Columbia (HnitJf r^itp THE LIBRARIES Bequest of Frederic Bancroft 1860-1945 x» r*> tV^tV X\ '.S\ AN APPEAL IN BEHALF OF THE VIEWS OF THE ETERNAL WORLD AND STATE, AND THE DOCTRINES OF FAITH AND LIFE, HELD BY THE BODY OF CHRISTIANS WHO BELIEVE THAT A NEW CHURCH IS SIGNIFIED (in THE REVELATION, CHAP. XXI.) BT THE NEW JERUSALEM: INCLUDING ANSWERS TO OBJECTIONS, PARTICULARLY THOSE OF THE REV. G. BEAUMONT, IN HIS WORK ENTITLED "THE ANTl-SWEDENBORG." ADDRESSED TO THF REFLE<;TINn^ OF A.LL DENOMINATIONS. BY SAMUfcL IffOJiljk, !III»IJT^P OF H[AHOrER SrRtyTCHAPfeLj'LOVfDON. For we have not/oUovyed cunningly devised fables. 2 t*eter i. IC. Beware therefor© lest ♦Ji^t cr)nje* apon you'^ybi^h h spoken of in the prophets ; Behold, ye despisersj and' vw>^e>,^d*peris^ ; "fot f work a work in your days, a work which ye sha'l -n no \y}«'i Welievi,', though a inan declare it unto you. • •^ Acts xiii. 40, 41 ; Hab. i. 5. BOSTON, PUBLISHED BY ADONIS HOWARD, SCHOOL STREET. 1830, w A BOSTON CLASSIC PRESS I. R. BUTTS. '^ 7 PREFACE. The occasion and design of the following work are suffi- ciently explained in the Introductory Section ; it is therefore unnecessary to say anything on those subjects here. But as the Author has arranged his materials in a form somewhat unusual, and differing from that which he would himself have deemed most eligible, some explanation of this circumstance may not be improper. It was the wish of the Author that the work should contain a satisfactory elucidation of all the subjects discussed, and yet that it should be kept within a moderate compass and price. To accomplish the former object, as the views to be presented are so new to the world in general, it was necessary to conduct the investigations upon a rather extensive scale : to make, therefore, this compatible with the latter object, it was determined to introduce into the text, only such parts of the discussion as appeared most indispensable, and to throw all the subordinate and collateral inquiries and elucidations into the form of iiotes. And as it was found, towards the latter part of the work, that even under this arrangement the size of the volume was extending much beyond what was deemed eligible, it was thought advisable to dispose of the remaining articles of this kind in an Appendix, in which a much smaller type might be employed without injuring the appearance of the book. It would perhaps have been better if this plan had been adopted in the beginning, and all the long notes had been given in an Appendix; but the reason why the Author preferred to give the discussions thus introduced in the shape of notes, was, because he thought that they would, in that form, be more likely to be read ; and he considers some of them to be equally necessary to his argument with what is oflfered in the text itself. IV PREFACE. It has been endeavored, as far as possible, so to construct the notes, as that they may form one series with the text. Perhaps, however, the work may be read most agreeably and usefully, by first perusing the text of a Section through, and afterwards taking all the notes appended to it together. Those, however, who prefer small books to large, especially on theological subjects, may gratify their taste by confining their reading to the text alone : if this should sufficiently interest them to raise a further appetite, they can then, if they please, read the notes also. But the Author hopes that none will conclude, from a perusal of the text alone, that he has failed to establish his points ; since in the notes many objections are answered, and many subjects are investigated, without which the argument of the text must Avant its proper light. The greater part of the Author's direct controversy with the Rev. Mr Beaumont, is, however, properly thrown into the Appendix, because the work itself is formed upon a far more general plan than that of a mere answer to his publication. Indeed, in the Author's estimation, that gentleman's " Jhiti Sioedenborg''' was scarcely of sufficient importance to deserve an answer ; but he was not sorry to use the opportunity af- forded by it for placing the subjects it brings forward in their just light before the view of the public. [N. B. — In the present edition of this Appeal, the Appen- dix, and some of the notes have been omitted; this has been done, partly to reduce the size and price of the volume and partly because it was not thought necessary to republish in this countrythe more controversial parts of the work.] — Pub. FOR SALE BY THE PUBLISHER, The following Works, by the Author of this Appeal :— On the Plenary Inspiration of the Scriptures, 1 vol. 8vo, ^2.25. On the True Object of Christian Worship,— a Tract, 10c. On Regeneration and Good Works,— a Tract, 10c. On the Atonement,— a Tract, 10c. Also, just published, a volume of Tracts, selected from the wri- tings of SvsTEDENBORG, and containing a Brief Exposition of the Doctrines of the New Jerusalem Church, 12mo. price 62 1-2 cts. CONTENTS. THE REFERENCES TO THE NOTES ARE MARKED BY AN (n) BEFORE THE NUMBER OF THE PAGE. SECTION I. Introduction, Page 1 The occasion and design of the work, 1. SECTION II. The Second Coming of the Lord, . . . .' 7 I. That it is not a coming in Person, hut is a restoration of the knowledge and influence of the truths of the Word of God, 8. — II. That there are many circumstayices and signs at the present day, which indicate that the time for the fulfilment of these prophe- cies has arrived, 16. — III. That there are also many circumstances which evince, that the restoration of true religion, -promised under the above figures, cannot be much longer delayed, without fatal consequences, 21. — IV. That these views cannot he justly charged with enthusiasm, but that they furnish the best antidote to all spir- itual delusion, 26. SECTION iir. The Resurrection, 29 That man rises agan immediately after death, and is then a real substantial man in perfect human form ; and that the Resurrection spoken of in Scripture is not a resurrection of the material body, 30 SECTION IV. The Last Judgment, 64 I. That the General Judgment announced in Scripture was not to take place in the natural world, hut in the spiritual, 68. — II. That the. Last Judgment has been accomplished, 91. SECTION V. A Human Instrument necessary, and therefore granted, 111 I. That whenever the time for the accomplishment of the Last Judgment and the Second Coming of the Lord shall have arrived, some Human Announcer of the fact, and of the truths to he then discovered, must he commissioned to declare them. 111. — II. Ex- amination oj the claims of Swedenhorg to he received into this ca- pacity, 113. — III. The charge against him of Insanity, considered, 124. — IV. The objection against Swedenhorg, that he ivr ought no miracles, considered, 132. SECTION VI. Heaven and Hell, and the Appearances in them and in THE Intermediate Region or World of Spirits, , 156 I. Great prejudices against Swedenhorg for professing to have had communication with the spiritual world; yet that, in his case, this was appropriate, and necessary, 158. How the author's own prejudices on this subject were surmounted, (n) ib. — II. Mr BeaumonV s injurious assertion respecting^ the tendency of Swe- detiborg's, descriptiona of the invisible world, considered, l<^^ — That Swcdcnborjj's views of heaven are such as must render it in the hiirhest degree attractive to the justly feeling mind, (n) 162. — III. That, in order to the right understanding of Swedenborg's itatemenis respecting the Appearances in the spiritual world, cer- tain general truths are necessary to be known, 167. The Existknce of the Makriage-Union in Heave.v, axd of AN Opposite Connexion in Hell, (n) 183 That the Scriptures represent the Lord Himself as one of the parties in a Marriage-union, and the Church as the other, (n) 18-5 SECTION VII. The Trinitv, as centered in the Person or the Lord Jesus Christ, 201 TIkj New-Jerusalem doctrine of the Trinity takes all that is true in other S3'stenis separated from all that is false, and is such as, it might be expected, all would gladly accept, 203.— L Solu- tion of the objections arisiiig out of the belief, that the Being who became incarnate teas a Son of God born from eternity, 206. — IL Solutio7i of the objections derived frotn the fact, that the Lord Jesus Christ, while in the world, sometimes spoke as if the Father were a Being separate from himself. That the reason was, because, so long as he was in the world, there was a part of his nature which was not divine ; but that it was glorified successfully, so that, at his ascension, all was divine, and one with the Father, 209 SECTION VIII. The Atonement and Mediation of Jesus Christ, . . 21S What the Atonement is, according to the Apostle Paul, 219. — Scripture use and meaning of the word, (n) ib. — L That the Sac- rifices of the Mosaic laiv did not represent the punishm.eni due to sin, but the hallowing of every affection and principle of the mind, ihus of the U'hole 7nan,to the Lord, 221.