Schreck has been widely advertising the New Church and preaching to increasing audiences. (7) Rev. G. S. Wheeler's visits in Denver and Topeka.
THE Missionary of the Maine Association Rev. J. W. Schafer, has aroused interest among the Friends of Vassalboro (the early home of the late Dr. G. R. Starkey, himself reared a Friend). Two prominent Friends openly advocate the Writings.
THE ENGLISH CONFERENCE.
London.-THE Ninetieth Session of the General Conference of the New Church was held in Camberwell this year, beginning July 26th. The President's report, beside the usual matter, contained reference to the removal to the other world of Mr. Richard Gunton, Sir Isaac Pitman, and the Rev. Messrs. Thomas Mackereth and John Presland. The vacancy in the editorial chair of The New Church Magazine, caused by the death of Mr. Presland, was filled by the appointment of the Rev. R. R. Rodgers, for the ensuing year. The conduct of the Magazine in the interim caused by Mr. Presland's sickness has been in the hands of Miss C. E. Rowe, a lady of known literary ability. In this connection might be mentioned the interruption by ill-health, of the valuable series of articles published in the Magazine, by the Rev. James Buss entitled, "What the New Church teaches."
The labors of the Conference Missionary Minister, the Rev. Joseph Deans, have been lightened by the appointment of an assistant, the Rev. P. Ramage. The Missionary Committee were of the opinion that the small societies had been greatly helped during the year. With more men and means the work might be indefinitely extended. They recommended an enthusiastic attempt to complete the L10,000 Missionary Ministry Fund, to commemorate the Queens Jubilee.
The Committee in charge of the interests of Isolated Receivers reported 1,020 names on the register. A similar committee of the American League of New Church Young Peoples' Societies had applied for a full account of the English committee's methods and propose to follow similar lines.
On account of falling off in membership and in funds, the "Home Reading Union" has been discontinued, after "having achieved a great work in promoting an interest in the study of the Writings of the Church." The Rev. James F. Buss's services in answering questions were suitably recognized, as also the Rev. L. G. Hoeck's assistance to Mr. Buss.
The report of the Committee on Translation of the Word reviewed the history of such work in the New Church from its inception in America, in 1843, in the Western Convention, to the present. It seems that two years later a fund was started in England, amounting in 1880 to over L700. In 1892, Conference appointed a committee to co-operate with the General Convention in the work. After referring to Mr. Clowes' translation of the Gospels and of the Psalms, Mr. Smithson's version of Isaiah, Mr. Hillier's work on the Psalms, and the Tafel Interlinear translations of the Pentateuch, Gospels, Ezra, and Daniel, and to the translation of the whole Word into German, by Dr. Tafel, the Committee gave it as their opinion that a translation by a number must excel that of an individual, on account of the resultant free discussion of points by a variety of minds. The Committee recognize that the New Church is the proper source of a true translation of the Word as possessing the true key, the spiritual sense, whereas in the orthodox churches conjecture and literary taste will prevail. The Committee stated their principles of translation which govern them in their work. The thirteenth chapter of Genesis has been completed. The American Committee are taking the Psalms to begin with, collecting Swedenborg's Latin renderings. A resolution of appreciation of the labors of the Committee's Secretary, the Rev. Isaiah Tansley, was appended to the report.
The address of the incoming President, the Rev. John Joseph Thornton, dwelt upon the position of the New Church as standing before the world as the worshipers of the LORD JESUS CHRIST alone, and expanded the doctrine somewhat.
The Rev. T. F. Wright attended the Conference as the representative of the American Convention, delivering the Convention's Address, which he prefaced with friendly remarks.
The Rev. L. C. Hoeck, recently of America, received recognition by Conference.
The Rev. R. R. Rodgers was nominated for the presidency of Conference next year.
An experimental edition of a new Catechism was ordered.
The Rev. T. F. Wright, in connection with, the subject of translation, stated that under contract the reproduction of Swedenborg's MSS. by phototypy would advance at the rate of about one volume a year.
It was decided for this year to confine the Missionary expenditures to the fostering of small societies (a good, conservative step), to the neglect of public lectures Conference is working toward a federation of all the missionary institutions in the body.
Notices of motion were given from different quarters respecting Ordination and the Trine in the ministry, and on the necessity of reorganization on the basis of the Writings. The proposition to appoint a Committee to consider the matter was mollified to include the consideration of the "present dearth of Students for the Ministry," and the possibility of amending Conference Rules to conform more to the trinal order-involving also the status of lay preachers. From the minutes we gather that Conference has now only one student, Mr. Henry O. Drummond, Mr. C. W. Harvey having resigned in order to enter the American School at Cambridge.
Mr. Francis Heath was elected Treasurer.
[For the above cullings we are indebted to the published report in Morning Light.-ED.]
Title Unspecified 1897
NEW CHURCH LIFE.
PUBLISHED MONTHLY BY THE ACADEMY OF THE NEW CHURCH.
TERMS:-One Dollar per annum, payable in advance.
FOUR SHILLINGS IN GREAT BRITAIN.
ADDRESS all communications for publication to the Editor, the Rev. George G. Starkey, Huntingdon Valley, Montgomery Co., Pa.
Address all business communications to Academy Book Room, Cart Hj. Asplundh, Manager, No. 1521 Wallace Street, Philadelphia. Pa.
Subscriptions also received through the following agents:
UNITED STATES.
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Denver, Col., Mr. Geo. W. Tyler, Denver Agent of Academy Book Room, No. 544 South Thirteenth Street.
Pittsburgh, Pa., Mr. W. Rott, Pittsburgh Agent of Academy Book Room, 4726 Wallingford Street.
CANADA.
Toronto, Ont., Mr. R. Carswell, No. 47 Elm Grove.
Waterloo. Mr. Rudolf Roschman.
GREAT BRITAIN.
Mr. Wiebe Posthuma, Agent for Great Britain, of Academy Book Room, Burton Road, Brixton, London. S. W.
PHILADELPHIA, SEPTEMBER, 1897=128.
CONTENTS PAGE
EDITORIAL: Notes 129
The Divine Among Human Affairs 130
SERMON: Acknowledgment, Worship, and Trust of
the Divine Human 132
ANNALS OF THE NEW CHURCH 135
Diseases of the Fibers 137
An Interesting Proposition 138
The Seven Churches in Asia 140
NOTES AND REVIEWS 142
ANNOUNCEMENT 143
CHURCH NEWS 143
From the Periodicals 143
The English Conference 144
BIRTHS, MARRIAGE, AND DEATH 144
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NEW CHURCH LIFE
Vol. XVII, No. 10. PHILADELPHIA, OCTOBER, 1897=128. Whole No. 204
Editorial. 1897
THE Divine authorization "to enter intellectually into the mysteries of faith," has been more or less misunderstood. Without discriminating between the natural reason which is formed in the light of the world and the spiritual reason, which is born from the light of heaven, we fall into the error of making the former the test of truth. Paradoxically enough, this is really a form of that very faith-alone which the self-assertive natural reason repudiates; for it makes the way to heaven lie rather with the understanding than with the affection. The subject, as being considered of importance, is treated at length in our correspondence department.
"UNITY IN THE NEW CHURCH." 1897
CORRESPONDENCE on the subject of unity in the New Church was inaugurated in the New Church Messenger, by a critical but friendly letter from the Rev. Frank Sewall; published August 4th, entitled "The Recent Meeting of the 'General Assembly of the General Church of the New Jerusalem,'" proposing that the newly-formed Church consider the advisability of applying for admission to the General Convention. This was followed by a rejoinder by the Rev. C. T Odhner (August 18th), maintaining that such a union could not be effected so long as Convention's Constitution retained the feature of general jurisdiction over the priesthood, but signifying his approval of forming such a general conference of individual or general Churches as should assume no mandatory control over the constituent parts. Both of these letters were reproduced in our last number. Then followed a letter by the Rev. A. F. Frost (September 8th), to which replies have been made by Mr. Odhner (September 22d) and by the Rev. N. D. Pendleton (September 29th).
Mr. Frost's letter seems admonitory, and to have been actuated by a desire to have the members of the General Church reconsider the principles which Mr. Odhner had shown would stand in the way of an acceptance of the present order of Convention; taking the ground that in consistency the right of the people-conceded by Mr. Odhner-to choose their own pastors, involves that their competency should be admitted "to say whom they would like to see made ministers, pastors, or ordaining priests in the first place." To the lack of lay freedom to do this Mr. Frost ascribes the internal troubles of the General Church, alleging that the polity of that body (or of the Academy, which he identifies with the other) gave Bishop Benade the right, which he "unflinchingly" exercised, of" appointing and removing at his will pastors of societies without the consent of the members of those societies." Mr. Odhner's rejoinder pointed out that, as to "reconsideration," the sacrifice of principles not hastily formed, would hardly commend itself to the members of the General Church as an acceptable solution of the problem of effecting unity in the New Church; and moreover showed Mr. Frost's conception of the policy and order of that Church to be founded on lack of information. Mr. Pendleton's letter also refuted the charge of domination, or government without the free consent of the governed; and as to the point of lay jurisdiction in the ordaining function, asked whether Mr. Frost, as regarding himself competent to choose his own physician, claimed also "the right to say whom he would like to see made doctors in the first instance." Mr. Pendleton then applied himself to contradicting the idea apparently prevalent in Convention, that the Academy "was established to give expression to a specific and so-called divinely revealed form of ecclesiasticism." He declared that the inspiration which led to the formation of the Academy was the evangelization of the doctrine of the Divine Authority of the Writings, and that thence was derived the life of all the educational and other developments of the body. In conclusion, he indicated his belief that as this doctrine is essential to the life of the Church the recognition of it must be the basis of unity in the Church.
Title Unspecified 1897
WE take it for granted that neither Mr. Frost nor Mr. Pendleton are in the least degree indifferent to the conscientious views of those who differ from them-that in their letters they merely indicate what in their belief are essential prerequisites to a unification of the Church. To our mind the middle ground, taken by Mr. Odhner, seems the true one. The doctrine of the two bodies is already one as to these essentials: they both acknowledge the LORI JESUS CHRIST; the Divinity of the Word,-and the Writings as its source of interpretation; and the life of charity as embodied in the doing of uses to Church, State, and society. We believe that unity on these points of doctrine among us should be sufficient ground for a closer relation than the present one of aloofness, supposing, of course, that the doctrine with us be living from charity-for after all, all unity is from charity. We are not without assurance that the sparks of that sacred fire still survive on earth, notwithstanding that centuries of self-leading have well-nigh extinguished it, and we hope that some of it exists with us. In that hope we welcome the spirit of Mr. Sewall's proposition, while recognizing that even to consider it, as looking toward action, requires the removal of the existing obstacles referred to.
It seems evident that freedom of conscience and of faith is absolutely indispensable to anything of real harmony or common growth. It is equally evident that the principles which we have referred to as being held in common by the two bodies are differently understood and applied by them. In view of these differences can any degree of organic connection be devised which will be compatible with the necessary freedom? Certainly not if one party is to insist on maintaining a general jurisdiction over the priesthood, which the other party cannot in conscience submit to; certainly not if the other party stipulates that the first party shall accept their definition of the relation of the Writings to the Word, in violence to convictions.
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Concession of entire freedom on both sides seems necessary before there can be the first step of approach. Is that approach desired? and will that concession be made?
LORD'S RESURRECTION BODY. Rev. EDWARD C. BOSTOCK 1897
A SERMON
"Behold my hands and my feet that it is I, myself; touch me and see, for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have."-Luke xxiv, 39.
THE LORD spoke these words when He appeared to. His disciples after His resurrection, and they thought Him a spirit. He spoke them to teach the great truth upon which depends the resurrection and salvation of the human race, viz.: that He rose from the grave with His whole Human, even to the very flesh and bones.
When men leave this world and become spirits, they put off the material body and rise in a spiritual body. But the LORD, unlike man, rose with His whole body which He had in the world. He left nothing in the Sepulchre. He is not, therefore, a spirit, but a complete man with a Divine Human Body, such as no spirit or angel has, so that He alone in the whole Spiritual world is a complete man, in Firsts and in ultimates, for as He says: "A spirit has not flesh and bones as ye see me have."
But while we know, acknowledge, and believe that the LORD alone rose with His whole body, even as to the very flesh and bones, we must also know, acknowledge, and believe that His body is not a Material body, such as man has, but a Divine Human Body, above all the Heavens, even One with the Divine, JEHOVAH Himself; for while the LORD was in the world He glorified His Human-i. e., He made it Divine in Ultimates even as in Firsts, so that He is now the very Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last.
If the LORD had not risen from the grave in His Glorified Human, man could not have risen after death, and no flesh could have been saved. This is the fundamental doctrine of the Church, and it is of the very greatest importance for every member of the Church to understand it and thus to form a clear idea of the Divine Human of the LORD, to whom is given "All Power in Heaven and on Earth."
When the LORD was born into the world He was unlike every man in this, that his soul was JEHOVAH Himself; the very Divine, Life in Himself, the Creator and Preserver of the Universe: for JEHOVAH Himself took upon Himself a Human body that He might come into the world, and thus follow man to the very ultimate to which he had removed himself and there redeem and save him from his sins.
The Human body which the LORD took on was, like the body of another man, finite, natural, material, an organ receptive of life, in no sense life itself.
He took on this merely for the body, in order to come to man in his low and evil state and to rescue him from the bonds of sin and death. He thus clothed His Divine with the Human from infinite mercy, for man could bear His presence in no other form, and in no greater strength. If the LORD had appeared in His very Divine Itself, the human race would have perished. No man could have approached Him, much less any evil spirit. Therefore in His Infinite Mercy He took upon Himself a merely finite human, to which man might draw near, and against which evil spirits could fight and thus be conquered, from the Divine Within; thus He reduced hell to order and placed it under subjection to Himself to eternity.
The whole life of the LORD upon earth was a continual combat with the hells, which were permitted to assault His Human with all their infernal venom and madness in the hope of destroying it, and with it the whole human race.
In order that they might approach His Human and endeavor to destroy it, and at the same time that they might be defeated and reduced to order, the Human of the LORD was alternately in two states. In one state the Human was to all appearance left to itself. At such times it appeared to the Human of the LORD as if the Divine was separate; as if the Human was forsaken. At such times evil spirits also supposed the LORD to be left to Himself, and they rushed in with the eager and malicious hope of overcoming and destroying His Human.
This state is called His state of Humiliation, or of exinanition. In this state He underwent temptations. Unless the human had been let into these states evil spirits could not have approached even, still less could they have tempted the LORD, for the Divine cannot be tempted.
When in states of Humiliation the LORD prayed to the Father-i. e., to the Divine Within-as if to another, looked to Him for aid, and from His Divine fought against and overcame the hells. When He conquered and had confined the evil spirits in their hells, He came into the second state, called the state of His Glorification. In this state the Human was conjoined to the Divine, and the LORD no longer prayed to the Father as if to another, but spoke such truths as, "I and the Father are one;" "He who seeth Me seeth the Father." These two states alternated in the glorification of the Human of the LORD, just as states of temptation and consolation alternate with man during regeneration. When He had endured the last temptation, which was the passion of the cross, He rose upon the third day with His whole Human Glorified-i. e., made Divine, and one with the Father.
When we think of the glorification of the LORD'S Human we must be careful not to form an erroneous idea of glorification. We must be careful to remember that the LORD did not transmute or change the material body into the Divine; for nothing finite can by any means be changed into what is Divine. Nor did the LORD commix or commingle the Divine and the merely human, for this also is impossible.
What the LORD did do was to expel and cast out all the merely finite human substance which He derived from the Mother Mary and put on a Divine Human from the Father. This Human is composed of Divine substantial essences having Life in themselves. So that when He arose from the sepulchre in His Glorified Human He was no longer the Son of Mary, but altogether Divine, and in His Divine Human far above the Heavens. From His Divine Human now proceeds the Sun of Heaven, whose spiritual heart and light make heaven.
We must think of the LORD, therefore, even as to His Human, as the Divine Love in a Human Form, the only God of heaven and earth.
Now let us turn to some of the passages from the Doctrines in which it is clearly taught that the LORD glorified His whole Human even to the very flesh and bones; for it is important that we have this foundation-stone of our faith clearly and strongly impressed upon our minds.
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"To God Most High, that it signifies the Internal Man who is JEHOVAH, appears from those things which were sometimes said above concerning the Internal Man of the LORD, that it is JEHOVAH Himself, thus that the LORD is the same with JEHOVAH the Father, as He Himself says in John: 'I am the way and the truth and the life: Philip says, Show us the Father. JESUS said to him, Am I so long a time with you and thou hast not known me, Philip? He who seeth me seeth the Father; how therefore sayest thou show us the Father; dost thou not believe 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, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11). The Human Essence of the LORD is what is called the Son of Man, which also, after temptation-combats, was united to the Divine Essence so that it also was made JEHOVAH; wherefore in heaven they know no other JEHOVAH the Father than the LORD (see above, n. 15). With the LORD all is JEHOVAH, not only His Internal and Interior Man, but also the external and the body Itself; wherefore also He alone rose into heaven even as to the body, as appears plainly with the Evangelists where it treats concerning His resurrection; then from the words of the LORD themselves: 'Wherefore do thoughts arise in your hearts, see my hands and my feet, because it is I myself; touch me and see, for a spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have, and when He had said this He showed them the hands and feet.'"-Luke xxiv, 38-9, 40 (A. C. 1729).
In this passage it is clearly taught that the LORD is JEHOVAH-i. e., Divine and the Father, in every degree, even to the very body; as is taught in the very letter of the Word, in the passage we have taken for our text. But because some have thought that by the body is not meant the body of flesh and bones, but the sensual which they think of as something within and interior to the body of flesh and bones, I will quote from one or two other passages to show that the very ultimate body, which we call the flesh and hones, was glorified.
In Arcana Coelestia, n. 5077, we are taught what is meant by the body. We there learn, by the body is meant the sensual or sensitive together with its receptacle, which is called the corporeal. The sensitive is called the principal, and the corporeal is called the instrumental, and both together the body. In the next number we read:
"That it treats here and in the following parts of this chapter, in the internal sense, concerning the external sensuals of both kinds, is because in the former chapter it treats concerning the LORD, how He glorified or made His interior natural Divine; here therefore it treats concerning the LORD, how He glorified or made His exterior natural Divine; the exterior naturals are those things which are properly called corporeals or sensuals of both kinds, together with the recipients; for these with those constitute that which is properly called the body, as may be seen above, n. 5077. The LORD made the corporeal itself, in Himself, Divine, as well its sensuals as the recipients, wherefore also He arose from the sepulchre with the body, and also after the resurrection He said to the disciples, see my hands and my feet that myself I am; touch me and see, for a spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have" (A. C. 5078). Here we have it plainly taught that the LORD glorified not only the sensual or sensitive, which is the principal, but also the recipients which are the instrumental, and which are in fact the flesh and bones. These two together constitute the body.
We have further instruction concerning the glorification of the body of the LORD in the Doctrine of the LORD, n. 35, where it is distinctly said that the Human which was material was put off and a Divine Human put in its Place.
"That the LORD successively put off the Human taken on from the mother, and put on a human from the Divine in Himself, which is the Divine Human and the Son of God.
"That the LORD had a Divine and a human, a Divine from JEHOVAH the Father and a human from the Virgin Mary, is known; thence it is that He was God and Man, and thus the Essence Itself Divine and the nature human: The Divine Essence from the Father: the Human Nature from the mother and thence equal to the Father as to the Divine and less than the Father as to the Human. Then that He did not transmute this Human Nature, from the mother, into the Divine Essence nor commix it with it, as the Doctrine of Faith which is called Athanasian teaches; for the Human Nature cannot be transmuted into the Divine Essence nor commixed with. And nevertheless from our same doctrine it is that the Divine took on the human-i. e., united itself to it, as the soul to its body, even so that they were not two, but one person. From this it follows that He put off the human from the mother, which in itself was similar to the human of another man, and thus material, and put on the human from the Father which in itself is similar to the Divine and thus substantial, from which the human also was made Divine . . . Since the LORD, with the Divine and Human united in one, ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of God, by which is signified the Divine omnipotence, it follows that His Human substance or essence is as the Divine. If man should think otherwise it would be as if he should think that His Divine was lifted up into heaven and sat at the right hand of God and not at the same time His human; which is contrary to Scripture and also contrary to the Christian Doctrine, which is that God and Man in Christ are as the soul and body, to separate which would be contrary to sound reason" (L. 35).
From the teaching contained in this number it is clear that glorification does not consist in any process of transmitting or changing the material into the Divine, but that where it is said that the LORD glorified the material body which He took on from Mary, it means that He put off and dissipated all that was material and finite and put on the Divine, which is substantial, in its place. If we grasp this idea of glorification many difficulties vanish, and we can comprehend and hold the important Doctrine that the LORD rose from the grave with His whole body glorified or made Divine.
In order that it may be quite clear that it was the actual body, such as man leaves in the grave, that the LORD glorified, let us listen to the following from the I posthumous work on The Last Judgment. "When I spoke with those who were upon another mountain, somewhat from the Word, I apperceived somewhat holy from them. As when I said that the LORD was conceived from JEHOVAH, and that therefore He called him Father, and that thence it is that He is the Son of God and thence is the Divine in Him; and that therefore He was able to glorify the whole body, and as to that body which by those who are born from human parents is rejected and putrefies, with Him it was glorified and made Divine, from the Divine in Itself, and with this He rose leaving nothing in the sepulchre, and otherwise as takes place with every man; they heard with attention and said that they had not heard such things" (L. J. p. 87).
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Here it is distinctly said that the LORD glorified and rose with the body which with men is rejected and putrefies. Thus there can be no doubt that the LORD glorified and rose with the very body of flesh and bones, and that He is really and truly the very First and the Last.
By thus subjugating the hells and glorifying His Human He acquired a power to elevate into heaven those who before could not be saved. Without this great act of salvation we could not this day be looking to Him, our Saviour and our Redeemer. Upon the acknowledgment of the Divine Human of the LORD the New Church is founded, and by His rising on the third day is meant not only that He rose actually upon the third day, at that time of His First Coming, but also that the Truth Divine, or the Word us to the Internal Sense will be resuscitated in the consummation of the age, as has been done at this day.
Not only is this meant but also His resurrection in each Church where He is acknowledged in His glorified Human and in His opened Word; and still again He rises with each one of us when we acknowledge Him in His glorified Human as the God of heaven and earth, and still again when He is seen in the Internal Sense of His Word, now laid open. Finally He rises each instant as He lifts us up and saves us from our proprium, into which we continually fall.
Let us then rest firmly upon this great doctrine of the Church, acknowledging that the LORD alone, in His Divine Human, is the God of Heaven and Earth, that He alone rules the heavens and the Church, and that when He rules He rules all things well.
"Behold my hands and my feet that it is I myself; touch me and see, for a spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have."-Amen.
ASSYRIA. 1897
I.
THE CHURCH.
ASSYRIA was one of the countries of the Ancient Church. It is mentioned for the first time in Genesis ii, 14, where we read: "And the name of the third river is Hiddekel; that it is which goeth eastward, toward Assyria." The river Hiddekel signifies reason, or the clearness of reason; Assyria, the rational mind. This is all the information we have concerning Assyria in connection with the Most Ancient Church.
But it is not likely that at that time there was any country or nation known by the name of Asshur. Indeed, if we understand the Writings correctly, the rational, which is represented by Asshur, properly belongs to the Spiritual Church. The above statement was taken by Moses from the Ancient Word, thus written by men of the Ancient or Spiritual Church, who described the Most Ancient Church in language suited to their own genius. The celestial man possesses a faculty which is superior to the rational, and this fact is evidently implied in the statement that the Hiddekel "goeth eastward toward Asshur." The internal principle must first exist before its corresponding external can come into being; and the rational was one of the gifts which the men of the Ancient Church enjoyed in a high degree. A certain branch of that Church excelled all the rest in that faculty, hence we find that Asshur was one of the nations of the Ancient Church.
In the tenth chapter of Genesis Asshur is more fully described; for in that chapter the Ancient Church, from its rise to its decline, is described. In that chapter we find two different and opposite forms of Asshur treated of, one deriving its origin from Shem, the other from Ham (or Chain). Both of these forms are frequently referred to in the prophets, and other books of the Word. But whether the country or the people of Asshur is mentioned, the subject is always the rational, or the things of the rational mind in a good or an evil sense.
Those who derived their origin from Shem were internal men, for Shem signified the internal Church. On the other hand, those who belonged to the Church Ham were mere ratiocinaters, who would reason about every point of doctrine, but utterly lacked the faculty of distinguishing truth from falsity. That such was the character of the latter is evident from the fact that they traced their origin from Ham, through Gush and Nimrod. Ham was the internal Church corrupt, or the Church which separated faith from charity. Cush, the son of Ham, signifies those who apply the interior knowledges of the Word to confirm falses; and Ninrod those who make internal worship external (A. C. 1164, 1773).
Thus Asahur has a two-fold meaning in the Word. It stands both for the genuine and the perverted rational. The Internal Sense of Genesis x, shows that the Asshur who went out of the Land of Shinar was not identical with Asshur the Son of Shem. Both belonged to the Internal Church, but with this difference, that the former belonged to the corrupt Internal Church and the latter to the true Church. Thus in the Ancient Church there arose in the course of time two classes of men, who were skilled in the interior knowledges of spiritual and celestial things, but who used them for opposite ends. Both of these were the people of Asshur.
The tenth chapter of Genesis, although in the Letter a mere catalogue of names, describes the three great branches of the Ancient Church. For some Divine reason not stated Ham is treated of before Shem, the corrupt Church before the genuine Internal Church; hence also the corrupt rational is described first; for although the names in that chapter are the names of nations who were of the Ancient Church, in the Internal Sense they signify different kinds of worship.
"The Sons of Ham were Cush, and Mizraim, and Phut, and Canaan. And Cush begat Nimrod. He began to be a mighty one in the earth. And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh in the Land of Shimar. And out of that land went forth Asshur, and built Nineveh, and the city of Rehoboth, and Calah, and Resen between Nineveh and between Calah, the great city."
This passage, in the Internal Sense, describes the gradual development of the state which constituted the internal character of the Assyrians, which in its grosser form reveals itself throughout the history and literature of that people, now extant. Thus the Assyrians of historic times were the most warlike nation of antiquity. And this we should naturally expect to have been the case; for the rational, when perverted, delights in contention, which on a lower plane ultimates itself in aggression and warfare. War was the business and the pleasure of the Assyrians, as their monuments sufficiently show. And their descent (if we may use the expression) reveals itself in other ways. They were Hamites, or men who had separated faith from charity; hence in this worship instituted by those who were signified by Nimrod, and which in time degenerated into idolatry, there was none of that simplicity and innocence generally found in that of the Gentiles.
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That such was the quality of their faith-i. e., devoid of charity, hence also of innocence, is plain from the following description of the faith of the Church Ham:
"Faith separated from charity is no faith, and where there is no faith there is no worship, neither internal nor external; or if there be any worship, it is corrupt; wherefore by Ham is signified internal worship corrupted, it is false to suppose that faith consists in the mere knowledge of things celestial and spiritual separated from charity, for sometimes the very worst of men are most eminently distinguished for such science, who live in continual hatred, revenge, and adultery, consequently who are infernal, and after the life of the body become devils. Hence it may appear that science is not faith. But faith is an acknowledgment of the things that belong to faith, and acknowledgment is by no means external, but internal, and is the operation of the LORD alone by charity in man. Acknowledgment belongs not to the lips, but to the life, and by the life of every one it is known what is the nature and quality of his acknowledgment. The sons of Hans are all those who are scientifically skilled in the knowledges of faith and have not charity" (A. C. 1162).
When faith alone invades a Church, those who possess the most interior knowledges also become the most interior profaners; and the Assyrians, who possessed the knowledges of the interior things of the Word, and really belonged to the most interior branch of the Church Ham, form no exception to that rule. For "Cush begat Nimrod"-i. e., those who had these knowledges began to make internal worship external, which resulted in various kinds of profanation called in our chapter "Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh." These names describe different kinds of worship, as well as places in Lower Mesopotamia where these kinds of worship prevailed: for it is said that they were in the Land of Shinar, which signifies worship which appears holy in externals, but which is internally profane. These forms of worship finally degenerated into the grossest forms of idolatry, attended with rites of the most revolting character. The following is a description of the worship here treated of:
"External worship always takes its quality from the state of man's interiors. In proportion as man's interiors are free from defilements, so is his external worship; but in proportion as his interiors are defiled, his external worship is so likewise; and in proportion as his interiors are profane his external worship is so likewise. In a word, in proportion as man is influenced by the love of self, and the love of the world, there is less of life and sanctity in his worship; in proportion as his selfish and worldly love is filled with hatred toward his neighbor, there is profaneness in his worship; in proportion as his hatred is filled with malice, there is more profaneness in his worship; and in proportion as his malice is filled with deceit, there is in his worship more profaneness still. The interiors of the kind of external worship, which is signified by Babel [i. e., Shinar] fall under the description here given" (A. C. 1182).
In the light of this and of the preceeding passage, the account concerning Asshur in Genesis x, 6-12, becomes an interesting chapter of Church History, which is briefly stated as follows:
Those who possessed the interior knowledge of the Word, and adopted the principle that faith alone saves, established several forms of a certain kind of worship, which appeared holy in externals, but was internally profane; and after they had closed their minds against the influx of internal things by such profanations, they began to reason about the interior things of worship, which best is signified by the words: And out of that land went Asshur. This gave rise to falses of various kinds: First, to falses arising from the fallacies of the senses, the obscurity of an unenlightened understanding, and ignorance. These falses are signified by Nineveh. Second, from the same origin, but attended with the dominion of evil lusts, such as the love of innovation, or of pre-eminence. The falses thence derived are signified by Rehoboth. Third, the falses from the will, consequently of evil lusts, where men are unwilling to allow anything to be true, but what favors such lusts. Hence come the falses which are signified by Calah. But then they begin to formulate doctrines of life from the falses of reason and the falses of lusts, and these are signified by Resen between Nineveh and between Calsh, which is the great city.
In what manner all these falses ultimated themselves in the life of the Assyrians in prehistoric times we have no means of knowing. The Assyrians known to history were evidently more degenerated than their forefathers, in whom we may see the national traits in somewhat exaggerated forms. For history represents them as the haughtiest, fiercest, and most cruel of the ancient nations, and steeped in the grossest forms of idolatory, the Babylonians excepted.
Asshur, the Son of Shem.
The rational of the Spiritual Church is described in Ezekiel in the following words:
"Behold Assyria is a cedar in Lebanon, beautiful of branch, and a shady grove, and lofty in height, and her shoot is among the dense [leaves]; the waters made her grow, the depth of waters exalted her, the rivers drawing round about the plant. (Ch. xxx, 3, 4.)
The rational is called a cedar in Lebanon, her shoot among the dense [leaves] signifies the scientific of the memory. The genuine rational is formed by scientifics of a spiritual origin, thus from the knowledges of spiritual and celestial things revealed out of heaven from the LORD. For all intelligence of truth, and all the application to truth is thence (A. E. 340). Hence the Assyrians who were of the Church Shem were of a character totally different from those who belonged 10 the Church Ham. They were internal men, who had become rational by means of the knowledges of spiritual and celestial things, and their mind was enlightened from heaven. The two classes had nothing in common with each other, except that they both possessed interior knowledges, which, however, they used for such different ends. Our knowledge of the former is limited. The only source of information regarding them is a passage here and there in the Writings in explanation of some passages in the Word. Concerning the latter, or, perhaps more correctly, concerning their degenerate posterity, our information is fuller, for the extant monuments belong to an age when the Church had become wholly corrupt in Assyria. Of these more on another occasion.
ANNALS OF THE NEW CHURCH. 1897
1770.
January-July.-Swedenborg in Stockholm, working on the True Christian Religion.
January 2d.-Stockholm. Royal resolution calling upon the Gottenburg Consistory to report on the character of Swedenborg's Writings, and on the subjects of the "Sermon-Essays" of Dr. Beyer, on his theological teachings to the students of the Gottenburg College, and on his publication of Swedenborg's letter of October 30th, 1769 (Doc. II, 318).
January 14th.-Stockholm. The Ecclesiastical Committee of the House of the Clergy recommends that a refutation of Swedenborg's Writings be composed (Acad. Arch. L., 1895, p. 183).
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January 18th.-Stockholm. Letter from Swedenborg to the Councillor Wenngren, of Gottenburg; describes the present theological agitation and the slanders circulated against the Heavenly Doctrines (Doc. II, 321).
January 21st.-Stockholm. Letter of the House of the Clergy to the Archbishop and Consistory of Upsala, reporting that measures have been taken for the suppression of Swedenborgianism (Acad. Arch. L., 1895, p. 183).
January 31st.-Gottenburg. The Rev. Drs. Beyer, Rosen, Roempke, and Waldenstrale, all members of the Consistory, refuse to obey the royal resolution commanding them to put their signatures to a paper by which the clergy is warned against the "Swedenborgian heresy" (Sundelin, p. 83).
February 7th.-Gottenburg. Dr. Rosen submits to the Consistory a "declaration" to the king, expressing his opinions of Swedenborg's Writings (fearless, eloquent, scriptural, laconic, humorous. Doc. II, 349).
February 12th.-Gottenburg. Dean Ekebom sends in a declaration to the king respecting "Swedenborgian doctrines" in general and Dr. Beyer's offenses in particular; repeats his confession of ignorance on the subject, but maintains his former condemnation (Doc. II, 345).
February 14th.-Gottenburg. Dr. Beyer sends in his declaration to the king (frank, mature, spiritual, and systematic; a magnificent document; the first thorough defense of the Heavenly Doctrines. Doc. II, 323-345).
March 3d.-Gottenburg. Letter of Assessor Aurell to the Chancellor of Justice; contains fulsome expressions of gratitude for the measures taken against Dr. Beyer and Dr. Rosen; makes further demands for more rigorous punishment (Acad. Arch. L., 1895, p. 183).
March 4th.-Elsinoer, Denmark. Letter of General Tuxen to Swedenborg, calling attention to Aurell's publication of the minutes of the Gottenburg Consistory, etc. (Doc. II, 370).
March 24th.-Stockholm. Letter of the Chancellor of Justice to Judge Gillerstedt, of Gottenburg, demanding reasons for delay in reporting upon the case of Swedenborgianism (Acad. Arch.; L., 1895, p. 183).
April 12th.-Stockholm. Swedenborg's fifteenth letter to Beyer; gives no credence to the rumor that Beyer and Rosen are to be deposed and banished from the kingdom; speaks of his intention of submitting the whole matter to the king and to the Diet as a whole (Doc. II, 352).
April 14th.-Gottenburg. Letter of Dr. Rosen to a Senator, explaining his reasons for accepting Swedenborg's teachings (Doc. II, 356).
April 26th.-Stockbolm. Royal resolution, addressed to the Consistory of Gottenburg, commanding Bishop Lamberg to reprimand and warn Dr. Beyer and Dr. Rosen. (An incomplete translation of this important document is published in Doc. II, 365, 373. A copy of the complete document, in the original tongue, is preserved in the Academy Archives, L. 1895, p. 183.)
April 26th-Stockholm. A second royal resolution, ordering the prohibition and confiscation of all of Swedenborg's theological writings. Assessor Aurell is forbidden any further publication of the Minutes of the Gottenburg Consistory (Doc. II, 367, Sundelin, p. 66).
April 30th.-Stockholm. Swedenborg's sixteenth' letter to Dr. Beyer; speaks of his intended journey to Amsterdam, in order to publish the True Christian Religion (Doc. II, 369).
May 1st.-Stockholm. Swedenborg's letter to General Tuxen, giving an account of the disturbances in Gottenburg (Doc. II, 371).