— H. That the Sacrifice of Jesus Christ did not consist in his suffering the punishment due io sinners, but in the hallowing of every principle or elernent of his Human JVature to the Godhead, till the whole became a living sacrifice, or thing fully consecrated and hallowed, by perfect union with the Divinity, 226. — That liis sufFerinffs, and finally the pas- sion of the cross, Avere the means by which this sacrifice was offered, and thus by which we are delivered from hell and raised to heaven, 226, 227. That by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ the enmity or contrariety between man and God was first abolished in his own person, and then in us also ; and thus atonement is effect- ed, 229. — HI. That the Lord is called a Mediator in respect to his Humanity, because in this he has opened a new and living way of access to his Divinity, 230. This beautifully illustrated, and with it the Lord's oneness with the Father, by Dr. Watts, (n) 231. SECTION IX. The Christian LrrE, 235 Gross scandals advanced on this subject by Mr Beaumont, 235. That a life of right eous7iess, but not of Pharisaic righteousness, is, as taught in Mat. v. 19, 20, the icay to heaven; and that this doctrine, in all its integrity and purity, is that of the JVcic Church and of the writings of Swedenborg, 237. AN APPEAL, &c. TO THE REFI.ECTING OF AliL DENOMINATIONS. SECTION I. INTRODUCTION. Allow me, with respect and affectioiij to address you, as men who assign their due value to serious things, on a subject of, as it appears to many, no inconsiderable importance. The existence of a body of Christians who humbly trust that they belong to the New Church of the Lord, predicted in various parts of the Holy Scriptures and called, in the tvventyfirst chapter of the Revelation, the New Jerusalem, has, for some time past, attracted a considerable degree of public attention. It is generally known that the Views of the Eternal World and State, and the Doctrines of Faith and Life, held by these persons, are those which are delivered, as deductions from the Word of God, in the Writings of the Hon. Emanuel Swedenborg ; who is by them regarded as a distinguished servant of the Lord, raised up for this work by as express an interference of Divine Provi- dence, as that by which a Luther was raised to effect the Reformation from the corruptions of the Church of Rome, or even as that by which a Paul or a John the Baptist was called forth to teach the great truths of Christianity itself, or to announce the first advent of its Divine Author. But while it has thus been known that such a body of Christians exist, and that such is the ori- gin of their views and doctrines, the greatest misap- prehension in general prevails as to what those views and doctrines are, and the grounds on which they are embraced ; for, unhappily, they have been heard of by 1 2 INTRODUCTION. the public at large, only, for the most part, through the misrepresentations and perversions of adversaries and calumniators. We, who have embraced them, feel an entire but humble assurance, that, were they seen in their true colors, all the Reflecting, of all Denomina- tions, would immediately admit, that they are worthy at least of deep consideration and serious attention; and we are assured further, that, were such consideration and attention bestowed on them, numbers would rise from the investigation with a conviction of their truth. If they arc inie, to have just or erroneous conceptions of them cannot be a matter of indifference: permit then one of those who have not hesitated to stake their salva- tion upon their certainty, to address a serious Appeal to you in their behalf Great activity has been used, through a great variety of channels, to possess your minds with totally false and extremely injurious con- ceptions respecting the illustrious Swedenborg and his writings: allow therefore, I intreat you, one who has maturely considered both, to disabuse you respecting them, — to disperse, by a fair statement, the clouds of misrepresentation in which the sentiments received by us have been involved, — and to bring to your acquaint- ance viev/s of Divine Truth which appear to be at once elevated and well-founded; views which, we venture to assure you, challenge the strictest scrutiny of Reason, and come supported by the plainest testimony of Scrip- ture. Yes, ye who prize the inestimable gift of Reason! permit me to say, that never was a more gross decep- tion practised on mankind, than when it has been at- tempted, by idle tales and false imputations, to make you believe, that Reason, and what is commonly but improperly termed Swcdenborgianism, are uncombinea- ble terms. And to you, ye sincere lovers of the Scrip- tures! allow me to declare, that to persuade you that writings and doctrines like those we espouse, which place the truths of Scripture in their own genuine light, are at variance with the truths of Scripture, and th4t they originate in delusion, is to impose on you an extra- vagant delusion indeed. Were I left to my own choice in regard to the form which this Appeal should assume, it would be different from that which I am compelled by circumstances to adopt. Having a rich store to select from of the most INTRODUCTIOxV. 3 himinous truths and most satisfactory doctrines, upon every subject that is interesting to a man, to an immor- tal, to a Christian, I naturally should give, to the most important things, the largest share of attention, bestow- ing a more cursory notice on matters of inferior mo- ment. There are no sentiments entertained by us, or advanced in the writings of Swedenborg, which v/e are not satisfied are pure and genuine truths: but in every extended system of doctrine there are truths of higher and of lower importance; as in the system of the visible heavens "one star differeth from another star in glory," and as the representative breast-plate of Aaron not on- ly included the ruby and the diamond, but also the agate and the jasper. In making then an Appeal to you in be- half of our views, were I left to pursue the most natural course, I undoubtedly should place the richer gems, the rubies and the diamonds, in the more prominent light, and give to the inferior a subordinate station. The great truths respecting the Nature, Person, and Attri- butes, of the Lord God Almighty; the v/ork of Human Redemption; the duties of Repentance and Reformation; the process of Regeneration ; the entire Inspiration and exalted Spirituality of the Word of God; the certainty of a Future Retribution; the true Importance of the Pre- sent Stage of Existence as that in which man makes up the form and character of his spirit and internal life, and thus fixes his state, either for happiness or misery, to eternity; the pure Glories of Heaven, and the real Ter- rors of Hell; the Wonders of the Divine Government, or of Divine Providence, which extends to the minutest occurrences of human life, and in all that it either ap- points or permits primarily regards eternal ends: — these, and such as these, are the subjects which occupy the distinguished stations in the doctrines which we believe to be those of the New Jerusalem, and in the writings in which those doctrines are delivered: on these they pre- sent views which are indisputably heavenly and exalted: on these then the pen of an Apologist would naturally dwell at the greatest length and with the most delight, secure that in all that he should offer respecting them the mind of the unprejudiced reader could scarcely fail of finding the most decided satisfaction. But they who have set themselves to crush, if it were possible, the ris- ing New Church in its infancy, — as Herod sent to slay 4 INTRODUCTION. all the children in Bethlehem of two years old and un- der, — naturally take the opposite course. Some of them, indeed, as the late Dr Priestley and a few others, have undertaken to oppose the leading doctrines of our church by argument; but the greater number have endeavored to keep our real doctrines, as far as possible, out of sight, offering, and then combating, such a garbled statement of them as can give their readers no just idea of what they are; while they have ransacked the pages of our valued Author in quest of everything ^vhich, on being brought forward by itself, separated from its context, and from the explanations necessary to its right apprehen- sion, might appear most repugnant to the ideas common- ly entertained, and might with most plausibility be made the ground of opprobrious animadversion ; especially when heightened by exaggeration and misstatement, which have often been supplied accordingly; not to men- tion the many absolute fictions, void of all foundation either in truth or in probability, which have shamelessly been propagated respecting Swedenborg, his writings, and their admirers. In appealing to you then in behalf of our sentiments, it is necessary to follow the course marked out by our opponents; and as they have endea- vored to raise prejudices by chiefly dwelling upon parts of our author's system and writings which are of very inferior importance, I shall be obliged to give, to such subordinate points, a much larger proportion of attention than they otherwise would demand. I shall take then for my guide, as to the subjects necessary to be discussed and to be set in their true light, a late publication by the Rev. G. Beaumont, of Norwich, which he denominates " The Anti-Swedenborg: or a Declaration of the Prin- cipal Errors and Anti-scriptural Doctrines contained in the Theological Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg." My reasons for giving my Appeal a particular reference to this publication, are, first, because the author of it de- clares, that some Lectures delivered by me in the city of Norwich were the occasion of his work; and second- ly, because this work has been the occasion of many mis- representations of our sentiments and of ourselves in the theological Reviews and Magazines, the editors of seve- ral of which, taking it for granted that Mr Beaumont's reports and views are correct, have recommended his work, have repeated his statements and thus have given INTRODUCTIOxX. O a wide circulation to the injurious impression he has la- bored to excite. As observed above, had I chosen my own ground in this Appeal, the form of it would have been different from that which, under the existing circum- stances, it will assume: but the advocates of the IVew Church, though without any confidence in themselves, are at all times willing, conscious of the invulnerability, in every point of their sacred cause, to leave the choice of the ground to their opponents, and to meet them in any line of attack they may think proper to adopt. To legi- timate argument, (though it is seldom, alas! that any thing of that kind is employed against us,) we hope to be enabled to oppose legitimate argument from sounder premises; to misrepresentations of facts or sentiments, the statement of such facts or sentiments in their proper colors; to misapplications of Scripture, Scripture justly applied and fairly explained ; and to the artifices of false- hood, the honesty of truth. But we will not return railing for railing; nor, because the most scandalous imputations have been fabricated to be affixed on us, will we retort with anything of the kind against our accusers. Wo commit the whole cause, with perfect composure as to the issue, into the hands of Him whose cause we believe it to be; and while we are grateful that we have been enabled to behold the truth, on subjects of the deepest importance to human welfare, in, as we are satisfied, its own genuine light, we will not be offended with those who as yet see differently, nor cherish the smallest spark of personal ill-feeling towards the bitterest of our oppo- nents. They, as well as we, are in the hands of a merci- ful God, who, as our doctrines assure us, does not visit with severity for involuntary, much less for well-inten- tioned error: and though we cannot but believe that our adversaries, especially when they misrepresent and ma- lign us, are in error, we strive to cherish the hope, in every case where there is any possible ground for it, that the error is involuntary and well-intentioned. Beside occasional notices of other assailants, I intend then, in the following pages, to answer all the objections raised by the Rev. G. Beaumont in the work above men- tioned: I do not propose, however, to follow that gentle- man's steps in a servile or captious manner, or to keep him or his objections constantly before the reader. My design rather is, to take occasion, from his objections, 1# 6 ^ INTRODUCTION. to open, upon general principles, the subjects brought under discussion; so that this Appeal may include a ge- neral exposition of the sentiments of the New Church upon the most important of her doctrines, and especially upon those subjects, even when of quite inferior mo- ment in themselves, in regard to which the most com- mon and plausible objections, have been raised, and the most injurious misconceptions have gone abroad. I intreat you then, my serious friends, to whatever de- nomination, as regads the profession of religion, you may belong, to enter on the perusal of this Appeal with candid minds, and with a sincere desire to see the truth, wheresoever, and with whomsoever, it may be found. And as the best preparation for thus seeing it, allow me to request you to raise your hearts, in prayer for right direction and illumination, to the Truth Itself Personi- fied, the Lord Jesus Christ. We are assured in his unerring Word, that He is " the true Light which light- eth every man that cometh into the world;"* He declares himself that He is the " Truth,"! and again, that He is '' the Light of the world," and that '' he that followeth J/zrn shall not abide in darkness, but shall have the light of life:"J whatsoever then may be your present opin- ions in regard to his nature and person, you cannot doubt, if you believe the Scriptures, that he has the power of imparting the light of truth to the mind that looks to him for it. Nor can you doubt that, to the re- ception of any gift from him, faith in his power to con- fer it is a necessary preliminary. When the two blind men intreated his mercy, while on earth, He said unto them, '' Believe ye that I am able to do this?" and on their answering in the ainrmative, " then touched He their eyes, saying. According to your faith be it unto you. And," the sacred record adds, " their eyes were opened. "§ Who does not see the correspondence be- tween the communication of the light of day to the eye and of the light of truth to the mind? and that the one miracle was performed to represent the other? What- ever then may bethought of the Lord Jesus Christ, evi- dent it is that He is set forth to us in the Scriptures as the Being from whom the inestimable gift of the per- ception of divine truth is to be received; and that, in *Johni. 9. t Ch. xiv. 6. :f Ch. viii. 12. § Matt. x. 28, 29,30. SECOND COMING OF THE LORD. 7 order to its reception, He is to be applied to with con- fidence in his power to bestow it. Be your ideas of Him then, in other respects, what they may, permit me to beg of you to believe, that He really has this power; to elevate your hearts towards Him with corresponding desires; and in this frame of mind to weigh the state- ments and considerations, which, in the following Sec- tions of this Appeal, will be laid before you. Under this guidance, I cannot refrain from hoping, that you will be led to the conclusion, that what our opponents call '' principal errors" are in reality momentous truths, and that what they denominate " anti-scriptural doc- trines" are in fact the very doctrines of the Scriptures. But do not let the fear of being brought to this result by the devout experiments which I have presumed to re- commend deter you from making it: do not refuse to put your minds, on this occasion, under the sole guidance of the Lord Jesus Christ, from an apprehension, that He who is the Light and the Truth may by any possibility guide you into error. SECTION II. The Second Coming of the Lord. I will call your attention, my reflecting brethren, in the first place, to the important circumstance announced to us in the prophetic parts of the ^^w Testament, and commonly known by the name of the Second Coming of the Lord; with the important consequence of such com- ing, or rather part of it, which is described in symbolic language as the descent from heaven of a New Jerusa- lem. For it is because we understand these great pie- dictions in a different sense from that in which most per- sons at the present time apprehend them, and because we believe that, in their only true sense, they are at this day receiving their fulfilment, that so many attempts are made to hold up both us and our sentiments to derision. In this respect we are treated just as were the first con- verts to Christianity by the Jews. The Jews were look- ing for the coming of the Messiahj as the hope of Israel; 3 SECOND COMING OF THE LORD. yet were they almost unanimous in persecuting the small band of their brethren who affirmed that their hope was fulfilled. Christians have ever been looking with hope for the second coming of Him whom the Jews rejected: yet are too many of them eager in the persecution of those who affirm that this hope also is fulfilled. To our case then may be most exactly applied the noble apology of Paul when pleading before Agrippa. " I stand," says he, " and am judged, for the hope of the promise made of God unto our fathers: unto which promise our twelve tribes, instantly serving God day and night, hope to come. For which hope's sake, king Agrippa, I am accused of the Jews."* I propose then, in this Section of my Appeal, to un- dertake the defence of those who stand in the same sit- uation among their brethren, the professors of Christiani- ty, as the Apostle Paul and the other first Christians did among their brethren, the professors of Judaism: and I earnestly intreat you, as believers of the Scrip- tures, — as holders of the Christian's hope, candidly to consider what I have to offer. There is nothing in the sentiments I shall present which ought to offend any one, but, on the contrary, much that every one may re- gard with delight. If by any means prejudices have been instilled into the minds of any of you, permit me to request you to lay them aside till you have fairly heard both sides of the question; and pray do not con- sider me as your enemy, because, with much respect and affection, and without intending the smallest offence to any one, I lay before you what, from the bottom of my soul, 1 believe to be the truth. First then, I propose to shew. That the second com- ing of the Lord is not a coming in person, as most per- sons, in consequence of taking quite literally the symbo- lic language of prophecy, have hitherto supposed, but that it means the restoration of the true knowledge of divine subjects, or of the genuine doctrines of the Word of God, accompanied with their corresponding influence on the heart; in other words, that it is the revival of the true church of the Lord among mankind; in which mode of considering it, it is more particularly meant by the manifestation of the New Jerusalem. In the sec- * Acts xxvi. 6, 7. SECOND COMIPfG OF THE LORD. 9 end place I will shew, that there are many circumstances and signs in the situation of the world at this day, which plainly indicate that the time for the divine interference described in Scrpiture as the second coming of the Lord has arrived. In the third place I will point out, that there are circumstances in the state of the world at this day in regard to religion, which evince that the restora- tion of true religion, promised under the figures of a second coming of the Lord and establishment of a New Jerusalem, cannot be much longer delayed without the most serious injury to the best interests of the human race. And I will conclude with shewing, that there is nothing in our views of this subject which can be justly charged with enthusiasm, but that, on the contrary, they furnish the best antidote to every species of fanaticism and spiritual delusion. I. With regard to the first of these subjects then, it is first to be observed, that nothing is more true than a re- mark which has been made by almost every commentator that ever wrote upon the fulfilment of prophecy; namely, That the exact meaning of the prophecies is never under' stood, till the time of their accomplishment. This was strikingly experienced in regard to the prophecies which announced the coming of the Lord in the flesh. Al- though the whole Jewish nation knew from those pro- phecies that a Messiah was to appear, and the more learned among them could even point out truly where he would be born, they were so much in the dark re- specting everything else that concerned him, looking only for a carnal and not a spiritual Saviour, that when he did come they rejected him and put him to death. And even the disciples who received him, — even the twelve apostles whom he peculiarly selected, — so much partook of the common errors of their countrymen, that they disputed which of them should be the greatest, or have the highest post, in the temporal kingdom which they supposed he was about to set up.* Even at the moment of his ascension they asked him whether he would not restore the temporal kingdom of Israel;! and it was not till they had received the gift of the Holy Spirit from their glorified Lord, that they had just ideas of the nature of that kingdom into which they had been •* Mark x. 35 to 40. t Acts i. 6. 