May 5th.-Gottenburg. Beyer and Rosen are reprimanded by the Bishop before the Consistory; they are forbidden to teach on any theological subject in the College, or to make any converts to the Doctrines of the New Church (Sundelin, p. 96).
May 10th.-Stockholm. Swedenborg's letter to the king, appealing for justice (Doc. II, 373).
May 16th-Gottenburg. Beyer and Rosen are officially lectured and scolded by Bishop Lamberg; they are peremptorily ordered to repudiate the Doctrines of the New Church over their signatures, but both of them refuse to do so (Sundelin, p. 97).
June.-London. The work on "The Intercourse between the Soul and the Body," translated by Thomas Hartley, is unfavorably reviewed in The Monthly Review. This is the first public criticism of the Doctrines in England (Doc. II, 1010).
June.-Stockholm. Swedenborg sends a memorial to the king, protesting against the persecution against the Heavenly Doctrines. A small part of this important document is published in Doc. II, 373. A copy of the complete original is preserved in the Academy Archives, L. 1895, p. 183.
June 19th.-Stockholm. On this day Swedenborg finishes the work on the first draft of "The True Christian Religion." In a memorandum, added to this work (no. 721), he states:
"After this work was finished, the LORD called together His twelve disciples, who had followed Him in the world; and the next day He sent them all forth into the universal spiritual world, to preach the Gospel that the LORD GOD JESUS CHRIST reigneth, whose kingdom shall be for ages of ages . . . This took place on the nineteenth day of June, in the year 1770."
From this date, therefore, may be counted the actual beginning of the institution of. the New Church in the spiritual world.
June 20th.-Gottenburg. Letter of the Consistory to the king, reporting the refusal of Beyer and Rosen to repudiate the Doctrines of the New Church; the Consistory recommends that the two doctors be deposed from their office as teachers in the College (Sundelin, p. 98).
July l9th.-Stockholm. Swedenborg's letter to Augustus Alstromer, of Gottenburg, giving an account of the Gottenburg trial (Doc. II, 378).
July 23d.-Stockholm. Swedenborg's seventeenth letter to Dr. Beyer, announcing his intended journey to Amsterdam, and enclosing a copy of his letter to the Universities (Doc. II, 379).
July 23d.-Stockholm. Swedenborg's letter to the Universities of Abo, Lund, and Upsala, showing the disorderly method of procedure in the Gottenburg trial, of which he states: "This trial has been the most important and the most solemn that has been before any council during the last 1,700 years, since it concerns the New Church, which is predicted by the LORD in Daniel and in the Apocalypse, and agrees with what the LORD says in Matthew xxiv, 22" (Doc. II, 380).
July (end).-Swedenborg leaves Stockholm on his twelfth and last foreign journey.
August (beginning).-On his way to Amsterdam, via Denmark, Swedenborg stops at Elsinoer, where he meets General Tuxen (the second time), and pays a visit to the home of the latter. Swedenborg is reported by Tuxen to have stated that there were, at that time, about fifty receivers of the Heavenly Doctrine in this world (Doc. II, 440).
September 5th.-Gottenburg. Dr. Rosen is deprived of certain official privileges, in consequence of the royal resolution (Acad. Arch.; L. 1895, p. 183).
151
September 7th.-Gottenburg. Dr. Rosen, in a supplication to the king, promises not to preach or defend the teachings of Swedenborg (Acad. Arch. L. ibid).
September 10th.-Swedenborg in Amsterdam; meets Cuno, who has reported that "the old gentleman looks more cheerful" than at his former visit (Doc. II, 454).
September 26th.-Gottenburg. Dr. Roempke, in a letter to the Consistory, complains of the violent chastisement of his son by the latter's teacher, Dr. Rosen (Acad. Arch., L. ibid.).
September 26th.-Gottenburg. Dr. Rosen's letter to the Consistory, explaining the well-merited punishment of young Roempke; a very witty protest against the Consistory's unjust treatment of himself, versus Dr. Roempke (Acad. Arch., L. ibid.).
October 11th.-Gottenburg. Bishop Lamberg and the Consistory to the king; report Dr. Rosen's alleged violence against his pupils, and his" impudent behavior" towards the Consistory (Acad. Arch., L. ibid.).
October 19th.-Gottenburg. Dr. Rosen to the king; protests against the Consistory's unlawful persecution against him (Acad. Arch. L. Ibid.).
November 15th.-Stockholm. Swedenborg's memorial to the king (of June) considered by the Council of State; the subject is referred to the personal decision of the king (Acad. Arch., L. Ibid.).
November 16th.-Stockholm. Further consideration of Swedenborg's memorial in the Council of State. The memorial of the Chancellor of Justice (of December 29th, 1769) is approved (Acad. Arch., L. ibid.).
From this year dates the paper by Swedenborg, entitled "Adversaria in Veram Christianam Religionem" (Materials for the True Christian Religion). MS. 23 pp. (Doc. II, 1020).
PUBLICATIONS.
Swedenborg, Em.: "A Theosophic Lucubration on the Nature of Influx." Translated by the Rev. Thomas Hartley, with a preface by the same. London. First English edition, 4to. B. L. (Doc. II, 500, 1010.)
"The Doctrine of Life for the New Jerusalem." Translated by Mr. William Cookworthy, of Plymouth, First English edition, Plymouth, 4to. B. L.
(The date is incorrectly given as 1763 in Doc. II, 996. See also Report of the Swedenborg Society of 1863, p. 15, and N. C. M., 1885, p. 375.)
"Von den Erdkorpern der Planeten und des gestirnten Himmels Einwohnern" (Earths in the Universe). First German edition; translated by a nephew of OEtinger. (Mentioned in T. M., vol. II, p. 101.)
COLLATERAL.
[Anonymous] "Tankar och Roliga Berattelser i anledning af Herr Assessor Swedenborg's Samtal och Umgange med Andarne" (Thoughts and amusing anecdotes on the subject of Assessor Swedenborg's conversations and intercourse with the spirits.) Stockholm. Carlbohm. 16 pp. R.L.
OEtinger, F. C.: "Schreiben von einer angeblichen Vermittlung des Streites zwisehen dem Gottenburger Conaistorium und den beiden Verfechtern der Swedenborgischen Lehren" (A letter proposing a possible compromise in the controversy between the Consistory of Gottenburg and the two defenders of the Swedenborgian Doctrines). Stuttgart. T. M., vol. II, p. 101.
A German translation of the Documents relating to the Gottenburg trial is said to have been published in Hamburg, under the auspices of Swedenborg himself
(Doc. II, 323, 346, 372).
DISEASES OF THE FIBRES 1897
CHAPTER XI.
ON MELANCHOLIA, DELIRIUM, MANIA, INSANITY, LOSS OF MEMORY, TARANTISM, ST. VITUS' DANCE, ETC.
473. DISEASES, such as mania, insanity, tarantism, and the rest, the causes of which I now proceed to explore, are not of the body only, but likewise of our animus and of our mind, which is called rational; thus they are not distinctly of the red blood, but also of the purer or prior blood-that is, of the animal spirits which course through the fibres. Consequently these diseases, in some degree, affect the influx of the soul into the sphere of our understanding. For they who differentiate the causes of such diseases, affections, and deliria solely from the visible blood handle a sublime subject in a somewhat crude manner, nor do they continue farther than the threshold of effects, and when they believe that they see causes they view only things caused which they seize upon for causes. Therefore, in order to examine these things, we ought to enter more interiorly into the recesses of the animal nature. Then also we shall be persuaded that not only is there a real influx of the soul into its body by means of the organs of the internal senses, but also that the soul cannot inflow into its body otherwise than according to the state of the organic substances; which fact no one will doubt if he but deigns to contemplate causes from effects, or priors from experience itself.
474. But it is necessary that before investigation some theorems be advanced which may be premises for the things to be concluded: that is to say, that the cortical substance is that to which the external sensations refer themselves by means of the fibres; or that there are just as many little internal sensories, or, as it were, little eyes of the intellectual sight, us there are such substances; so that the cortical cerebrum is the veriest common sensory, and similarly the common voluntary motor; consequently that the cortical substances are those prime organs into which the soul inflows by its lumen, the effect of which is understanding, thinking, judging, willing; for if these organs be in any manner disturbed from their natural state, form, and situation, the understanding, memory, and every faculty which is internal and properly human immediately suffers and sickens.
475. Since every single part of the cortical substance is a little sensory and a symbol of our intellect, it follows that all taken together constitute the principal parts of the cerebrum, as it were, and produce something common, which cannot be called the understanding. For that which is peculiar to a part is prior, superior, and more perfect, but that which is peculiar to the parts taken together, or considered as a whole, is posterior, inferior, and more imperfect. Consequently that which is peculiar to the cortical substance is prior, superior, and more perfect than that which is peculiar to the whole brain. Consequently to the brain, in the concrete, understanding, thought, and will cannot be attributed, but some inferior powers, as apperception, imagination, and desire. The former are properties of the intellectual mind, but the latter of the animus. (Compare Treatise on the Fibre, n. 306, 307)
476. It must likewise be known that the vessels of the red blood, having divided into most minute and capillaceous vessels, finally shoot forth the cortical glands, which hang from them like grapes from the twigs of their vine; and that from those glands proceed fibres, which in the cerebrum are called medullaries, and-continued in the body-nerves; these together with the blood-vessels from the motor fibres in the muscles.
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So that the motor fibres respect the cortical glands of the cerebrum as their origins, which transmit their animal spirits thither through the fibres.
477. Moreover, that the red blood, which is the seminary and storehouse of all things in its kingdom, contains in itself the purer blood, which is the same as the animal spirit, and which breaks forth from the dissolved globule of the red blood, and is transmitted into the cortical gland, and by that into the fibre. Likewise some of the purest serum is transferred from another place, or by the rival vessels of the fibre (concerning which see Treatise on the Fibre, Chap. IX), into the same cortical gland, in order that there may be material from which it may be elaborated, and with which the said spirit or purer blood may be mingled.
478. Then also that the cortical gland may be influenced according to every nature of that fluid which courses through it, and is transferred by it into the fibre. It is scarcely otherwise than sight influenced by every variety of forces or modifications of the ether; hearing, by every variety of modulation of the air; taste, by every variety of the parts touching the fibrils of its organ. So also with smell. But the effect on the cortical gland is more sublime, because its sense is purer, superior, and more perfect, as are also the substances and forces which affect it.
479. Finally, that the cortical glands in particular, and the cerebrum in general, can undergo, and do undergo, infinite states, or infinite changes of state- that is to say, in accordance with every cause and variety of forces and forms which inflow, and by which they are affected. As is the state of the cerebrum, so is that of the animus in the cerebrum; and as is the state or the cortical substance, so is the state of the mind into which the soul, while it inflows, cannot be operated otherwise than in accordance with its state-e. g., as is the state of the eye, so is that of sight, although the rays or solar light inflow in the same manner; or, as is the state of the illuminated object, so is the variegation of light, whence are so varied colors and shades. There is a similar reason for all things in universal nature.
480. These things have been treated of in particular in our Treatises; and from that slight experience, which was related in the midst, it was confirmed that the cerebrum is such, and thence flows its faculty of sensating and understanding; but it shall be further confirmed from the infinite documents of experience. In the meantime we labor in vain on the causes which are to be concluded of the diseases mentioned in this chapter. These diseases likewise shall add their symbols of confirmation.
BLOOD. Reginald Brown, B. A 1897
(A thesis by Reginald Brown, B. A., read on the occasion of his graduation from the college course of the Academy Schools, June 18th, 1897.)
THE blood is exceedingly wonderful in its composition, and would require the assistance of all the sciences to unravel its inmost intricacies. It contains within it, from the atmospheres and from every kingdom in nature, substances from which every compound in the body can be compounded; and what is more wonderful, these substances are so arranged that by them the mind and the spiritual life itself may be intimately present to rule and determine in every part of the body.
In order that the mind or spirit may communicate by the blood throughout the whole body, the blood must be so constituted as to contain within it the purest essences of the body; namely, those essences which approach nearest to the spirit, and which on account of their pureness the spirit is able to communicate its animations. The purest essences must moreover be clothed by essences less pure but of a corresponding nature, through which in turn it may communicate the animations received, even to that degree that the spirit may determine the ultimate compound, the red blood, to its uses in every part of the body. For this reason the blood is compounded of several degrees more and more interior and pure, of which the red blood is in reality only the ultimate and the seminary.
Swedenborg, in recognition of this, and also from the universal law that there is a trine in all things, divides the blood in general into three degrees. He moreover assigns to each degree its proper vessels and organs, and a circulation of its own distinct from the general circulation, and confers upon each its particular uses.
The third, or lowest degree, is the ultimate compound-the red blood itself. The globules of this blood, however, are divisible into lesser and simpler globules, and these simpler globules are again divisible into still simpler ones. The simple globules into which the red globule is first divided, and which are the prior constituents of that globule, are not the red blood, but constitute a more perfect and pellucid blood, which Swedenborg designates as the middle and purer blood, or that of the second degree. The last and simplest parts, however, into which this middle blood is divided constitute the first and purest degree, which consists of those purest essences, in which the animations of the mind most intimately manifest themselves. These purer bloods circulate similarly through vessels, but on account of their purity they are able to pursue a course whither the grosser red blood is not able to follow.
The study of these two purer bloods is very interesting, but as there are several more or less refined lympha which enter into the composition of the blood, which Swedenborg seems to imply in several places are that middle blood, the subject becomes more or less complicated. Swedenborg, in regarding these bloods from different points of view in various parts of his works, almost seems to contradict himself, calling several different humors, of similar pellucid appearance, the middle or purer blood. I think, however, that it can be shown that the several lympha which Swedenborg so designates all enter into the composition of the middle blood, for some of these bear the same relation to that blood as the serum to the red blood, and envelope it that it may be the better adapted to its uses.
I think the simplest solution of what these respective degrees of the blood are, and such a one as seems to agree best with Swedenborg's theories, can be arrived at by following as a key what he says in regard to the construction of the fibres-namely, of the simple and medullary fibres and the blood-vessels. In these three Swedenborg shows a similar trine and correspondence, and in several places designates them as the respective vessels of the three bloods. The simple fibre being the most universal in the body, forms by its circumflexion the medullary or nervous fibre, and this in turn, by its convolutions, gives origin to the arterial vessels. Thus there are three degrees in the vessels as well as in the blood. The fibres are here also called vessels, because they likewise carry in them their respective fluids, and Swedenborg distinctly states in several places that through the simple fibre flows the first and purest degree of the blood, which he calls the spirituous fluid; that through the medullary or nerve fibres flow the middle or purer blood, and that, thirdly, through the arteries the red blood, or the blood commonly so called.
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The simple and the nerve fibres are thus the proper vessels of these purer bloods, in which they perform their particular uses in conveying the dictates of the mind; which uses are distinct from the general use in the blood. On account of this two-fold use the bloods of these fibres are determined in two directions, partly by their own fibres throughout the body and also directly into the blood itself. How this takes place will be best seen by a brief description of the elaboration of the blood; first of the purest, and successively of the inferior, degrees until the red blood itself is formed. Each of these bloods has its own proper laboratories, and it will be found that the origin of the middle as well as of the purest blood is in the brain itself. For one of the most general functions of the brain is that of a laboratory, and, indeed, it is the grand and illustrious model of all the glands and laboratories in the body.
Particularly speaking, the origin of these purer essences is in the cortex of the brain, in the cortical glands themselves, which are thus so many little hearts, which pump forth through the system the spirits which they elaborate. Each of these minute glands, however, is in itself a miniature brain, with a cortical and medullary structure, as also a little cavity of its own; and from its minute glands arises the simple fibre, and in them is elaborated that purest essence the spirituous fluid, which is sent forth through the simple fibre, and thus most universally through the whole body. From the analogy of the brain itself Swedenborg concludes that there are many of these fibres which do not continue into the body, but which terminate in the minute cavity of the cortical gland, and there pour out their spirit. Into this cavity are also derived essences of a less pure but still very subtle nature, which are united to the spirituous fluid, giving origin to a new spirit, which seems pre-eminently to be the purer and middle blood, and which is sent forth by the cortical glands into the medullary fibres arising from them. These medullary fibres, as their predecessors, the simple fibres, are also determined in two ways; part of them continuing into the spinal column and giving origin to the nerves, and a great part of them ending in the lateral ventricles of the brain, and there depositing their essences designated for the blood. Into these ventricles are also exhaled certain very refined lymphs, which on account of their purity have in several places in Swedenborg's works been called the middle blood, but which, it would seem, are not properly that blood, only entering into its composition as a serum or menstruum. The fluid or blood thus prepared in the lateral ventricles enters the third ventricle by certain foramina, and from thence trickles down through the infundibulum into the pituitary gland, the last of the organs of the whole chemical laboratory of the brain. Here the blood undergoes a division and enters by two distinct paths into the jugular vein. The purest part, or the spirituous fluid, this gland commits to its own proper sinuses, but the middle blood, wedded to its lymph, it emits through certain lymph ducts. Thus these essences by separate channels meet the devastated and exhausted blood in the jugular vein, and hasten it on its course to the subclavian vein, where it is again met by the fresh chyle, as also by the lymph from the whole body, conveyed thither by the lymphatics and thoracic duct.
Through the subclavian vein, therefore, all these different states of the blood proceed in company to the heart, where they are finally united and give origin to the red blood itself. From the heart this blood is sent forth into every part of the body, there again to undergo division and separation, and to return that part which is not expended upon renewing the worn-cut tissues by various paths back again into the blood.
There are three distinct paths whereby the various parts of the blood return after their division in the ultimates of the body, and by which at the same time fresh elements are conveyed from the atmosphere as also from food, for the renewal of the various degrees of the blood. These three paths are the veins, the lymphatics, and the corporeal fibres. It would be venturing pretty far to say that these three are respectively the veins of the three orders of vessels; but it is certain, that the corporeal fibres convey to the cortical glands the purest essences loaded with the most subtle ethereal elements derived through their pores in the skin; it is also certain that the lymphatics convey a pellucid and spirituous lymph derived from yet purer than the red blood, which is in all respects similar to the middle blood united to its lymph. These vessels would therefore seem to be the proper vessels of those purer bloods, by which the parts of those bloods not needed in the return of the blood in the veins, return as it were by their shortest way to their proper destinations, where they may be renewed and receive new life by unition with the fresh materials they convey back with them, and thus enter again by their own proper vessels and organs, as also by their proper ceremonies into their circle of uses.
Notes and Reviews. 1897
THE Journal of the General Convention of 1897 contains 224 pages; that of 1887, 142 pages.
Title Unspecified 1897
PROFESSOR Loreto Scocia is publishing in Italian The Last Judgment and the Sacred Scripture.
Title Unspecified 1897
FROM the best authority we learn that the long-expected last volumes of The Spiritual Diary and The Brain are about to be published.
Title Unspecified 1897
THE Journal of the First General Assembly of the General Church of the New Jerusalem is now ready and for sale by the Academy Book Room. See advertisement on the last page.
Title Unspecified 1897
THE New Church Messenger, of September 29th, contains a brief outline account of the First International Religio-Scientific Congress, held at Stockholm, August 31st to September 4th.
Title Unspecified 1897
THE Academy Book Room has published a small, but very complete catalogue, of Swedenborg's works, Theological, Philosophical, and Scientific, in English and in Latin; and also of miscellaneous New Church publications. Cross references assist to find the works which are known under different names.
Title Unspecified 1897
FROM the Open Court Publishing Company we have received: The Religion of Science, by Dr. Paul Carus; The Prophets of Israel, by Prof. C. H. Cornill; Ancient India, Its Language and Religions, by Prof. H. Oldenberg; and Martin Luther, by Gustav Freytag. We hope to notice these at greater length at an early date.
Title Unspecified 1897
THE new edition of the Four Leading Doctrines, recently published by the Swedenborg Society, of London, appears in the attractive blue binding with gilt lettering adopted by the Society, and its size, type, and paper combine to make a very convenient and pleasing volume. The English rendering, as revised by Mr. A. H. Searle, is a great improvement on the old translation used by the New York Society, but a cursory comparison with Dr. Worcester's translation, in the Rotch Edition, shows no material difference in point of merit.
154
In the Scripture texts Swedenborg's Latin is followed instead of adopting the Authorized Version; but in the enumeration of chapters and verses, the latter is followed in the cases where Swedenborg departs from it. Marginal numbers indicate the Swedenborg Concordance subdivisions of the constituent numbers of the work.
In style uniform with the foregoing the Doctrine of Life and Doctrine of Faith are each issued separately.
Title Unspecified 1897
EVEN at this late day we cannot afford to miss referring to the interesting contents of the midsummer number of The New Church Review. They include: "The Theology of the New Church," by Albinus F. Frost, Professor of Theology in the School at Cambridge; "The Word as a Whole," by John Worcester; "Marriage and Motherhood," by Lydia Fuller Dickinson; "Swedenborg and the Nebular Hypothesis: I. Priority to Kant and others," by T. F. Wright; "II. Judgment of the Astronomer Nyren," translated by Frank Sewall; "New Conceptions of Religious Life," by H. Clinton Hay; "The Child: I. Recent Movements in the Study of Children," John T. Prince; "II. The New Education in the Sunday-School," Clarence Lathbury; "III. Friendship with Boys," Eliza F. Noyes; "IV. Good Reading," William C. Lane; beside the usual departments. Among the editorial utterances we note a very friendly reference to the Academy, in connection with Mr. Schreck's accession to Convention, and a very effective handling of those twin delusions, "Spiritism and Theosophy."
Title Unspecified 1897
THE September number of The New Church Magazine inaugurates the editorial management of the Rev. Robert R. Rodgers, assisted by the Rev. Lewis A. Slight, the appointees of the late Conference. In the opening editorial address, "To the Readers," Mr. Rodgers appeals for the co-operation of all who write for the New Church. He quotes Arcana Coelestia, n. 1834, to show that differences of view, even heretical, may be reconciled in a Church where charity exists, provided fundamentals are not denied nor the divine order indicated in the Decalogue disregarded. Basing his policy on the principle of "unity of sentiment with differences of opinion," he hopes to serve the Church in the establishment not only of true doctrine but also of brotherhood and mutual love-to represent a partnership of interests, and thus to command the support of all readers.. In our opinion these are sentiments which cannot be too warmly commended and cherished, and they should be brought to mind afresh whenever-as continually occurs and recurs-legitimate differences of view are allowed to engender animosities and estrangement in the Church. May the Magazine receive divine support in the course it has marked out for itself.
The number contains also the inaugural address of the President of Conference; the Conference sermon, by the Rev. L. A. Slight; A visit to Egypt and Palestine, Ill, by Alexander Payne; the address from the American Convention to Conference by the Rev. S. M. Warren, and other material.
Title Unspecified 1897
THE Scientific Basis of Medicine, by J. W. Heisinger, A. M., M. D., has been received from Boericke and Tafel, Philadelphia. This little work is a remarkably crisp and racy presentation of the homeopathic theory and its standing to-day. Incisive, forceful, gleaming with a humor that is not always reverent, it shows up with scant mercy the closet skeletons of the " regular" school of medicine, yet does not spare, either, the delusions and extravagances on the part of some homeopaths which have brought unmerited ridicule on the system. Passing testimony is given as to the growing skepticism in medicine, even among homeopaths, who, tainted with the materialism of the age, exemplify that to the mind which inclines away from things higher and interior to those alone which are tangible to the senses-nature herself becomes unintelligible, experience and demonstration are forgot, together with principles which were too elevated to ever have been really congenial. The best established facts can be explained away by the sophistries of naturalistic science. Despite the force of the book, and the remarkable amount of information and entertainment its 122 pages contain, we cannot accept it unreservedly. The chapter on alternation of remedies strikes us as superficial and unphilosophical, and the explanation of drug action on the theory of molecular activity, though interesting, is more suggestive than clear and convincing, and by itself will hardly satisfy any one who has had any glimpse of the rational principles and methods
of Swedenborg's science.
Title Unspecified 1897
THE July number of Self-Culture publishes an interview with Professor A. H. Sayce, the eminent Orientalist, who occupies the only chair of Assyriology in England. According to him, the results of the later Babylonian excavations and of the deciphering of the clay-tablet libraries thus brought to light tend to establish the accuracy of the Old Testament records as against the ratiocinations of modern Biblical criticism. He says: "I have come to disbelieve thoroughly in the so-called critical views of the composition of the Pentateuch. I believe that substantially it belongs to the Mosaic age, and see no reason why it should not have been written by Moses. The book has undergone certain alterations and changes, but substantially it is the work of the Mosaic age and of Moses himself. It contains extracts from earlier documents, more especially in the book of Genesis; and some of these earlier documents can be shown to have been written and to have been contemporaneous documents, in the Babylonian language and cuneiform characters."
Professor Sayce compares the efforts of the higher critics to analyze the contributions of supposed various authors in the Mosaic books-assigning to the different ones different styles-to a hypothetical analysis of some modern novel produced in collaboration (as the Besant and Rice novels), and says that "there is not a single English scholar who could undertake to say in the case of one of these composite novels where Besant begins and ends and where Rice comes in. If that is the case with modern English, how is it possible for a European scholar of the nineteenth century to determine who were the authors of an ancient Hebrew work which is supposed to have been written by several persons?" For he points out that our knowledge of Hebrew is very imperfect, being based on only a fragment of Hebrew literature, the very meaning of the words being, in some cases, unknown or doubtful.
Title Unspecified 1897
IN connection with the foregoing note the Rev. Andrew Czerny's article on Assyria has especial interest. The remarkable advance in exploration of the Assyrian antiquities may indicate that important scientifics are thus being prepared for the better understanding of the genius of the Assyrians, who, as representing the rational, possess peculiar significance in this age of a rational revelation. The understanding of the true scope and limitations of human reason is of the first importance to the New Church.
Title Unspecified 1897
CHOICE among many good things that come to us through the Messenger are the following extracts from "A Parish on Wheels," an account of the evangelistic work of the Rev. J. Howard Swinstead among the curious nomads who furnish amusement at the English village fairs: "Mr. Swinstead realized that the only practical way to understand and help these people was to live among them as a friend. Accordingly, in a unique van, equipped with a large tent, which serves as church and school-house, the missioner starts on his pilgrimage from fair to fair. Mr. Swinstead's flock is an ever-moving one, and in 'A Parish on Wheels' he has described the life, character, and ideals of these people of whom he has made a sympathetic study."
"How the van-dwellers appreciate the efforts of Mr. Swinstead is shown in the answer of a showman's wife to the loafer who asked why the parson came. Said she: 'Well, first of all, he don't want none of your permission, and he never goes where 'e ain't wanted. He comes 'ere 'cos we likes 'im to come. I'm not so sartain, though, if he'd go away if we wanted him off the shop; but that ain't in it: we wants 'im. He don't interfere; he don't come 'and in tracts to people wot can't read, nor givin' away pictures to blind folk. We've known some as does that, very kind like but he don't do that. . . . But I tell wot it is: he's just one of us, that's it. . . . An' when our kiddies is all over the shop doin' nothin' in partic'lar, he just gathers 'em up as if they were little lambs of his own-clean or dirty don't matter, s' long's he keeps 'em out o' mischief. You just arst your master to give yer a 'olliday termorrer, and go in there at the top of the field, in that there school, an' yer'll see 'im, wi' about twenty children a-hollerin' out their lessons all around him; an' if they're sayin' their prayers yer take yer hat off, that's all. . . . But that ain't enough for 'im; that's a pretty good handful. He looks after us, too, and holds a meetin' for us (not long, but jest long enough). We allas says a little o' these goes a long way wi' us; but he grins an' says, "No; I find a great deal of it seems to go mighty little far."
"A loafer asked Mr. Swinstead for work. 'I hadn't any work to offer, and said so.'
"'That's what y' zed time avoor, zur, when I zed 'e last.'
"'Oh! I don't remember seeing you. Where was it?'
"'Woy, up thur Toiler Down Veair. Now d' ye mind me?' Lifting his face away from his hand, he disclosed what he called his 'off-aide' eye, calling to my mind that I had seen him before.
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"'Y' ze, zur, oi've on'y got one eye; but I looks twice wi' that, so know'd 'e. It wur when they waspies was droublin' us. I wur standin' talkin' to 'e an' dodgen one as it buzzed around me, an' flicked one off my ear wi' a big cuss. Zo ye com'd down fist on for thik cuss. Yez, sir, I do know; no snore'n y' should-your bisnis, y' see; but I answered 'e and sez, sez I, I sez," Well, I doan't see no good God A'mighty done maken waspies." An' wot d'ye think 'e said, sur? Woy, 'e zaid 'e didn't s'pose He'd made no more mistake wi' th' waspies than 'e had wi' I. I mind it, zur, though it be eleven months since. And I dessay I be a big lump o' mistake myself, times.'
Hear the creed of Mike the trader-one of the book's dramatis personae: "There's a Man above, an' I does no 'arm to my neighbor." Did the two essentials of religion ever receive a terser, more picturesque setting?
Title Unspecified 1897
"BIBLIOGRAPHICAL INDEX TO THE PUBLISHED WRITINGS OF EMANUEL SWEDENBORG, ORIGINAL AND TRANSLATED. BASED UPON THE LIBRARY OF THE SWEDENBORG SOCIETY, AND SUPPLEMENTED FROM ENGLISH AND FOREIGN COLLECTIONS, PUBLIC AND PRIVATE." The Swedenborg Society, London, 1897.
A CENTURY and a half has not yet passed since the first volume of the Writings was given to the world, and now there is published a Bibliographical Index which enumerates more than a thousand and two hundred different editions of Swedenborg's Theological Works. The fact is stupendous, carrying with it an almost supernatural evidence of the LORD'S care for His New Church, and of the universal influence which these Writings are destined to bear upon the future history of humanity. What other printed works, outside of the Letter of the Word, have ever been reproduced on a scale such as this?
Twelve hundred and more editions of the works of a, ridiculed and supposed-to-be forgotten "mystical" writer of the eighteenth century, and these published by a small and obscure sect, of which most people hardly know the name I When this becomes known in literary circles, will it not demonstrate in a startling light the fact that the Writings of the New Church "have come, to stay," and that they can no longer be ignored as the ephemeral ebullitions of a diseased mind? We think the Index deserves to be circulated widely as a missionary tract of no small force.
The index itself is a pamphlet of thirty-eight pages, with an olive-colored paper covering. It is issued, as' may be seen from the "Preface and Appeal" of the editors, in order to "facilitate the compilation of a complete Bibliography of the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg, which may be ultimately printed for the benefit of Librarians, Collectors, and Students." The plan for the proposed larger work is very comprehensive. It includes a description of each of the Manuscripts of Swedenborg, a complete transcription of the title-page of every single, published edition, whether in Latin, English, or any other tongue, the place and date of the publication of each edition, the size and number of pages, full information concerning any unpublished MS. translations of any of the Writings, or concerning such as have appeared in any periodical, publication, biographical notes regarding translators, revisers, and publishers, and the description of copies interesting on account of the insertion of MS. notes by eminent men, or notable from any other circumstance.
The Index before us contains lists of the Writings and of Swedenborg's Scientific and Philosophical works, in alphabetical order. Under each work come the various editions, arranged chronologically; first the Latin originals, then the English and American editions, and afterwards the editions that have appeared in other tongues. There are also lists of works made up of "Extracts" from the Writings, and of" Miscellaneous" works, such as Indexes, Concordances, etc. In all the Bibliographical Index mentions about thirteen hundred different editions and publications.
Any one acquainted with the difficulties connected with a compilation such as this, will be bound to give due credit to the editors for their zealous work as far as it may be complete. To make it absolutely complete is well-nigh impossible. We were prepared, therefore, to find omissions in the Index, though hardly the great number that actually occur. On comparing it with our own lists we find that there are nearly three hundred and fifty different editions of which no mention is made in the Index. The editors appeal for the co-operation of all who are interested, in order to make the work complete, but the necessary amount of "co-operation" is in this case of overwhelming proportions.
We must confess that the prospects for the satisfactory accomplishment of the proposed work are far from encouraging. The omissions are so many and the confusion in the arrangement of the Index is so great as to throw considerable doubt upon the quality of the final work. An enumeration of the defects would be tiresome to our readers, but the editions omitted in the Index will appear in time in the "Annals of the New Church," now being published in the Life. We would not chide the editors in their well-intentioned work of love, but we doubt the practicability, the necessity, and the possibility of the proposed publication. That it is desirable cannot be doubted. Its usefulness to collectors and librarians is self-evident, but how many of these are there to be found at present in the New Church? What prospects are there that this volume, or volumes, rather, will ever be published, or if published, that the Bibliography will be in a less defective condition than the Index, its precursor? The greatest practical use of a Bibliography of the Writings appears to us to be that of giving future translators the opportunity of comparing their own work with the various past editions of the different volumes of the Writings. For this purpose, and for all other actual and present needs, a very simple catalogue would seem to be sufficient. Such an undertaking, indeed, might secure the effective co-operation of all that are interested, and for it there might be prospects of publication and of appreciative reception by the Church. C. Th. O.
UNDERSTANDING OF TRUTH. L. G. LANDENBERGER 1897
Questions and Answers
To THE EDITOR OF NEW CHURCH LIFE:
IN your reply in the August number of the Life to my objection to a statement made in an editorial in the June number, that there should "be willingness to sink one's self-intelligence in the presence of Truth, even to the extent of blind obedience," you have quoted nothing from the Writings, according to my judgment, to substantiate your position. You, indeed, acknowledge that "it does not belong to the New Church proper"- i. e, blind obedience-but "is indispensable as an intermediate between the state of darkness and damnation and that of light and of regeneration." Yet, after this admission, I do not see that you have shown from the Writings that such is the fact.
Permit me to call attention to what the Writings themselves have to say on the subject: "I have heard the angels rejoicing over that revelation (in Africa), because by it there is opening to them communication with the human rational, hitherto closed up by the universal dogma that the understanding is to be under obedience to the faith of the Ecclesiastios."
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This indicates that blind obedience closes the human rational and that it is not at all in accord with the LORD'S will, or the wish of an angel, that man should receive a truth blindly. Then consider well the following from the Doctrine of Faith, No. 1: "Faith at the present day is understood to mean merely thinking that a thing is so because the Church teaches it, and when it is not manifest before the understanding." For it is often said, "You must believe, and you must not doubt." And if it is answered, "But I do not comprehend it," the reply then is that for this very reason there must be belief. The faith of the present day, then, is faith in what is not known, and it may be called blind faith. Ibid., No. 2: "Real faith is nothing else than the acknowledgment that a thing is so, because it is true. Accordingly, one who is in real faith thinks and says, 'This is true, and for that reason I believe it.' For faith belongs to truth, and truth to faith. Such a person, also, if he does not comprehend a thing as true, says, 'I do not know whether this is true, therefore I do not yet believe it. How can I believe what I do not comprehend? It may possibly be false.'"
I do not see where blind obedience comes in; in fact, if such language as this in the Heavenly Writings does not put a quietus upon the acceptance of truth when not understood, I do not understand the meaning of words. That the understanding and truth were made for each other is evident from the following-Ibid., No. 3: "But the common saying is that no one can comprehend spiritual or theological things, for the reason that they are supernatural. Spiritual truths, however, can be comprehended just as well [equally] as natural truths; and if there is not a clear comprehension of them, still, while they are heard, they fall within man's power to perceive whether they are truths, or not; this is especially true of those who are affected by truths . . . Spiritual truths are comprehended, for the reason that man can be uplifted as to his understanding into the light of heaven, in which light none but spiritual things appear, and these are the truths of faith; for the light of heaven is spiritual light."