10 SECOND COMING OF THE LORD. admitted themselvesj and which they were to preach to others. Another remark of importance is also here necessary to be made ; it is, That even token the Apostles had re- ceived the gift of the Holy Spirit, it did not communicate to them, at once, all the truths of the Christian dispensa- tion. Thus they remained for a long time in the per- suasion, that the gospel was to be preached only to the Jews. It was not till seven or eight years after the Lord's ascension, that Peter was convinced that it was allowable to communicate it to the Gentiles: it then re- quired a vision and special revelation to induce him to do it;* and he was strictly questioned upon it afterwards by his brethren.! I^ was not till ten years after this that they came to the conclusion, that the Gentile con- verts were not required to keep the law of Moses;J and they do not appear ever to have clearly seen, that the Jews themselves were exempted by the gospel from the observance of that law. If then it was only by degrees, and as occasion re- quired, that the truths which were essential to the full knowledge of the Christian system were revealed even to the Apostles, and that they were enabled to under- stand the precepts and prophecies of the Old Testament as they applied to the doctrines and circumstances of Christianity, it is no wonder if it be found to be true, in the third place, That the prophecies of the Lord himself , and of the JVeio Testament prophets, relating to his second coming at a future period then very distant, and to his revival, at such second coming, of pure Christianity, after it had suffered decline and perversion, ivere at that time hidden from the Church. Accordingly, it is certain that the early Christians were so much mistaken respect- ing the purport of these prophecies, that they all expect- ed that the second coming of the Lord was then imme- diately to take place; and even the Apostles appear to have supposed that they might live to see it. They knew that the Lord's coming was to be preceded by a corruption of his religion; and because they saw cor- ruptors of it even then appear, they concluded that the last time was then arrived. Thus the Apostle John writes, " Little children, it is the last time; and as ye •♦ Acts X. t Ch. xi. 2, 3. X ^h. xv. SECOND COMING OP THE LORD. 1 I have heard that anti-christ shall come, even now there are many anti-christs; v^•herebJ we know that il is the last /me."* So Peter exhorts those to whom he writes not to be disheartened by the seeming tardiness of the arrival of the expected day, telling them, " that scoffers should come in the last days, saying, where is the pro- mise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation."! But that even this Apostle supposed, that the expected coming, attended with a literal fulfilment of the prophecies which seem to speak of the passing away of heaven and earth, would happen during the life of persons then living, is evident from his exhorting them thus: " Seeing then that all these things shall be dis- solved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, looking for, and hasting unto, the coming of the day of God. "J James speaks of it as near with equal confidence : he says, "^ Be patient, there- fore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and the latter rain: be ye also patient; stablish your hearts; for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh. — Be- hold, the Judge stAxNdeth at the door.^§ As for the Apostle Paul, he speaks on the subject to the Thessa- lonians, as if both himself and they, or at least some of them, would certainly live to witness it: he says, " w^e which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them that sleep;" and again: ^' Then WE ivhich are alive and remain shall be caught up toge- ther with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air:"|| which so disturbed those to whom the Apostle wrote, that he found it necessary, in a second epistle, to desire them " not to be soon shaken in mind or trou- bled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as though the day of Christ were at hand," (by which he means, were immediately to take place,) because there must " come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, "IT — in which he refers to a pro- phecy of Daniel: nevertheless he declares that " the mys- tery of iniquity doth already work,^^** and thus still inti- * 1 John ii. 18. \ 2 Ep. iii. 3, 4. j 2 Ep. in. 11, 12. § Ep. v. 7,'8, 9. II 1 Thes. iv. 15, 17. TF 2 Thes. ii. 2, «. ** Ver. 7. 12 SECOND COMING OF THE LORD. mates that the expected coming of the Lord was by no means very distant. Accordingly, as the nature of the second coming of the Lord was not in that day openly revealed; just as the nature of his first coming had not previously been openly discovered to the Jews; the Apostles never offer any explication of it, as they do of other prophetic declarations which then had their ac- complishment, but always speak of it in the same sym- bolic language as had been used respecting it by the Lord himself and by the ancient prophets. This lan- guage has in consequence been understood according to the literal sense only, by Christians in general, from that time to this: and thus, from age to age, mankind have lived in the expectation of beholding the Lord ap- pear in the clouds of the firmament, and of being them- selves caught up to meet him at his coming in the air.* But surely, whoever should reflect a little upon this subject might easily see, that this manner of describing the second coming of the Lord is purely figurative and symbolic; that it is couched in the purely prophetic style * This fact, that neither the time nor the nature of the Lord's sec- ond coming was expUcitly revealed to the primitive Christian Church, nor ev^en to the Apostles themselves, is of so great importance, that, though I think it is conclusively established by what is advanced above, it may be expedient to adduce further unquestionable testi- mony for its confirmation. It is to be observed, that while the Lord Jesus Christ himself often speaks, in the gospels, of his second coming, he at times so expresses himself, that they who understand his words literally must suppose him to mean, that his coming to judgment was not to be protracted beyond the age in which he delivered the predictions. Thus one of the most full and explicit of his prophetic declarations is that in Matt. xxiv. — " Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken ; And then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven ; and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn ; and they shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. Now learn a parable of the fig tree ; When his branch is yet tender and putteth forth leaves, ye know that sum- mer is nigh ; so likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors. Verily I say unto you. This generation shall not pass, till all these things he fulfilled}' That their literal sense is not their true sense, is evinced by the fact, that they have remained unaccomplished for seventeen hundred years beyond the period, at which, according to that sense, their ac- complishment should have taken place. SECOND COMING OF THE LORD. 13 of writing; and all expositors admit that there is a dis- tinct prophetic style used in the Scriptures, in which the ideas intended are representatively shadowed out by the images used for expressing them. Only look at the subject with some degree of elevation of mind, and you will see, that for the Lord Jesus Christ to appear in the clouds which float about the earth, at a height never exceeding a very few miles from its surface, in a form visible to the natural eyes of the inhabitants of the earth, is really an absolute impossibility.* At his first advent, indeed, the Lord was beheld by men in the natural world, and even dwelt for a considerable time among them: but the reason was, because he was then in a natural body, not yet glorified, assumed from the mother, Mary: but, as I propose to shew in a future Section of this Appeal, during his abode on earth, and at his resurrec- tion, he made his human nature completely divine, and it was in a glorified or deified human form, no longer partaking of the gross properties of matter, that he as- cended to heaven: Hence he never was visible to any after he rose again, except when he expressly manifest- ed himself to them, which was done by opening the sight of their spirits. Had he still been visible to the natural eye, how came it to pass that he never was seen by the Jews after his resurrection ? Had he still been in a body that was obvious to the natural senses, how did he ap- pear suddenly in the midst of his disciples, when they were assembled secretly, for fear of the Jews, and the door was fastened to secure them from interruption? Our natural sight will not penetrate through walls and doors; how then, to such sight, can that divine form be visible, which walls and doors could not exclude ? Thus the Lord's glorified person can now only be made visible to man by opening the sight of his spirit, as was done in all the cases of spiritual appearance recorded in the Scriptures; and the Lord can only thus be manifested *The two alvcnts of the Lord belong to two different dispensr- lions : according to the order always observed in the Divine Econo- my, the things pecuUar to a later dispensation are never openly revealed under a former; consequently, It would have been incon- sistent with the order always observed in the Divine Economy, had the Apostles, whose province it was to proclaim the Lord's first ad- vent, with the discoveries proper to it, been equally well informed respecting the circumstances of his second. 2 14 SECOND COMING OF THE LORD. to those who are in the acknowledgment of him: for this reason he never made himself visible, after his resurrec- tion, to the gainsaying Jews; and for the same reason he never will make himself visible to the inhabitants of the world at large: consequently, it is not in a natural sense that he will appear in the clouds of the sky, shew- ing himself to all tne dwellers upon the earth. But that the Lord is not literally to make his second advent in this manner, is evident from another consider- ation, the force of which every one may appreciate, whether he sees the strength of the last argument or not: and that other circumstance is, that in other pas- sages of Scripture his coming is described in a different manner. In the nineteenth chapter of the Revelation, he is described as coming riding on a white horse, with all the armies of heaven followmg him upon white horses. Now, who ever understood that this description was to be taken literally.? jVo person ever conceived that He would come to judgment riding on horseback, followed by innumerable troops of angels, all likewise mounted on horseback: yet there is no more reason for rejecting the expectation of his coming in this manner, and re- garding the language as entirely figurative, than there is for adopting that of his coming in the clouds, and regard- ing this as a literal representation of the fact. The truth is, that both are entirely figurative, and of nearly the same signification; since his coming on a white horse de- notes his restoring the right understanding of the Word, and illuminating thereby the intellectual facuhies of man, and his coming in the clouds with power and great glory denotes the unfolding of the literal sense of the VVord, and his presence in the bright glory of its spiritual and genuine signification. I have endeavored to prove this at length in another publication; in which it is attempt- ed to be shewn, that the Lord is called the Son of man, in Scripture, in reference to his character as the VVord or Divine Truth;* and it is always by his title of Son of man that the Lord himself speaks of his second coming: So, the passage just referred to in the Revelation ex- pressly states, that he who is to come riding on the white horse, is the VVord of God. Evidently then the pro- mised coming of the Lord as the Son of man and the * Plenary Inspiration, &c. p. 333, &c. SECOND COMING OF THE LORD. 15 Word of God, must denote a new discovery of the divine truth of his Word, — a restoration of the genuine doc- trines of the church, — a revival of a just knowledge of the Lord and of his worship, and an opening of the sa- cred contents of his Holy VVord. But that this is, in general, what is meant by the second coming of the Lord, — by the appearing of the Son of man in the clouds with power and gret»> glory, and by his rid- ing in heaven, as the Word of God, on a white horse, — is further evident from the fact, that it is to be ac compa- nied or followed by the descent from heaven of a New Jerusalem. We read in Rev. xxi. " I saw a new hea- ven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. And I John saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorn- ed tor her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven, saying. Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them and be their God."* Now what can this, with any degree of con- sistency, be understood to signify, but a renewal of the true church of God among mankind } Many, I know, apply it to the state of the saints in heaven: but in this they do the most palpable violence to the words: for how can that be pretended to be in heaven, which is expressl/ said to come down out 0/ heaven.^ how can that describe the state of saints in heaven^ which is expressly said to be the tabernacle, or abiding place of God ivith men? Accordingly, the best interpreters apply it to a new state of the church on earth. Thus Dr Hammond, a cele- brated writer of the Church of England, comments upon it thus: " I'hat it signifies not the state of glorified saints in heaven, appears by its descending from heaven in both places [where it is mentioned;] and that, according to the use of the phrase, ch. x. 1. and xviii. 1, is an ex- pression of some eminent benefit to the church: and being here set down, with the glory of God upon it, it will signi- fy the pure Christian Church, joining Christian practice with the profession thereof, and that in a flourishing con- dition, expressed by the new heaven and new earth. In this sense," he adds, " we have the supernal Jerusa- * Ver. 1, 2, 3. 16 SECOND COMING OF THE LORD, lem, (Gal. iv. 26) and the New Jerusalem (Rev. iii. 12), where, to the constant professor, is promised, that God will write on him the name of God, and the name of the city of God, the ISew Jerusalem; which there is the pure Catholic Christian Church." As to its being first said, that John saw a new heaven and a new earth, be- cause the former heaven and earth had passed away, all commentators admit, that that is a phrase constantly used in the prophetic style to denote a complete reno- vation of the thing treated of, — the putting an entire end to one order of things, and the commencement of a new one, either with respect to particular or to general churches; in which sense it occurs in numerous pas- sages of the Old Testament, where a new heaven and earth cannot literally be meant.* II. Here then, I trust you will admit, we have a clear and, at least, highly probable view of the signification of the prophecies which announce a Second Coming of the Lord, and the manifestation of a New Jerusalem: the next consideration is, Are there any circumstances and * The comraon reader of the Scriptures naturally supposes, when he comes to a prophecy respecting the passing away ot heaven and earth, that the phrase refers to the end of thewoild; though the most simple reader must be somewhat puzzled to understand how the new heaven and new earth spoken of as to succeed the former, can relate to the state of saints in heaven, which is the only state that our natural apprehensions lead us to look for after the end of the world. The learned, however, have long been so fully convinced, that these phrases do not in general relate to the end of the world, and to the state of the saints expected to succeed that event, that it is wonderful how they can still retain the opinion, that the end of the world is, nevertheless, predicted by any of them. In the Old Testament as well as in the revelation, the form- ation of new heavens and earth is mentioned in connexion with the restoration and re-establishment of Zion or Jerusalem : the reason is, because Zion and Jerusalem are constantly mention- ed in prophecy as types of the church itself. In the Old Testa- ment, when their restoration is spoken of, they are evident types of the church which was to be raised in consequence of the Lord's coming into the world, and called the Christian church, to distinguish it from the Israelitish or Jewish ; consequently, in the Revelation, a new Jerusalem can mean nothing else than a new Church, — a restoration of pure Christianity to more than its primi- tive glory. And both these events are said to be accompanied with the formation of a new heaven and new earth, to denote the entire newness of the respective churches as to their inward life and out- ward conversation, internal principles and external practice ; all the corrupt persuasions and evils which had perverted the former chur- ches bemg wholly removed. SECOND COMING OF THE LORD. 17 signs observable at the present day, which lead to the conclusion, that the time for the great divine interference thus prophetically delineated has arrived? Permit me,, before I proceed to offer an answer to this question, to> observe, that an affirmative reply does not, as too muiiy are inconsiderately apt to suppose, necessarily involve an absurdity. All who acknowledge the authority of the Scriptures, must allow, that the Second Coming of the Lord most assuredly will lake place at some period or other; and if, as I trust has been conclusively shewn, the commonly imagined mode of his appearance cannot be the true one, it is the more probable that it will tako place, as is also plainly predicted, in an unexpected time and manner; — '^' in such an hour as ye think not, the Son of man cometh."* It is to be expected then, that, come when it may, multitudes — perhaps the majority — of the Christian world will be unwilling to credit the tidings, and will deride those who believe them as silly- enthusiasts: — as the Lord declares again, "When the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith in the earth ?"t When therefore we announce to the world our belief, that this consummation of divine prophecy is now taking place, we are aware that we shall draw upon ourselves the contempt and ridicule of the superficial and the fri- volous: but we are at the same time sure, that all the so- ber and the reflecting, — all who will candidly examine the reasons which have brought us to this conviction, must become sensible of their strength, and will find it no easy matter to put them aside. Certain it is, that all divine prediction must one day be fulfilled: if then what is advanced in proof of such fulfilment having taken place be not altogether unworthy of the subject, they who urge it are at least entitled to be listened to with candor, and to have their arguments fairly considered. If, on the contrary, the mere asserting that the time has arrived for the accomplishment of a great Scripture-pro- phecy, is sufficient to authorize the treatment of those who advance it with derision and contempt, then it was right in the Scribes and Pharisees to treat with contempt the testimony of the Baptist; and it will be difficult to prove them wrong when they crucified the Saviour him- self. * Matt xxiv. 44. t Luke xvii. 8. 2* 18 SECOND COMING OF THE LORD. If then the view of the nature of the promised Second Advent of the Lord and descent of the New Jerusalem which has now been imperfectly sketched, should be deemed probable and satisfactory, 1 might urge, that the publication, in the present day, of a system of Christian doctrine in which such a view is afforded, alone gives reason to apprehend, upon the principle that the prophecies of Scripture are never exactly understood till the time of their accomplishment, that the time for the accomplishment of these great prophecies has arrived, or, at least, must be near at hand. It is indeed true, as has been shewn, that many have before concluded, from the known signification of Jerusalem in prophetic lan- guage, as denoting the church, (a signification expli- citly assigned it by the apostles,)* that the New Jeru- salem of the Apocalypse must signify a new and greatly improved state of Christianity in the world: our expli- cation then of this sublime prophecy is not new, except in regard to the greater precision with which the particu- lars of its signification are unfolded: but the explication of the prophecy of the coming of the Lord in the clouds of heaven, as denoting his presence in the literal sense of his Word and the unfolding of the bright glory of its spiritual or internal sense, was never known in the church, till delivered in the doctrines which we believe to be those of the *' New Jerusalem:" if then this is the true explication, (and that it is so is capable of being pro- ved with a weight of evidence that makes negation diffi- cult,"!") this circumstance alone affords a sign, that the time fx)r the accomplishment of these predictions, in their true sense, which is their spiritual sense, has ar- rived. The mere statement of this argument here may not appear to carry much weight: but when it is con- nected with a knowledge of what the doctrines which we believe to be those of "the New Jerusalem" arc; when these doctrines are seen to exhibit all the great truths of pure Christianity in a clearer light than ever they were placed in before, and to discover with demon- strative evidence the errors of the sentiments by which * Gal. iv. 26 ; Heb. xii. 22. t See some of this evidence in " The Plenary Inspiration," &c. in the passage referred to in a former note, and in the Appendix to that work. No. iv. SECOND