That the man of the New Church should reject the dogma of blind obedience is taught in Ibid., No. 4: "As the angels are in that affection, viz., of truth, they utterly reject the dogma that the understanding must be kept obedient to faith; for they say: What is it to believe what one does not see to be true? And if one urges that still it ought to be believed, they reply, 'Do you think yourself to be God, whom I must obey? or that I am insane enough to believe a statement in which) do not see truth!'" Compare this with what you say at the close of your reply, in speaking of the office of the ministry: "If the office is recognized as the LORD'S, then a man does not stultify his rationality by yielding even implicit obedience to what he believes to be the LORD'S leadings effected through that office." I will leave the reader to judge whether a man would stultify his rationality or not, in the light of the above quotation from the Doctrines.
In No. 8, Doctrine of Faith, we are told that people have been led to worship men as deities. Saints have been invoked, dead bodies and bones and sepulchres regarded as holy, as a result of blind faith. And I see no difference between a blind faith and a blind obedience. They are kith and kin, and neither of them have anything to do with the New Church.
The discussion of this subject may seem like an unprofitable one, but it involves a great principle. It is the LORD'S truth that leads the Church, and it is the function of the ministry to teach the truth. But the principle that should not be forgotten is that no truth is binding upon any one, unless it is seen to be the truth. This leads man to ascribe all authority to the LORD, who is the truth, and who gifts man with the ability to see the truth.
Yours fraternally,
L. G. LANDENBERGER,
ST. LOUIS, MO., 1113 N. GORAND AVE.,
September 7th, 1897.
REPLY.
As our correspondent says, this discussion does involve a great principle; therefore it ought not to prove unprofitable if-as we hope and believe-the spirit of truth-seeking actuates it.
The position our correspondent holds is stated in a single sentence, contained in his former communication, "The characteristic feature of the New Church is the acceptance of a truth only when seen to be a truth by the individual." That he refers here to the seeing power of the natural rational is evident from his original challenge of our statement, that "in the presence of the Truth there should be willingness to sink self-intelligence even to the extent of blind obedience." This makes plain that the issue is as to the acceptance of Truth, and, therefore, the first passage he quotes in this last letter is not relevant to our subject, for the acceptance of the "faith of the ecclesiastics" is not in question. We have not said, nor do we hold, that a man should accept any faith but that which the LORD gives him to see; but we do hold-and will undertake to establish it as the teaching of the Writings-that to take the position that he will not accept what the LORD says unless he understands it, is to close the mind against the reception of true faith-it is the negative attitude, of which the Writings say so much in condemnation; while they say that to affirm the truth is the only way of entrance into it. The passages of the Writings bearing on this point are so abundant as to constitute an embarrassment of riches, but those we quote are sufficiently explicit.
Things spiritual and celestial infinitely transcend the human comprehension, hence comes reasoning; but he who will not believe before he comprehends the things to be believed, will never believe, as has been often shown above (A. C. 1071).
It is in every one's power to see that the principles assumed [by a man] are what govern the man, and that his science and reasoning favor his principles; for innumerable assenting things flow in, and thus he is confirmed in things false: wherefore he to whom it is a principle that he will believe nothing before he sees and understands it, never can believe, inasmuch as spiritual and celestial things he neither sees with the eyes nor comprehends in idea (A. C. 129).
In old times they were called serpents who trusted more to sensuals than to things revealed: the case is still worse at this day, for there are not only those who believe nothing unless they see and feel it, but also those who confirm themselves by things scientific unknown to the ancients and thus blind themselves much the more. That it may be known how those who, from things sensual, scientific, and philosophical conclude concerning things celestial, blind themselves, so that they afterward see and hear absolutely nothing, and are not only deaf serpents but also dying serpents, which are much more pernicious, concerning whom the Word also speaks-take for an example what they believe concerning spirit. He who is sensual, or who believes only his senses, denies the existence of spirit because he does not see it, saying, it is nothing, because I am not sensible of it; what I see and touch, that I know exists. The scientific man, or he who forms his conclusions from the sciences, says, What is spirit but perchance a vapor or heat, or something else appertaining to science, which vanishes as soon as such vapor or heat are extinguished?
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Have not animals also bodies, senses, and something analogous to reason? And yet they call them mortal, and the spirit of man immortal; thus he denies that spirit exists. Philosophical men, who wish to be more acute than others, speak of spirits in terms which they themselves do not know, for they dispute concerning them, contending that, not a single word is applicable which draws anything from the material, the organic or the extended; thus they remove it from their ideas, so that it vanishes in respect to them and becomes nothing. The more sane assert that, it [spirit] is Thought, but when they reason concerning thought, at length they conclude-because they separate it from the substantial-that it must vanish when the body dies. Thus all who reason from things sensual, scientific, and philosophical deny the existence of spirit, and when they deny that it is they never believe what is said concerning spirit and spiritual things. But if the simple in heart are asked, they say that they know that it exists because the LORD has said that they are to live after death. These do not extinguish the rational, but make it to live by the Word of the LORD (A. C. 196).
Here we see that those who make their understanding the test-that rational which man derives from life and education in the world and its things of sense, science, and philosophy-in determining what is to be called truth-a test which our correspondent claims to be characteristic of the New Church-close their minds; while those, who according to our correspondent's position would be acting very blindly and wrongly, are shown by such action to become truly rational, seeing everything in the light of their simple affirmation of the teaching of the Word.
A clear understanding of the general doctrine contained in the statements quoted by our correspondent from the Doctrine of Faith, as well as in many others like them-as that "what the LORD teaches He gives man to perceive with the reason" (D. P. 150), and that "the truth of the Church must be seen in order to be believed; . . . and that truth can be seen no otherwise than rationally" (A. R. 564),-a clear understanding of these can be attained only by means of the particulars of doctrine which teach what the understanding is. From these particulars we learn that the natural understanding-the seat of our conscious thoughts, and like them derived from without or from the world-is not the proper receptacle of truth-which comes only from within,-but is only the receptacle of the truth's envelopments or encasings, the doctrinals and scientifics of the Word and of the Church, derived from the Word, in forms belonging to the world. These are natural, while truth is spiritual; and though they are called truths, and are capable of shining like truths-from natural loves-they do not become illuminated with real truth before the enkindling of spiritual affection in the mind takes place. All light is from the fire of affection. Therefore, although doctrinals-the indispensable receptacles of truth-cannot exist in the mind except by the exercise of the natural understanding, it is not that faculty which gives man to see spiritual truth, but the new understanding derived from the affection of truth; which affection begins with acknowledgment, or the affirmative that the truth is the-truth because the LORD has said so. Man understands doctrine naturally, but he does not see its truth unless spiritually-i. e., from acknowledgment of the heart.
Man is not reformed from understanding, but through this, that the understanding acknowledges truths and from them sees evils (A. E. 1171).
Acknowledgment is never outward but inward, and is the operation of the LORD alone through charity in the man (A. C. 1162).
When there is charity, then there is acknowledgment and then there is faith (A. C 654).
Truth is learned but not acknowledged without consent of both will and understanding . . . consent is acknowledgment itself (3157).
When man is led by the LORD, by means of affections, he can be led according to all the laws of His Divine Providence, but not if he should be led by means of thoughts. Affections do not become evident to man, but thoughts do; moreover, affections bring forth thoughts, but thoughts do not bring forth affections-there is an appearance that they do, but it is a fallacy . . . . If you hold man by his affection, you hold him bound and lead him wherever you please, and a single reason then is stronger than a thousand. But if you do not hold man by his affections, reasons are of no avail, for his affection, when not in harmony with them, either perverts them, or rejects them, or extinguishes them. . . . In no other way can man be saved . . . for if man knew all things of the Word and all things of doctrine, even to the arcana of wisdom that the angels possess, and thought and spoke about them, so long as his affections were lusts of evil he could not be brought out of hell by the LORD (A. E. 1175).
The ability to see that the truth is the LORD'S comes from the beginnings of charity or the inclination to a good life, which the LORD implants with every man in earliest years, and which afterward is enkindled into the affection of truth according as man by his free-will disposes himself to receive the vivifying sunlight of heaven from the LORD.
The understanding is only the will in its form or manifestation, and hence the new understanding is given man in order that the LORD may dwell with him in good-that is, in a new will; for the old understanding is but the form of the old will, which does not receive spiritual good.
Truths, or appearances of truth, are given to men to this intent that divine good may be able to form his intellectual, and thus the man himself, for truths are to the end that good may flow in, inasmuch as good without vessels or receptacles does not find place, because it does not find a state corresponding to itself; therefore where there are no truths, or where they are not received, there neither is rational or human good, consequently the man has not any spiritual life (A. C 3887).
The incipient desire for good is that which acknowledges truth, for truth is the aspect in which good first appears to man. In so far as man averts himself from good, it is impossible for him to really acknowledge truth.
Every one has illustration in truths according to the quality of his affection of truth, and the quality of the affection of truth is such as the good of life is; hence also it is that they who are in no affection of truth for the sake of truth, but for the sake of gain, are not at all illustrated when they read the Word, but are only confirmed in doctrinals, of whatsoever sort they are (A. C. 7012).
This gives the keynote as to the understanding of truths, namely, that it depends upon the affection of truth, which is the first of spiritual life with man, and is based upon the affirmative that the truth is so. Doctrinals in the understanding alone are in no real light, and hence have no spiritual life.
The first medium [of conjunction between the internal and the external, whereby man becomes spiritual] is affirming, or the affirmative of internal truth, namely, that so it is; when this affirmative exists man is in the beginning of regeneration, and good operates from the internal man and causes affirmation (A. C. 3913).
It ought not to be so very hard to see that man by his own understanding can never grasp or comprehend spiritual and celestial things, for they are the eternal things of the LORD, while man's natural understanding is formed from temporal things solely, and to these only is it adequate. It is evident that before man can receive the former, the LORD must form with him a new mind adequate to receiving things from Himself.
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It shall be told how faith is formed from charity. Every human being has a natural mind and a spiritual mind; the natural mind for the world and the spiritual mind for heaven. As to the understanding, man is in both; but not as to his will before he shuns evils and abhors them as sins. When he does this his spiritual mind is then opened as to the will also; and when the wilt has been opened then there flows thence into the natural mind spiritual heat from heaven, which heat, in its essence, is charity; and this gives life to the cognitions of truth and of good which are therein, and oat of them it forms faith (Faith, n. 32).
There are with every man who is regenerated two rationals, one before regeneration, the other after regeneration. The first, which is before regeneration, is procured by exercises of the senses, by reflections on things in civil life and in moral life, by the sciences, and by reasonings from them and by them, and also by knowledges of things spiritual derived from the doctrine of faith, or from the Word; but these things then go no farther than a little above the ideas of the corporeal memory, which ideas are respectively very material; whatever he then thinks is grounded in such things, or semblances of such things are formed comparatively or analogically, in order that they may be at the same time comprehended by the interior or intellectual sight; of this nature is the first rational, or of that which exists before regeneration. But the rational after regeneration is formed of the LORD by the affections of spiritual truth and good, which affections are wonderfully implanted by the LORD in the truths of the former rational; and thus those things therein which are concordant with and favor those [spiritual] affections are vivified, whilst other things are separated thence, as of no use, till at length spiritual goons and truths are bound together as it were into little bundles, the things not concordant being rejected as it were to the circumference; and this successively in proportion to the increase of spiritual goods and truths with the life of their affections; hence it is evident what is the quality of the other rational. . . . But, inasmuch as examples are most convincing, let us take for an example the proprium which man has before regeneration, and the proprium which he has after regeneration; from the first rational, which he procures to himself by the menus above mentioned, man believes that he thinks truth and does good from himself, thus from proprium; and this first rational cannot conceive otherwise, even though it be instructed that all the good of love and all the truth of faith is from the LORD. But when man is regenerated, which is in his adult age, by virtue of the other rational with which he is gifted by the LORD, he begins to think that good and truth is not from himself, or from the proprium, but from the LORD, yet still that he does good and thinks truth as from himself (see n. 1937, 1947); then the more he is confirmed in this, so much the more is he brought into the light of truth on the subject, till at length he believes that all good and all truth is from the LORD, and then the proprium of the former rational is successively separated, and man is gifted of the LORD with a celestial proprium, which is the proprium of the new rational. . . . But it is to be known that with man, although he be regenerated, stilt alt and single things pertaining to the first rational remain, and are only separated from the other rational, and this miraculously of the LORD (A. C 2657).
Study of this subject, as presented in these and innumerable other passages, makes it very clear that man's efforts of the reason, like his efforts at doing good, merely constitute that form of co-operation, as of free agency, which the LORD can use in preparing him to receive the wholly gratuitous perception of truth which accompanies the descent of good from the LORD. It is only an appearance that man can think truth or do good, and it remains not only an appearance, but a mere fallacy, until made a glorious reality by the LORD'S omnipotent succor, which then, first, is available when man, in his internal thought, rejects the appearance even while acting according to it in the external. Then is the external vivified by the internal, and not before.
Turning now to the numbers quoted from the Doctrine of Faith by our correspondent, we think it is very evident that the blind faith which is there condemned is a faith not in what the LORD says, but in what the church says He says. Therefore the angels really confirm the very point we have been making when they say, Do you think yourself a God whom I must obey? implying that what is from God is to be implicitly obeyed, and not, as our correspondent would have it, only when understood. Blind faith in man does close the understanding, but blind faith in the LORD opens the understanding-that is, enables Him to gift man with the sense of sight in the things of love and charity.
This faith is not really blind, for it springs from the germs of an affection which is from the LORD, and which from its very nature cannot otherwise than give light; but not at first in the natural, where alone man is conscious of sight: hence the appearance of blindness.
The old faith forbade man to use reason in receiving the doctrinals of the Church; the New Faith authorizes the use of reason in acquiring doctrinals from the Word, but teaches that spiritual enlightenment in those doctrinals, so as to see the living truth which they contain, is not from the natural rational, but from the affirmation that what the LORD says is true, whether it be understood or not. This is the beginning of the new rational "Accordingly, one who is in real faith thinks and says, This is true, and for that reason I believe it" (Faith No. 2)-not merely because his understanding indorses it. If "such language as this" does "put a quietus upon the acceptance of truth when not understood," we, in turn with our correspondent, must confess that we "do not understand the meaning of words." Believing that he can hardly fail to recognize the force of the foregoing quotations we would respectfully suggest that a re-reading of those given in our August "reply" may reveal a bearing which he has overlooked.
As regards stultifying the rationality by following the LORD'S leadings implicitly, even when they come through the finite instrumentality of the priesthood, in the way of order appointed by the LORD-the only question would be as to man's ability to recognize the LORD'S leadings there. If the truth be there, and he fails to recognize it as such, he is not responsible, unless his obtuseness results from evil of life; and if it is not there he is free, of course. But if he recognizes that priestly teaching as being from the Word and according with the Word, to that extent is it binding upon him as if taken directly from the Word itself. On this phase of the subject our editorial in the September number bears directly.
For the convenience of those who would consult the Writings for additional light on the subject of accepting truth even though it be not understood, we would suggest the following passages: A. C. 128-9, 130, 195-6, 215, 232-3, 1911, 1936, 2657, 2679, 2682, 2689, 2701, 2733, 3388, 3428, 5608; D. P. 219. Such study will be apt to disclose how rightly to understand the oft-quoted statement that "Now it is lawful to enter intellectually into the mysteries of faith," for it will show that "intellectually" does not mean "by way of the natural rational." EDITOR OF NEW CHURCH LIFE.
Title Unspecified 1897
"THE Life of the flesh is in the blood" (Lev. xvii, 11). The blood represents the life of man, and, therefore, like man, it is triune in nature. On its two higher planes it so transcends the materialistic thought of this age that the beginner in Swedenborg's science finds it difficult to get omit of so common but debasing a sphere of thought and follow the philosopher through the intricacies which this marvelous three-fold structure presents. The thesis which we publish in these pages presents in a condensed and simple, and, therefore, useful form, Swedenborg's teachings on the subject. The growth of thought along the lines of Swedenborg's science is not the less sure and healthy because it is slow.
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CHURCH NEWS. 1897
Huntingdon Valley.-THE local school here was opened on Wednesday, September 15th, Pastor Synnestvedt making a brief address. Six pupils were promoted to the intermediate department, and a new class of eight little beginners was formed. The total attendance is thirty-three. The staff of teachers has been increased to three, Mr. H. B. Cowley taking the place of Mr. Synnestvedt with certain classes.
THE Society in Huntingdon Valley, which has been again joined by the members in the city, through action taken on August 19th, was formally organized on Saturday evening, September 25th, by the new Pastor, a Council being appointed by him and recognized by the Society. It is proposed to have quarterly meetings of the new Society. Dr. Harvey Farrington has accepted the Secretaryship and Mr. Charles S. Smith the Treasurership, in which capacity he will act as Chairman of the Board of Finance. This body will be recognized by the Council and Society as their business representative; R. M. Glenn, Esq., and Mr. C. Hj. Asplundh complete its membership.
Chicago.-THE annual meeting of the Immanuel Church took place at the Club Building in Glenview on Friday evening, August 27th. After the opening ceremonies the Pastor, the Rev. N. D. Pendleton, addressed the assembled members, stating that as this was the first meeting of its kind for several years it would be fitting to enter somewhat into an explanation of the causes which, in the past, led to an abandonment of annual meetings and now again to their resumption. He said, in part:
"There have been two distinct states in the development of our Church government. The chief characteristic of the first state was a sincere and persistent effort to remove the various forms of democracy with which we found ourselves surrounded; and at the same time to build up a purely ecclesiastical form which should be in accord with our understanding of the Doctrines. The chief characteristic of the second state was a frank and open regard for the real uses, for the sake of which the Church is established, and a willingness to adopt those means which seemed most efficient in carrying them out. You will recall that in the first state we regarded it as a matter of vital importance to get rid of the idea of the people governing the Church, and with this in view we abolished elected councils and finally we ceased having a fixed or permanent council, choosing rather to call particular and temporary councils for special purposes. But it cannot be said that the Immanuel Church ever abandoned council altogether. We gave up holding annual meetings which were supposed to have some kind of jurisdiction over the Church. We undid our written Constitution in order that the Pastor might not be constrained by such an instrument, and that the Church might be left free to develop its form and uses. These things were not done suddenly, but successively through a period of several years. But when we had taken the final step which was the abandonment of fixed councils, we found that many responsibilities were thrown upon the Pastor of which he might well be relieved. The responsibilities largely resulted from the nature of our undertaking here at Glenview. And now we come to what has been called the second state. To relieve this condition-and it needed relief-the Church work was divided into departments, with a head over each who was responsible to the Pastor. This worked well, but not well enough; or confusion arose between the departments, to remove which a financial council was established, composed of the heads of departments and presided over by the Pastor. Such a council we have now, and it works well indeed. But as all our uses depend upon the co-operation of the members, we have reestablished annual meetings for the purpose of gaining a more full co-operation The Church has never been so well sustained as of late, but our uses need-and we expect-even better things in the future. Thus again we have council and annual meetings as before, and yet with this vital difference, that instead of the idea of lay dominance and control we have the idea of use and co-operation. It need hardly be said that most of the changes which we have undergone have been in accord with certain changes in our more general body.
Continuing, be said: "This being the beginning of a new state there are certain things concerning which, as your Pastor, I wish to recall to your mind: first, the importance of reading the Writings, not only for the sake of knowing the truths contained in them, but also to cultivate an affection for those truths. In the natural man of every one there is a positive antagonism to spiritual things. It is the work of the Church to overcome this antagonism, and to stimulate instead a love for spiritual subjects. A spiritual Church is established by habits of life, and not by intellectual thought. The more we do and live the things of the Church the more do we love and revere them. The more we as a Church undertake to perform special uses the more will our love for those uses grow, and the more will the Church expand its spiritual life. Habits of life are of vital importance to the man of the Church. In the early stage of the Church the Writings were read assiduously, but the reading was, to a large extent, prompted by something of a curiosity to know what they contained. This state was satisfied, and then they were not read as assiduously as before. We should lock forward to a second state when the Writings will he read, not so much for the intellectual enjoyment as for the more internal use of cultivating a love for the interior things of Heaven. As said before, the natural man is antagonistic to spiritual things. The world lives and is active within us, and when we read the Writings in a perfunctory way we do not get out of the sphere of the world.
"There is a divinely living sphere in the Writings, when read with love and affection, which has the power of opening Heaven and of closing hell. The divine sphere of Heaven is open to you if you will but enter it and every member of the Church may enter it and be electrified by a love of spiritual things. And when this is once realized and the sphere of the world then invades, you will he driven to these Writings for protection, and flee to them as the Jews fled to the altar. He who once does this will experience a love more burning and zealous than the first love; but this second love only comes by actually doing the thing. There is another form of coming to the LORD, and that is by attending worship. By not attending the love of doing so is weakened, and the value of it is lost to view, just as when we neglect for a period to read the Writings we come into a stage of spiritual apathy. There are many ways of helping to build up the Church, and they are by no means confined to contributing money for carrying on its uses. Every member has an individual responsibility. He may be either a positive use or a positive detriment to the Church; a use by loving and doing, a detriment by discrediting, the work of the Church. Pessimism is from hell, and we must turn away from it or it will undermine our faith in the Church."
The above is necessarily a fragmentary report, as it has been writ en out from notes, but it is hoped that it may convey an impression of the timely and spirited address we heard.
After the Pastor's address the Secretary of the Church read his report, giving a history of the Church since the first meeting; also statistics of attendance, etc., which showed a slow but steady increase. Mr. Burnham followed with a report of the treasury, and made an innovation by, contrary to the usual custom, exhibiting the cheerful features of the balance-sheet. These showed that, although the Church has never invested in anything but what was actually needed in ifs work, it has accumulated considerable property in the last ten years,-in which the assets exceed the liabilities by several thousand dollars. He did not fail, however, to remind us that the additional uses we have undertaken will require additional support. Mr. Paul Synnestvedt made a report of the school finances, after which Mr. Maynard gave an account of the Immanuel Church Club, of which he is President. In the absence of Mr. S. G. Nelson the Park Superintendent, Mr. Swain Nelson, told of what was being done to beautify the public grounds. The meeting adjourned after a short discussion relating to the entertainment of the Assembly next June.
On August 29th Mr. Pendleton held a reception at the club building in honor of Mr. John Pitcairn, who was visiting us for the first time in several years.
School opened September 20th with twenty pupils. A. E. N.
CANADA.
Berlin.-THE School opened on September 6th, under the direction of the Pastor, Mr. Ernest Stebbing, B. A., Th. B., and Miss Annie Moir assists him in the work of instruction. A school board, consisting of the Pastor and three members of his Council, attend to the management of the school. Miss Zella Pendleton is expected soon to assist Miss Moir in the primary department. The former Headmaster, the Rev. F. E. Waelchli, left for Baltimore, Md., on the 9th inst. A farewell social was given by the Society on the 3d, at which Mr. Waelchli was the recipient of a purse made up by the members of the Society in recognition of the many valuable services he had rendered Church and School. At a children's social, held for the purpose of bidding farewell to Mr. Waelchli, the children also ultimated their feelings of love and regard for their former teacher and friend by presenting him with a beautiful clock, "to remind him of the many pleasant times they had been together." A highly animated men's supper-social, given to Mr. Waelchli as a final send-off on the 6th, was another evidence of the cordial feelings of both young and old toward Mr. Waelchli and family; the best wishes of the Society go with them to their new home. J. E. R.
MR. BOWERS' MISSIONARY TOUR.
Ontario.-I STARTED on my fall missionary tour on September 4th. At Burford a sermon was delivered in a private house, on Sunday, 5th.
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On September 8th three children were baptized at Mull, Kent County, and several families were visited in that vicinity and in Essex County.
Michigan.-My next appointment was at Gorand Rapids, where we held a meeting at the house of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Webster, on September 19th. There were only six persons present, myself included. Several others were invited who did not come. But we had a useful meeting. The sermon was on John xiv, 2. The sacrament of the LORD'S Supper was administered to all present. So far as known, there are now less than a dozen New Church persons in this city. There is a house of worship standing vacant here, on a valuable lot in the very centre of the city, with a population of 85,000 souls. There is no Society.
J. E. B.
ENGLAND.
Colchester.-ON Monday, August 23d, the Rev. R. J. Tilson, of London, met the members and friends at Mr. Gill's (now historical) studio, and delivered a most inspiring and helpful address, the Rev. W. H. Acton genially filling the chair.
Passing the events of recent months in review, Mr. Tilson said, we could but feel a deep debt of gratitude to our Heavenly Father who had kept us so closely united through one of the severest crises the Church had ever experienced, either here or in America. Despite all the stress and storm unbroken ranks had been maintained, and this he firmly believed was solely due to the grip which had been taken of the teaching of the Divine Authority of the Writings; where this was held fast nothing could effectually assail. The LORD never permitted any individual man or collective body of men to enter temptation before they had been given the necessary strength to sustain it; by His Divine aid they had so far conquered, and now were enabled to pause and take a calm view of their present state, humbly seeking the Divine guidance for their future efforts and work.
Following out this thought the priests had already had a meeting in London, and had appointed one of their number to set as president, who was asked to take cognizance of what was passing in the Church in England until such a time as the Divine Providence opened a way for the proper establishment and maintenance of the office of Bishop.
In the course of his remarks, and referring to the approaching departure of the Rev. E. C. Bostock and his family to America, Mr. Tilson said that the loss of such valuable service as Mr. Bostock had rendered to us would be great indeed, but they must recognize the Divine Will in his removal, and be comforted with the reflection that our loss would be gain to our brothers across the sea.
At its conclusion several friends returned thanks for the reverend gentleman's timely address, and also took the opportunity of speaking upon the subject of making special endeavors to open a school and support a resident pastor in Colchester. In answer to some questions Mr. Tilson advised the laymen to meet, discuss the subject fully, and report what they were prepared to do in this direction.
THE suggested meeting was held on the following Wednesday, when all the male members of the Society, with but two exceptions (these gentlemen being Out of town), were present. A very full sphere of charity and desire for service was manifest, the importance of the use of education and of the blessing in being allowed to assist this was kept well in view, and before separating every one cheerfully and freely has promised to help on the good work to the best of their ability, whether they had little ones to send or not. A Secretary (J. P.) was appointed pro tem, and a most substantial annual income guaranteed. All felt very thankful to the LORD for these added mercies, and heartily congratulated each other on the prospect of the near realization of their cherished wishes. Rev. W. H. Action, who has already won for himself a very large place in the affections of the Colchester people, is, we believe, to have charge of this work.
Title Unspecified 1897
[LATER.]-THE Rev. and Mrs. E. C. Bostock paid their farewell visit to Colchester on Sunday, September 5th. The reverend gentleman preached a valedictory sermon in the morning, being assisted in the service by the Rev. W. Acton. The presence and ministrations of the two priests were much appreciated by those who attended the service. In the evening a social was held for the purpose of saying good-bye, Mr. Acton making an extremely genial and sympathetic chairman. Many of the friends embraced the opportunity thus offered of expressing their sense of gratitude to Mr. Bostock for the uses he had been able to perform to them, and sentiments of deep affection, coupled with hearty wishes for his future prosperity, flowed freely from all sides. In the course of the proceedings, which were pleasantly interspersed with suitable toasts, Mr. Gill, on behalf of the Society, presented Mr. Bostock with a gold pencil-case, inscribed, "E. C. B. Colchester, 1897=128;" he asked his acceptance of it, not because of its intrinsic value, for that was slight indeed, but as a token, small and imperfect though it was, of the love and affection the Colchester folk bore to its recipient. In response, Mr. Bostock thanked one and all for the gift. It would, he promised, be always treasured by him, and would never fail to excite in him reciprocal feelings for the friends he had found in Colchester. He also gave utterance to his own thankfulness to the people here for the assistance they have afforded him in fulfilling the duties connected with his office. An intelligent laity, he went on to say, was of great value to a priest, inasmuch as teaching received and understood and questions asked urged the priest to a deeper and broader study and knowledge of the doctrines, and led him to inquire more and more of the LORD for the truth he was to give to the people. He felt hat in this respect line had much occasion for gratefulness. He should ever watch with the keenest interest the advancement of the Church in Colchester, for he believes that, under the Divine Providence, it had before it a bright and useful future. Mr. Bostock sails for Pittsburgh on September 25th, and it is interesting to notice that upon that date precisely seven years ago hue first landed on English soil to take up his work in connection with the London School. J. P.
CHANGE OF ADDRESS. 1897
The present address of the Rev. E. J. E. Schreck, of Detroit, Mich., is 56 Charlotte Avenue.
WANTED. 1897
Some one to do cooking, or instead, to take the care of children. Apply as soon as possible to
Mrs. JOHN PITCAIRN,
Huntingdon Valley,
Montgomery, Co., Pa.
FOR SALE. 1897
JOURNAL OF THE GENERAL CHURCH OF THE NEW JERUSALEM.
The Journal of the First General Assembly of the General Church of the New Jerusalem is now ready and for sale.
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A BOOK OF DOCTRINE containing Summaries of Doctrine from the Writings of the Church, 320 pages. Price, Including postage, bound in cloth, 75 cents; half leather, $1.00. Printed on extra quality paper, bound in flexible morocco, round corners, gilt edges, $2.00.
LESSONS IN ANATOMY FOR CHILDREN OF THE NEW CHURCH. Treating of the five sensory organs: The Eye, the Ear, the Nose, the Tongue, and the Skin. Illustrated. Cloth. price, $1.25.
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Title Unspecified 1897
NEW CHURCH LIFE.
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PHILADELPHIA, OCTOBER, 1897=128.
CONTENTS PAGE
EDITORIAL: "Unity in the New Church," 145
SERMON: The LORD'S Resurrection Body 146
Assyria 148
ANNALS OF THE NEW CHURCH 149
Diseases of the Fibers 151
The Blood 152
NEWS AND REVIEWS 153
"Bibliographical Index to the Published
Writings of Swedenborg," etc 155
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 155
CHURCH NEWS 159
BIRTHS, CHANGES OF ADDRESS, WANTED, ETC. 160
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NEW CHURCH LIFE
Vol. No. 11 PHILADELPHIA, NOVEMBER, 1897=128. Whole No. 205.
Editorial. 1897
"CHURCH UNITY."
UNDER the above heading The New Church Magazine comments editorially, in its October number, as follows:
"One of the sorrows of the present age is the divided state of Christendom; but if we regret that sects cannot agree, and have not the practical charity to sink trifles for great and fundamental principles, we must be doubly pained when brethren professing the same faith 'fall out by the way,' and start rival and antagonistic institutions. On this principle we regret to see that a section of Newchurchmen in America have not only separated from the 'General Convention,' but have determined to organize themselves as a distinctive body."
The editor then proceeds to comment upon the Rev. Frank Sewall's letter, already published in the Life-which, however amicably meant, substantially charges this "duplication of General Churches" with being "schism"-and joins with him in what amounts to a hope that the separating brethren will repent and seek reunion with the larger body of the Church.
Since some of our brethren seem sufficiently interested in the question of unification of the Church, as it bears upon the actions of the General Church, to discuss it seriously and publicly, we are in hopes that they will be willing to take into consideration certain aspects of the matter which seem to have entirely escaped them, but which we believe to bear so directly that so long as they are ignored the growth of unity, and the charity upon which unity depends, is hardly possible.
The representations of our critical friends inculcate charity as at once the object and the source of unity. It will be conceded that one of the chief evidences of the spirit of charity is a willingness to ascribe charity to others, and to construe in accordance with charity their speech and actions, even when from either their imperfections or ignorance, or perhaps from things not understood, the appearance of what is not charitable supervenes. All recognize that, in the case of near friends, relatives, and especially of consorts, this affirmative attitude should he steadfastly maintained, for confidence should be not lightly given nor lightly broken. The cataclysms that do sometimes overturn confidence are not relevant to a discussion looking to unity, on a basis which presupposes at least something of mutual trust and esteem.
Is it too much, then, to ask that even before entering into an examination of the action of the Newchurchmen who now constitute the General Church of the New Jerusalem, in separating from the General Convention, an action which was taken deliberately, and by them never reviewed but to confirm it-is it too much to ask that their action should be assumed to be the manifestation of such conscience-or charity-and judgment as they had been enabled to receive? Is it charitable to assume that such ebullitions of the natural man as may have attended that action were the measure of the real charity contained within it, or to stigmatize as "schismatic" or "rival and antagonistic"-and therefore as insincere-the considerations of use which were presented as the ostensible grounds for what was done?
Charity is established in man by the formation of conscience, and conscience is formed by means of the principles of faith which man in freedom adopts, and thereby makes to be of his conscience, And, since to destroy these principles would be to destroy the conscience formed by them, the LORD never suffers them to be forced, nor can man himself relax them alter adoption without peril to his spiritual life (A. C. 9039). To stigmatize as a "fad" that which has been made of conscience, is not following the LORD'S example (see New Church Magazine, p. 471). The one-time members of the General Church of Pennsylvania had made it of their faith and conscience to place the control of priestly functions in the hands of the priesthood alone; and as the quality and life of charity involve the free exercise of its fundamental principles, the very existence of that Church, or, what is the same, of its uses of charity, depended upon its placing itself in freedom to exercise those principles according to conviction and conscience. Now, in view of the fact that the provisions of the constitution of Convention made that exercise under its jurisdiction impossible, who will say that such an act of self-preservation as was taken by the General Church of Pennsylvania, after becoming at last fully alive to the situation, was antagonistic, schismatic, or uncharitable? Who will say that the effort or the willingness to deprive them of freedom to hold and exercise those principles was or is consistent with charity? Our contemporary, the Magazine, only last month, pleaded eloquently for freedom of opinion, citing Arcana Coelestia, n. 1834, in testimony that in the Church schisms and heresies "never would have existed if charity had continued to live and rule; for then they would not have called schism, schism, nor heresy, heresy, but they would have called them doctrinal., according to one's opinion, which they would have left to every one's conscience, provided they did not deny principles-that is, the LORD, eternal life, and the Word-and were not against order, that is, against the commandments of the Decalogue." While confessing that we, on our part, have failed in the past to recognize the full force of this golden passage, we think that a very obvious application of it has been overlooked by our critical brethren.
It is our purpose here to defend, not the principles in question, but the right to hold them and apply them in freedom according to conscience; and we wish to try to awaken our critics to the quality of their argument, that to persist in the views held by the men in question is to disturb the unity of the Church; that it is very much like a highwayman's convincing plea for peaceableness on the part of the wayfarer receiving his attentions. "Give up your principles, or be condemned for schismatics."
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In the light of the important number quoted above (A. 1834), and of many like it, it does not require the gift of prophecy to predict that that Church alone will grow which is animated by a spirit which allows of adaptation of all possible shades of opinion and practice within the broad limits there set down. Therefore, the question that concerns us all is not, primarily, whether the new General Church is schismatic, nor whether it would be a good thing for the General Convention to so amend its Constitution as to leave the way open for the General Church to seek readmission, but whether the teachings and spirit of the Writings as to toleration and charity are to be acknowledged and practiced throughout the organized New Church, so far as human wisdom is given to see the way and human strength to execute. Upon this depends not only the real unity, but the very perpetuity of the Church.
Title Unspecified 1897
As we go to press we note a second letter by the Rev. A. F. Frost in the Messenger (October 27th) in the same strain as before. While maintaining freedom as essential to the Church, he goes on to show that his application of that truth is that the laity of Convention are to be free to exercise jurisdiction over the priesthood of the General Church of the New Jerusalem-else that Church is schismatic! In all earnestness we ask our friends, Is this their conception of practical charity?
PATIENCE. G. G. S 1897
IT has often been urged against the Christian religion that it is-as its symbol the Cross indicates-a creed of suffering, gloom, and self-repression, and that it thus violates the order of nature and of life, for these, of themselves, tend to what is bright, joyous, and free. The true Christian knows well enough that such criticism is empty because unsympathetic and uncomprehending, arising from total ignorance of any higher delight than that of this world, or of the fact that only that is truly genuine and spontaneous which is inherently permanent-which earthly joys are not. Nevertheless one may long know and bear in memory these things before applying them-before becoming actually and practically willing to lay down the life of natural delight in order that spiritual life may begin. But sooner or later-the period of knowing must give place to that of doing, and man must approach this with a readiness to lay down his life-the old life,-with a willingness to suffer. We all acknowledge that naturally we incline to evil, and that evil should be resisted; but how is it when the delight of following our natural inclinations is upon us, and to forego it means pain and death to the natural- something which happens daily if not hourly? Do we not shrink from the pain and find excuses for avoiding it?
The willingness and ability to suffer we call patience, and when this is based on conscience it is the very token of the Christian's sincerity; for it is putting into practical effect the humility which makes man as a little child before the LORD; "for of such are the Kingdom of Heaven." Of what value are a man's self-abasement before the LORD, acknowledgment of His Divine, and prayer that His will be done, unless man be willing to endure the sacrifice of merely natural delight, of self- will and self-intelligence-unless he be willing to suffer for the sake of the LORD and His Kingdom?
Patience is the preparatory school through which all must pass who would reach heaven. Naturally understood, patience is only passive and negative in character, being only endurance of the inevitable, against which the natural will secretly rebels, yielding only an apparent submission because of the uselessness 0? revolt; but, spiritually understood, patience is most highly positive, for it means willingness that the delights of the natural man should be curtailed, weakened, and even extirpated for the sake and hope of attaining spiritual life. To the worn sufferer the healing though painful surgical operation represents new life, activity, and joy; even so to the Christian disciple the Cross is not, as to the atheist, merely a symbol of temptation-of suffering and death; to him it stands for spiritual re-birth into genuine life and happiness. Who will say that such fortitude is not a positive motive? Who will confound it with that natural inclination, possessed by some, to put up with trials with easy good nature, or with that passive non-resistance shown by those who, through sickness or other affliction, only endure in a state of non-freedom? The possibility of alternative choice involves the freedom of actual, positive forces of will, guided by positive operations of the understanding; for even as the patient might draw back from the ordeal, and prefer the present certainty of his forlorn condition to the risk of failure and death by the operation, so the moral patient is free to cling to his unregenerate state, and to prefer the natural loves which appeal to present outer consciousness-the only life he seems to have-rather than give it up for something of which he has no actual realization. For actual realization of the delightful quality of spiritual life comes only when that life has been not only developed in the internal, but also brought down into the external, the plane of man's conscious sensation and activity.
To the man who can be made spiritual, reformation is not exchange, it is sacrifice. He does not surrender natural delight for the sake of another natural delight which he perceives to be preferable; there is no such even barter of delights. As yet, spiritual delight is not apparent on the natural plane, for that delight comes not before regeneration but afterward as a result of it. Man cannot rise above natural loves by any means which belong merely to the natural-the motive of natural delight; a man cannot "raise himself by his bootstraps" spiritually any more than naturally; he must place his foot on a higher plane and thus elevate himself in the LORD'S strength. The motive must come from the spiritual. He has that within him which tells him that the truth is to be done, and that thereby will come spiritual life-impelling him to believe the truths of faith. (Those truths, however, come to him by an external way.) The doing of those truths furnishes the plane of reaction, the higher step; the influx of the affection of truth into its own correspondent forms constitutes the elevating force. Internal affection has its own delights, but these do not come to man's distinct consciousness as natural delight; he lives in the natural plane, and there he feels; and it is pain which he feels at the dictate of truth, for the command is to lay down the natural life. But if he affirms the truth, yields it obedience, and cheerfully, or at least willingly, puts himself under the surgeon's knife, he takes his place in the school of patience and submits to its hard discipline, which is, after all, only preparation for heavenly happiness. Thus true patience must contain in it something of disinterested following of the truth for its own sake and not for reward; and it is the LORD alone who can endow man with this motive,-and only when he petitions for it.
It is by the daily and hourly exercise of patience in life's actual duties-great and small-that we are given the opportunity to lay down our life for the LORD.
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Not a care so small, not an annoyance or grief so petty, but that it contains a hidden but legible proof of the LORD'S Providence which overrules every least detail of our lives. That proof becomes clear as day to him who makes use of his opportunities, who recognizes that external occurrences and things are but opportunities to co-operate with the LORD-indications of how He would have us use our faculties. The more obscure and hard to see the design the greater the test of our trust and patience. He who sustains the test, in all the evils that he or his are called upon to suffer at the hands of others, or on account of circumstances, never ceases to look to the Divine Providence; and despite the deprivation of delight, he continues to exercise charity, in the doing of uses and in shunning the evils which injure use.
How all-inclusive a virtue is patience, for its exercise involves putting away all that which opposes virtue. From its very nature it infuses courage in life's battle; it nourishes industry, zeal, and all the virtues that exalt usefulness, for it steels the mind against all that injures use. It clears the mind from the cobwebs of personality by its devotion to use, which reveals capacity for use in others; and at the same time it strengthens and feeds charity by habituating one to endure the consequences of human frailties in others-and in oneself-to see in each some faculty of use. More important still, it wonderfully opens the mind to see that man is nothing and the LORD everything; thus the blended self-conceit and self-will which prompt man to try to regulate his own happiness, are sacrificed, together with all the fallacies by which human prudence seeks ever to blind man to the plain indications of Providence.
Finally, patience leads to a knowledge of the LORD Himself; for when man is at last brought face to face with his darling evil, his besetting sin-pinned down by the conviction that that dearly-loved thing must be sacrificed-if he then confirms himself in patience and willingly bends to his cross, he catches some glimpse of the Divine patience-born of Infinite Mercy-with which the Saviour, JESUS, in the hour of extremity, turned all His thoughts away from the pangs of the assailed and devil-tortured Human, away from self-and in pitying endurance cried, "Father, forgive them; they know not what they do."
But even that Divine Mercy cannot protect from consequences the man of the New Church who has grasped the true inwardness of the teachings concerning patience and yet goes on, with eyes open, willfully beating against the Divine Hands that ever seek to lead him to safety and peace. The whole sphere of the world is one of unrest, of querulous complaint if not blasphemous rebellion against existing conditions ordained by Divine Providence; and it presses on and surrounds the Church, which nevertheless has within reach the means to attain equanimity, self-government, and peace. Those who are only of the world and who are angry with their lot may not fully "know what they do," but the Newchurchman knows, or may know, that to confirm impatience is to rebel against and reject the proffered means of spiritual life itself. The auger of impatience is inmostly, even though unconsciously, directed against the Divine, and all its manifestations are due to spirits who are angry at the LORD, and who seek to envelop man in their sphere and induce him to make it his own.
But beginnings must be small. The need for patience begins at home, with ourselves. It is of the LORD'S Providence that we were born, frail as we are, finite, inclined to every evil. Our finite minds may not possibly read the Divine plans which include the limitations of our hereditary and other conditions, or know the exact measure of responsibility and blame that our deeds may have incurred. We are what we are, but not what we may be. It is not profitable to spend too much time in analysis of the motives that might explain our past misdeeds; still less profitable is remorse. Let us live in the Now, where patience, willingness to suffer, relinquishment of evil delight and self-leading for trust in the LORD, and in His Providence-are ever-present possibilities. G. G. S.
FAITH OF CHARITY. Rev. W. F. PENDLETON 1897
A SERMON
"And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites; for they love to stand praying in the synagogues, and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Amen, I say to you they have their reward. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy chamber, and having shut thy door, pray to thy Father, Who is in secret; then thy Father, Who seeth in secret, will return to thee openly."-Matthew vi, 5, 6.
IN the first, second, third, and fourth verses of the sixth chapter of Matthew the subject unfolded to view in the spiritual sense is, that genuine worship consists in a life of charity, and not in a life of piety separated from a life of charity; that a life of piety without charity is filled with the idea of merit, but a life of charity is devoid of merit.
In the verses which follow, the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth, the subject of genuine worship continues to be treated; but it is shown that genuine worship consists also in a life of faith from charity, and not in a life of faith alone; that the life of faith without charity is also full of the idea of merit, but that in a true faith, which is the faith of charity, there is no thought of merit, and so no thought of reward either on earth or in heaven.
Faith is not faith, as charity is not charity, until the idea of merit is removed. Before this, faith is simply science, and charity is natural good. This is the state of all previous to regeneration, in childhood and youth; and also in adult life in the first stages of regeneration. Man then believes according to the appearance, that the truth which he thinks and speaks, and good which he wills and does, are from himself; and this state is broken only by temptations, when he comes to see that all truth and goods are the LORD'S and from Him alone, and none from man.
This first state has its use, for it is made the means of initiation into genuine worship. If man did not think at first of merit he would not do good, or think truth, but would reject them, and go off into the life of the love of self, and love of the world. But in this first state there is something of ignorance and so something of innocence, and on this account the state may be gradually blended and broken, enabling man to see, through the clouds of merit and self-conceit, the real truth that there is nothing self-derived, but that all things flow in from the LORD, and that what does not flow in from Him flows in from hell; and he learns to attribute the merit of all good to the LORD, and the demerit of all evil to hell, and so appropriate neither to himself as his; thus receiving the one and rejecting the other.
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The merit that is damned and damnable is not this first merit of childhood and youth and in the first state of regeneration, but it is the same when confirmed with advancing years, checking all spiritual progress, shutting out the life and light of heaven, causing the mind to turn back to the world in the path that lends to hell. For the path of the world is the path to hell.
The removal of the idea of merit, or the conceit of good in the works that are done in order that charity may exist, was the subject of the first verses of our last discourse; but let us now proceed to consider the subject as applied to the operations of the understanding or faith, for that is placed before us in the words of the text.
It is shown in these verses that genuine charity, or love to the neighbor, and thus genuine worship, is established by doing uses, from which all thought of self and self-merit is removed. It is now to be shown that genuine worship is still further confirmed, and charity enlarged and made full, by the establishment of a genuine faith in the operations of the understanding-in the removal from the thought of all merit, or conceit of knowledge, intelligence, and wisdom.
As in the first verses of the chapter, so now in the text, the injunction thou shalt not first appears, as it does in the letter of the WORD throughout. And when thou prayest thou shalt not be as the hypocrites. In the former verses the command was, not to give alms as the hypocrites do, to be seen of men. Of the hypocrites it is said in the text, that in praying, they love to stand in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men.
They love to appear what they are not, and to conceal what they are. They desire to appear to be pious and to love uses, and so they perform the works of piety and uses, not from affection but for the appearance. They wish others to think that they have faith; that they are affected by the truth; that they love it; and as prayer is an outward expression, as well as a confession of faith, it is said of them that they stand praying in places where they may be seen of men.
The words used for praying in the original tongues signify to speak, and also to ask, both of which ideas are predicated of faith in the understanding, or the state of thought, or meditation. For the thought is the soul of speech, and as the WORD inwardly is spiritual, what is said of speech in the letter, in the spiritual sense is said of the thought, especially the thought of spiritual things.
It is said that they "stand praying" where they may be seen. "Standing" is also predicated of the truth, faith, or thought, but especially of its manifestation; it relates to that part or state of the thought that is ready to be uttered in speech. Every man has interior thought and exterior thought; interior thought is what man thinks in himself when he is alone, or uninfluenced by the sphere of the world around; exterior thought is the thought accommodated to speech, ready to be given forth. With a sincere man, the exterior thought and speech is in agreement with his interior thought; but with the hypocrite it is not in agreement, for he accommodates to speech and utters that which is the opposite of his interior thought, for the sake of the appearance and so of deception. Of such it is said that they stand praying to be seen of men.
The hypocrite thinks outwardly to the world. He is indeed praying, for every thought is a prayer, an asking and seeking for something longed for by the love of the spirit; but he is asking, praying to the world The world is his god, the world has that which he desires-and loves above all things, and so he is in a perpetual prayer to the world for it. It is, in fact, a worship of evil spirits, or of the devil, the god of the world-spirits who are hypocritical like unto himself. In the spiritual world this worship assumes even an outward form.
With the instruction that every man is prone to the worship of some devil, or devils, and does so in fact before regeneration-the truth is given to set man free from such worship, which in general is that he is to remove all considerations of self and the world, all thought of merit and reward from his thought, and turn it inwardly to heaven and the LORD, and then from the LORD outwardly into external thought, speech, and deed. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy chamber, and having shut thy door, pray to thy Father, Who seeth in secret; then thy Father, Who seeth in the hidden, will return to thee openly.
In the ancient temples, and even in dwellings, was an inner or sacred chamber, devoted to Divine worship, called the shrine, or adytum, and also the penetralia. Into this the king, priest, or master of the house retired for worship, shutting the door after him, breaking off communication with the outer world. A house is the mind, and by such a chamber is signified the interior of the mind, or thought, where all the real praying of man's life is taking place, whether prayer to the LORD or to the devil. The interior thoughts are not accommodated to the outward world, but are the real thoughts of man's life, or love, and in them are manifest what he desires above all things, what he worships as the end of his life. With the evil this thought is altogether evil-that is, of self love, and love of the world; with the regenerate this thought is of love to the LORD and love to the neighbor. This thought, which is not the thought of the body and the- world, but the thought of the spirit, is called in the Writings meditation, and is that operation of the understanding by which a genuine faith, and a genuine worship in faith, is established. We see from this that the prayer commanded by the LORD in the text is, meditation; for the spiritual idea of prayer is no thing else. In meditation man is praying, for he is thinking, asking, seeking; it is the love reaching out, I and searching, yea, beseeching for that which may give it a fullness of life in ultimates.
As meditation is what is commanded here, let us consider somewhat its nature and quality. The original of the word, or its root, in the more ancient languages, signifies to be wise (Sanscrit, madh), and also to heal (Zend, madha), both of which ideas cohere closely, when viewed spiritually, for it is wisdom alone which heals. From this origin we have the two words meditate and medicine, expressing to the natural man two widely diverging ideas, but to the ancients, who were spiritual men, the two went hand in hand together. Man, as to his body, is not healed by medicine, though it co-operates from without, but by the laws of life, which are of wisdom, flowing in from the spiritual world. Disease is also caused by a violation of the laws of wisdom. As all diseases have thus a spiritual origin, so also their effectual cure is from a spiritual origin, a life of wisdom from the LORD. This suggests also the thought that there is no healing by prayer, as is vainly imagined by some, called the prayer of faith; but healing is effected by that which corresponds to prayer, the meditation of the spirit, by which the laws of heavenly love, which are wisdom, are projected into the natural man; by which laws, when the natural man obeys, man is healed, first in spirit from his evils, and afterward even in his body from its diseases. There is no healing but in wisdom; in the tree of wisdom only are found the leaves that are for the healing of the nations (Apoc. xxii: 2).
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In the state of interior thought, which is the thought of the spirit, or meditation, we are instructed that the spiritual man is in the affection of understanding truths, and that from this comes perception (D. L. W. 404); perception is wisdom, and constitutes the life of wisdom in man. It may be said, therefore, that there is growth in wisdom according to the practice of meditation in spiritual things. The affection of understanding truths, which governs in meditation, has in it the end of life or use, and so in meditation man intends use or wills good to the neighbor. It is clear from this that meditation is not mere thought alone, but is actual spiritual living; it is the spirit living its life, a life that will be lived outwardly when opportunity or occasion is given.
The natural man, however, when he meditates is not in the affection of understanding truths, comes into no perception, nor finds the way of wisdom, takes not the medicine which heals; but he is rather in the affection of falsifying and perverting truth to further his schemes of ambition or avarice, he meditates injury to the neighbor, intends and wills evil to him, deliberates revenge, studies deceit in order to bring injury and at the same time avoid punishment.
These two opposite states of thought in meditation, the interior thoughts of the hypocrite meditating evil, and the interior thought of the sincere and just man meditating good, are both laid open to view in the internal sense of the words of the text, and the injunction is given to avoid the state of the one as infernal poison and to seek in the other the very healing atmosphere of heaven.
And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites; for they love to stand praying in the synagogues, and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Amen, I say to you they have their reward. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thine inner chamber, and having shut thy door, pray to thy Father, Who is in the hidden; then thy Father, Who seeth in the hidden, shall return to thee in the open.
The command to shut the door signifies that in the state of spiritual meditation, which is prayer or discourse with God, there is to be no communication with the sphere of the world-that is, man is not to allow himself to be affected by the spheres of the world or by principles which govern in the life of the world, but solely by principles which govern in the life of heaven. The mind is then free to think in the light of heaven and according to that light, and determine and conclude those things which are of good to the neighbor, to see evils and repent of them, to see uses and will to do them.
The word in the Greek language (Manthano) derived from the ancient root from which meditate comes, signifies to plan, to execute. This presents an important aspect of meditation. For, as we are instructed (D. L. W. 252), by meditation the spiritual degree is opened, and man is then in consociation with the angels, and his interiors are opened even to the LORD; he sometimes even appears to the angels as if walking in meditation. In this state he drinks in truths by his spiritual and executes them by his natural. He plans to execute; his thought is determined to uses, which he executes as he is able.
Another word in the Greek from the same root (Manthano) signifies "to learn," and it is indeed the truth, that it is only by meditation and reflection that man really learns; for what is learned without this is merely heaped in the memory and does not enter the understanding. Man learns only what he understands, and according to his understanding he is wise.
The command to retire into the inner chamber and pray-that is, to think in the spirit, rather than in the body-is given that man may learn to know himself, "When man thinks from his spirit, which is done when he meditates with himself at home, he thinks from the affection which is of his love." That is to say, he thinks as a man, or spirit, thinks and speaks in the spiritual world, from the real love of his life, for no other thought is allowed in that world; yea, he thinks as he himself will think in the spiritual world; and, what is more, he is then thinking or speaking in the spiritual world with spirits, and is not thinking as a man in the natural world with men. As with spirits in the spiritual world, man in his interior thought can think no other than the thought of his life, or ruling love; for in his interior thought man is a spirit in the spiritual world, though unconscious of it; and if he but knew it his real life is then displayed as a panorama before him.
Hereby a way is opened to man to know what his life in the spiritual world is and is to be, what his associates there are, what he will do when he becomes a spirit and external restraints are removed. And hereby a way is opened to man, not only to know his life, but to cooperate with the LORD in changing it from evil to good, in changing his spiritual associates; in transferring his abode in the spiritual world from the midst of the evil to the midst of the good. In meditation, the LORD reveal, to him his whereabouts, his surrounding in the spiritual world, by showing him what his own state is; and the use of this knowledge, of all spiritual knowledge, is that man in the light of it may co-operate with the LORD; and this is what the LORD indicates to him in teaching him, in giving him the knowledge of the truth.
The outward life of man is not his real life, which is shown by the fact that we cannot judge by what a man says and does, as to what he really is. Man's real living is in his interior thinking, and the state of this is not revealed to others in the natural world, except partially, or in glimpses, as it were. But the LORD will reveal it to the man himself if he does what is meant by retiring into his inner chamber to pray, and thus he may learn to know himself as others in the world cannot know him-knowing because taught by the LORD.
The uses of meditation are thus to some extent seen; and it follows plainly that if man lives his real life in his interior thinking, he is saved or lost according to the state of his thought. It may appear at first sight startling to hear it said that man is saved by his thinking, or lost by the same means. But it is seen to be true when it is understood that the interior thought is meant; and when it is still further understood that the interior thought is the love itself thinking, the love living out its life in the interior thought, and by that thought governing every word and act. Just as we are taught that man is saved by faith-not by faith alone, but by the faith of charity-that is, charity saves by faith as its instrument.
Man is saved by his interior thinking, because it is there that the falsity of evil is detected, uncovered, separated, rejected; and in the removal of the falsity of evil man is saved.
On this subject we read in conclusion from Divine Providence, n. 296:
"The withdrawal from evil is done by the LORD in a thousand ways, even the most secret; only a few of them have been disclosed to me, and none but the most common; which are, that the delights of the concupiscences are emitted in heaps and bundles into the interior thoughts, which are of the spirit of man, and thence into his exterior thoughts, in which they appear under some sense of pleasure, either delightful or lustful, and are mixed there with his natural and sensual delights; the means of separation and purification are there, and also the ways of withdrawal and discharge; the means are especially the delights of meditation, thought, and reflection, for the sake of certain ends, which are uses; and the ends which are uses are just as many as are the particulars and singulars of any one's business or function, and as are the delights of reflection for the sake of the ends, that he may appear as a civil and moral, and also as a spiritual man, besides the undelightful things which insert themselves; those delights, because they are of his love in the external man, are the means of separation, purification, excretion, and withdrawal of the delights of the concupiscences of evil in the internal man. . . .
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With an evil man there is not given any other separation, purification, and withdrawal, except of the more grievous evils from the less grievous; but with a good man there is given the separation, purification, and withdrawal of evils, not only the more grievous, but also the less grievous; and this is done by the delights of the affection of good and truth, and of justice and sincerity into which he comes, as far as he looks at evils as sins, and therefore shuns and has aversion for them, and still more if he fights against them. These are the means by which the LORD purifies all that are saved.'
PATIENCE* EVELYN E. PLUMMER 1897
A HYMN.
I bow in utter need and mortal weakness,
O LORD my Saviour, low before Thy throne,
To ask Thine aid to walk in patient meekness
The path that leads to Thee alone.
I fain would say, Thy will be done forever
Within this heart where earthly loves abide;
I would resist them, LORD, with firm endeavor
To do Thy will and in Thy strength confide.
O help me cling to Thee with glad assurance,
While foes within assail with hate and scorn;
Salvation comes of strife. From calm endurance
Of life's temptations heavenly faith is born.
Be patient, O my soul! the joy of heaven
Is thy reward for all this bitter strife;
"Be faithful unto death"-His promise given-
"And I will give to thee a crown of life."
EVELYN E. PLUMMER.
* From the Academy Church Music. By permission. The music beautifully accords with the feeling of the words.
ANNALS OF THE NEW CHURCH. 1897
1771.
January 26th.-Amsterdam. Cuno describes Swedenborg as "working in a superhuman manner" upon the publication of the" True Christian Religion" (Doc. II, 482).
February 11th-Stockholm. Death of Adolphus Frederic, king of Sweden. He is succeeded on the throne by his son, Gustavus III. Swedenborg in Amsterdam, as reported by Cuno, speaks with the late king in the spiritual world a short time after his decease (Doc. II, 484).
March 6th-Gottenburg. Bishop Lamberg, in a letter to the Chancellor of Justice, reports Beyer's and Rosen's delay in handing in explanations of their relations to Swedenborg's teachings (Acad. Arch. L. 1895, p. 183).
March 14th.-Gottenburg. Dr. Beyer's memorial to the king, protesting against further persecution by the Consistory (Acad. Arch. L. ibid.).
April 11th.-Gottenburg. Dr. Beyer is peremptorily forbidden to teach the Greek of the New Testament in the College (Acad. Arch. L. ibid.).
April 27th.-Gottenburg. Report of the Consistory the king respecting the non-effect of the royal decree upon Beyer and Rosen; the doctors had not recanted one iota, but had defended the Doctrines of the New Church in private publications (Beyer's Schedismata and Rosen's Aphorisms (Sundelin, p. 100).
April 30th.-Amsterdam. Swedenborg's eighteenth letter to Dr. Beyer; states that he intends to enter a formal complaint against the Gottenburg Consistory at the next Diet; the True Christian Religion to leave the press about the end of June. "After the appearance of this book the LORD will operate both mediately and immediately towards the establishment throughout the whole of Christendom of a New Church based upon this theology." "The New Heaven, out of which the New Jerusalem will descend, will very soon be completed" (Doc. II, 382).
May 14th.-Stockholm. The case of Beyer and Rosen considered by the Council of State, and referred to the Court of Appeals in Jonkoping; the doctors now to be treated according to the civil law (although they had not yet been convicted of heresy by any ecclesiastical court). (Acad. Arch. L. ibid.).
May 14th.-Stockholm. Royal resolution, referring the case to the Court of Appeals in Jonkoping, and commanding the Consistory and Theological Faculty of Upsala University to report on the heterodoxy of Beyer's volume of sermons (Sundelin, p. 104).
June 1st.-Jonkoping. The Court of Appeals declare that the Swedenborgian doctrines need no further examination, since the king, in former letters, had declared them heretical (although the king was no legally recognized authority on such subjects). (Sundelin, p. l00.)
June 15th.-Gottenburg. Letter of Dr. Beyer to the prelate OEtinger; mentions that Dr. Rosen has removed to Stockholm (Doc. II, 1053, 382).
June (end).-Amsterdam. Swedenborg publishes "Vera Christiana Religio, continens Universam Theologiam Novae Ecclesiae-ab Emanuele Swedenborg, Domini Jesu Christi Servo" (The True Christian Religion, containing the Universal Theology of the New Church, predicted by the LORD in Daniel and in the Apocalypse, by Emanuel Swedenborg, the Servant of the LORD JESUS CHRIST). 541 pp. 4to. (Doc. II, 1014. See also Prof. Odhner's bibliography of this work, in L. 1893, p. 105; concerning the history of Swedenborg's own copy of this work-now preserved in the Archives of the Academy-and the list of presents which he had received in the spiritual world, see L. 1891, p. 84.
July 2d.-Amsterdam. Swedenborg's nineteenth and last letter to Dr. Beyer; speaks of the prohibition against the Writings in Sweden, and of his intended complaints to the Diet; mentions his published "Pro Memoria" against Dr. Ernesti, which is to be circulated in Germany (Doc. II, 384; further documents relating to this "Pro Memoria" discovered in Holland by the Rev. E. J. E. Schreck, and published in L. 1890, p. 214).
July 13th.-Amsterdam. Swedenborg's letter to the Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt (Doc. II, 388).
August 10th.-Gottenburg and Stockholm. Beyer and Rosen send memorials to the Court of Appeals, showing that this body has no authority in their case (Sundelin, pp. 101-105).
August 29th.-The Hague. Swedenborg dines with Mr. A. Vosmer, at The Hague (L. 1890, p. 218).
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August.-Swedenborg's letter to Venator (Doc. II, 300).
September.-Swedenborg arrives in London; takes lodgings with Mr. Richard Shearsmith, at 26 Coldbath Fields (Doc. II, 577).
While in London he occasionally visits the Swedish Church, and afterwards takes dinner with Pastor Ferelius, but his visits are not frequent, as he can find no peace in the Church (Carlson's History of the Swedish Church in London, p. 170).
December.-London. A short time before Christmas Swedenborg is attacked by a stroke of paralysis, which deprives him of his speech, and causes him to lie in a lethargic state for about three weeks (Doc. II, 577).
December 11th-17th.-Skara, Sweden. The Rev. Sven Schmidt is tried by the Consistory of Skara on the charge of preaching Swedenborgian tenets; he defends the Doctrines courageously, but is temporarily suspended from office, and put under the care of a physician, as being mentally unbalanced (Sundelin, pp. 139, 140. See, also, Professor Odhner's historical sketch of this case, and of the New Church in the diocese of Skara, in Mess. vol. 58, p. 187).
Title Unspecified 1897
During the year Swedenborg writes the following works:
"Historia Ecclesiastica Novae Ecclesiae" (an Ecclesiastical History of the New Church). MS. I p. (Doc. II, 1020).
"Coronis, Sen Appendix ad Veram Christianam Religionem." (The Coronis, or Appendix to the True Christian Religion). MS. (Doc. II, 1021).
"Summarium Coronidis ad Veram Christianam Religtonem" (A Summary of the Coronis to the True Christian Religion). MS. 5 pp. folio (Doc. II, 1020).
"De Consummatione Saeculi, de Adventu Secundo Domini, et de Nova Ecclesia; quibus adjecta est Invitatio ad totum Christianum Orbem ad illam Ecclesiam" (Concerning the Consummation of the Age, the Second Advent of the LORD, and the New Church; to which is added an Invitation, addressed to the whole Christian World, to that Church). MS. 15 pp. (Doc. II, 1023).
This is the last work written or projected by Swedenborg during his life in this world.
PUBLICATIONS. 1897
Swedenborg, Em: "Von den Erkorpern oder Planeten," etc. Second German edition. Frankfurt and Leipzig. 228 pp. 8vo. B. L. (See Doc. II, 983, and T. M., vol. I, p. 101.)
"Oforgripliga Tankar om Myntets upphojande och Nedsattande" (Thoughts on the Rise and Fall in the value of Swedish Currency). Upsala. J. Edman. 68 pp. Third edition. (First edition published in 1722. Copy in Upsala University Library; mentioned in New Church Advocate 1843, p. 116.)
COLLATERAL. 1897
(Anonymous): "Tankar och Roliga Berattelser," etc. Gottenburg. Im. Smith. 16 pp. Second edition. R. L.
Beyer, G. A. "Schedismata." Gottenburg. (Sundelin, p. 100.)
Cuno, J. C. "Doctissimo-Emanueli Swedenborg, S. D. D. Joannes Chr. Cuno, mercator Amstelodamisis" (A letter to Swedenborg by Cuno). Hamburg. (Doc. II, 465.)
: "Sammlung Einiger Nackrichten Herrn Emanuel Swedenborg betreffend" (A collection of documents respecting Swedenborg). Hamburg. (Doc. II, 482.)
OEtinger, "Beurtheilung der Lehre von dem Zustand nach dem Tod, und der damit verbundenen Lehren des beruhmten Em. Swedenborge" (An examination of the Doctrine concerning the State after Death, and of the related Doctrines of the famous Em. Swedenborg. T. M. vol. II, p. 101).
: "Schwedishe Urkunden von dem Assessor Swedenborg, welche auf dem Schwed. Reichatag, den 13ten Juni, 1771, werden zur Entacheidung kommen" (Swedish documents respecting Assessor Swedenborg, which are to be acted upon by the Swedish Diet, on June 13th, 1771. See T. M. ibid; Doc. II, 1036, 1041; Sundelin, p. 100.
Rosen, Johan: "Aphoriemer" (Aphorisms concerning the Doctrines of the New Church). Gottenburg. Mentioned by Dr. Achatius Kahl, in his work, "Den Nya Kyrkan och dess Inflytelse."
DISEASES OF THE FIBRES. 1897
(Chapter XI, continued.)
MELANCHOLIA.
481. Melancholia, viewed in itself, is not a disease, but a temperament of the blood that is called melancholic. Medically speaking it is a sickness of the animus and body, and sometimes breaks forth into a species of delirium and mania. But of what quality it is in itself, is known from the character of him who is affected. He is stubborn and tenacious of purpose; he clings pertinaciously to each and every object in his thought; hence it follows that he is not such as he is shown to be from melancholia itself, but from application and determination; as, if he be a friend, he remains a friend; if an enemy, he is perpetually one. If there be elation of the animus, he falls into a laughing haughtiness; if he be ambitious in mind, he is externally humble, often sordid, but internally he is puffed up. He regards with grimvisaged brows all who do not feel what he himself feels. If he be envious, he becomes stifled and livid; if irritated, he becomes confused and falls into dementia; to external delights he is for the most part averse, a lover of solitude; he does not value society except that he may obtain the end of his design. He is shrewd by nature, able in judgment, if in that he aspires to glory, for he sets himself obstinately upon it and vehemently applies himself to it. Not being well ordered he fabricates dreams and phantasms, which he thinks are so many verities. If he be magnanimous he is intrepid, bold and courageous; if pusillanimous, he is timid, without heart, avaricious, always solicitous of the future; loving self, hating others [ecetera]. Thus there are those of a most upright nature, heroes, those born for administering great undertakings, the industrious, the vigilant, the constant, the unchangeable, the square; likewise there are the unprincipled, the most profligate, those burning within after crime, and those abandoned of all honor; for they cling strenuously to the chief heads; for the most part they are sad, sorrowing, blue, absentminded, old before their time. Opposed to these are those who are of a sanguine temperament, for they arechangeable, tractable, faithless to themselves, prone to cupidities, lovers of delights, they are as it were a society itself; in inclination like women, by whom they are praised, by men vituperated, by melancholics despised; men of the present time, not of the generations which have preceded.
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482. There are diverse origins, and so with respect to causes there are diverse species of melancholia. There is melancholia relating to the blood, to the bile, to the outmost parts, and melancholia of the body. There is melancholia of the animus, of the animal spirits, purer sanguineous melancholia, interior melancholia, and that of the brain; it is called sadness, anxiety. There is a melancholia of the mind which is properly human and is supreme; it is a certain species of hatred of the world and of life. There is melancholia of the soul, spiritual in nature, as it were, outside of us; it is properly conscience which stings and disquiets. There are these four species which are distinct in origin and nature, nor ought they to be called melancholias, except the sanguine or corporeal variety, except by analogy. But, nevertheless, one so excites and produces another, that they exist together, even so that an apparent species deceives the experienced; for a dark and bilious blood excites grief and sadness of the animus, and this a higher one in the mind, and this latter an evil or infernal conscience; so also the reverse, for an evil conscience produces hatred of self and torment of the mind, this, anxiety of the animus, and this latter, bilious blood. But these varieties must be well discriminated; for the medicine must be prepared for each case in accordance with the cause; we remove the effect to no purpose while the cause and root of the disease remains. If the blood be in the cause, it must be purified; if the animus, the sickness must be broken up by changes, jollities, and by those things which emend the purer blood; if the mind be in the cause, the very desires, hopes, and principles must be relieved; if the cause be spiritual, the aid must be by theology from the Sacred Scripture; to which, if the natural be blended, by sciences, which apparently explain the mysteries of faith.
483. The very cause that produces one and excites another, is in a sufficiently clear light, if we consider the influx of the red blood into the purer blood, and the transflux of the latter through the fibres, and its recomposition into red blood-that is, if we consider the circulations themselves, which are distinctly three, one of which inflows into another, which influx we have called THE CIRCLE OF LIFE (compare Treatise on the Fibre, Chap. XXVI). Or, likewise, if there be a connection of the blood-vessels with the medullary fibres by means of the cortex. From the anatomy of the brain itself, all these things lie manifestly open even to their causes.
484. In diseases which are properly melancholic the RED BLOOD is harder, insoluble, the spurious mixed with the genuine, thickened with fragments of the bile, old, obsolete, malignant, of such a sort as is ejected into the gall-bladder, and from thence by the bowels, menses, and hemorrhoids. This blood cannot but adhere tenaciously in the smallest arterioles which empty themselves immediately into the cortical substances. The PURER BLOOD or animal spirit, which courses through the fibres, is thence rendered sluggish, cold, somewhat hard, not easily soluble, quite as the red blood; for, that the latter blood is harder, it derives in this disease from a similar nature of the purer blood, from which it is formed. The CORTICAL SUBSTANCES themselves, in which our soul administers its rational mind, derives a similar nature thence-that is to say, that they become somewhat hard, tenacious, not easible changeable as to the state of expansion and constriction, but sluggish and stubborn in acting. This is the reason why melancholics become fixed to one object of thought, and are tenacious of purpose. For the ready mutability of an accidental state of the cortical substances, and consequently of the brain itself; is that which produces the power of perceiving, concluding, and determining, which does not at all obtain if the organs themselves are harder, more sluggish, and the blood sticks in places as well in the vessels as in the fibres; for as is the state of the cortical substances such is that of the fibres, consequently such is that of the common sensory, of the organs of the external senses, and the others, which depend upon the fibres.
485. But it is asked, Whence is melancholia of the blood? It is from all causes which render the blood harder, as from retardation and inhibition of the universal circulation, or of the circle of life. For if the red blood passes through many circles, and is not resolved or cast forth, then it becomes endurated, antiquated, and obsolete. This is caused by aliments crude, terrestrial, too much cooked and boiled, thus dead. All causes of indigestion, whence is a souring of the foods in the stomach, rancidity, deprivation of chyle; a scanty distribution of the saliva, of the gastric juice, a greater of the pancreatic and hepatic juices, and of the bile, by which the overloaded chyle is borne through the thoracic duct or immediately insinuated in the veins. It is also caused by occlusion of the excretory passages through the bowels, urine, menses, hemorrhoids, sweat, and Sanctorian perspiration; also from too great an excretion of innocuous lymph; from insomnia, whence is a febrile blood; from too much sleep, whence its thickness without fever; from poisons which indurate the blood. There is also such a hereditary condition of the blood, or of the ducts which commingle, dissolve, separate, and exterminate the blood. There are also those who are born melancholics.