COMING OF THE LORD. 19 their genuine lustre has been long obscured; when, to- gether with the doctrines of pure Christianity, the spi- ritual sense of the Scriptures is seen to be truly unfolded, its existence demonstrated, and the Word of God proved in consequence to be the Word of God indeed: — When, I say, these truths are seen, as they may be seen, in the Writings of the Author we so highly esteem; every mind which duly appreciates them will be apt to con- clude, that such discoveries could never have been made by any unassisted human intellect, and that the only probable way of assigning them an origin, is, to regard them as a consequence of that Second Coming of the Lord which they announce. I do not however insist upon this argument at present; but I trust that some of the considerations which give it weight, will appear in the progress of this Appeal. But beside such evidences that the present is the era of the Second Coming of the Lord as require examina- tion to discern them, are there none which may be ob- vious even to the superficial observer? It is said, that " every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him;"* words which imply, that his coming must be attended with signs perceptible to every understanding, even to those who do not and will not acknowledge him, how palpably soever the signs may declare his advent: Are there then any such signs as these exhibited before the world at this day? 1 answer without hesitation, such signs are abundant and obvious; so much so, that there is not one person in this country, possessing a share of information and observation sufficient to raise him above the most stupid of the vulgar, who has not remarked them with astonishment, — who does not behold them making continually fresh calls upon his attention. It is true, that, though the signs are obvious, the true cause from which they proceed is not generally adverted to : Because the manner of the Lord's second coming, like that of his first coming, differs from the common expec- tation, his presence is not generally discerned now, any more than it was then: But this only strengthens the parallelism of the case; since the Lord rebuked that gen- eration also, because they could not " discern the signs of the times."! i^ut whether discerned, — rightly weigh- * Rev. i. 7. t Matt. xvi. S ; Luke xii. 56. 20 SECOND COMING OF THE LORD. ed and discriminated, — or not, the signs have been such as to force themselves on the notice of all. Does not every voice confess that we are living in a most extraor- dinary era of the world? Is not every mind impressed with the conviction, that there is something almost pre- ternatural in the character of the present times? Has not the change which has taken place during the last thirty or forty years, the seeds of which had been fermenting for twenty or thirty years previously, in the whole aspect of Europe, of Christendom, of the world, such as has filled with amazement every one who has witnessed it, every one who contemplates it? After every section of the great family of mankind has been seen struggling through convulsions which seemed to threaten the disso- lution of all human society, does not order, — a new and improved order, — appear again to be emerging out of chaos ? Are not extraordinary improvements, in everything connected with the comforts of human life, and the advancement of the species in civiliza- tion, in knowledge, and, ultimately, in virtue, con- tinually springing up? and are they not continually calling forth, Irom every quarter, exclamations of sur- prise, and expanding every bosom with the hope, that the opening of a new and happier day than the world has ever before seen is now dawning on mankind? But I forbear to enter more particularly into this delight- ful part of my argument at present, as it will be neces- sary to turn to it again when I come, in the next Section but one, to treat of the Last Judgment, — a subject in- timately connected with that of the Second Coming of the Lord. Meanwhile, this slight hint may suffice, per- haps, to open new ideas in the minds of the Reflecting, when they turn their attention to these striking facts. At present I will only say, that in the wonderful visita- tions of Providence, both in the way of judgment and of mercy, which the present generation has witnessed and is witnessing still, loe behold plain signs of the times of the Second Advent. They are such, unquestionably, as are commensurate with the grandest cause which can be assigned for their production: and how can they so worthily be considered, as by beholding in them the results of the fulfilment of the last great predictions of Holy Writ, — as by viewing them as harbingers of the Second Coming of the Lord? SECOND COMING OF THE LORD. 21 Ultima cumsei venit jam carminis setas : Magnus ab integro ssclorum nas citur ordo : Jam redit et Virgo, redeunt Saturnia regna. III. But, in the third place, while there are many circumstances and signs in the political and social aspect of the world at this day, which indicate that the time for the divine interference described in Scripture as the Second Coming of the Lord has arrived; are there not also circumstances in the situation of the world in re- gard to religion, which evince, that the restoration of true religion, promised under the figures of a Second Coming of the Lord and establishment of a New Jeru- salem, cannot be much longer delayed without the most serious injury to the human race? It may at first per- haps appear paradoxical, that I should, on the one hand, advert to signs of the times which promise to the human race a new career of improvement and happiness, and draw thence an argument for the present being the era of the long expected Second Coming of the Lord; and, on the other hand, that I should point to signs which threaten to the human race most serious injury, to de- duce thence also an argument in proof of the same po- sition. But when the matter is accurately inspected, it will be found that there is here no inconsistency, and that the two arguments, instead of neutralizing, do in reality strongly support each other. For all the pleasing cir- cumstances that have been alluded to only refer to man as a rational being and an inhabitant of this world; his state in regard to religion refers to him as a spiritual being also, and the destined inhabitant of eternity: an improvement of his condition in the former respect evinces an increased action'of the divine influences in his behalf, the ultimate aim of which is to effect an im- provement of his condition in the latter; but could the designs of Providence in this respect be frustrated, no improvement of the lower kind could bring real blessings, or could possibly be permanent. When a piece of new land is to be brought into cultivation, the first thing to be done is to clear the surface of its useless products, and to prepare the soil; the next is, to sow the seeds from which is to be produced the desired harvest. All im- provements in the general condition of the human race, and in the natural powers and attainments of the human mind, answer to the process of the preparation of the 22 SECOND C03IING OF THE LORD soil; and when it is thus prepared, unless the seeds of genuine Divine Trut!i be sown in it, the rankest weeds will spring up in abundance, and all the pains of the preparation be made abortive. Here then let us ask a few questions. Do the views of religion generally entertained afford these seeds? Are the seeds which they do afford such as the soil of the human mind, in its present improved state of prepa- ration, finds congenial to itself, and which it will willingly admit into its bosom? If not, is there not a manifest necessity, if man continues to be an object of regard to his Maker, that a new dispensation of Divine Truth, adapted to the present state and wants of the human mind, should be communicated from its Divine Source; — a dispensation by which the veil of error, in which the doctrines of genuine Christianity have been too long involved, should be torn away, and the face of pure ^tcligion, in all the glory of her native beauty, should oe again discovered to mankind? And should such a dispensation be too long withheld; — in other words, should the Second Coming of the Lord be too long de- layed; is there not reason to apprehend that the rank weeds of Infidelity, which have already, in copious abun- dance, begun to appear, would overspread the whole field of the human mind, and blast all hopes of any real improvement, in wisdom and happiness, for the hu- man race? To consider each of these questions with the attention which its importance demands, would require more space thyn can consistently be allowed to this portion of our Appeal: I shall therefore answer them very briefly, and leave you, to whose reflections my Appeal is addressed, more maturely to weigh them for your- selves. The first of them, — Do the veiws of religion now gene- ralhj entertained afford the pure seeds of Divine Truthl — will perhaps receive a conclusive answer in some of the future Sections of this Appeal: for if it shall then appear that the Doctrines of Genuine Truth on the must momentous subjects of faith and life are different from those commonly maintained, it is evident, that pure divine truth is not in these to be found: and 1 had rather this should thus appear by inference, than enter into a SECOND COMING OP THE LORD. 23 harsh exposure of what we esteem the errors of the prevaihng views on religion. The second question, — Are the seeds which the pre- vailing views of leligion do afford^ such as the soil of the huma?i mind, in its presetif improved state of prepara- tion, finds congenial to itself, and which it will tcHlingly admit into its bosom'? — may perhaps be answered without offence to any one: for it is a simple question of fact; and the fact, as obvious to every one, decidedly answers it in the negative. Is it not a fact which every one has observed, that the great bulk of mankind, at the pres- ent day, hold their religous sentiments much more loosely than was formerly the case.'' They, even, who are most decidedly convinced of the truth of the Christian religion in general, are, for the most part, much less tenacious than their fathers used to be of the truth of any particular scheme of it: indeed, were I to say, that iew feel any considerable confidence in the truth of the doctrines held by their respective sects as the very doc- trines of Christianity, I believe I should only state the sum of all individual experience on the subject. Among the evident signs of a great change which has taken place in the human mind, or in men's modes of thinking, this is one; that men are universally become more disposed than formerly to inquire into the truth of the doctrines which they are required to believe, and are becoming daily less and less capable of acquiescing in implicit faith without the exercise of their own reason and under- standing: how then is it possible that doctrines, the chief of which have always been acknowledged by their advocates to be incomprehensible, — to be matters of such a faith as rejects all interference of the under- standing, because, if the understanding were allowed its exercise it would reject them; — how is it possible that such doctrines can retain their influence over the human mind in its present altered state? Most unques- tionably true is the remark of a celebrated Christian orator, that the forms under which religion is usually presented, though sufficient to feed with spiritual suste- nance the minds of men in past ages, are no longer suited to the necessities of the present, but are become as '' lifeless and bare trunks containing in them neither sap nor nourishment."