But the genuine causes of melancholic blood are a too scanty afflux of the purest blood, which is always produced anew in the cortical substances-causes arising from a defect of variation or change of state of the cortical substances; likewise from a defect of transpiration through the most simple pores of the cuticle, which results in a blood destitute of its serum or vehicle. Thus the pellucid globules of that blood are rendered more sluggish and more tenacious, as in the aged and decrepit, who are for the most part of a melancholic nature, and more sluggish as to the faculties of discerning by the senses. But there is a connection of all causes.
486. But whence is melancholia of the animus, or anxiety? Since not immediately arising from the blood, it is commonly from all sicknesses which are attributed to the animus, as from sadness, grief, wrath, hatred, fear, and other affections which we have in common with brute animals; those particulars spread from their causes, which it would be prolix to enumerate. In civil society there are new excitements daily. These causes inflow, as was said above, into the bloods, and indeed immediately into the purer blood or animal spirit, which renders it more sluggish and tenacious, for all the opposite causes, as joy, love, and happiness, purify it and give it agility. Thus one cause inflows into another, as one blood into another through the circle of life; for sadness inspissates the blood, wrath excites the bile, fear induces a depraved condition of the humors, and closes and evacuates the ducts; hatred mixes the bile with blood, whence is lividity, emaciation, blackness of the face and of the blood; for the effect is the continuation of the cause, the cause produces the effect, but the effect excites the cause; consequently as is the blood, so is the animus; and as is the animus, so is the blood.
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487. But whence is the state of the mind which produces a similar effect? There are many affections properly of the mind, which, viewed in themselves, have nothing in common with the sicknesses of the animus, as all desires and cares of the future, self-providence, diverse loves of ends, most intense zeal, perverse principles of morality, and many others which are not found with brutes. But because we mortals for the most part indulge the passions of our animus and the pleasures of our senses and bodies, the mind is ruled by its animus, hence it is difficult, without special inquiry, to discern those desires of the mind from the affections of the animus, although they are most distinct. Let us assume a desire of future happiness, which we contemplate assiduously in the mind, and sometimes it is nourished with a present hope; if we are suddenly deprived of hope, we fall prone into a kind of despair, yea into hatred either of the causate or of ourselves, which immediately produces sadness of the animus, and by this means melancholic blood. So also in the others.
488. As regards the supreme of all causes, which we have called the spiritual, and the evil conscience thence arising, and its torments, it cannot arise immediately from the rational mind, except that mind be instructed in holy and Divine laws and mandates, and except it acknowledge the soul, its surviving life, heaven, beatitude and an avenging God, otherwise it is not spiritual, but natural; wherefore the things accepted are borne to the soul, which is the spirit, and to the Divine Spirit, who adverts, renews, inflows, recedes. This conscience flowing from these principles is called temptation, and has nothing in common as to origin with the causes above mentioned, which are posterior in themselves. Likewise this cause descending into the rational mind, from this into the animus, and from the animus into the blood, perturbs, inverts, and defrauds the whole animal organism. They who deny this its origin, and claim that it is wholly posterior, indeed, even that it is excited from the blood, have no knowledge of the soul, its surviving life, heaven, beatitude, hell, and an avenging God, or tacitly deny them; thus they have either no conscience, or it is spurious.
OUR EXPERIENCE MEETING. 1897
WHEN Newchurchmen first meet with one another it is natural that they will exchange experiences, and relate in what particular manner they were introduced to that greatest of the blessings of their lives, the knowledge of the Heavenly Doctrines. On such occasions it is found that each such experience has in it an element of what is unusual, and often very remarkable, for the LORD'S ways in drawing men unto Himself are as various as are the minds of men, and each way is a spiritual miracle. Such exchanges of experiences are not only interesting and delightful, but are also highly useful in strengthening the realization of the LORD'S Mercy and Providence, and of His ever-watchful and direct care of His New Church. They serve also to kindle anew, or to increase in intensity, that holy love of the Divine Truth which burned so brightly in the halcyon days of each one's Newchurchmanship.
Well has that state of joy and enthusiasm, which follows upon the first reception of the Doctrines, been compared with the first states of conjugial love, the courtship and the "honeymoon;" external, indeed, and not free from impurities, yet, by its youthfulness and vigor, resembling the final angelic states of love. When, therefore, our brother relates his first blessed experiences of the New Church, it is like attending his wedding-feast, whereby our own conjugial states may be nourished and refreshed.
It is to such a feast we would invite our readers, hoping that each one will feel free, not only to receive, but also to give (which is the greater privilege). Each one, whether born of New Church parents or not, has his own experience to give, for Newchurchmen, unlike poets, are not born, but made. Let no one be deterred by the apparent simplicity of his story. By writing it down for us he will perform an important use for himself, for his brethren, for the young, and for the future history of the Church. Nay, the Church as a whole, in her work of Evangelization, has important lessons to learn from the experiences of each and all of her members.
In order to make a beginning, we will first give brief accounts of the manner in which some well-known Newchurchmen in the past have been brought to a knowledge of the Heavenly Doctrines of the New Jerusalem.
I.
DOCTOR BEYER.
Gabriel A. Beyer, Doctor of Divinity and Professor of Greek at the College in Gottenburg, ranks, next to Swedenborg, as the first undoubted receiver of the Heavenly Doctrines known to the history of the New Church. The series of "witnesses" in our "experience meeting" is' therefore, introduced by this first disciple, whose reception of the Doctrines has been described in the following account:
"About the year 1776,* Swedenborg went to Gottenburg, intending to embark for England. When he arrived there he took his passage in a vessel which was to sail in a few days. During his stay at Gottenburg Dr. Beyer accidentally met him in a company, and entertaining, from report, the same sentiments with many others in the country with respect to his being a madman on account of his assertion that he had communication with the spiritual world, Dr. Beyer was surprised when he observed that Swedenborg spoke very sensibly, without discovering any marks of that infirmity of which he was suspected; he therefore invited Swedenborg to dine with him the day following, in company with Dr. Rosen. After dinner Dr. Beyer expressed a desire, in the presence of Dr. Rosen, to hear from Swedenborg himself a full account of his doctrines; upon which Swedenborg, animated by the request, spoke so clearly and in so wonderful a manner on the subject that the Doctor and his friend were quite astonished. They did not interrupt him; but when the discourse was ended Dr. Beyer requested Swedenborg to meet him the next day at Mr. Wenngren's, and to bring with him a paper containing the substance of his discourse, that he might consider it more attentively. Swedenborg came the day following, according to his promise, and, taking the paper out of his pocket in the presence of the other two gentlemen, he trembled and appeared much affected, the tears flowing down his cheeks; when, presenting the paper to Dr. Beyer, 'Sir,' said he, 'from this day the LORD has introduced you into the society of angels, and you are now surrounded by them.' They were all greatly affected. He then took his leave, and the next day embarked for England.
* Should be "summer of 1765." See the "Annals."
"The Doctor immediately sent for the Writings of Swedenborg, and, to arrange the subjects more distinctly in his mind, began the index Initiale, which, as he prepared, he sent, sheet by sheet, to Amsterdam to be printed.
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He was thirteen years in completing that work, and on the day he sent off the last sheet corrected he became ill, took to his bed, and in a few days it pleased the LORD to call him to Himself, to bestow on him the reward of his useful labors" (Doc. II, 699).
To this we must add the following extract from Dr Beyer's first letter to Swedenborg, written in March; 1766: "I refrain from describing to you the joy I have often experienced, and how the glorious truths are beginning to shine before me; also how, in accordance with my wishes, I should not rest until I had read all the Writings over and over again were I not prevented by my daily occupations and engagements" (Doc. II, 238).
The first was he, but not the last, to taste the "Balm of Gilead" in the Revelation.
II.
REV. THOMAS HARTLEY.
We do not know the exact date when this first pioneer of the New Church among the English became acquainted with the Doctrines. But we know that he visited Swedenborg in London in the summer of 1769, and that, on August 2d of the same year, he wrote a letter to Swedenborg, which drew from the latter his well-known brief autobiography. From this letter we will give the following brief extract as well-describing the first state of a Newchurchman:
"In speaking with you every suspicion of flattery must be hushed. For what ground for flattery can there be when I attribute everything in you, however great and extraordinary it may be, to the Lord, and not to yourself, and when I look upon you only as an instrument of His mercy and great kindness! But may I be permitted to offer honor and glory to the instrument-for this is well-pleasing to the Lord; and may I be permitted to tell you, from a heart full of gratitude, that I consider myself thrice blessed, that your Writings, by the Divine Providence, have fallen into my hands, for from them, as from a living fountain, I have drawn so many things, as well for instruction and edification as for my great delight, and I have been freed by them from so many fears, and from so many errors, doubts, and opinions which held my mind in perplexity and bondage, that I seem to myself sometimes as if transferred among the angels. May the Lord, the Highest and Best, forbid that I deceive myself with a vain and premature hope; and may He always keep me in a state of humility and repentance, anxious to shun all evil, and ready to do all good, so that I may safely and happily reach the goal of our destination in the Lord Jesus Christ" (Doc. I, 4). C. TH. O.
SEEING FROM THE LORD. T. M. M 1897
Questions and Answers.
EDITOR NEW CHURCH LIFE:-Having read with much interest the letters and replies on the subject of blind obedience and blind faith, may I suggest that you print in this connection the following from our court of last appeal, the opened Word, which gives very concisely the genuine law on the subject governing (by influx) the celestial man, or angel, and the accommodation permitted for the sake of the natural man that he may be made spiritual:
"'Let your communication be yea, yea; nay, nay; for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil' Matt. v, 37). Such is the communication of all in the third heaven, for they never reason concerning divine things whether they be so or not, but see in themselves from the LORD whether they are or are not so. Reasoning concerning divine things, whether they be so or not, arises from the reasoner's not seeing them from the LORD, but desiring to see them from himself; and that which a man sees from himself is evil. But yet the LORD wills, not only that a man should think and speak of divine things, but should also reason concerning them, to the end that he may see that they are so or not so, and such thoughts, discourse, or reasoning, provided it has for its end that he may see truth, may be said to be from the LORD in him, but it is from the man until he sees truth and acknowledges it. In the meantime it is from the LORD alone that a man is capable of thinking, speaking, and reasoning; for he does so by virtue of his two faculties, called liberty and rationality, which he possesses from the LORD alone" (D. P. 219). T. M. M.
ROSEDALE, TORONTO, CANADA, Oct. 19th, 1897.
MODERN SCIENCE. EDWARD CRANCH 1897
EDITOR NEW CHURCH LIFE.
DEAR SIR:-Your March issue answered my questions on some knotty points of theological faith and honesty so satisfactorily that I hope you will throw some light on the following:
What should be the mental attitude of a Newchurchman in the face of modern discoveries, alleged to "prove" the Spencerio-Darwinian theory of "evolution"?
For instance, in several late numbers of Harper's Monthly, a series of well-written articles has appeared, professing to sum up the "Astronomical," the "Paheontological," the "Geological," the "Meteorological," et cetera, "Progresses of the Century." So far as actual observations go, we feel no great disposition to dispute them; but how are we to regard their conclusions, especially as to the idea of descent of animal forms from one another, and from vegetable or even mineral forms?
Where is the fallacy (for there must be one) in the so-generally accepted dogma, that "knowledge is to be obtained only by the laborious exercise of human observation and human reason?"
Respectfully,
EDWARD CRANCH, PH. B., M. D.
ERIE, August 17th, 1897=128.
REPLY.
WE know of no other index of the truth or falsity of a system than its central or ruling principle, for the first enters into all things that follow and qualifies them. That principle which rules in modern science may the more definitely appear by contrasting it with that which rules in the science and philosophy of the Writings of the New Church. The Writings say:
Through scientifics man can be wise or be insane. He is wise through scientifics when by them he confirms the truths and goods of the Church . . . and he is insane by scientifics when by them he weakens or refutes the truths and goods of the Church" (A. E. 507).
"But the true order is that man be wise from the LORD-that is, from His Word-in which case all things follow in succession, and he is enlightened also in things rational and scientific; for man is never forbidden to learn scientifics, inasmuch as they are useful to life, and delightful; nor is he who is in faith forbidden to think and speak as the learned in the world, but from this principle, to believe the Word of the LORD, and to confirm spiritual and celestial things by natural truths in terms familiar to the learned world, as far as lies in his power; wherefore his principle must be from the LORD, and not from himself; the former is life, but the latter is death" (A. C. 129).
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The above numbers both pass judgment upon modern science and give an all-sufficient answer to our correspondent's final question; for they plainly teach that to confirm spiritual and celestial things by all the natural means at one's command is legitimate, but that only when the "laborious exercise of human observation and human reason" is prosecuted in the acknowledgment of the LORD and the affirmation of the truths and goods of the Church, does any real wisdom result, but otherwise rather insanity. Man's efforts become effective only when made so by the LORD, which takes place when a man makes the efforts in the LORD'S Name, and thus in co-operation with Him; for when man co-operates conjunction with the LORD is effected, whence proceeds all power. Modern science not only does not begin from the LORD nor seek to confirm the celestial and spiritual things of the Church, but questions whether there be such things. Nay, toward any conception of God which involves a living, ever-present, wisely-directing Will it takes an actively hostile stand, as in exemplified in the following representative utterance:
"It is clear that the doctrine of evolution is directly antagonistic to that of creation. Just as the biological doctrine of the transmutation of species is opposed to that of special creations, so the idea of evolution is applied to the formation of the world as a whole, is opposed to that of a direct creative volition" (Encyclopaedia Britannica, article on "Evolution").
This attitude extinguishes the source of light which gives soul to all New Church science and philosophy, and instead substitutes "the laborious exercise of human observation and human reason." The quality of the resultant light is indicated in the above-quoted extracts, and may be seen to be such by examination of some of the incredibly inane theories fathered by the great lights of science of to-day. Take, for instance, the Harper's Monthly articles referred to. In that on Astronomy we find, in explanation of the fact that the sun has burned for centuries without becoming burnt out, two theories, either of which a tyro in true philosophy ought to be able to explode. The first is that the heat and light of the sun are sustained by meteors constantly falling into the sun. Now, as has been stated in an article by the Rev. John Whitehead, in the October New Church Review, meteors are not very good fuel-mostly iron, nickel, and stone. The sun could heat them but not they the sun. Friction makes them incandescent when they enter the earth's atmosphere, but friction means motion converted into heat; therefore the supply of motion must be accounted for. As the motion of the meteors is due to the sun's attraction, the sun would have to be conceived to be the source of its own friction-produced heat, which would be about as philosophical or as feasible as lifting one's self by one's boot-straps, or blowing the wind which shall speed one's own ship. Besides which, Mr. Whitehead points out that meteors do not fall into the sun, being prevented by the "repulsive force of the sun," as it is called by astronomers, the operation of which repulsion is particularly manifest in the case of those comets which pass close to the sun, even entering the sun's "atmosphere"-as it is called-and yet escaping again; so that the absorption of such bodies by that luminary probably takes place only in the scientific imagination. Indeed the conception of the sun as a fuel-fed furnace is so crude as to be amusing to any one who has any knowledge of Swedenborg's philosophy of the interior forms and forces of nature and the operation of spiritual influx into them. The other theory is that the sun's mass is gradually contracting, thus throwing out heat, the energy thus gained being at the expense of the force which keeps the particles of the sun apart. But even supposing the sun to be of the gross, material nature attributed to it by scientists, they seem here to have the cart before the horse; for, as Mr. Whitehead says, "The contraction of the mass is the effect of radiation, and no new heat is produced by a contraction which is the result of a loss of heat in a body." (The italics are ours.) Compression of the sun a mass by some extraneous force, might he conceived-on the theory of correlation of forces-to squeeze out heat, but then that force, thus converted into heat, would have to be accounted for. And again: "it would he absurd to say that a body contracts in consequence of a loss of heat, and then that the resulting shrinkage restores the degree of heat which it formerly had." In short, it is no more rational to argue that the sun by slow suicide can keep matter running even for the few millions of years which the scientists assign to its probable career, than to account for the replenishing of its caloric capital by a rapacious consumption of cosmic debris which has no inherent combustion-sustaining qualities; or even if it had, would owe them all to the sun, and thus would represent only the return of borrowed capital, and not any "augmentation fund" designed for the relief of an indigent luminary.
Again, what dignity or what rational light appear in such a statement as that "the major phenomena of the universe are . . . due to the impact of cosmic dust;" or to one that calls the universe "a machine gradually running down," of which the final catastrophe is indeed postponed, but not averted by the occasional collision of a couple of dead and cold suns or other stellar bodies, begetting new ones. By such cataclysms is supposed to be produced nebulous matter, the matrix of new and living suns, so that "the last term of one series of cosmic changes becomes the first term of another." It needed only the Monthly's writer's comparison of this bumptious embrace of frigid and defunct orbs to the process of reproduction from two parents to give us a conception so grotesque as to have all the force of a satire or burlesque.
Truly, some of the "cosmic dust" seems to have gotten into the brains of the modern scientist-not to call him a philosopher. Imagine him, standing surrounded by his machine-like universe, which has been set running no one knows how, supplied with a certain amount of substance and energy, its economy expressed by the doctrine of conservation of energy and correlation of forces, which economy, despite its theoretical perfection, is confessedly letting things "run down." The amazed spectator turns from such a universe to the wizard exhibitor with a "What? Whence? Whither?" The latter question the wise one dismisses with a dubious head- shake, but in reply to the former two he triumphantly drags the questioner to the microscope and edifies him with the sight of-a tiny, quivering bit of protoplasm!
Of course the scientist is utterly ignorant of the doctrine of discrete degrees. He conceives the bodies of the universe-suns, planets, comets, meteors, and nebuliae-all to be of one type, exhibited in varying stages of cooling off. Of that wonderful first recipient of spiritual activity called "pure fire," which constitutes the sun, he has no rational conception, nor concerning the trine of atmospheres by which that creative but potentially destructive activity is swathed, moderated, and adapted to reception, first by cosmic and then by organic bodies.
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Without such knowledges, and others mentioned in True Christian Religion, n. 75, there can be no rational investigation of causes nor understanding of effects. What wonder then that scientists fall into phantasies and deliriums, or that they lose the ability to interpret rationally their own observations. Even when they seem to be approaching a truth, as in their timorous predication of a second atmosphere, the ether, they are not so near the truth as they may seem; for without the completion of the trine of atmospheres there is no true system, and who can imagine them wandering so far beyond the guide of their idolized senses as to admit, still less hatch out, the doctrine of that transcendent subtility, the aura?
To illustrate how modern science disqualifies a man for sane spiritual thought, or for anything approaching the conception of an Infinite Being, take the following personal experience:
A few years since, a gentleman who is sufficiently high in the scientific world to be quoted as an authority by Darwin in his works, declared to us in conversation that, in view of the achievements of the last century or so, he would not admit that man might not in time transcend the finite and become infinite! This from a man of most modest and pleasing address, and with an appearance of rationality and of cultivation proportioned to his reputation. He professed not to deny that there was a God, but he was not sure that there was one, nor that man himself would not become God! This came in the course of thoughtful conversation, marked by every token of frankness and sober earnestness.
Nevertheless the children of science are wiser in their generation than the children of light; that is, in the things of the world their devotion and application do produce results which we cannot ignore; for wherever there is a use there is illustration on that plane. Thus we would be affirmative toward science as it deals with known factors, those not directly connected with the problems of life and being; for instance we of course can accept the computation of the mathematicians, as applied to astronomy, etc.-except where the interior philosophy of nature is involved, as in prophecies concerning the sun's future duration, etc. We can accept their stellar photographic charts, revealing millions of the heavenly bodies of which the naked eye sees nothing; as well as a myriad other matters of experimental science, not to mention the countless contributions which their labors have made to our material welfare. But as we approach the realm of causes and of the real living questions of human life, we must part company with our blind guides, and, contenting ourselves with such tools and material as they may have furnished us, go forward to hew out the way for ourselves. Nor are we here dependent upon our own powers, nor solely upon a chart derived from what science is to be found in the Theological works. The outlines and scheme of a true system have already been worked out by the same instrument the LORD has chosen in making His revelation of Himself. (See "The Oneness of Swedenborg's Writings," by John R. Swanton, in The New Church Review for October.) Swedenborg's science is the science of the future.
We can only say in conclusion that we hope that our correspondent did not expect us to interpret the various observations and discoveries upon which modern science has built its theories; if so, we propose to beat a hasty retreat. If it be true that a child can puzzle a wise man with questions, how much greater a discomfiture is to be expected when the questioner is the mature one, and the questioned is, as in this case, but a child in the department of study involved. All we can say is that we wholly distrust the theories and deductions of men whose mind is closed by confessed denial or agnosticism as to God. It is different in the case of such men as Agassiz, Hahnemann, Froebel, and others, who seem to have been God-fearing men, and to have been raised up for a life-work, in which they enjoyed a certain degree of illustration of the rational. Nevertheless the true science of the future, in expanding and adding to the general principles they have announced, will have to carefully discriminate and eliminate from their systems the errors which only the greater light of the New Dispensation will suffice adequately to discover.
We regret that physical and other disabilities have prevented an earlier reply to the foregoing communication.
EDITOR NEW CHURCH LIFE.
Notes and Reviews. 1897
THE Theology of the New Church, by the Rev. A. F. Frost, his been reprinted in pamphlet form from the July New Church Review, and is being used in the missionary field.
Title Unspecified 1897
THE Church periodicals contain interesting accounts of the life and character of the New Church writer and worker, Mr. James Spilling, who died at Norwich, England, on September 8th, aged seventy-two years.
Title Unspecified 1897
THE Journal of the General Assembly of the General Church of the New Jerusalem is a full and well-edited report of that historic meeting. The type is of good size and clear, and the contents are made easy of reference by an index and page headings. (Pages 170.)
Title Unspecified 1897
THE late M. Edmund Chevrier, who passed away on August 4th, at Bourg, France, was the author of a Biography of Swedenborg, and the History of the Religions of Antiquity, both in French. He also published the Latin MSS. of Messrs. Le Boys de Guays' and Harle's Jeremiah, Daniel, and the Novum Testamentum. The Messenger (September 29th) publishes an interesting autobiographical letter of this genial octogenarian, and also reproduces from Morning Light a testimonial concerning him by M. Henry W. Robilliard.
Title Unspecified 1897
A CIRCULAR has been issued by the American Swedenborg Printing and Publishing Society, containing the following offer:
"A gentleman who wishes to bring Swedenborg's philosophy to the attention of advanced students, offers, bound in one volume, the treatises entitled respectively, The Divine Love end Wisdom, and The Intercourse Between the Soul and the Body, free to advanced teachers and students who wish to give them a careful reading." The volume can be obtained by inquirers by sending name and address to the Swedenborg Society, 20 Cooper Union, New York.
Title Unspecified 1897
ON the recent trip abroad of the Rev. and Mrs. C. A. Nussbaum, of St. Louis, Mo., on visiting the Book Room in Paris, they found M. Decembre busy preparing the tracts and pamphlets which a devoted Russian lady, a member of the Church, has had translated for distribution among the Russians in different parts of Europe and America. When they arrived at Budapesth, strangers to the New Church people who were expecting them, the hospitable Hungarians adopted a device as ingenious as delicately complimentary for distinguishing themselves amid the crowd assembled on the pier to meet the steamer. Four of the gentlemen of the party held across their breasts each a copy of the Bote der Neue Kirche, of which St. Louis paper Mr. Nussbaum is editor.
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Title Unspecified 1897
THE Christ of God, by the Rev. Charles H. Mann, is published by the well-known house of G. P. Putnam's Sons, and contains no marks of a New Church production except the internal evidence of its doctrine, which could come from no other source. Evidently this book is intended to go before the world with its rational, expository statement of the doctrine of the LORD and its philosophy, free from Swedenborgian earmarks which might preclude a fair hearing, in order that it may stand before the general reading public on its own merits, unhampered by possible prejudices and an unreasonable, unlistening mood: The work seems well calculated to serve its purpose-if we have rightly conceived that-and we should be glad to see the press notices and other evidences of its general reception of it. In tastefulness and execution the volume is worthy of the publishers and of the use intended.
Title Unspecified 1897
A CORRESPONDENT in The New Christianity (October) cites the interesting experiment of producing sound by rays from the sun-and the especially interesting one effected by using the solar spectrum-as bearing on the statement made in Arcana Coelestia, n. 3346, that the speech of the angels of the third heaven appeared to Swedenborg as a radiation of tight, in which was perception from the dame of goodness in it. "L. K." adds: "Greek logos is speech. Then compare Latin lux or light, from the stem luc, and also Greek leukos, meaning white, an allied word. As the unity of all color is white, so the unity of all expression is soundless."
The question is, does Swedenborg's science warrant the statement as to white being the unit of color? In the theological works he says in several places that in the spiritual world red and white are the fundamentals of all colors; have we any reason to suppose that the same does not apply to this world also?
Title Unspecified 1897
WE have received a new catalogue of the New Church Theological School, Cambridge, Mass. The previous one was published in 1889, just before the move from Boston to Cambridge. The contents include the list of boards, officers and instructors, an Historical Sketch (abridged from the last edition); a chapter of General Information, concerning conditions of entrance, etc.; the several Courses of instruction, prepared by the professors of the various departments-the Rev. A. Frost (Theology), Rev. John Worcester (The Spiritual Interpretation of the Scriptures), Rev. J. E. Werren (The Sacred Languages), Rev. T. F. Wright (Religious History and Bible Geography and Homiletics and Duties of the Pastorate), and Rev. Lewis F. Hite (The History of Philosophy). The Corresponding School furnishes opportunity for those living at a distance to pursue a course of doctrinal study in connection with the school, whether in preparation for the ministry or not. During the past year nine have availed themselves of this opportunity.
Title Unspecified 1897
THE Mary Allen Home School for homeless little boys and girls of Glendale, Ohio, is formally introduced to the readers of the Messenger (October 13th) by a woodcut, which pictures a colonial building, to which a two-storied, tall-columned portico gives a dignified appearance. Following the cut a note by the Rev. Frank Sewall, Director-Trustee, adds the information that the site is high, and the view fine; that the surrounding grounds include spacious lawns, shrubbery, orchard, and gardens. The library is said to be large and varied, and to abound in illustrated books and periodicals. The Home is well-furnished with beautiful pictures, pianos, kindergarten outfit, etc. The Principal, the Rev. Alexander Henry, is a young man, born in India, formerly a Presbyterian missionary, but now for seven years a receiver of the Doctrines of the New Church. His wife and family are with him, and his mother is an experienced and devoted kindergartner. The Maintenance Fund, designed to meet the small expense of children lacking private sources of support is open for the contributions of all who are interested in that form of benevolence.
Title Unspecified 1897
NEW Church novels are not so plentiful that we can afford to ignore the merits of such as are provided for us. The author of one of the latest, By a Way They Knew Not, by Mr. George Trobridge, is well known in the more solid departments of New Church literature, and in this story of his we find, as might be expected, a general wholesomeness and elevation of sentiment which promise it a field of usefulness that increases our debt to its author. The suggestion of spirituality, of looking to the Divine, and of trust in Providence running through the book is perhaps its chief merit. There is, moreover, a graphic delineatiun and keen analysis of modern life-take the unveiling of business methods, for instance, in the retrograding Railway Engineering Company-corrective of that undiscerning optimism which, an the effort to put the best face on everything, ignores the actual conditions. The story is stronger in its theology and the philosophy of life than in its love-making or its portrayal of the conjugial, which does not reach the high level we look for in the New Church. We think the author strikes a false note where the heroine's spiritual principle does not prevent her from saying that she would still be her lover's even though he turned atheist. This is mere natural affection. Traces of the "permeation theory" appear. But for those who, like the hero, have difficulties and doubts in matters of faith, the story would seem to be especially well calculated to comfort and instruct.
Title Unspecified 1897
THE New Church Magazine for October contains as a frontispiece the likeness of the late Mr. James Spilling. The first article, on "Tennyson," is from the experienced pen of Mr. Leo H. Grindon. We note this paragraph: "Science, working in the spirit of the anatomist, contemplates the facts and the outward and visible signs; poetry deals with the things signified, and the ideas which lie within. In these respects, as the indispensable beginning, Tennyson is a master." And again: "There is scarcely any phase of human life that his thought has not enriched, and it is good at all times to live alongside of Tennyson. The hours that we spend in company with beautiful and noble minds are real resting-places in the every-day work of our lives."
In sequence is a memorial sermon, by the Rev. James F. Buss, on the subject, "Every Man a Penny" (Matt. xx, 9, 10). The "penny" is the return or reward which every man receives at last for the life he has led on earth, each according to the measure of his reception; whence it is said that every one of the laborers received a penny, neither more nor less, although the hours of labor varied much. Special application was made in connection with the death of the Rev. John Presland, the scope of whose use led the sermonizer to trust that his reward would be commensurate with the use. "There was at the time of his departure no living man in this country through whom so many have bean brought into the LORD'S New Church."
Part IV of Mr. Payne's "Visit to Egypt and Palestine" is followed by an excellent paper on "Perception," by Mr. William Robinson.
Editorials deal with "Life on the Moon," and the later testimony of science, reconsidering its former negation of conditions on the moon capable of sustaining life; "Church Unity," referred to on our first page; and an appreciative review of the Journal of the "General Convention." The number concludes with "Church News and Progress," and "Obituary," including a notice of Mr. James Spilling's demise, on Sept. 8th (aged 72).
Title Unspecified 1897
"How we found the Logia" is the title of a article in McClure's Magazine for October, in which Mr. Bernard P. Grenfell M. A., gives an account of the scene and the manner in which he and Mr. Arthur S. Hunt, M. A., discovered the now-famous "Sayings of Jesus." The interest of the description of the site of the excavations, Behnesa (anciently Oxyrhyncus), Egypt, about one hundred and twenty miles south of Cairo, is greatly increased by not only graphic illustrations of the country and of the actual work, but also by a fac simile representation of the manuscript itself, tattered and faded as it is.
Title Unspecified 1897
FOR the benefit of any of our readers who may not have seen the "Sayings" in the secular press, we herewith present them in the translation given to the public and recently published in the Messenger:
THE SAYINGS OF JESUS.
I. And then thou shalt see clearly to cast out the mote that is in thy brother's eye.
II. Jesus saith: Except ye fast unto the world, ye shall in no wise find the kingdom of God, and except ye keep the Sabbath, ye shall not see the Father.
III. Jesus saith, I stood in the midst of the world, and in the flesh was I seen of them, and I found all men drunken and none found I athirst among them; and my soul grieveth over the sons of men because they are blind in their heart.
IV. Logion IV, consisting of one line, is undecipherable.
V. Jesus saith, Wherever there are . . . and there is . . . one alone, I am with him.
174
Raise the stone and there thou shalt find me, cleave the wood and there am I.
VI. Jesus saith, A prophet is not acceptable in his own country, neither does a physician work cures upon them that know him.
VII. Jesus saith, A city built upon the top of a high hill and established can neither fall nor be hid.
VIII is undecipherable.
Title Unspecified 1897
EDITORIALLY, the Messenger does not consider the Logia as part of the Word. In the issue of September, the Rev. John Worcester contributes a paper on the subject. After commenting upon the resemblances and differences between the Logia and the recorded words of the LORD in the New Testament Mr. Worcester takes the ground that, even though authentic, the "Sayings" could not be considered as part of the Word, judged from New Church standards, for in the Word "the Divine Spirit selected and molded and arranged the materials into perfect types of life, in a divine sequence, corresponding with the order of life in the heavens and in the LORD Himself-that is, with the order of regeneration and glorification. And this is strictly the Word of the LORD. Other collections of materials are not the Word, even though they contain the sayings of the LORD. . . . It may be doubtful if the Gospel story could have been written before that Jesus was glorified, and the Holy Spirit was fully given . . . before the Holy Spirit was fully given in lasts as well as in firsts."
In addition, it may be said, that in view of the specific statement of the Writings as to what constitutes the canonical Word, and in the light of the warning given in the last of the Apocalypse, against adding to the Word, there would seem to be only one position for the Newchurchman to take on this point.
NEW CHURCH REVIEW FOR OCTOBER. 1897
THE New Church Review for October is a rich and edifying number. In its leading article an old friend greets the Church, one of her strongest writers of a decade or so ago-Mr. Gilbert Hawkes-whose contributions used occasionally to enrich the pages of the periodicals, notably The New Jerusalem Magazine. His present article on "Swedenborg" briefly but philosophically treats of the Revelator's mission, unfolds his system of philosophy and religion, and supports its claims upon the attention of the thoughtful by various citations from the world's acknowledged thinkers confirmatory of one or another of Swedenborg's own teachings. Indeed it is interesting to see how the writer succeeds-in wringing contributions from "the enemy." Although well-calculated to assist or amplify the thought of the initiated Newchurchman, the article is evidently addressed to the outer fold, and its trend confirms our impression that the field of the Review extends largely in the direction of evangelizing the Doctrines among thoughtful and cultivated minds not in the New Church.
"Expository Preaching," by the Rev. Thomas A. King, establishes two requirements for effective preaching,-the acceptance of the Word in its literal and internal senses, and the acknowledgment of the Revelation which, uniting both those senses, constitutes the Second Coming of the LORD, now an accomplished fact; and the writer advocates in sermon writing exposition of the Word, as distinguished from the practice of presenting a doctrinal lecture prefixed by some titular text supposed to fit the subject. He believes in "taking a text and letting it tell its own divine and authorized message." In other words, he would lead the people to the Word, as the Writings enjoin; for in it and by it is all truth to be seen and confirmed.
"The Gallican Church," by the Rev. C. Theophilus Odhner, gives a scholarly outline of French Church- history, contravening a theory advanced in the April Review, that the French nation corresponds to the cerebrum and represents the masculine; and suggesting instead-without going into anatomical correspondences-that the French represent the imaginative, or internal sensual.
"Sustentation of the Sun's Energy," by the Rev. John Whitehead, controverts the modern scientific explanation of the sun's undiminished supply of heat and light, and this so effectively-to our mind-that the article, though written in perfectly serious tone, proved as diverting as interesting. Material science is so very credulous and crude.
In "Illustrations in Sermons from Social Conditions," the Rev. Willis L. Gladish gives point to the wholesome teaching that the field of the New Church minister "is to preach revealed truth," and that to add that of the reformer is to cripple both uses by the admixture.
Mr. T. Mower Martin, Licentiate, on the ever-timely subject "Trusting in Providence," presents some profoundly useful reflections, such as come home to all.
The Rev. Eugene D. Daniels washes his hands of the taint of the "higher criticism" in "The Structure of the Word not from the Same Source as its Materials," and assumes the impregnable position that in the Letter of the Word, though written by human instruments, is yet no human element, nothing of the proper power of man. "The LORD, as it were, uses men as His pen, and the human memory, the outer court, as His inkstand, into which He dips His pen to write His Word. The ink is there but the composition is His own.' In a foot-note the Editor seems to wish to modify the force of this putting, citing passages to show that those who wrote the Word acted from their own freewill, and that they wrote from varying states of inspiration. We fail to see in the quotations any invalidation of the essayist's position, for whatever the state of angelic or terrestrial instruments or media, the final product bore the Divine seal, was perfectly adapted to the Divine end, and in every essential was a purely Divine work. Its Divine quality is no more affected by the contingencies mentioned than by the variety of mechanical detail exhibited in different copies or different editions of the Bible; or, to illustrate in another way, than the Divine ends of Providence are by the operation of man's free-will. The inspiration was Divine in every case.
In the very next article, "Was all Scripture Dictated?" the Editor himself takes strong ground against substitution for the term "dictated" that of "selected," as applied to material stored in the mind of the four evangelists, or any other which would be likely to cause confusion in the mind of the reader by giving him an inadequate idea of the divinity of the Gospels, of their origin in the Divine mind, and their descent through the heavens to man.