* Unsatisfying dogmas, if they * Rev. E. Irving, in his Farewell Sermon at Glasgow. 24 SECOND COMING OF THE LORD. led the well disposed mind to the acknowledgment of his God and Saviour and to the life of religion, might answer the main ends of true religion, so long as the human mind could simply acquiesce in them without in- quiry: but when the human mind has come into such a state as to be satisfied with a blind faith no longer; — when it also is prepared, by the improved culture of its rational powers, for the reception of the seeds of the pure and genuine truth; — it no longer finds such unsatis- fying dogmas congenial to itself; — it no longer can draw from them its needed stores of spiritual nourishment; and it refuses therefore to admit their seeds into its bosom. That this is, most extensively, the state of the human mind at this day in regard to the views of religion commonly prevailing, is too evident for the most determined advocate of those views to deny. Then, assuredly, our next question must be answered at once in the affirmative; and it must be admitted, That there is a manifest necessity^ if man continues to be an object of regard to his Maker ^ that a new dispensation of Divine Truth , adapted to the present state and wants of the human 7nind, should be communicated from its Divine Source : — in other words, that the long expected Second Coming of the Lord should in these times be revealed. This dispensation must be such, as to remove the clouds of error in which the beauty of pure Christianity has been long involved; to restore the right understanding of the Word of God, and conclusively to demonstrate its divine origin; to exhibit in a rational as well as Scrip- tural light the divinity of the Christian Redeemer, with- out the just acknowledgment of which no Church truly called Christian can exist; and to display in a satisfac- tory manner the nature of man's immortality and of his life hereafter, at the same time that it rediscovers the true nature of the means by which that immortality may be made an immortality of happiness. In short, it must be a dispensation which shall effect the union of reason with religion, without divesting the latter of its spiritual- ity, as merely rational (as they are called) schemes of religion invariably have done; but which shall add spirit- uality to reason and exalt it with both. Whether the system of religion embraced by those who humbly trust that they belong to the New Church of the Lord, which they believe to be predicted in the Revelation under SECOND COMING OF THE LORD. 25 the figure of a New Jerusalem, answers to this charac- ter, may in some measure appear as we proceed: but without reference to any specific system, it seems diflS- cult to deny, that the communication of such a dispen- sation of Divine Truth as we have here slightly sketched an idea of is essentially important to the present state and spiritual necessities of mankind. For should such a dispensation be too long withheld, must we not answer our last question also in the affirm- ative, and conclude, That there is reason to apprehend that the ranh loecds of Infidelity, which have already, in copious abundance, begun to appear, would overspread the whole Jield of the human mind^ and blast all hopes of any real improvement, in wisdom and happiness, for the human racel The strong hold of Infidelity is, the irrationality of the doctrines commonly affirmed to be those of the Word of God. These are such as reason, when once it ven- tures to look at them, must reject: and when such doc- trines are supposed to be those of the Scriptures, and the true nature of the Scriptures themselves is also totally misunderstood, the inevitable consequence is, that the Scriptures are rejected v/ith them. Set then the Scrip- tures in their proper light; especially, prove that they are written by the laws of that invariable correspondence or analogy which exists by creation between natural things and spiritual, whence, while merely natural things are for the most part treated of in their literal sense, they are only used as types of purely spiritual ideas; — thus, prove that the Scriptures have in them a spiritual sense in which the wisdom of God in all its glory shines: then show what their doctrines really are, and evince that the genuine dictates of Scripture invariably harmo- nize with the genuine dictates of Reason, — that though they contain truths far beyond the reach of unassisted Reason to discover, they always are such as Reason, thus enlightened, accepts, approves, and can by nume- rous arguments confirm: — thus, exhibit the main top- ics of religion in their proper light; and you immediately deprive Infidelity of its power over the unsophisticated mind, that retains its unbiassed love of truth and desire of knowing it. But certainly, nothing like this is done in the views of religion commonly prevailing; and we see the awful consequences: we see, not only deism, but atheism, unblushingly avowed by numbers even in 3 26 SECOND COMING OF THE LORD. this favored land; while on the continent of Europe it is too well known that they are far more universal, both among the Roman Catholic nnd the Protestant States. The fashionable school of divinity, even, through a great part of Christendom, led by the late Dr Semlar and the present Dr Eichhorn, allows nothing of the proper na- ture of inspiration to the New Testament, and denies it to the Old Testament altogether, insomuch that the Consistory of Wurtemburg have gone to the length of forbidding the clergy to take from the Old Testament the subjects of their sermons.* Here are plain symp- toms indeed of a growing tendency to Infidelity: Is there anything in the views of the Scriptures, and of the doctrines of Christianity, commonly entertained, which is capable of stemming the torrent? Is there not then reason to apprehend the most disastrous conse- quences to the human race, should the proper antidote be much longer withheld, — should the Second Coming of the Lord, in the sense explained above, be much lon- ger delayed? IV. To come to the conclusion of the present subject. What has been offered, may, I would fain hope, have been sufficient to satisfy all who consider the important subjects with due reflection, that our pretensions are not very extravagant when we affirm our belief, that a new dispensation of Divine Truth is in reality in this day communicated, and that we are actually living in the age of the Second Coming of the Lord. But some of you, perhaps, may be afraid to give ear to the arguments presented by the signs we have considered, and to ad- mit the belief, that the light by which they are discov- ered, and the doctrines with which they are connected, are really those of the New Jerusalem, for fear of in- curring the reproach of enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is the charge with which the world is ever ready to stigmatize all who sincerely believe that God exercises u provi- dence in human affairs, especially in whatever relates to his Church, and who practically admit the acknow- ledgement, that the predictions of Scripture are not to remain a dead letter for ever, but that it really is possi- ble, that what Divine Truth has foretold, may one day ♦ See the Intellectual Repository for the New Church, New Se- ries, vol. i. p. 608. SECOND COMING OF THE LORD. 27 come to pass. Indeed, none can consistently ridicule others for believing that a prediction of Scripture has come to pass, but they who in their hearts do not be- lieve in the Scriptures at all, nor even in the Omni- science and foreknowledge of the Deity. It is true that there have been wild enthusiasts enow, who have grounded their idle fancies on the prophecies of Scrip- ture. But how have such enthusiasts usually acted? By expecting some great thing to take place in outward nature, and themselves to be exalted to high honor and worldly dignity; — by fancying that Jesus Christ would come in person to reign on the earth, and that they that have faith to believe this would be made his vicegerents in the government of mankind; — with other extravagancesof a similar kind, originating in a miscon- ception of the true nature of divine prediction, and of the manner in which it is to be fulfilled. Look at tae pre- tensions of the false Christs and false prophets that have arisen in different ages: and you v/111 find notions of this kind to pervade them all. All such flights of enthusiasm find a complete antidote in the doctrine, which we are satisfied is as true now as at the Lord's first coming in the flesh, that his kingdom is n )t of this world. If we were to hold out, as enthusiasts have done, peculiar privileges on this side of the grave, we perhaps might, like some of them, soon find many more disciples; but they would be such as would not be worth having, because such as, like unconverted Peter, sa- vor not the things of God, but the things that be of men.* We have no worldly dignities to offer, — no, nor any short path to heaven. The only path to the blissful seats, with which we are acquainted, is the path of repentance and regeneration; and these works, we believe cannot be radically performed, but by the power of the Lord Jesus Christ, believed in as the Way, the Truth, and the Life, received in humility, and combined with hearty obedience on the part of man. The law that regulates admission into the New Church or New Je- rusalem, is, that " there s'lall in no wise enter therein anything that is unclean, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie;"t by which we understand, that whosoever would be benefited by the new dispensa- * Matt. xvi. 23. t Rev. xxi. 27. 