"Jephthah and His Daughter," by the Rev. Edwin Gould, explains "Jephthah" ("he whom the LORD sets free") to stand for the regenerating man, and his daughter for the proprium which is to be sacrificed.
In "The Signs which Follow Belief," the Rev. James Reed sets forth the doctrine concerning the insufficiency of miraculous faith as explaining Mark xvi, 17, 18.
The Editorial Department contains, "The Layman's Point of View" (J. K. S.); The New Church Organization in Great Britain" (T. F. W.); "The New Church Theological School" (J. R.); "Are Missions Justified?" (T. F. W.); "Phenomenal and Spiritual Religion" (J. K. S.); and "Abundance and Conquest" (J. K. S.), all showing a tone of general progressiveness, blended with a wholesome conservatism.
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"Biblical and Doctrinal Studies" contain a study of the first Book of Psalms (Nos. i to xli), by the Rev. John Worcester, and a paper by Mr. John H. Swanton, "The Oneness of Swedenborg's Writings," remarkable for its uncompromising advocacy of the authority of Swedenborg's natural science and philosophy as set forth in his scientific works, which it claims as being part of the writings of the Church. The writer's main point, that the understanding of Swedenborg's science is the indispensable hand-maid of New Church theology, is one which, we are glad to see, seems to be gaining ground in the Church.
"Current Literature" closes one of the most enjoyable numbers of the Review we have yet had.
G.G.S.
RE-OPENING OF ACADEMY SCHOOLS. 1897
THE Schools of the Academy were opened in Huntingdon Valley on October 4th, by Bishop Pendleton, who has accepted the Superintendency of the Schools, tendered him by the Board of Directors of the Academy Corporation. In his address Mr. Pendleton announced that the Boys' School, and the Primary Department connected with the Girls' School, have been discontinued, this field of education being now left for the local schools to take up.
The Schools now consist of the Theological School, the College, and the Seminary-the latter being the name by which the Girls' School is to be known. The Principals of these Departments are: Of the Theological School, the Rev. W. F. Pendleton; of the College, Rev. Enoch S. Price; and of the Seminary, Miss Harriet S. Ashley. The Faculty of the Schools is composed of Messrs. Pendleton, Price, C. Th. Odhner, Alfred Acton, and Charles E. Doering, together with Miss Ashley and Miss Carrie A. Hobart, of the Seminary.
The following studies have been transferred from the College to the Theological School: Church History, Hebrew, the Greek of the New Testament, and the Latin of the Writings. The removal of the Hebrew from the list of studies scientifically pursued in the College, Mr. Pendleton said, was due to a realization of the importance of being thorough in whatever is undertaken, and of the fact that too much is now being carried to permit of the desirable thoroughness. This involves teaching fewer things. On the other hand, the Writings teach the great importance of the Hebrew, the reading of which by man affords the heavens a basis of support and establishes communication with them. Its use, therefore, is a religious one, and it is proposed to keep it so in all the departments, in connection with religious instruction, but to transfer the scientific study of the Hebrew to the Theological School, where it will be taught thoroughly. This scientific study of that language is no longer pursued in the other departments, but those who desire to prosecute the study will be afforded the opportunity of taking a post-graduate course, in connection with the Hebrew class of the Theological School.
Mr. Pendleton recounted the uses of the Academy as stated in the charter of the Corporation, viz.: the Propagation of the Heavenly Doctrines and the establishment of the Church signified by the New Jerusalem; the Promotion of Education in all its various forms; Educating young men for the Ministry; Publishing books, pamphlets, etc.; and Establishing a Library. The first of these is plainly a Church use, and so the determination which was made, later, to make the Academy a Church was legitimate, but involves a question of judgment as to the wisdom of so doing. As generally understood, a Church is a body which has public worship and a priesthood of its own to conduct the same. It cannot be said that the Academy is not a Church, for it is performing a Church use; but it is not a Church in the sense just mentioned. It is performing a special use in the Church and for the Church. Still, to say that it is not a Church would be to say too much, for that would be making it a secular body and bring in the idea of mere secular education.
The primary use of the Academy has been the promulgation of the doctrine concerning the Divine Authority of the Writings and the Second Coming of the LORD. Now that use has been taken up by another body, the General Church of the New Jerusalem, while the Academy more and more has been making education its chief use. The promulgation of the Doctrines, however, is still carried on in New Church Life, and in other publications issued by the body.
In announcing the re-organization of Academy uses Mr. Pendleton said that he used the term "Academy" in a broad sense, not referring merely to the body legally so termed.
First, he announced the formation of a Teachers' Institute, which should have in charge and under consideration the educational affairs of the Academy. This institute to be composed of the professors and teachers of the schools of the Academy, and the head-masters and teachers of the local schools at the various centres. This establishes a connection between the central schools of the Academy and the local schools. Here are two bodies, the Corporation and the Teachers' Institute, both having the same object in view and working toward the same end. It is evident that, in order most effectively to attain that end, they should co-operate; and that for efficient co-operation they must come together to consult. Therefore it is proposed to have an intermediate body, or Assembly, the members of which shall be the corporators of the Academy, members of the Teachers' Institute, and those of local School Boards, under a plan similar to that which has been proposed for the General Church. The meetings of the Academy Assembly would be held annually, probably at the time of the meeting of the General Assembly.
The following Boards have been formed:
1. The Board of Education, composed of the members of the Faculty of the Theological School and College and of the Board of Directors of the Academy, thus consisting, at present, of ten members, Messrs. Robert M. Glenn, John Pitcairn, C. Hj. Asplundh, Samuel H. Hicks, and Walter C. Childs, of the Board of Directors; and Messrs. W. F. Pendleton, Enoch S. Price, C. Th. Odhner, Alfred Acton, and Charles E. Doering, of the Faculty and College staff.
2. The Board of Publication, consisting of Messrs. Pendleton, Price, Odhner, G. G. Starkey, Glenn, Pitcairn, Asplundh, and Hicks.
3. The Library Board, consisting of Messrs. Pendleton, Odhner, Price, Glenn, and Asplundh.
Mr. Pendleton spoke of the scope and limitations of the educational work. He discriminated between the end immediately in view in the work of the schools and that of the Church. The latter prepares men for Heaven, the former for civil life and for the Church,-for the Church that by the Church as a means they may be prepared for Heaven in adult life. This serves to correct an exaggerated conception of the responsibility for the child's lot hereafter, which might be supposed to rest upon the teacher. The idea that the schools prepare the child for the Church and not directly for Heaven is not new, but needs especial emphasis at this time.
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CHURCH NEWS. 1897
NEW CHURCH LIFE.
PUBLISHED MONTHLY BY THE ACADEMY OF THE NEW CHURCH.
TERMS:-One Dollar per annum, payable in advance.
FOUR SHILLINGS IN GREAT BRITAIN.
ADDRESS all communications for publication to the Editor, the Rev. George G. Starkey, Huntingdon Valley, Montgomery Co., Pa.
Address all business communications to Academy Book Room, Cart Hj. Asplundh, Manager, No. 1521 Wallace Street, Philadelphia. Pa.
Subscriptions also received through the following agents:
UNITED STATES.
Chicago, Ill., Mr. A. B. Nelson, Chicago Agent of Academy Book Room, No. 565 west Superior Street.
Denver, Col., Mr. Geo. W. Tyler, Denver Agent of Academy Book Room, No. 544 South Thirteenth Street.
Pittsburgh, Pa., Mr. W. Rott, Pittsburgh Agent of Academy Book Room, 4726 Wallingford Street.
CANADA.
Toronto, Ont., Mr. R. Carswell, No. 47 Elm Grove.
Waterloo. Mr. Rudolf Roschman.
GREAT BRITAIN.
Mr. Wiebe Posthuma, Agent for Great Britain, of Academy Book Room, Burton Road, Brixton, London. S. W.
PHILADELPHIA, NOVEMBER, 1897=128.
CONTENTS PAGE
EDITORIAL: "Church Unity," 161
Patience 162
THE SERMON: The Faith of Charity 163
Patience: A Hymn 166
ANNALS OF THE NEW CHURCH 166
Diseases of the Fibre, 167
Our Experience Meeting 169
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS: Seeing from the LORD;
Modern Science 170
NOTES AND REVIEWS 172
The New Church Review 174
Re-Opening of the Opening of the Academy Schools 175
CHURCH NEWS 176
THE GENERAL CHURCH.
Bishop Pendleton, who, with the exception of his duties in the Theological School, will hereafter give his entire time to the General Church of the New Jerusalem, expects to begin his fall tour through the different General Church centres early in November, about the 6th.
Huntingdon Valley, Pa.-THE progress in reorganization, outlined by Bishop Pendleton at the reopening of the Academy Schools (see page 175), is eminently satisfactory. In connection with the formation of the Board of Publication, which under Bishop Pendleton's chairmanship, among other publication uses, will direct the policy of the Life, an Editorial Staff is to be associated with the Editor.
THE Local Church and School affairs are running smoothly. The Friday evening Supper, Doctrinal Class, and Singing Class have become a settled institution here. The doctrinal subject at present pursued by Pastor Synnestvedt is Man's co-operation in the determination of his Spiritual Associations, and kindred subjects that come up in the course of reading in the Spirited Diary, and elsewhere.
THE needs of the residents in Philadelphia are met by the Pastor's preaching in the city on Sunday evening, and conducting a Sunday-school in the afternoon. On Wednesday evening he conducts a Doctrinal Class.
THE Rev. E. C. Bostock and family, en route from England to Pittsburgh, visited Huntingdon Valley for a few days, giving the members an appreciated opportunity of becoming acquainted with Mrs. Bostock and children, or, in the case of many, of renewing old acquaintance.
Middleport, Ohio.-THE Rev. R. H. Keep reports the society as simply holding its own, and thankful for that; but that the Sunday services are gradually increasing in attendance, sometimes including ten or more non-members. Miss California Grant lends to the conduct of the singing practice her valuable services, the practice class being well attended and appreciated.
Glen View.-Chicago.-THE time of Sunday worship has been changed from 2.30 P. M. to 11 A. M. in the city, and from 10 A. M. to 11 A. M. in Glen View.
A Sunday school on Sunday morning before church, has again been established in the city for the instruction of the young folks and for the children who now have not the advantage of a New Church day-school. It is probable that a doctrinal class for young folks will soon be formed in Glen View, to be held also on Sunday mornings before church.
The Wednesday evening class in Glen View has been abandoned, the doctrinal instruction now being given Friday evenings after the general supper and before the singing practice. A similar meeting is held in the city every Wednesday evening, instead of Tuesday, as last year. The subject considered at the city clays is the Divine Providence. In Glen View the subject of the LORD'S Glorification is continued.
For business reasons Dr. J. B. S. King and family have moved back to the city, much to their own regret and that of their friends in Glen View. They have made their home now in Englewood. Mr. Alvin E. Nelson has been appointed Secretary of the Society in Dr. King's stead.
"At Homes" have been given within the last month by Mr. and Mrs. Gyllenhaal and by the Pastor, the latter in honor of his niece, Miss Luelle Pendleton, who is now visiting here. Mr. Jacob Stroh, of Waterloo, Canada paid us a short visit in the early part of October. A. E. N.
ENGLAND.
London.-Burton Road, Brixton.-ON Saturday, September 25th, 1897=128, exactly seven years to a day from their first arrival in England, Rev. E. C. Bostock, accompanied by his wife and family, left Southampton to take up the work awaiting him at Pittsburgh. In a very definite sense our loss is great gain to the Church at Pittsburgh, and Mr. Bostock carried with him the hearty good wishes for his welfare and success in his new sphere, although tinged with regretful recollections of the days that are gone, in the which he labored on this side of the Atlantic.
Of the many adieux, the meeting called for the purpose on the evening of Thursday, September 23d, at the Hall of Worship, Burton Road, in all probability, will stand out prominently in the minds of our friends as they journey. A very full assembly gathered, and a capital programme of instrumental music provided by Mr. C. J. Whittington, led up to the chief business of the evening. Rev. E. C. Bostock was invited by our Pastor, Rev. R. J. Tilson, to propose the toast," The Church and the Priesthood," and we were next asked to stand up for the central point of interest in the evening's proceedings, and the toast, "Success to Mr. and Mrs. Bostock," was proposed in a speech full of feeling by Rev. R. J. Tilson. The very warm and long-continued applause with which the toast was received having subsided, on a sign from the Pastor, a handsome oak case was produced, in which was a solid silver tea service of a very chaste design, each article bearing in "old English" the letter "B," while on the brass plate on the box itself was engraved, "Presented to the Rev. E. C. and Mrs. Bostock by the members of the Burton Road Society in loving recognition of seven years faithful service, September 23d, 1897=128."
In responding to the toast and accepting the testimonial, Mr. Bostock said they would always cherish and value the gift, not only for its intrinsic value, but for the affection which prompted the givers. It would, he said, always he a delightful recollection to his wife and to himself that they had the sincere affection of all the members of the Church in England, a feeling which they, to the full, reciprocated.
And, in turn, he wished all present and all with whom he had been so glad to have worked in England all success and progress in the Church. "Work on," he said, "in the path of order for the LORD'S Church and he indicated the path of order as being found in an unswerving loyalty to the LORD'S office of the priesthood.
The pastor, in a few congratulatory remarks, reminded those present that the friends at Colchester had on their own part made an expression of their affection for Mr. Buttock by presenting him on the occasion of his visiting the Society to preach for the last time, with a handsome gold pencil case; also that the friends at Liverpool and Caterham had associated themselves with what had been done that evening.
Mrs. Bostock having asked that each present should sign her autograph book, the request was willingly complied with, and the last "good-bye" of those who were unable to be at the station having been said and a hearty "Hip, hip, hurrah!" having been indulged in by the scholars present, the meeting terminated at a somewhat late hour. Quite a large party gathered on the Saturday morning at Waterloo Station to give Mr. and Mrs. Bostock and their family a "send-off." * * *
MR. BOWERS' EVANGELISTIC WORK. 1897
Indiana.-I SPENT ten days in this State, and preached once at Topeka and four times at Kokomo; also visited New Church people at Wabash, Marion, and Richmond.
Ohio--I CAME into Ohio on October 7th, and have had a very busy time. Baptized four children on the evening of October 11th, near Bainbridge, Ross County. These children are the fourth generation of New Church people in the Dill family of that locality. On Wednesday evening, October 13th, I preached in the Methodist meeting-house at Waverly, Pike County, to an audience of seventy-five. Text, Ps. lxxxiv, 11. Judge L. G. Dill arranged for the meeting, and regarded the sermon as instructive and useful, Rave many places to visit yet. J. E. BOWERS.
REVIVAL OF THE MICHIGAN ASSOCIATION.
THE Rev. E. J. E. Schreck writes that the officers of the Michigan Association have decided to hold a meeting of that body-the first in five years-to be held in the house of worship of the Detroit Society, corner of Cass Avenue and High Street, on Saturday and Sunday, November 6th and 7th. All interested in the Doctrines of the New Church are invited to attend, whether members of the Association or not; and they may secure entertainment during the meeting by writing to the Rev. E. J. E. Schreck, 56 Charlotte Avenue, Detroit, Mich.
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Title Unspecified 1897
NEW CHURCH LIFE
Vol. XVII. No. 12. PHILADELPHIA, DECEMBER, 1897=128. Whole No. 206.
Editorial.
NOTES. 1897
HEREAFTER, in the conduct of the New Church Life, the Editor will have associated with him an Editorial Board, which now consists of the Rev. Enoch S. Price, the Rev. C. Th. Odhner, and the Rev. Homer Synnestvedt.
Title Unspecified 1897
THE transference of the publication of the "Annals of the New Church Life" from the columns of New Church Life to the pages of an independent publication, while it is a loss to the Life is a gain to those whose interest in the lessons of New-Church history leads them to desire a prompt appearing of the work and an adequate setting to it. We refer readers to the announcement on page 182.
Title Unspecified 1897
IT should not be forgotten that though-before regeneration-the natural man is hell, the internal man is heaven; also that neither is man's own until his final choice has been made, and the internal has been either united to the external, or closed forever. As no man knows the hour of that choice, human judgment must be suspended. If we habitually dwell upon the devil-hood in human nature, we will surely come to forget that within every one lies a possible angel-hood.
Title Unspecified 1897
THE danger of narrowness in the New Church arises not from adherence to distinctiveness in church and social life, but from turning the benefits of the Church to self instead of to use and to the LORD. With in. crease of light comes greater facility and opportunity for cloaking self-seeking, and self-humoring, with the appearance of loyalty to the truth. Distinctiveness in the New Church may easily be made to foster selfishness and indifference to the broader interests of life. On the other hand it may represent the broadest charity.
Title Unspecified 1897
REVIEWING the proceedings of the General Assembly of last June, as fully reported in the Journal just issued, suggests so much to be said that there is no room to say anything. The ground covered was so wide and the practical side of the questions broached calls so especially for the wisdom of experience, that perhaps the wisest thing at present is to be silent and let history speak for itself in the making.
One utterance, however, we are moved to quote:
"An autocracy may exist in any form of government, in a republic as well as in a monarchy. What is the power of the political 'bosses' of this country but an autocracy, and a vile one? The only safeguard is charity. If there is charity in the Church then there will be no trouble, whatever the form of government may be; but without real charity there will be trouble with any form of government" (Rev. J. F. Potts, Journal of the General Assembly, etc., page 39).
Title Unspecified 1897
THE New-Church Review, for October, 1897, in a note in reference to Swedenborg's Four Leading Doctrines, closes with the following highly suggestive remarks:
"The only reason why this most attractive edition may not have a considerable sale in the United States, is that an equally good one is published here, and this suggests the question whether more co-operation between the two countries in translating and publishing Swedenborg's works would not be desirable and practicable-a saving of time and money, as well as a bond of union in promoting the work which the Church on both sides of the water has nearest at heart."
With these words we most heartily concur. Surely this is a work wherein all branches of the English-speaking New Church, of whatever quality as to faith, might, in charity for the Doctrines themselves, work together. If the co-operation could go no further, might not the different publishing establishments of the New Church at least confer, so as to avoid duplicating one another's work? There is work enough for all.
Title Unspecified 1897
THE Messenger, for October 27th, quoted from the San Francisco Chronicle the following headlines to an article which goes far to substantiate-what we said in our reply to Dr. Cranch, in the November Life, as to the "incredibly inane theories fathered by the great lights of the science of to-day:"
Will fall into the Sun. Comments on Camille Flammarion's Articles on the "End of the World." Old Sol will eat up His Planetary Children One after the Other, and thus Renew His Fading Life for a Few Years.
Commenting on this not very impressive sensationalism, and on the still more absurd theory lately going the rounds of some of the newspapers, that the sun will soon explode and kill all life on the earth, the Messenger quotes the following from the Divine Love and Wisdom:
"The activity of the sun of the natural world is not of itself, but from the living power proceeding from the sun of the spiritual world, wherefore if the living power of the latter sun were withdrawn, or taken away, the former sun would perish" (D. L. W. 157).
"Substances or matters like those on the earth were produced from the sun by its atmospheres" (D. L. W. 303).
"The end of creation is that all things may return to the Creator, and that there may be conjunction" (D. L. W. 167).
The Messenger adds to this last:
"This, of course, through the creation and salvation of man."
Title Unspecified 1897
IN a paper read by the Rev. John Goddard, before the ministers of the Ohio Association, at their conference in Lakewood, October 14th, on "The Scope or the Sermon," the writer discusses the question "whether it is possible to so preach as to meet the wants of both young and old in the congregation, or so as to both interest and feed them." The paper took the ground-rightly, we think-that the scientific study of the philosophy of the Writings belongs rather to the doctrinal class than to the pulpit; that it is of prime importance that the sermon should feed the affection even more than the thought, thus the very life.
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But in its conclusion, the paper leads up to what seems to us an anti-climax, in stating that those preachers who most successfully strike the common chord by which they reach the heart of struggling humanity, find the answers to the great universal questions, "in the simple and plain teachings of the letter of the divine Word;" by which appears to be meant that the internal sense is not so essential in reaching those solutions. If so, what is the need of distinctively New-Church sermons? Such a statement seems to fall in with the depreciative utterances of those who say that the New-Church system is very "beautiful and ideal, but not practical." What is simple and practical in the deepest and truest sense is celestial truth, and that truth at this day is not to be found in the letter where it lies hid, except by the doctrine of the internal sense. "Without doctrine the Word is not understood." Either those preachers referred to by Mr. Goddard find their answers in the internal sense of the Word, laid open by the Writings, or else he has overestimated the real quality of their success.
Doctrine is not necessarily either abtruse or difficult. When it is made to seem so to those who desire to see simply that they may apply to life, there is evidence of inadequacy on the part of the teacher. Doctrine, rationally understood and wisely accommodated to the people, is the food upon which all must live. He who cannot so accommodate it is more or less incompetent. The simple are of the outer flock to save whom the LORD made His Second Coming in the power and glory of the internal sense, and it is by the opening of that internal sense that now and hereafter He teaches the simple.
CHURCH IS NEW. 1897
IN spite of appearances to the contrary, the history of the Churches, from the beginning, involves a progression toward the fulfillment of the Divine End. In order most fully to grasp and co-operate with that end, we need to recognize both the things which characterize all the Churches in common and those which distinguish them from each other. This suggests a fruitful field for study among the many that await the time when the Church can enter into them. But, at least, we can already give some thought to those general distinctions which make the New Church peculiar and more excellent than all others that have gone before-meaning not the New Church as it is in its incipiency and imperfect reception among the men of to-day, but as it is in itself, and will be in the sure and glorious future.
Through all the vicissitudes and decay of Churches runs a "thread of gold" which makes the Church Universal one before the LORD. There has never been a time when the saving Divine Truth did not exist among men in form accommodated to man's capacity for reception. In this sense we are to interpret the significance of the title, "The Lost Truths of Christianity," with which, during the year, same of the English New- Church lecturers have been introducing the idea that the history of the Churches forms one grand harmony and whole, the culmination or climax of which is expressed in the title of the universal theology of the New Church, namely, "The True Christian Religion." To show that the Doctrines of the New Church are in reality the Old Truths of Christianity restored and further unfolded, has been a much-used method among the English brethren, as the Rev. T. F. Wright pointed out in the Messenger, some time since, but he likewise cautions against falling into the mistake of so speaking as to convey the idea that the early Christians possessed all that we do. The lost truths are not only restored but glorified, by a distinctively new Revelation. Again and again Swedenborg brings out truths upon which he sets the seal of a distinctive revelation-"this is new from heaven" or words of like import.
The First Christian Church, although it did not really divide God, never saw through the appearance of plurality in the full, rational light in which the Doc trine of the LORD now is given; therefore that doctrine, from the new glory in which it now appears, is really New. Their understanding of what constitutes charity was very general, and hence obscure; hence the distinctions now revealed concerning the neighbor and love to him, make that doctrine likewise New.
The doctrine of an internal sense to the Word was practically unknown-although some seem to have had a glimpse of the truth-and hence that doctrine is also New at this day. Certainly the revelations concerning the other life, the doctrines of Use, of Discrete Degrees, and of Correspondence-these are all New. And, finally, it is clear that those to whom the truth had to be so veiled as to apparently teach that there is no marrying in heaven, must necessarily have been ignorant of the transcendent beauties of the new doctrine concerning Love Truly Conjugial.
While recognizing the connection of the Churches let us not lose sight of the distinctions, nor miss any opportunity of acquiring the fullest possible conception and rounded-out grasp of the quality and scope of this marvelous thing which the LORD has done in founding a New Church. Nor let us forget, now, as the blessed Christmas time draws near, that the mercy and love which the LORD manifested toward men by His appearing before their senses, is not less conspicuously nor less tenderly shown in the later manifestation of Himself to men's reason.
COVENANT OF CHARITY. Rev. HOMER SYNNESTVEDT 1897
A SERMON
"Behold the days coming, saith the LORD, and I will make with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah a new covenant; not as the covenant which 1 made with their fathers, because they rendered my covenant void. But this is the covenant which I shall make with the house of Israel after these days, I will give my law in their midst, and upon their heart will I write it, and I will be to them for a God, and they shall be to me for a people."-Jeremiah xxxi, 31-33.
A COVENANT in the Word always signifies conjunction. The LORD'S covenant with the Patriarchs, as also with the sons of Israel, through Moses and the prophets, was in the form of a contract, or in the appearance of a bargain, enjoining mutual stipulation and promises. The Jews indeed looked upon the covenant between them and the LORD as a bargain, which it was to their interest to keep intact in order that they might receive the rewards promised. As Jacob said (Gen. xxviii, 20, 21): "if God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and raiment to put on, so that I come again to my father's house in peace, then shall the LORD be my God."
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In each case, however, where covenants with the LORD are mentioned, it is the LORD who proposes, and man who is to be conjoined by receiving and reciprocating. But it is to be known that the LORD never makes any covenant with men, as it appears in the literal sense, for this would be to bind Himself with an external bond, regardless of its internal, covenants are of two kinds-internal and external. An external covenant is one which entails the specific performance of certain things. Such are contracts, or treaties, leagues, constitutions, and the like. All these may exist from no real love of the neighbor, but for the sake of gain, whence the internal man is not in them, and they bind only superficially, and as far as the letter of agreement can be enforced; hence it is fear from self-love that binds. But a genuine covenant is like that of marriage, which, at the same time that it is binding externally, is also binding internally, or upon the affections and the life. It is a covenant in which conjunction is effected by love, each of the other. Such a conjunction is real, and durable, but the other is not.
With the house of Judah, however, and with the house of Israel, no such covenant was possible. The Jews were not capable of a higher motive in their charity and piety, than a very sordid end of gain. The covenant of eternity which was established with them, therefore, was not with them as persons, but with those whom they represent. The LORD was even then providing that there should be raised up again upon the earth a true house of Judah-that is, those who from the heart could praise the LORD, and a genuine house of Israel, or Church, which, from the truths of Faith, would strive with their own interior evils, and would overcome. Behold the days coming, saith the LORD, and I will make with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, a new covenant; not as the covenant which I made with their fathers . . . because they rendered my covenant void. But this is the covenant which I shall make with the house of Israel after these days. I will give my laws in their midst, and upon their heart will I write it. And I will be to them for a God, and they shall be to me for a people.
The expression for making a covenant, in the original, means to "cut" a covenant. Likewise in Greek. But in the Latin of the Writings the common expression is used: foederem pangere. The word here for covenant is the same as appears in our words "federation" and "federal." It seems also to be connected with the word "Fides," or "faith," which appears in our word "confide." The word pango (padum) seems to have more the idea of striking. We have the root in the word "compact." We have also the expression to "strike a bargain," which is said to have originated in the custom of striking the hands together over any agreement, and also of having a third party, as witness, strike the hands apart. The formulas or ceremonies accompanying the making of covenants have always been very interesting. In ancient times very great importance was laid upon these rites, and most of them entailed solemn obligations. But in the decline of charity, where there is not conscience, but only fear, such occasions have been shorn of all formalities tending to call out and ultimate the affections by their correspondence and representative character, and nothing is done now more than is necessary to the specific enforcement of contract. There is still some vestige of formality in regard to taking oath, but it is only a travesty for the most part. Even in the most solemn covenant of marriage the tendency is to lessen its solemnity.
In ancient times there were many forms of making a covenant, all of which were significative of conjunction by love. Conjunction by truth was represented more specifically by oaths. Some animal representing innocence or charity was often taken and cut in halves, which were laid over against each other, the contracting parties 'passing solemnly between them. So that "cutting a covenant," like our word "cleaving," does not refer to separation, but to conjunction of the parts. So the breaking of bread, which was mutually shared by two or more, was a customary rite, signifying mutual love and good-will. This is still held in veneration in the Orient, where there are still vestiges of the Ancient Church, almost as in the time of the Patriarchs. When Aaron sanctified the people and made the covenant of the Ten Commandments, which were then put into the Ark in the Holy of Holies, he took half of the blood of the sacrifice and sprinkled it upon the altar-which represented the LORD-and the other half he sprinkled upon the people. The Ten Commandments themselves, which were called the Testimony and the Covenant, were written upon two tables of stone, so arranged as to be like two parts of one stone, one being the LORD'S part and one man's part. Every ritual of the Church, all forms of worship, have this element in them-that is, of conjunction of the LORD with the people and of the people with the LORD.
All charity and piety which are only external, without the internal love of the things involved, is dead, and does not advantage a man; it is the covenant which was made with the Jews, and which they rendered void. What is only external is necessarily empty, void, and, consequently, of none effect. Yet such is the idea of religious obligation which mainly prevails, namely, that the specific compliance with certain requirements, which vary in different churches, will necessarily entail the Divine Blessing. But unless there is within the performance of those obligations, and behind it, the genuine love of charity, the covenant is not fulfilled; it is void, empty.
What is it, then, that is involved in the oft-reiterated covenant between the LORD and His people? Behold the days coming, saith the LORD, and I will make . . . a new covenant, not as the covenant which I made with their fathers, because they rendered my covenant void.
In the Arcana (665-6), in the explanation of the LORD'S prediction to Noah that He would set up His covenant with him, after destroying by a flood all those who had given themselves up to their cupidities, we rend as follows:
"That to set up a covenant signifies that he should be regenerated may appear manifestly from this, that no other covenant can intercede between the LORD and man than conjunction by love and faith; thus, covenant signifies conjunction, for it is the heavenly marriage which: is the verimost covenant. The heavenly marriage or conjunction does not exist except with those who ate regenerated. Thus, regeneration itself, in the broadest sense, is signified by covenant. The LORD enters upon a covenant with man when he regenerates him; wherefore 'covenant' with the ancients represented nothing else, although in the sense of the letter it appears as if the covenants were made with persons."
"That covenant signifies nothing else than regeneration, 'and the things which belong to regeneration, may appear from the Word here and there, where the LORD Himself is called the Covenant, because it is He alone Who regenerates, and Who is regarded by the regenerate man, and Who is the all in all of love and of faith.
Because the LORD is the Covenant itself, it establishes that all which conjoins man to the LORD belongs to the covenant-thus, love and faith and what belongs to love and faith.
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For these are the LORD'S, and the LORD is in them, thus the covenant itself is in them where they are received. Nor are those given except with the regenerate, with whom whatever is of the Regenerator, or of the LORD, is of the covenant or is the covenant."
Before going further, however, it will be necessary for us to introduce the distinction between the covenant itself and the signs of the covenant, for the LORD always gave, and does give, signs of His covenant. With us, for instance, baptism is a sign that man is to be regenerated. In the Holy Supper the LORD says, "This do in remembrance of Me," and, also, "This cup is the new covenant in My blood which is shed for you." These words were spoken of the Divine Truth, whereby
man is conjoined to the LORD, and not by the mere drinking of the wine.
Concerning the sign of the covenant, we are taught in the Arcana, in explanation of the text, And God said [to Noah], . . . My bow have I put in the cloud, and it shall be for a sign of the covenant between Me and between the earth (Gen. ix, 13).
"This, the sign of the covenant, signifies an indication of the presence of the LORD in charity" (A. C. 1038).
That a covenant is the LORD'S presence in love and charity appears from the nature of a covenant. Every covenant is for the sake of conjunction, namely, that they may live mutually in friendship or in love. Marriage is thus also called a covenant. Conjunction of, the LORD with man is not given except in love and charity, for the LORD is love itself and mercy. He wills to save every one, and to attract them by a strong force to heaven-that is, to Himself. Hence, each one can know and conclude that no one can ever be conjoined with the LORD except through that which is Himself-that in, unless he does what is similar, or makes one with him-that is, that he re-loves the LORD and loves the neighbor as himself. By this alone conjunction takes place. This is the verimost essence of a covenant. When there is conjunction from this, then it follows manifestly that the LORD is present.
The presence of the LORD is indeed with every man, but it is nearer and more remote, entirely according to progress toward love, and distance from love, . . . as it is written in Deuteronomy vii, 9-12: The LORD thy God, He is God, a Faithful God, keeping covenant and Mercy to those loving Him, and keeping His precepts, to the thousandth generation.
From those things it is now evident what a covenant is, and that a covenant is an internal thing; for the conjunction of the LORD with man takes place through internal things, never through externals separate from internals. External things are only types and representatives of internals, as man's action is a type representative of his thought and will, and as a work of charity is a type representative of the charity which is interiorly in the animus and mind. Thus, all the rites of the Jewish Church were types representative of the LORD, thence of love and of charity, and of all things therefrom. Wherefore, through man's internal conjunction takes place, and the covenant; externals are only signs of the covenant, as they are also called. It is this internal conjunction or covenant which is meant in our text, by the "New Covenant, not as the covenant which I made with their fat hers. But this is the covenant which I will make with them. I will give My law in their midst, and upon their heart will I write it." This, therefore, refers to the New Church.
It is clearly stated that the veriest covenant is through internals, and, indeed, in conscience, upon which the law is inscribed, which is all of love, as was said. That externals are not the covenant, unless internals are adjoined, to them, and thus act one and the same cause by union, but that they are signs of the covenant, that through them, as through representative types, the LORD may be remembered, appears from this, that the Sabbath and circumcision were called "Signs of the Covenant." External rites were nothing else than signs of the covenant, that from them internals may be remembered, which they signify.
There is nothing that really conjoins or binds men to the LORD and to each other except love and charity-and this as a part of the life. Love is spiritual conjunction, and to come into a similar love with another, is the only way to come near him in the other world. For there all consociations are according to love, and dissociations according to the absence of love. Space there is not fixed as here, but is determined according to state, as it is in our mind or spirit; the one who lives next door to us in this world may be entirely foreign to us, unless we become conjoined by some mutual interest, external or internal. The difference in heaven is that all externals are reduced into correspondence with their own interiors, and no 'persons can be conjoined there from an external affection whose interiors disagree. Even in this world there is no real separation between those who love the same use, and love each other on account of the use. Every member of the LORD'S New Church, no matter in what distant place, is nearer to us in reality than the people of the neighborhood; and those are the ones who are meant by neighbors. Our nearest neighbor is the one who is moat interiorly in the same love from the LORD. The higher the love and the use which conjoins, the nearer the neighbor, and the more are we drawn to him, irrespective of location. Every man is our neighbor in a sense, but no two in the same degree. For with most men no further conjunction is possible than the most external, derived from some common use of an external kind, within which is not anything of genuine charity. Similar charity, and similar faith from charity, are what conjoin interiorly, and nothing else. But difference as to charity and faith causes disjunction and hence separation.
We cannot conjoin ourselves with others unless we are in similar affection, and we must not try, unless it is to endeavor to come into a truer and better affection. It says in the Writings that the Church is one from charity, and that distinctions ought not to be made from doctrinals. It is, therefore, possible to be conjoined with those who differ as to doctrinals, but this can only be where there is a common love of charity. If there is a common ground of love for the Writings, which is the charity of the New Church, and a genuine spirit of loyalty toward them, there is the ground for the closest conjunction. These are our nearest neighbors because nearest to the LORD. Where this fundamental ground exists, differences of views, even false views, will not disjoin, for they may exist from no evil end, but from ignorance or persuasion. If this were not true, it would not be possible for a New Church to be formed at all. For no two of us are alike, or at first even similar as to ideas. Let us, therefore, hold fast to the one thing which conjoins us, and which will evermore lead us nearer to the LORD and to each other, and that is charity-true, genuine charity, originating in the sincere endeavor to understand and obey the Writings; these are the text of the New Covenant which the LORD makes with us.
It is by following the LORD, as He stands revealed in these precious books, that we enter into the covenant with Him, and become really conjoined.
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Our merely natural charity conjoins us with almost all of the Old Church, but this is given solely for the sake of temporal uses, and must not be substituted for the other. It is, after all, but self-love, and mutual advantage, that is stored up interiorly in such love, and hence it is the lowest of all. Falsity from divergence of spiritual love separates us forever and entirely from such, for we cannot consent to make common ground with them upon natural charity alone, excepting, as before stated, for the sake of natural uses. It is spurious, and cannot save. If we attempt to become interiorly conjoined with them, we must not only overlook their falsities,
but also enter into their spurious love or charity, for there is no other common ground. We have, indeed, plenty of such ground in us-it would be easy, perhaps at first quite to our taste, to give up our first love and to join with them. But we know of a better charity. We have the New Covenant. The old one, which our fathers have made void, we must reject, even as the LORD has rejected it. The veil has been lifted, we have seen its emptiness. It appears as love without, but within is only disjunction-self-love, hypocrisy. Let us then receive His law in our midst. Let us drink the noble wine of the new covenant, and eat of the fatness of His new charity. Then will I write My law upon their heart, . . . and I will be to them for a God, and they shall be to Me for a people. AMEN.
HAPPINESS-ITS SHELL AND ITS KERNEL. HOMER SYNNESTVEDT 1897
If we were to formulate a catechism of the New Church religion, in order to give its most elementary truths in the most simple form, we might begin somewhat in this way:
Who made you? God.
Why? Because He has use for us in His eternal kingdom, which is called Heaven.
What constitutes heaven? The Divine of the LORD.
What is the Divine of the LORD? The sphere of His Love going forth as Wisdom.
What is the nature of His Love? To love others outside of itself, and to make them happy from itself.
From these first universal truths it is easy to realize that our present state is only a temporary one, designed by our loving Creator to prepare us for our final abode, by initiating us into the love of use, which is to make us the recipients of His love, and thus happy as well as useful to eternity.
But happiness is of various kinds and degrees. In; the first place, there is genuine happiness, and spurious or imaginary happiness. The first is deep, satisfying, and enduring; the other shallow, tantalizing, and fleeting. The first is living, having its life from the LORD Himself, and thus ever growing, expanding, deepening, and strengthening. Such is the happiness of the angels in heaven, while the other is a mere hollow sham, a dead image of the former, which must in the very nature of things shrivel, contract, and be forever subject to limitation and restrictions, both from without and from within. Such is the "happiness" of the devils in hell. For although its quality originates in hell, it must, nevertheless, depend for its existence upon the life from the LORD, which comes to them only as it were through chinks, and is seized upon and misapplied, just as captive wild beasts snatch morsels from their feeders, and then use their strength in an endeavor to slay them, or as a disease which saps the life of the blood, only to convert it into an acrid humor, which still further corrupts the neighboring tissues.
Now, as was said, this happiness is but an empty shell, for it is merely external delight-a tickling of the bodily senses, without the connection which it should have with that which is the meat or kernel of all hap- pines; namely, good, or the love of use.
Happiness, then, rightly considered, has both an internal, and external, an essence and a form or manifestation. As the love is, so is the happiness, with its resultant delights. Real love is to be found in uses, not in delights. He that makes delight his end will go astray, for in aiming at a result or consequence, he will miss entirely the cause or origin of it. Neither will he discriminate properly between delight and delight, for the empty shell will seem to his untrained eye the same as the, sound fruit. He has, furthermore, no balance from within to withstand pain. If the pursuit of delight for its 'own sake be his aim, he will probably be turned aside at every obstacle, and flit about from one thing to another, like a butterfly, with less and less success, since his capacity to enjoy is not refreshed meanwhile by the performance of uses. The regenerating man, however, since he aims at uses themselves, and only regards their delights as incidental, is not deterred by difficulties and trials. He has within himself a poise or equilibrium which enables him to dispense for a time with delights, or to withstand pain. The internal man bears with equanimity either joy or pain. Great success does not elate him, for he ascribes it all to the LORD, and dismal failure does not discourage him, for he knows that all things will come out well in the end for those who seek the kingdom of heaven and its justice as their end.
Since love consists essentially in good, or use, and not in delight, it can be weakened by being called out into the external too much, or kept there too long. It is wise, therefore, not to put too heavy a drain upon it. To call it forth into externals, in order to enjoy its delights, may therefore be regarded as the expenditure of the usury arising from the capital stock of love-and woe to the spendthrift who lays up no treasure for himself in heaven, where his real capital can be safely kept. It often takes those who are inexperienced some time to find this out Cherished and protected on every side by the strong sphere of parental love, and perhaps not being sufficiently stimulated to reciprocate, the child often emerges into youth, and even into adult life, without having acquired a sufficient capital of good, or the independent love of use to others, to make him really a man, able to stand up before the LORD, and do his part in the kingdom. The spirit of willingness to do all you can to help yourself, or to prefer doing uses for others rather than to become dependent upon them, is the spirit that prevails in the heavens, and without which no form of heavenly order can exist in any community.
In Arcana Coelestia, n. 3200, we are told that man can never be perfect, since he progresses step by step through one veil or door into the next chamber, and thence again into the inmost, and thus again and again. These progressions happen through the whole regenerating life of man, and are repeated in a certain way in every temptation which he goes through. For in each case it is a progress from the outside world into the outer court-into the sanctuary, and at last into the awful presence of the LORD Himself between the cherubim. So in marriage. The bridal veil is not the last veil which has to be removed between the two consorts-rather the first. For at every step in their married life a new veil is to be lifted from between them, and a new and more interior union to be effected, in the nearer sphere of our Heavenly Father, until at last, as an angel pair, they shall dwell in the heavenly mansion provided for each pair; two souls intimately interwoven into one.
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May the LORD grant us to see His Presence, and to feel His love and H is protection in this inmost adytum of His Holiness.
HOMER SYNNESTVEDT.
ANNALS OF THE NEW CHURCH. 1897
THE publication of the "Annals of the New Church," which was begun in these columns in December, 1896, will be discontinued with the close of the present volume of New Church Life, as it has been found that the complete publication of the work will he delayed too long if continued in the present manner. An entire period, represented by the life of Emanuel Swedenborg, has been completed in these pages, and it has been decided now to begin the publication of the whole work in a separate form. The "Annals" will henceforth appear in bi-monthly issues, of thirty-two pages each, enriched by the additional features of illustration and summaries of contemporary events in the Christian world at large. The part which thus far has appeared in the Life will be republished in this new form. Further announcement respecting the new publication will appear in our January number.
1772.
January.-London. About three weeks after Christmas Swedenborg recovers somewhat from his paralytic stroke and takes some sustenance. "From that time to the time of his death he was visited but by a very few friends only, and always seemed unwilling to see company" (Doc. II, 577).
February.-London. The Rev. Arvid Ferelius, pastor of the Swedish Church in London, visits Swedenborg, who states that for ten days and nights he had been tormented by evil spirits of the worst kind, but that now he was again in company with good spirits (Doc. II, 558).
Another account of these last spiritual infestations of Swedenborg is given by Christopher Springer in Doc. II, 576.
February.-East Malling, Kent. Letters from Rev. Thomas Hartley to Richard Shearsmith, asking for information concerning Swedenborg's health (New Church Magazine, 1885, p. 387).
February.-London. Swedenborg writes a short note to John Wesley, inviting the latter to pay him a visit, as he had been informed in the spiritual world of Wesley's strong desire for an interview (Doc. II, 565).
February.-About a month before his death Swedenborg foretells the exact date on which he would die, and expresses great delight at the prospect (Dec. II, 578, 546, 549).
March (beginning).-London. Two or three weeks before his death Swedenborg is visited by Mr. Springer (Doc. II, 530).
March.-A short time before he died Swedenborg expresses a desire for the administration of the Sacrament. Mr. Bergstrom, a Swede, present at the time, suggests that the Rev. Aaron Mathesius, the new pastor of the Swedish Church, be sent for, but Swedenborg declines the offer, Mathesius being a bitter enemy to the New Church. The Rev. A. Ferelius is then suggested and accepted (Doc. II, 538, 576).
(Mathesius afterwards circulated a story that Swedenborg had been insane while in London, in 1744, but he himself became insane. Doc. I, 701.)
March 25th (about).-The Rev. Arvid Ferelius visits Swedenborg and administers the Sacrament to him. (The occasion described in Doc. II, 538, 558, 563, 578.) On a question by the minister, as to the veracity of the Writings, Swedenborg solemnly asseverates that he has not written anything from himself but the truth from God (Doc. II, 563).
Swedenborg afterwards presents a set of the Arcana Coelestia to Ferelius, who became a receiver of the Heavenly Doctrines. (The set is now in the Royal Library in Copenhagen.) (Doc. I, 704.)
March 29th.-Sunday. London. Swedenborg expires at five o'clock in the afternoon. (His last moments described in Doc. II, 549, 560-64, 578; N. C. Al., 1885, p. 378.)
April 5th.-London. Swedenborg's body is buried in the vault of the Swedish Church (Doc. II, 557, 543).
The disposal of his personal effects described, Doc. II, 549, I. 1870, p. 134, 139; 1880, p. 95.
An interesting article on Swedenborg's home in the spiritual world is found in M. n. s. X, p. 634.
May 13th.-Skara. The Rev. Sven Schmidt, now declared restored in health, asks the Consistory to restore him to his office, but is refused, as he would not recede from the Doctrines of the New Church (Sundelin, p. 140).
May 19th.-London. Thomas Hartley and Mr. Harrison discuss the Doctrines of the New Church at the printing 'office of James Phillips (N. C. M. 1891, p. 132).
June 17th.-Jonkoping. The Court of Appeals, on the remonstrances of Beyer and Rosen, decides to let the case rest until the Consistory of Upsala shall have expressed itself on the quality of Swedenborg's Writings (Sundelin, p. 106).
October 7th.-Stockholm. Sir Samuel Sandels, Cooncillor of the College of Mines, reads his famous eulogy over Swedenborg, in the House of Nobles, in the name of the Royal Academy of Sciences.
October 27th.-Stockholm. Swedenborg's heirs deliver his manuscripts to the safe keeping of the Academy of Sciences (R. S. S., 1842, p. 17).
November 28th. Stockholm. Public sale of Swedenborg's library (L. 1883, p. 183).
Title Unspecified 1897
During the year the True Christian Religion receives an unfavorable review in the London Monthly Review (Doc. II, 1017).
Mr. Richard Houghton, of Liverpool, receives the Doctrines about this time. He corresponded with Thomas Hartley, and introduced the Doctrines to the Rev. John Clowes, of Manchester (Compton's Life of Clowes, p. 16).
PUBLICATIONS. 1897
Swedenborg. "Emanuel Swedenborg's Traktat von der Verbindung der Seele mit dem Korper" (Intercourse between the Soul and the Body). Jena. First German edition (Doc. II, 1011; T. Al. vol. II, 102).
"Vom Neuen Jerusalem und dessen Himmlisehen Lehre" (N. J. H. D). First German edition, translator and place of publication unknown; copy in Royal Library of Copenhagen (Doc. II, 982; T. M. II, p. 101.)
COLLATERAL.
Benzelstjerna, C. "Catalog ofver alla Swedenborg's efterlemnade Manuscripter" (Catalogue of all the Manuscripts of Swedenborg which have been delivered to the Academy of Sciences). Stockholm (A. L., I. 1836, p. 22).
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[Cuno, J. C.] "Sammlung etlicher Briefe Herrn Em. Swedenborg's, betreffend einige Nachrichten von Seinem Leben und Schriften" (A collection of some letters of Em. Swedenborg, containing information concerning his Life and Writings). Hamburg, 32 pp. (A. L., L. 1891, p. 46.)
A Danish edition of the same pamphlet was published at Copenhagen in the same year.
OEtinger, J. F. "Hochstwichtiger Unterricht von Hohenpriesterthum Christi, zur richtigen Beurtheilung der Nachrichten des Herrn von Swedenborg" (Highly important consideration of the Highpriesthood of Christ, for a correct judgment of the relations of Swedenborg). Frankfurt and Leipzig (Doc. II, 1054; T. M. II, p. 101).
Sandels, Samuel. Aminnelsetal ofver franiledne Herr Emanuel Swedenborg" (Eulogium over the late member of the Academy of Sciences, the well-born Em. Swedenborg). Stockholm, 60 pp. (A. L.).
A French translation, by Abbe Pernety, appeared at Berlin in 1782, and an English edition at London, 1799
[Tuxen, Christian.] "Ofver framiedne Herr Assessorn, valorne Emanuel Swedenborg, som dog i London, d. 29de Martii, 1772" (Poetical epitaph over the late well-born Assessor Swedenborg, who died in London, March 29th, 1772). Stockholm, 4 pp. (An English translation is given in Doe. II, 1157).
DISEASES OF THE FIBRES. 1897
HYPOCHONDRIASIS.
489. The disease above described as melancholic, is also called by the vulgar the hypochondriac disease, yea, the hypochondriac affection, which is ascribed to some juice or VAPOR, which is called melancholic. Such a vapor is believed to ascend from the stomach immediately into the cerebrum, and to constringe and perturb its organism or sensorium. The reason is because the hypogastric region, or stomach, mesentery, omentum, pancreas, and spleen are affected by a certain dull pain and sense of constriction, which is immediately followed by anxiety, which sometimes breaks forth into weeping, or into a species of delirium, as also when the stomach is held constipated with some crude and coarse dregs of food and coagulated matter with which also the biles have been intermingled.
490. But the proximate cause of this disease or affection is the obstruction of the chyliferous vessels, and of the lymphatics, both of those which discharge their contents by the mesentery and thoracic glands, and by means of the thoracic duct into the left subolavian vein; and of those which spring from the pancreas, spleen, and other viscera, situated in the hypochondriac region and which irrigate the blood from a perpetual fount. This lymph, mingled with the animal fluid [succus], because it is the purest of the lympha, is drawn toward the cerebrum, and consigned to the cortical glands themselves, that it may be given into the charge of the fibres, besides that abundance which is exhaled between the arachnoid tunic and the pia mater, and is transferred between the fibres. (Compare Treatise on the Arachnoid Tunic, Chap. II, III, IV, V.) An immense quantity of such lymph is poured out from the viscera under the diaphragm, especially from the spleen, although I say nothing of the other organs, whose emphatic vessels flow into the thoracic duet. When the cerebrum is deprived of this lymph it immediately becomes oppressed and stifled, for the fibres themselves become dry and are contracted, and the pure blood remains with and presses upon the sluggish and somewhat cold serum, which is not dissolved, nor can it undergo solution in the penetralia of the cortical substances. This lymph is, as it were, the chyle of the medullary and nerve fibres, like as that juice, which is borne immediately from the stomach, is the chyle of the veins and arteries.
491. Consequently the course of hypochondriasis is a cessation of the circulation of lymph which is predicated of the thoracic duct. Hence the sudden effect returns to the cerebrum, for it is instantly deprived of its vital juice, by which its sensory organs, yea its cortical glands and fibres, live. Hence the change of state of the cerebrum, forsooth the weak elevation and animation of the cortical substances, the unexpected constriction, or the inflowing of a lifeless serum, the useless approach of the red blood, and the vain solicitude without a descending vehicle; consequently a universal anxiety arises, for the entire kingdom labors. For another lymph than that which is most select and provided with animal spirit, can with difficulty traverse those subtile passages, wherefore that conjoining lymph is withdrawn to the cerebrum together with the better blood. Thus the cause is not the rising of a certain vapor from the stomach to the brain; for whatever grossness is in the chyle, or is carried into the blood, is not taken into that superior region, which demands a more refined substance.
492. The blood by itself hard, not easily soluble, not genuine, that is melancholic, demands an abundance of such fluid, and tumid lymphatic vessels, that defect may be supplied from the adventitious aid, which being deficient, MELANCHOLIA breaks forth, which then is called VAGUE and WANDERING.
493. The lymphatic vessels and chyliferous ducts are closed by causes in the body, and by causes in the cerebrum, or in the animus. The causes in the body are crude, terrestrial, dead aliments, viscous matters; a superfluity and detention of such in the stomach and intestines; then also from condensed air, from colic, from acute bodily pains; that is, from flatulence, which distends the stomach and intestines; whence are eructations and vomitings through the fauces; also an abundance of bile which overloads the chyle; defect of the saliva, cesophageal and gastric juices; and the indigestion thence arising, and every cause of indigestion; the lax state of the compages of the stomach, cessation of its vermicular and peristaltic motion; and many causes derived from these, which have been described above under melancholia.
494. But the causes in the body do not produce this wandering or alternately going and returning melancholia, except the blood in itself be melancholic-that is, of the quality described in n. 484. Hence the proclivity in the animus to actuate into more melancholy motions and mutations. Wherefore there are causes in the cerebrum or in the animus, which continuously concur. These produce disease, but are excited by causes in the body and by causes outside of the body. BY CAUSES IN THE BODY, by all those things which are quite recent, as from flatulence, acidity, rancidity, and crudity of the food, and from other things. For the state of the stomach is in wonderful correspondence with the state of the brain, or rather of the cerebellum; for the villous tunic of the stomach, and the extended fibres foretell the state of their own viscus, as it were by a certain sense in the cerebellum; thus it is regulated just as the cerebrum by the sense of feeling and by pain of the skin; hence the causes of the motions of the animus are latent and from the body; and consequently likewise the constriction of both the lymphatic and salivary ducts and the discharge of both kinds of bile.
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FROM CAUSES IN THE CEREBRUM OR IN THE ANIMUS which have been enumerated in n. 456-that is to say, arising from grief, pain, wrath, hatred, fear, etc. -that is, from causes outside of the body, as grief from misfortune, losses, death, injuries, change in the love of parents, friends, and from a thousand other causes; as also fear and the other sicknesses. When these are excited the circulation of this lymph immediately ceases, the stomach becomes restricted, the mesenteric vessels closed, and the lymph from the other viscera cannot inflow into the closed thoracic duct; thus it is the animus which so suddenly constringes them; for it is also the animus which expands them, as joy, mirth, agreeable society, free discourse together, and similar things; but opposite affections produce opposite effects; for the body acts and suffers according to the state of its brain. From these things it may appear how much merriment and diversions contribute to digesting the food, dispensing the chyle, and advancing the circle of life.
495. Moreover, there are other still more subtile ducts which lead immediately from the stomach, lungs, yea, from the entire external skin of the body to the cortex of the cerebrum and cerebellum, which we have, called the emulous vessels of the fibre, or the corporeal fibres: these are equally opened and closed in accordance with each affection of the animus. But these things are to be treated of elsewhere.
OUR "EXPERIENCE MEETING." 1897
III.
REV. JOHN CLOWES.
OF all recorded cases of entrance into the New Jerusalem, that of the Rev. John Clowes is one of the most remarkable.
In the year 1769, Mr. Clowes, then a newly-ordained clergyman of the Church of England, became rector of the parish of St. John, in Manchester. Like many of the thoughtful men of that age, he had for some time been a student of the writings of Law, Fenelon, Madame Guion, Thomas a Kempis, Jacob Boehme, and other mystics, though without accepting all of their vagaries. These writers, though they seemed to be effective in exciting holy aspirations, yet, as Mr. Clowes afterward said, "they never told him what to do with his hands and feet."
In the spring of 1773 Mr. Clowes was introduced to a Mr. Houghton, of Liverpool, who was an admiring reader of Swedenborg's Writings and a friend of the Rev. Thomas Hartley. Being recommended by Mr. Houghton to read Swedenborg's "Vera Christiana Religio," Mr. Clowes ordered this work from London, but failed to become interested in its contents. The book was put aside, and remained neglected the whole summer. One evening in October of the same year, just before setting out on a journey, Mr. Clowes casually opened the neglected volume, but again did not succeed in becoming interested. He noticed, indeed, the use of the expression, "Divinum Humanum," which struck him as new and strange, but having his mind occupied with other things, he soon shut up the book.
Not many days afterward, while visiting a friend in the country, he awoke early one morning, filled with a strange sensation of calm, tranquillity, and peace. Whilst in this state he seemed to behold, in the inner recesees of his mind, a certain "divine glory" surpassing all description, and exciting a most profound adoration, And he was at the same time strongly impressed by a kind of internal dictate that this glory was in close connection with the "Divinum Humanum," and emanated from it as from its own Divine source. The appearance of this "glory" continued during a full hour, and was again manifested to Mr. Clowes the next morning when he first awoke, and he was now affected by an irresistible desire to return home immediately, in order to enter upon a serious perusal of the "neglected volume" where he had first met with the "Divinum Humanum." Making some excuse to his friend, he hastened back to Manchester the following day, and immediately took down from its shelf the strange, neglected book, which, though still unknown to him, he pressed to his bosom with an incomprehensible ardor of anticipation. Nor were his expectations disappointed. He dedicated every morning to the attentive study of the Wonderful book, and could find no words to express the effect which its teachings wrought upon his mind. It opened his understanding "to the contemplation of the most sublime mysteries of wisdom, convincing it of the being of a God, of the existence of an eternal world, of the interior sanctities of the Holy Scriptures, of the true nature of creation, redemption, and regeneration, in a manner and degree, and with a force of satisfactory evidence, in which those interesting subjects had never been viewed before."
Thus Mr. Clowes, in his "Autobiography," describes the means and manner of his reception of the Heavenly Doctrines. The circumstances, though unusual, present nothing of what is impossible or in opposition to the Divine laws of order. Though preternatural, it was not a case of influx without a corresponding receptive plane; for the latter had been formed by the sight of the words, "Divinum Humanum" in the book. It was not,' in itself, a miraculous or forcible conversion, but a Divine call by means of perception, in this case a moat vivid, objective, and sensuous perception. But whatever be our speculations as to this remarkable occurrence, the fact remains that John Clowes, in his work for the LORD'S New Church, proved himself, indeed, "a man sent of God."
IV.
REV. ROBERT HINDMARSH.
The conversion of Robert Hindmarsh, so fruitful in its results for the establishment of the New Church, has been thus recorded by himself:
"On the first of January, 1782, I paid a visit to my father, James Hindmarsh, who then resided at Canterbury, being a preacher in the connection of Wesleyan Methodists. Our conversation turning on the subject of Swedenborg's Writings, he informed me, that Mr. George Keen, a Quaker gentleman of that city, was in possession' of some of them, and probably would favor me with a perusal of them, if requested to do so. The next day, January 2d, I waited upon Mr. Keen, who kindly lent me, though a stranger to him, the treatise on Influx, and the treatise on Heaven and Hell. These works I read with the utmost avidity, and instantly perceived their contents to be of heavenly origin. I therefore as naturally embraced and delighted in them as the eye embraces and delights in objects that reflect the golden rays of the rising sun. The same day that introduced me to a knowledge of these Writings, introduced me also to the first interview with the young lady, who, on the 7th of May following, became my wife, and with whom I had the happiness of living in much harmony and affection nearly fifty-one years, that is, until the time of her decease, which took place on the 2d of March, 1833.
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Thus I found myself doubly blessed by the events of the before-mentioned day."
Though void of any incidents of an externally remarkable character, the pleasing coincidence quoted above is a significant evidence of the merciful Providence of the LORD, who, in this as in many other cases, has led men to find, simultaneously, these two great jewels of human life: conjugial love and the knowledge of the LORD in His Second Advent.
V
REV. JOSEPH PROUD.
This first hymnologist and great evangelist of the New Church (born 1745; died at Birmingham, 1826), received the Heavenly Doctrines in a very noteworthy manner.
Mr. Proud, in the year 1789, resided in the city of Norwich, in England, where he was the popular pastor of a Baptist congregation, which met in a chapel built and owned by a Mr. Hunt. At this time two members of the New Church, Ralph Mather and Joseph W. Salmon, were going from town to town preaching the Gospel of the New Jerusalem with great success, in market places, at the street corners, or wherever they could gather an audience. In the course of their apostolic journey they came to Norwich, where Mr. Hunt gave them permission to preach in his chapel. Mr. Proud, after hearing one of their discourses, opposed the new Doctrines with the utmost vehemence, and made every effort in his power to prevent their success. Mr. Hunt was more favorably inclined, and held several conferences with the strangers. This rendered Mr. Proud extremely uneasy. One day, when he knew that Mr. Hunt and the New Church missionaries were together, he burst into the room and exhorted his friend in the most strenuous manner to "have nothing to do with these men or their doctrines." Immediately on his retiring he felt a great agitation of mind; a doubt rushed upon him that possibly he might be opposing the truth. He retired into a room by himself, fell on his knees, and prayed devoutly that he might obtain Divine direction, and be guided to a right decision. He afterwards opened the Word, and his eye fell on this passage: "Behold ye among the heathen, and regard, and wonder marvelously; for I will work a work in your days which ye will not believe, though it be told you" (Hab. 1, 5). These words struck the reader most powerfully. He took them as a proof of his incredulity and prejudiced opinion, and he determined, consequently, to read the Writings of the New Church with a candid mind. He did so, and he was speedily convinced that the revelations contained in them are the work of the LORD indeed. (See Intellectual Repository, 1826, p. 348.)
FRIEND OF THE PANTHER. 1897
A FABLE.
IN a country of the far East, where beautiful grassy plains and hills sloped up to lofty mountains in which wild beasts hid themselves, two young shepherds were one day leading their sheep to pasture. Their names were Waldo and Sebastian, and both were strong, well-grown young men, but Waldo was the fairer to look upon, he having long, silky hair and beautiful dark eyes. Sebastian had fine eyes, too, great honest eyes, but he was less comely and graceful.
"The grass is good and I shall stop here," said Sebastian, as they reached a green, sloping hillside at a safe distance from the wild mountains.
"But not I," declared Waldo, moving on. "My flock shall go on farther, where the herbage is richer and tenderer."
"But the master bade us not go near the mountains," said Sebastian, and earnestly attempted to persuade.
"I know my own affairs. Look you to yours," shouted Waldo, over his shoulder, and so the two shepherds parted company.
The day was fine. As Sebastian sat alone on a hillock, where he could watch the grazing sheep, his dog now lying beside him, now bounding here and there and thrusting his nozzle, with an inquisitive sniff, into large tufts of grass, he was often very happy. It was true that he was only a poor shepherd with nothing but his hire; true, that the beautiful Varina, the master's daughter, looked with an eye of favor on Waldo, the handsomest of all the shepherds; but on such days as this Sebastian reflected thankfully that, even if she never smiled on him, he would still have the blue sky, the sunshine, the far mountains, the grassy hills, the singing of bright birds overhead, the drone of bees about his ears, the chirping of insects in the grass, not to speak of his dog and his sheep, which he loved so well. Even if the fair maid did choose Waldo, poor Sebastian thought he might still find pleasure in life.
Later in the day the barking of a dog and the distressed bleating of sheep borne faintly on the air from afar, roused the young shepherd from his thoughts. Leaving his faithful dog to watch over his flock, he hurried away in the direction of the continuing sounds. Up hill and down dale ran Sebastian until he drew near the wild mountains, where at last, with sorrow and pain, he beheld scattering sheep pursued by wolves, and saw with amazement and anger that Waldo did nothing to protect his flock. In fact, Waldo held his barking dog in check, and stood absorbed in watching a large panther which crouched only a few feet away devouring a lamb.
"Oh, Waldo-shame!" cried Sebastian, and lifting his club rushed upon the wolves.
Waldo heard the cry and drew away from the panther, a strange, guilty look on his face; and, at length, together with his willing dog, he helped Sebastian fight the wolves, driving them back into the forest. Then the two men collected the scattered and terrified sheep. Long before all this was done the panther had stolen quietly through the grass into the dense mountain woods, carrying the unfinished carcass of the lamb.
"Are you mad, Waldo?" asked Sebastian, angered and grieved. "You even held back the dog."
"That the panther might not kill him-yes."
"You cannot deceive me, and I warn you the master shall know of this"
"Tell him if you dare!" cried Waldo, with angry voice and ugly look. "And what will you tell him, pray?"
"That you are not the friend of his sheep, as you pretend, but the friend of the panther and the wolf."
When the flocks were all safely housed in the folds that evening the two shepherds told each his story to the astonished master, who exclaimed:
"What strange thing is this? What evil have you done to Sebastian that he should thus accuse you, Waldo?"
"None, none, good master," was the ready response; "except that the fair Varina is pleased to favor me."
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So Sebastian was suspected, and warned to speak the truth in future or go his ways to return no more.
"As you bid me, foolish master," said the young shepherd to himself, angry and grieved. "I will henceforth care for my own flock alone, and say nothing. Waldo may abandon his to the wolves, if he chooses."
So, after that, when his fellow-shepherd pushed on with his flock toward the mountains, Sebastian closed his mouth and turned away his eyes.
But one day, not long after, he again started to his feet as sounds of distress among Waldo's flock came to him, louder and louder. He stood still, listening, his heart torn with grief as he thought of the poor sheep, yet determined not to go. He could not hold out-such was his tenderness for the sheep-and at last, in spite of himself, he started off running.
Arrived on the scene, he found the flock widely scattered by a pack of wolves larger in number than before, and the huge panther again squatted near the faithless Waldo, devouring a lamb. Indeed, the handsome and infatuated shepherd seemed to have adopted the wild beast as his pet, for he now gently and fearlessly stroked its back, oblivious of all else.
With shouts, Sebastian attacked the wolves as before, and Waldo, thus roused to the peril of his flock, reluctantly lent his aid. The marauders were put to flight, and all the sheep were saved but four and the lamb which the startled panther dragged off into the mountain woods. But Sebastian was bleeding from the bite of a wolf and his heart was hot with anger.
In the evening, in spite of his resolve, he reported everything; but the master had already been seen and persuaded by Waldo, who bewailed the loss of the sheep and denied his faithlessness. Sebastian's story was met by hard words; in great anger the master bade him go and return no more. Liars and slanderers were not wanted on his domain.
"I will go at the dawn of day," said Sebastian, calmly. "You disgrace me before all, but I am honest and am not ashamed. To be honest and truthful is what I care for, not to seem to be so in the eyes of men."
And Varina, the master's daughter, heard him, and was moved. In the early morning, as he started on his way, she ran after him-when no one looked-and spoke to him.
"I believe you, O Sebastian!" she said. "My eyes are opened at last. I am wiser than I was."
He thought her more beautiful than the rising sun as she stood before him.
"Then no man is happier than I," cried Sebastian, "for though I go in disgrace, I shall return-"
"In honor-yes, dear Sebastian," she hurried upon his speech. Then she took a gold chain from around her neck and put it on him, and, while he kissed it, turned quickly toward her father's house, for the shepherds were coming.
Triumphant Waldo was given Sebastian's flock in addition to his own, such was the master's faith in him. But the master's fair daughter smiled upon the handsome shepherd no more, her eyes being now opened to see the man behind the mask-the cruel and unfaithful heart behind the fair face and winning eye.
It was observed anon that Waldo's doubled flock decreased in number slowly, and though his excuses were most reasonable, the master began at last to suspect him of bad faith, and by and by set a man to watch him from afar.
And lo! one day this man ran in and made report that Waldo had led his sheep into the mountains and abandoned them to the wild beasts there. "He is, indeed, the friend of the panther and the wolf and not of the sheep, as Sebastian said," declared the spy. "I myself saw him with the beasts about him in friendly company, and I called to him from afar:
"Are you mad, O Waldo? Come away-the beasts will kill you!"
"'It is you who must be mad, simple shepherd,' he answered me, 'not to see what power I have over them. I am no longer a keeper of stupid, cowardly sheep, but of brave and noble beasts of the forest.'
"And so I left him, and came to bring these tidings." Then the master gathered his men together, and followed the spy over the grassy pasture lands to the mountains, and found that it was even so. The bones of the abandoned sheep were everywhere on the mountainside, but the handsome shepherd and his wild beast friends were gone.
Waldo was seen no more at the sheepfolds, but his friends, the wild beasts, were much talked of there. Almost every day some flock was preyed upon and two or three sheep and lambs carried off. At last all the shepherds of the country round left their flocks inclosed one day and marched forth in a band to attack the wild beasts in their mountain haunts. But the wolves retreated before their noisy approach, and the wily panthers rested secure among the giant branches of old trees or hidden in some small and unsuspected cave among the rocks. The hunters wearied themselves with ceaseless tramping and climbing, but found no game.
At last, toward evening, the master and two shepherds, standing upon the brink of a rocky cliff, looked down upon a narrow gorge or ravine a hundred feet below, and saw, to their great surprise, a large panther squatting, or stretched out on the ground, its head resting upon its paws as if asleep, and the ring-like spots on its light-brown coat very clearly outlined.
"Quick!" said the master to the best marksman of the two shepherds, who lifted his bow and took careful aim.
Scarcely had the bow twanged when the huge cat bounded into the air with a scream of pain. Alighting, it crouched low on the ground, glaring from side to side and lashing its tail in fury.
As a second arrow was adjusted to the bow, a man was seen to run out of an opening in the rocky wall of the ravine and fearlessly approach the wounded beast, in evident concern for its welfare. A moment later the shepherds upon the cliff were horrified to see the enraged animal spring upon this strange man, after uttering a warning growl.
Man and beast sank to the earth and rolled about in a desperate struggle. The shepherds on the rocks above were afraid to shoot again, and could give no aid. Running forward until they reached a point where the cliff became a sloping hillside, they scrambled down into the ravine. But when they reached the spot the fierce struggle was over; both man and beast were dead, the one with a broken neck, the other with an arrow in its heart. Stooping over the prostrate figure of the man, the foremost shepherd took hold of the tangled mass of silky hair and turned the dead face up to the light.
It was Waldo.
"Alas!" said the master, sorrowful and amazed, "such is the fate of those who turn from the good to the evil. The very evil thing they love at last destroys them."
So was it shown that Sebastian had not lied, and with great sorrow the master remembered his unjust judgment of the worthy young shepherd who preferred exile rather than be dishonored and unfaithful.
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Therefore Sebastian was brought back, with rich gifts and fair promises, and the great day came at last when 'the beautiful Varina was given to him to be his wife. And when the old master died Sebastian inherited great wealth of lands and flocks and herds, and there was no master in all that land who had such a kind heart as he, or who punished the evil and rewarded the good with 'such justice and wisdom.
And, what was a most pleasing thing to see, with all his wealth and power, Sebastian was not proud. He never forgot the days when he was only a humble shepherd boy, and sometimes, with his children on his knee, he told the strange story of his fellow-shepherd Waldo, the friend of the panther.
BLIND OBEDIENCE. 1897
Questions and Answers.
EDITOR NEW CHURCH LIFE:-Though fully sympathizing with the meaning of your remarks on "blind obedience," I must express my regrets at your having put the good wine of the New Church in such a cracked old bottle as the term "blind obedience." It is not to be found anywhere in the Writings or terminology of the New Church, but is simply a phrase of the Old Church, invented to enslave the human understanding. It is not one of those golden vessels which we are commanded to borrow from the Egyptians for the service of the LORD. It cannot be made to contain a truth, and ought therefore to be rejected from among us.
On its very face it is an absurdity, a mixed metaphor. Blindness cannot be predicated of obedience, any more than deafness can be attributed to the understanding. We might as well speak of a "deaf eye" or a "blind ear."
Assuredly, there is ample and unoccupied room in the New Church for simple obedience, unquestioning, unhesitating, implicit obedience to the voice of the LORD in His own Revelation (and in that alone). But badly as we may be wanting in obedience, still we do not want, nor can we possibly have anything to do with any blind obedience, or even blind faith.
"Blindness," in a good sense, signifies ignorance of the truth, but the term can be used only in a relative sense. There is no such thing as absolute blindness either in Heaven or in Hell. Even the devils are said "to believe and tremble." They are, of course, blind, compared to the angels, yet the faculty of sight remains, and may, on occasions, be elevated even to the light of Heaven. And the natural rational of the unregenerate man is not absolutely blind. If it were, no man could be saved. It is able to recognize Spiritual truth, when presented in a natural light, and man is then able, by self-compulsion, to bring himself into an affirmative state, or into some degree of obedience.
Obedience or the perception of truth, cannot possibly precede faith. Man is led, neither by his nose, nor by' his ear, but by his eye. In order to obey, he must necessarily know whom to obey and what to obey, and if he knows or sees these things, he can no longer be called "blind." Faith is ever "the beginning of the working of God." Faith is spiritual sight. There is no such thing as "blind sight" any more than there is any "blind obedience." AFFIRMATIVE.
REPLY.
ALTHOUGH not ready to go so far as our correspondent in renunciation of the phrase "blind obedience," we have become convinced that it was at least an unsuitable vehicle for the idea we tried to convey by it in the editorial criticised, and since; but more so because of its liability to be misunderstood than because it "cannot be made to contain a truth" if addressed to those who are in touch with the thought of the user. In statements of doctrine which are to go before the general public, or a miscellaneous audience, it is unquestionably best to use such terms as readily lend themselves to general comprehension and acceptance,' not such as will themselves require explanation on account of special and restricted applicability. Therefore to those who cannot find in their theological vocabulary room for the disputed term, we concede the undeniable right not only to exclude it but to criticise its employment in public teaching.
In any but a special and restricted sense "blind obedience" is an anomaly. Although the merely natural mind is "blind" in spiritual things, and only the internal or spiritual mind "sees," yet when the natural mind is brought into correspondence with the internal, into subordination to it, then it also sees-sees the application of truth to life, for application is effected in the natural. Hence the natural must to some extent see what it applies, even though the comprehension go no further than recognition that the truth to be applied is indeed the LORD'S will and therefore mandatory.
But the appearance is that such faith or following, which accepts all that the LORD commands as being good, without demanding to see the "why" and "how" and "whither"-is "blind faith" and "blind obedience." All that we claim is, that since we do speak according to appearances in many cases, as when we say that the sun rises and sets, or when we speak of doctrine as truth, although it is but the form or shell of truth, etc.-even so we may speak of "blind obedience," if we do not make it too all-inclusive or literally binding. But since it is not one of those appearances which have the sanction of Divine Revelation, no one is bound to indorse its use who cannot see how it can be so understood as to accord in any way with the truth.
We must, in our present light, maintain the position that in man's regeneration there is a blind as well as a seeing side, as his understanding is concerned, analogous to the fact that there is a submissive as well as a free side, as affecting his will.
We must also re-affirm that "the natural rational of the unregenerate man" in itself is "absolutely blind." It is begging the question to say that the LORD can illuminate that blind rational, when man permits. Such illumination is very different from that merely natural grasp of doctrine which, as "Affirmative" says, even the evil may have. That is persuasion, not spiritual seeing. (See A. E. 365.)
EDITOR OF NEW CHURCH LIFE.
Notes and Reviews. 1897
Rev. Joseph E. Boyesen is publishing a Swedish translation of the Doctrine of Charity in his monthly journal, Den Nya Krykan. This is the first appearance of this important little work in the Swedish tongue.
Title Unspecified 1897
A BIBLIOGRAPHY of the Scandinavian literature of the New Church, from the pen of the compiler of the "Annals," has appeared in monthly installments, since the beginning of the present year, in the columns of Nya Kyrkana Tidning, of which the Rev. C. J. N. Manby is the editor.
Title Unspecified 1897
AN interesting discussion appears in Morning Light as to the existence of evil (evidently meaning "predatory") animals before the creation of man, in whom evil first originated.
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Mr. Buss points out that the mere preying upon other forms of animal life by no means argues an evil animal, for even the dove, the symbol of the Holy Spirit, is not exclusively graninivorous. It would be interesting to know whether this is true of doves in their free and natural state.
Title Unspecified 1897
With regret to say that the first stanza of the hymn "Patience," which appeared in our last number, was imperfectly copied from the published music. In the fourth line the omitted words "in life" are required by the measure:
I how in utter need and mortal weakness,
O LORD my Saviour, low before Thy throne,
To ask Thine aid to walk in patient meekness
The path in life that leads to Thee alone.
Title Unspecified 1897
"IN his report to the Ohio Association, read at its recent session in Lakewood, the Rev. E. A. Beaman says, with youthful exuberance:
"'The impression seems to have gone out that I am getting old-too old to be called upon for work. But I wish to say I have passed only my eighty-sixth birthday, and am as young and able to work as twenty years ago; and I ought to be wiser, and thus able to do better work than then.'"-New Church Messenger.
Title Unspecified 1897
THE paramount importance of the Summaries of the Internal Sense of the Prophets and Psalms, recently phototyped, is expatiated upon in an article by the Rev. E. J. E. Schreck in the Messenger of November 10th. The special features of the work which make it indispensable to the grasp of the internal sense of the Word, as unfolding the arcana of the Glorification of the LORD and of His conjunction with the Church, are analyzed with care and the closing paragraph indicates how, if the possibilities offered by this little work were carried out, the Church would no longer have cause, as now, to lament lack of growth, for by its wonderful unfolding of the doctrine of the LORD, to really know Whom is life, the Church could not other than be vivified. The article is a very impressive one.
Title Unspecified 1897
THE vexed question of the identity of the "Darius the Mede," mentioned in Daniel, v, 31, has been definitely settled by the researches being made in Assyria, already referred to in these columns. The Rev. T. F. Wright, in a brief but clear statement published in the Messenger, gives us the salient points, which are these: The taking of Babylon was effected not by Cyrus in person, but by a general, whose name has been deciphered as being either Ugbarn or Gobryas. The records accord with the statement in Daniel that he appointed governors over Babylon. The name, "Darius," means "doer of great deeds," and is no more specific than that of "Caesar;" Gobryas may have assumed it when Cyrus made him king over Babylon. All this appears from the cylinder of Cyrus, now in the British Museum.
Title Unspecified 1897
FROM a published letter of the Rev. Willard H. Hinkley (November 10th) it would appear that General George Washington's interest in the doctrines of the New Church, and even his knowledge of them to any considerable extent, is at least problematical. It is more than possible that the books sent him by the Baltimore Society (in 1793) were never read, for, as Mr. Willard says, "Washington was the recipient of a great many books often sent by the authors to obtain some notice from him, or perhaps his autograph. Only a few of these books he probably ever read. He was too busy either with military or state affairs, and after the close of his public life with his private affairs at Mt. Vernon, and the care of his large estates, which had necessarily been very much neglected. He was not a literary man."
Title Unspecified 1897
IN Morning Light for October 2d, the Rev. James F. Buss ably answers the query of a correspondent how to reconcile the teaching that the natural world was created before the spiritual world with the teaching that the natural world depends upon the spiritual as an effect upon its cause. He discriminates between the spiritual world, as composed of spiritual atmospheres, substances, and forces, not yet concreted as an inhabitable world, and the objective spiritual world into which Swedenborg was introduced, and which did not exist as such until after the creation of the natural world and of men in ultimate form out of whom heaven could be formed. For heaven and the world of spirits are nothing else than momentaneous projections of the states of created human beings who constitute their inhabitants; and it is very evident that such beings could not exist on a basis derived, as it were, from themselves. The fixed natural world must exist first, representing the reactive operation of the Divine.
Title Unspecified 1897
IN an article on "Doubts," published in Morning Light for October 9th, Mr. H. Gordon Drummond says: "The problem before us is, How to deal with this questioning, how to answer doubt? And here let me say that if there is one thing of which I am more fully persuaded than another, one thing of which I have myself less doubt than another, it is this: These questions which are so continually rising up in our minds and causing us so much anxiety and painful uncertainty at times, are not intended to be satisfied by other people's answers. They can be met only by our own, and 'our own' are always somewhat different from other people's. We can, of course, be assisted by others in this way. We can make use of the findings of others. But if we think we are going to be saved the trouble of working it all out for ourselves, we shall surely find ourselves greatly mistaken."
Not much encouragement here for intellectual laziness or the shirking of moral responsibility.
Title Unspecified 1897
A NEW channel of usefulness in the New Church is suggested by the President of the Cambridge Theological School in connection with the support of students for the ministry. Ministers of other Church bodies occasionally find that owing to reception of the Doctrines they cannot continue in a false position; and so resign their charges. The support of such while fitting themselves for the New Church ministry, is presented by Mr. Reed as an opportunity for those to contribute to whom the use appeals. The appeal to sympathy in such cases is obvious, but the wisdom of the course proposed is, perhaps, open to some question. The providing of actual sustenance for indigent candidates for the ministry is liable to such operation of self-interest, conscious or unconscious, on the part of the recipients that it may be considered an open question as to how far we can go in this direction without ignoring what in any other business proposition would be considered indications of Providence not encouraging to the undertaking. Furnishing free tuition, which, in connection with institutions supported as a recognized use of the organized Church, involves no appreciable outlay of money, seems at least very much less open to doubt.
Title Unspecified 1897
INCREASED activity in the department "Young People's Societies" in the Messenger, follows the inauguration of the new editorial management appointed by the Executive Committee of the American League of Young People's Societies. The Board, the appointment of which was announced in the number of September 22d, consists of Mr. John W. Stockwell, Jr., Editor-in-Chief, of Philadelphia; Mr. Edwin A. Munger, of Chicago; Mr. Thomas Hope, of Providence; Miss Nellie Walton Ford, of St. Paul; Miss Clausine Mann, of Orange N. J., and Miss Jeannette I. Westcott, of Philadelphia. From letters appearing in this department, we note that it is recognized, at least by some, that it is not conducive to the best results to have too much participation by the older members of the societies in the meetings of the junior bodies, and that there are two opinions as to the desirability of merging the League in the General Convention, as would be the practical effect of the resolution of Mr. Reed at the last Convention, which provided for holding the League meeting in connection with, those of the older body, and for embodying in the Convention Journal the proceedings and statistics of the League. It is thought that the League in its present independent form is a better training school for future hay church members than it would be under the more distinctively clerical influence of Convention.
Title Unspecified 1897
AT the meeting of the Maryland Association, in Richmond, Va., as noted in our news column, the Rev. Frank Sewall, General Pastor, in his address gave a very interesting outline of the New Church, in Virginia. He stated that it was in the precincts of the Association in these two sister States that was made the first serious effort to organize the New Church on this continent and that to many of the illustrious framers and founders of the Republic the Heavenly Doctrines were well known and supported in their promulgation. Among the names of the subscribers for the first American edition of the True Christian Religion are those of Benjamin Franklin and Robert Morris. The chief organizer of the first New Church body in Baltimore was Robert Carter, of Hominy Hall, Westmorehand, Va., while among the friends of the Church in that period we may count Lord Fairfax, the Campbells, of Abingdon, Dr. Cahell, of Lynchburg, and members of the family of George Washington. According to the Rev. Willard H. Hinkley, the New Church people of Baltimore, in 1793, presented Washington with an address and a copy of Hindmarsh's abridgment of the True Christian Religion, and after his decease it is said that a copy of Heaven end Hell was found on the parlor table at Mt. Vernon, though it is quite doubtful if the book was Washington's, or had been seen by him; it is not unlikely that it belonged to Bushrod Washington.
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Of the two distinguished Virginians, Arthur and William Campbell, the former was active in the formation of the state government, and "was wise in his day and generation," while the latter was the companion of Lafayette and the hero of the battle of King's Mountain. It is believed that these two received the Doctrines from a British officer. Robert Carter, who was probably the earliest receiver of the Doctrines in Virginia, was a member of the King's Council in that State, before the Revolution. Upon his extensive correspondence with his New Church and other contemporaries we must depend chiefly for our knowledge of the history of the Church, during that early period. Dr. John Cabell was "an able and kind-hearted physician and well-educated gentleman, who, about the year 1820, was active in making known the Doctrines in Lynchburg." Thirty years later occur the names of Richard K. Cralle, the biographer of Calhoun, and Nathaniel Francis Cabell. Mr. Sewall attributed the absence of tangible results left by these worthy members of the New Church to lack of organization and persistent support as an external body, having its Churches, its sacraments, its ministry, and regular worship and instruction. In thus presenting the lesson of the past he suggested taking vigorous steps toward organizing a New Church in Richmond, building a suitable house of worship and supporting a resident pastor, who should also act as missionary to all receivers in the Slate.
MEDULLA SAPIENTAE AC VIRTUTUM VETUSTATIS. ENOCH S. PRICE 1897
WE have in hand the first two numbers of the third volume of an eight-page monthly in the Latin language under the general title of Tusculum, now entering its fifth year. Tusculum, while a monthly, conies but for ten months of the year, and two years, or twenty numbers make a volume, each of which is intended for a special part of a graded course of instruction in the Latin language by a colloquial method. The first volume of Tusculum was called Paloestra-i. e., the training school or wrestling place; the second volume is called Arena-i. e., the place of exhibition or exploit; the third part, or that which we now intend to review, is called Medulla Sapientiae ac Virtutum Velustatis (The Marrow of the Wisdom and Virtues of Antiquity). As its title somewhat indicates, it is the purpose of Medulla to collect and collate all of the very best sentiments and expressions of all the Latin writers of the classical period. While Paloestra and Arena are exclusively the work of Professor Arcade Mogyorossy, of Philadelphia, Medulla is a reprint, the Latin notes only being the work of the just-named Professor. In substance the Professor says: "Medulla was first collated by Heuestus (Heuzetus, or Heuseus) a professor in Paris, and published in 1727 by Iac. Stephanus, under the title of "Selectae e Profanis Scriptoribus Historiae "(Select Stories from the Profane Writers). This editor made the mistake of paraphrasing or expressing the thoughts and deeds of the ancients in his own words instead of quoting verbatim from the authors themselves. Soon afterward the work fell into the hands of the Germans. Professor Kappius, of Leipsic, at once discovered its immense value, as well as Heuseus' mistake; he at once proceeded to verify every quotation and to write the very words of the authors themselves. The book produced a great sensation in Germany, and one edition followed another, both in Leipsic and Berlin, and was quickly introduced into the schools. In 1764 the work was once more revised and corrected by Johannes Frid. Fischerus, and again reissued in 1784. Professor Mogyorossy says:
"There is no school book in the world in this line with so brilliant a record as the one the first pages of which we herewith present to the reader. It contains the cream of all that was best in Roman thought, Roman virtue, Roman morals, Roman language, expressed by Roman authors, the literary aristocracy of the world."
The two numbers before us are taken up entirely with the ideas of the Ancients concerning God. In these few pages, sixteen in all, no less than twenty-two authors are quoted.
In order to give some idea of the contents of the two parts already published, we will translate freely the chapter headings. They are as follows: Book 1. On God: Chapter I. The Consensus of all peoples proves that there is a God. II. We recognize (or acknowledge) God from His Works. III. The nature of God is the best and most excellent. IV. God rules and sees all things. V. God is worshiped and placated by piety. VI. God ought to be worshipped rather piously titan magnificently. VII. The impious may not placate God by gifts. VIII. A good mind (animus) and the faculty of the arts are the gifts of God. IX. Temples have been built for increasing piety. X. Piety is safe and honored among enemies.
The above chapter heading, it seems to us, ought to indicate to the Newchurchman that here is something of great value, especially in view of the frequent mention of the Ancients in the Writings of the Church. Space will not allow of giving extracts, but we can assure the readers of this review that the text is in keeping with the headings. The only additions to the words of the original authors are the above headings, and Professor Mogyorossy's renderings of difficult passages in colloquial Latin. In appearance this little periodical is an elegant specimen of the printer's art.
The above mentioned text-books, Palaeitra and Arena, have been in use, with the colloquial method of imparting, in the Academy Schools for two years, and are now entering the third. The results have been highly satisfactory. We do not hesitate to say that it is our opinion that, in point of practical utility, there is no elementary text book of Latin in the world that can at tall be compared with these works. Further, if any one doubts that Latin is adequate to modern affairs, let him get Arena and see how easily and prettily a dinner at a country residence, an exploration of the farm, a hunting party, a trip to Atlantic City, can be described. It must, however, be confessed that the first two volumes are faulty in point of arrangement and in proof-reading, but it would hardly be fair to expect perfection from a man working with neither advice nor assistance.
ENOCH S. PRICE.
GOLDEN DOG. 1897
FAVORABLE notices of Swedenborg in the current literature of the world are by no means unusual, as is well known in the Church. The New Church Evidence Societies in England and America have been careful in recording such notices, yet we cannot remember having seen any mention of William Kirby's masterful novel, The Golden Dog-Le Chien D'Or-A Legend of Quebec. (New York, Lovell, 1877 and 1894.)
In the course of a somewhat extensive reading of novels (historical and otherwise), we have never come across a more affirmative notice of Swedenborg and his mission, nor one introduced with more accuracy and artistic skill.
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The Chien D'Or, from which the book takes its title, was the sign over a mercantile establishment in Quebec, in the middle of the last century. There is, otherwise, nothing "canine" in the work, which is an historical novel of more than ordinary merits and interest. The general theme is that of the struggle between the Catholic party of the corrupt court of France and the exiled Huguenots in Canada. We have not the space to tell about the book itself, but recommend it earnestly to the readers of the Life, on account of its own intrinsic worth.
As the New Church reader follows along the always interesting and often quite exciting pages of this book, he often experiences a curious sensation as of something familiar and sympathetic in the views of life presented. He wonders where the author gets his ideas, but hardly discovers the source until, a little after the middle of the book, on page 420, his eye is attracted by the name of Swedenborg. Swedenborg is the subject of a conversation, which occurs in the then wilds of Canada, in the year 1748. A somewhat unexpected encounter this, yet arranged most skillfully by the author, whose historical knowledge and accuracy, are as great as his literary power.
A Swedish botanist and philosopher, the well-known Peter Kalm, who actually traveled in Canada and Pennsylvania about this period, is introduced as holding a conversation with the then governor of Canada, the Count de la Galissoniere. The Count, we are told, had been a fellow-student with Kalm at the University of Upsala, and the two are reviving old memories of student days, and talking about their old professors and fellow-students, of whom many are now men of prominence in the world. The author's intimate knowledge of Swedish history is here truly remarkable. Finally, we come to Swedenborg:
"There was one more of our class, Kalm, that wonderful youth Swedenborg; where is he?" continued the Governor.
"Ah! he is at Stockholm in the body, but as to his spirit in all the seven heavens," replied Kahn, hardly explicit enough in his answer.
"What mean you, Kalm? He was the brightest genius of the University!" observed the Governor, his curiosity quite piqued.
"'And is still!" replied Kahn, emphatically. 'Few can follow to the heights where soars the spirit of Swedenborg. After exhausting the philosophy of earth, he is now exploring that of heaven and hell. He is not, like Dante, led by the eidolon of a Virgil or a Beatrice through scenes of intensest imagery, but in visions of divine permission, sees and converses with angels and spirits in their abodes of happiness or misery."
"You surprise me, Kalm Young Swedenborg was the deepest mathematician and closest observer of nature in our class," replied the Governor. "Olaf Celsius called him pre-eminently 'the philosopher,' and he merited the designation. He was anything but a wild enthusiast."
"And is so yet. But you know, Count, that under our Northern ice and snow smolder hidden fires, which break forth, sometimes to illuminate, sometimes to devastate the world."
"Aye, Kalm!" replied the Governor, with a look of frank assent. "I there recognize your Swedish genius! It is bright and cold as a winter's sun to illuminate the fields of science, but filled with irresistible impulses of a Berserker to lift the veil and look at things never seen before by mortal man! A genius speculative and profound, but marbled with deep veins of mysticism, primordial like the spirit of the Edda and of the race of Odin! In strange ways the genius of the North reveals itself now and again, to the world's wonder and admiration."
"True, Count! and our Swedish genius never revealed itself more markedly than in the soul of Swedenborg. There is no height of philosophy he has not scaled, no depth of science which he has not sounded. His bold speculations are carried on with such a force of reasoning that a man can no more escape from its power than he could get out of the maelstrom if he once trusts himself to its sweep and drift."
"And yet I do wonder, Kalm! that so crystal clear an intellect as Swedenborg's should turn toward mysticism in the face of modern philosophy and modern science which no one comprehended better than himself."
"Fortasse et propter hoc," replied the philosopher, "but I am unequal to judge as yet our old fellow-student. He has got beyond me. I feel that clearly."
"When did you see him, Kalm?" asked the Governor, conjuring up to his mind's eye the handsome, grave youth of his early acquaintance.
"Just before I left Stockholm, on my present voyage," said Kalm. "He was in his favorite summer house in the orchard behind his residence in the Hornsgata. You know the place, Count. It is there the Heavens are opened to him, and there he writes the wonders of the Arcana Coelestia, which he will one day deliver to the world."
"You surprise me, Kalm! I could not have conjectured that he was writing on those topics! He has left Philosophy, then, and struck out a new path in science and theology?"
The Governor became intensely interested in the idea of the possible development, or rather revelation, of new truths, and of a new departure in the domains of science and theology.
"He has struck out a new path in both Count. But it is not so much the new as the rediscovery of the old! the rejoining of the broken links of correspondence in the golden chain which once united man and nature with the spiritual world."
"You believe in it, Kalm! You were always taken by that Platonic fancy of a correspondence as of soul and body between I things of earth with the Divine ideas in which they originate.
"Nay, as I said, I know not what to believe about it yet," replied Kalm; "Swedenborg is the soul of candor, and sincere as he is pious, humble, and enlightened. He told me wonderful things as a brother and philosopher who has been permitted to look at creation, not as men see it from without, but as angels may be supposed to regard it from within outwards. He has opened the flood-gates of an entire new philosophy of spirit and matter, that may one day cover all our present systems, as the waters of a fruitful irrigation, not as a destroying deluge, however."
It is quite evident that the author is more than a mere admirer of Swedenborg. Reviewing what precedes the above quotation, as well as what follows, it is clear that he is an affirmative and profound student of the Writings, not only of their directly theological teachings, but of their application to the things of Science, Philosophy, and Life.
None the less, he remains an highly entertaining writer, as befits the author of a professed work of fiction. In this he differs from a good many Newchurchmen, who have tried to teach theology under a very poor covering of romance. It would be better if they would "stick to their shoemakers' last," and write plain missionary works, instead of introducing the Doctrines, as the Quack does his patent medicine, at the end of a pretended romance. It is not the purpose which we criticize in either case, but the infliction of poor literature on a suffering humanity. New Church works are highly desirable, but do let them be real novels, written by men who are "in the business."
It is clear that Mr. Kirby is a real novelist, as well as a believer in the Doctrines. Can any one tell us anything more about him? C. Th. O.
TO OUR SUBSCRIBERS. 1897
THE completion of "Diseases of the Fibres," which was expected to occupy only the current year, will require several more instalments. This, however, will be regretted by few of our readers who have followed the great physiologist's unveiling of the wonderful co-operation of the brain and nervous system in the most familiar functions of the body.
Title Unspecified 1897
READERS of "Our Experience Meeting" are requested not to infer from the form of the instalments which have appeared thus far that the contributions of their own personal experience, or of others, will be at all out of order at any time.
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CHURCH NEWS. 1897
THE GENERAL CHURCH OF THE NEW JERUSALEM.
IN the discharge of his episcopal duties, on November 4th, Bishop Pendleton started out with the intention of visiting the centres in Chicago, Berlin, and Parkdale in the order named. On his way home it is likely that he will pay a visit to the Rev. E. C. Bostock, in Pittsburgh, although the Society there is not connected with the General Church. By application the Society in Parkdale has been received into the General Church.
We expect next month to publish a full account of the salient features of Bishop Pendleton's visits. Echoes of satisfaction from the scenes of his labors have already reached our ears, notably, Chicago.
Huntingdon Valley, Pa.-DURING the past few Sundays Pastor Synnestvedt has been preaching a series of sermons on the Twenty-third Psalm. By request one of these sermons (on verse 5) was preached twice.
In the doctrinal class, in connection with the subject of "Communication of man with spirits and his power to change his association with them," the nature and function of emissary spirits was considered, beside a number of interesting questions arising incidentally. Social occasions have not been lacking in the course of society life, the most notable occasion being an Old Folks' Party the evening following Thanksgiving, in which the Philadelphia members very generally participated.
Allentown.-THE circle in this city, on October 31st, received a ministerial visit from the Secretary of the General Church, who preached in a private residence, to an unusually large audience. An infant was baptized, and the Holy Supper was administered to twenty-four communicants.
The members of the General Church in Allentown are cultivating friendly social relations with those members of the Pennsylvania Association who reside in the same city, and a plan is being considered looking to the co-operation of the two sections in certain common uses for the progress of the New Church in the community, without losing sight of the independence which is necessary to the preservation of freedom for the conscience of each and all.
Denver, Colorado.-As an item of news and information it has occurred to me to send to the Life an account of our methods of instruction in the Denver Church. We have a Doctrinal class which meets every Thursday evening at the houses of the members. The work we are studying is the True Christian Religion. At present we are engaged in the study of Chapter VII. At each meeting a lesson is assigned, covering four or five numbers of the work, to be gone over at the next meeting. The members of the class read and study these numbers in the interim. When the class meets the pastor asks questions designed to bring out the meaning of the lesson, and to ascertain how far the persons present remember and understand the contents of the numbers assigned. The asking of questions on the part of the members is also encouraged. The pastor then points out the most important doctrinal ideas contained in the lesson, with especial reference to their application to the life, whenever this can be done. The members of the class are also asked to state what they regard as the most useful and helpful points of doctrines suggested by the lesson. When we have finished in this way one of the doctrinal divisions of the work, the members are asked to write an abstract of the doctrine. In the abstract each member gives a brief statement of doctrine contained in the sub-heads designated by the Roman numerals, to be followed by an illustration confirmatory of it from the letter of the Word; and then an illustration of the doctrine from the natural comparisons given. At the end of the abstract an attempt is made to show the differences and antagonisms between the Old and Yew Church doctrines. When the abstracts are finished a meeting is held, where they are read and freely criticised. On Wednesday evening of each week we have a correspondence class meeting at the chapel. At this class we study the correspondences of the Word. So far we have confined ourselves to the correspondence of the sun, moon, stars, earth, air, water, and the three kingdoms of nature, mineral, vegetable, and animal. Our method is to give the natural and scientific facts about the particular object we have before us, this is followed, by the correspondence from the Writings, and the correspondence is then confirmed by quotations from the letter of the Word. Before taking up the various objects of each kingdom the general teaching concerning such kingdom Is given. The teaching here is also Socratic, and consists in the teacher asking questions to see what is already known, and what is not known or accurately apprehended is supplied by the instructor. After the papers are presented to the class an attempt is made by the pastor to adapt them to the instruction of children and as so prepared and adapted they are used in the day-school.
RICHARD DE CHARMS.
THE CHURCH AT LARGE.
Baltimore.-Professor Odhner, on November 6th, paid a visit to Baltimore to investigate a collection of important historical documents which are preserved in the archives of the Baltimore (English) Society. The papers in question proved to be of extraordinary interest and value, comprising the correspondence of Col. Robert Carter (see "Notes and Reviews ") with a great number of his contemporaries in the earliest days of the New Church.
By invitation of the Rev. G. L. Allbutt, Mr. Odhner on Sunday, November 7th, delivered a sermon on the subject of "Evangelization" (Rev. xiv, 7), before the members of the English Society, many of whom expressed great appreciation of the discourse.
THE Rev. F. E. Waelchli, who ministers to the German Society in Baltimore, is at present delivering a course of Evangelistic discourses in the English language, on Sunday evenings. The members of the congregation speak within much delight of the work of the new pastor.
Letter from Mr. Bowers.
Ohio.-I returned to this State from West Virginia on November 2d, and have since visited believers of our Faith in seven places. Conversations have been held and doctrinal instruction has been given in a number of families. On November 3d a child was baptized at Cambridge, Guernsey County. In the same place the acquaintance was made of a young married man, a new student of the Writings. He began nine months ago; was reading the Apocalypse Revealed; said it was a most wonderful book, and he seems to be thoroughly in earnest. The evenings of November 9th and 10th were spent with members of the Church near McConnelsville, Morgan County. The first evening a sermon was read to the family mad an aged New Church lady visitor. The latter was the widow of the late Judge John E. Hanna, who with her husband, twenty-five years ago, became affectionate believers in the Heavenly Doctrines. The next evening friends and neighbors came in and filled a good sized room. A strong talk was given in explanation of some points, and a decidedly favorable impression seemed to be made on the minds of several young people. The New Church folks expressed themselves as delighted with my visit, and gave me a most cordial invitation to come again. I have on this tour had the interesting experience of visiting New Church people in five places in Ohio where I had not been before, and of preaching in three new places. The isolated believers in the new Doctrines heartily appreciate the visit of a missionary, and by their co-operation in the uses of evangelization, persons in their respective communities may be led into a knowledge of the glorious revelations made by the LORD at His Second Coming. J. E. BOWERS.
CANADA.
Berlin.-WITH the month of October the usual Tuesday evening classes were resumed. The work on Divine Love and Wisdom, which was begun last year is being studied. After class an hour of instruction in singing is given by Mr. Samuel Roschman. On October 17th, Candidate Ernest Stebbing occupied the pulpit and preached a much appreciated sermon on the subject: "Man's State before Reformation." On the same day Pastor Rosenqvist conducted services in the home of Mr. Henry Doering, near Milvernon, preaching on the subject of "Urim and Thummim." A Young Folks' class on Friday evenings, conducted by the pastor, is being much enjoyed. At present the Ten Commandments as explained in the Apocalypse Explained, form the topic of the study, followed by half an hour's study of the "Life of Swedenborg;" after the class follows an hour of social entertainment, for which the young folks themselves provide. Miss Zella Pendleton has been released from her engagement in the school, as she was more needed elsewhere. Miss Centennia Bellinger has kindly taken charge of the musical instruction of the children of our school. J. E. R.
Michigan.-THE meeting of the Michigan Association of the New Jerusalem, held on November 6th and 7th, was a greater success than the officers had hoped for owing to the lifeless condition of the Association during the past few years. The attendance from Michigan, outside of Detroit, where the meeting was held, was small, but representative, members being present from Gorand Rapids, Almont, Imlay City, and other places. The Rev. Willard H. Hinkley, Superintendent of the Board of Missions of the General Convention, was present, and the attendance of a goodly number of visitors from the neighboring Ohio Association contributed much to the spirit of fraternal good-will which prevailed on the occasion. Nine or ten of the Detroit New Church people had visited the meeting of the Ohio Association during the previous month, and in return, twelve visitors came from Cincinnati, Cleveland, Lakewood, Toledo, and Indianapolis. The practical result of the meeting was the appointment of a committee to consider the subject of the material assistance needed by the Detroit Society so that active Church work may be maintained in at least this one centre in the State, and to this end an appeal will shortly be issued to all New Church people in Michigan.
192
Pennsylvania,-THE Rev. John E. Smiths missionary labors are about to bear fruit in one locality, Montgomery's Ferry, in the formation of a society of receivers, which however, on account of the sparsely-settled state of the locality, is likely to remain a small one. General Church in disintegration seems to be the rule in that region, and as the report in the Messenger puts it, "the New Church seems to have as good a chance as any other."
Ohio.-THE Ohio Association met at Lakewood, a suburb of Cleveland, Friday morning, October 15th. On the day preceding, the ministers of the Association met and beside considering the administrative affairs of the body, listened, in the afternoon, to a paper by the Rev. Willis L. Gladish, on the "Two Needs of the Church" (these being a larger and better priesthood, and less worldliness), and to one by the Rev. E. J. E Schreck, on the photo-lithograph of the Prophets mad Psalms; and to one by the Rev. John Goddard, on "The Scope of the Sermon" (noticed in our "Editorial Notes"). The Rev. John Whitehead made an address.
The meeting of the Association itself included among its transactions: changes and simplifications of the By-Laws; the reading of interesting correspondence with isolated receivers; and account of teaching children Hebrew, and of their delight and readiness in learning, as given by Revs. E. J. E. Schreck and W. L. Gladish. It was decided to co-operate with the management of the Messenger, by receiving subscriptions, etc., by local committees; it was also decided to co-operate with the American Swedenborg Printing and Publishing Society in furthering the sale of its publications within the limits of the Association. A resolution in favor of more appropriate Christmas services than the popular Santa Claus entertainments, was referred to a committee of three, to report upon nest year. The sphere of the meeting is said to have been one of affectionate brotherhood.
Maryland.-Virginia.-THE Maryland Association met this year in Richmond, Va., on the 24th, 25th, and 26th of September. This was the "first meeting of an Association or of any associated body of the New Church in the State of Virginia," and invitations were sent to all who were known of in the various parts of the State. Among other matters we note that the committee on extending the circulation of the Messenger reported an encouraging increase of subscriptions. Also that the missionary report showed that in addition to the lay services at Richmond fifty meetings had been held in that city and other parts of Virginia, in charge of the missionary, the Rev. L. F. Hite. Resolutions were offered and referred looking to the raising of a missionary fund for work in Virginia during the year, the committee to take measures if possible to secure the erection of a chapel in the city of Richmond. Mr. Spamer, Mr. Carter, and the rest, Messrs. Cabell, Henry, Waelchli, and Spiers spoke in response to the Rev. Frank Sewall's call "to say something in behalf of the New Church."
Massachusetts.-THE fall meeting of the Massachusetts Association was held in Brockton, of that State, on October 14th. The attendance was over four hundred, including seventeen ministers and sixty-two delegates, representing fifteen societies. Beside the installation of the Rev. Messrs. T. S. Harris, at Providence, and H. Clinton Hay, at Brockton, already recorded in these columns, the General Pastor's report included the ordination and installation of the Rev. Chauncey G. Hubbell, at Lancaster. The Executive Committee decided that in case of future applications for ordination, an examination of the candidate's qualification should be made by a sub-committee in addition to the testimony of his instructors and others.
The appeal of the Messenger Committee of the Convention bore the startling title: "The New Church Messenger-Shall its Publication Stop?" Beside voting to refer to the Executive Committee to take measures to bring the subject before the societies, active solicitation by a special committee secured thirty new subscriptions.
It was resolved that ordinations performed under the auspices of the Association should take place at the sessions and in its presence, except when it may seem well to the Executive Committee to arrange otherwise.
ENGLAND.
Colchester.-From a personal letter from our correspondent in Colchester, Mr. James S. Pryke, it would seem that the ways of the LORD in building up His Church there are sometimes manifested in very striking manner. To mention an instance. Two years ago the firm with which Mr. Pryke is engaged employed only one Newchurchman; later Mr. Pryke became a receiver of the Doctrines; then another gentleman in the same employ (and also his fiancee); then the son of the principal; then a younger brother of Mr. Pryke, and now still another young gentleman connected with the establishment is becoming rapidly interested and attending services regularly. Six in one firm.
DENMARK
Copenhagen.-THE Rev. Wm. Winslow, who for twenty years has ministered to the New Church congregation in Copenhagen, has now, on account of the infirmities of old age, relinquished his charge to Rev. S. K. Bronniche, and has taken up his residence in Chicago, Ill., U. S. A. Just before leaving his native land Mr. Winslow finished a new translation into Danish of the Doctrine Concerning the Sacred Scripture, which now has been published.
The Danish New Church monthly has been suspended, but Mr. Bronniche has begun to publish, in the place of it, a series of monthly tracts on the "Fundamental Principles of New Church Doctrine."
SWITZERLAND.
Zurich.-THE twenty-second annual meeting of the Swiss New Church Union was held at Zurich on August 15th. Besides the Swiss members there were present friends from Germany, England, and America. Communications were received from Vienna Budapesth, Paris, Saxony, and the Cape Colony. The income of the Union during the past year had amounted to 4,047 francs and the expenses to 3,630 francs. The Rev. Fedor Goerwitz reported that, in addition to his regular work in Switzerland, he had ordained M. Joseph Decembre, of Paris, and Mr. S. K. Bronniche, at Copenhagen, and that line had also visited and ministered to the Circles and Societies of the Church in Berlin, Vienna, Budapesth, and Gyorkony.
BAPTISM.
BARBER.-At Allentown, Pa., October 31st, Leroy Archibald, the infant son of Mr. and Mrs. Robert A. Barber, baptized by Rev. C. Th. Odhner.
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