28 SECOND COMING OF THE LORD. tion of the everlasting gospel, must regulate his life, from his inmost thoughts to his outmost deeds, by the immuta- ble laws of order contained in the divine commandments; especially laboring to remove from his affections whatso- ever is inconsistent with the love and purity of the hea- venly kingdom, and from his thoughts or opmions what- ever is disowned by the Divine Truth, which constitutes the law of that kingdom: and this he must do in humble dependence upon, and devout elevation of his mind to, the Lord Jesus Christ, as Him who ever reigns in that kingdom, the King of kings and Lord of lords. We do not believe then that anew dispensation of the everlast- ing gospel is offered toman, to contradict, in the slight- est degree, former dispensations, but to fulfil them, by in- troducing into them their proper spirit and life. We are convinced, that they who embrace the new dispensation should walk in newness of the spirit, not in oldness of the letter; that as all former dispensations have required men to love God and ke^;) his commandments, s> in this they must do so from a deeper ground in the heart and with more entire conformity in their practice. Thus we believe that the distinguishing superiority of the new dispensation will consist solely in these things: — the su- perior clearness with which the person and nature of the God who is therein to be worshipped will be seen, with a more plain discovery of the way in which an accepta- ble service can be offered to him, combined with the more powerful communication of a divine influence from him, enabling those who acknowledge him to fight suc- cessfully against their own corruptions, and so to ren- der to him this acceptable service. Whilst then we point out to mankind the signs which demonstrate that the Second Coming of the Lord is arrived, we do not mean to fill their heads with idle fancies of no one knows what; but to enforce upon them the fact, that now are they called, more unequivocally than at any former period, to acknowledge the only true God, and to be assured that the first of all the commandments is, to love the Lord our God with all the heart, soul, mind, and strength, and that the second is like unto it — to love our neighbor as ourselves. We only wish to urge upon them the necessity of becoming such ser- vants of God and such friends of mankind, by the as- surance that every divine aid is offered that v/ill enable THE RESURRECTION. 29 them to do so. If this be enthusiasm, it is an enthusiasm, allow me to say, which every sincerely well disposed mind ought by all means to foster: it is an enthusiasm which every friend of humanity ought to desire should become universal: for it is an enthusiasm which, if once made universal, would speedily banish evil and misery from the earth, and bring on halcyon days of universal contentment and peace. SECTION III. The Resurrection. The next subject which seems most naturally to de- mand our attention, after having considered that of the Second Coming of the Lord, is that of the Last Judg- ment; for that the execution of the Last Judgment must accompany the arrival of the Second Advent, is univer- sally believed by Christians, and is most plainly announ- ced in the Word of God. But here a question of great importance arises, respecting the scene of the last judg- ment. — whether it is to be in the natural or in the spirit- ual world. As the common opinion is, not only, as the apostle declares, that man is to be judged " for the things done in the body," but also, beyond what either the Apostle or any other divine authority has declared, that he is to be judged in the body, the general expectation is, that the body is to be called out of the tomb for this purpose; and, consequently, that the scene of the last judgment is to be in this world of nature. The Scriptures have conducted us to a quite different conclusion. We are satisfied, upon their authority, which here assuredly coincides with the plainest dictates of reason, that, when the body is laid aside by death, we have done with it for ever; that man then becomes a living inhabitant of a spiritual world, in which he is to continue his existence forever; and that, consequently, the Last Judgment can only be accomplished in the world in which all the hu- man race are collected together, — that is, in the spiritual world, and not in the natural world, to which they who have once quitted it will return no more. Before then 3* 30 THE RESURRECTION. you can decide upon the subject of the Last Judgment, it is necessary that I should appeal to you upon that of the Resurrection. In my last section, on the vSecond Coming ofthe Lord, I had no occasion to notice the Rev. Mr Beaumont, or his publication, the Anti-Swedenborg; as, though that subject is of primary importance, and just views of it are essential to the right appielicnsion of some of the points against which Mr B. has directed his attacks, where- fore it was by no means to be passed over by me, he has not bestowed upon it any share of his attention. But the doctrine ofthe New Church on the subject of the Resurrection is assailed by that gentleman with peculiar vehemence; wherefore, in this exposition and defence of it, I shall chiefly shape my remarks with a direct view to his. Allow me then to state, in a few words, the sum of our views upon this subject; they being such as we think are peculiarly adapted to recommend themselves, inde- pendently of all argument, to the Serious and the Re- flecting. V/e believe then the true doctrine of the Scriptures, upon the important question ofthe Resurrection, to be this: That man rises from the grave, — not merely from , the grave in the earth, but from the grave of his dead material body, immediately after death; that he then finds himselfin a world, not of mere shadows, but of sub- stantial existences, himself being a real and substantial man, in perfect human form, possessing all the senses and powers proper to a man, though he is no longer ca- pable of being seen by men in this world, whose senses and capacities of perception are comparatively dull and gross, owing to their being still shrouded over with a gross body of unapprehensive clay. The latter part of this assertion, that the spirit of a man is a real substance, though not a material substance, and thus is the man himself, is capable of being proved, as may perhaps appear in the sequel, by most conclusive arguments, both from reason and Scripture: but, I will here confine myself to the former part ofthe doctrine; — that man rises from the dead immediately after death; and this virtually includes the other. Permit me then here to give vent to my own feelings by saying, that this is indeed a " most glorious and THE RESURRECTIOX. 31 heart-cheering doctrine:" v/hereas to suppose, with the writer of the Anti-Swedenborg, that there is no real res- urrection except the resurrection of the body, is to open the door to the most dark and gloomy apprehensions. What is become of the first inhabitants of this globe, and all who lived before the flood? Can any one seriously suppose, that they are out of existence, or, at best, have only a very imperfect and uncomfortable existence, be- cause destitute of that body which has been undistin- guishably mixed with the elements for five thousand years? and that they are still to pine for no one knows how many thousand years longer, before they will be themselves again, or can enjoy the happiness which Scripture everywhere promises to the saints without anywhere hinting at the immeasurably long, dreary in- terval of suspense, which they are to languish through before they can enjoy it? How does such a notion com- port with the answer of the Lord Jesus Christ to the carnal-minded Sadducees, half whose doctrine, at least, has been translated into the creed of the opposers of the New Church: for the Sadducees affirmed, '^ that there is no resurrection, neither angel, nor spirit:''* and the op- posers of the New Church, such at least as the author of the Anti-Swedenborg, affirm, that there is no real resurrection but that of the body. But is not the an- swer of the Lord Jesus Christ to the ancient Sadducees, an answer to these modern ones likewise? " Now that the dead are raised," saith He, " even Moses" — Moses, who never openly treats of the subject, — but " even Moses shewed at the bush, when he calleth the Lord the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob: for he is not the God of the dead, but of the living: for all live unto him."t Is not this affirming that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, were living at the very time that this was written of them by Moses, — that they were not then slumbering in their graves? Most truly does our Accuser say, " that the doctrine of odily, was aggra- ^ Ch. six. 20. t Job xi2. 21, 22. 4 38 THE RESURRECTIOxV. vated to such a degree, that, as he adds, " his reins are consumed witliin him." Accordingly, all this pious con- iidence of his was justified by the event, and his hopes were completely fulfilled. At the end of the book, God himself is represented as interposing. In the passage we have been considering. Job says, " In my flesh shall I sen God, whom / shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall beJiold, and not another:" ^In the last chapter he says, " I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now 7?iine eye seeth thee."* In the passage we have been considering, Job declares his reliance that he should see God interfere as his Redeemer or Deliverer: In the last chapter God docs interfere in this character; " and the Lord turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his friends: also, the Lord gave Job twice as miicJi as he had before.''^ " And after this lived Job a hundred and forty years, and saw his sons, and his son's sons, even four generations. So Job died, being old and full of days."t Can the parallelism between the expectation and the accomplishment be more complete.'' What vio- lence then is done to the text, when the conclusion of the history is disregarded, and Job's hopes are referred to an imaginary resurrection of his body! And, surely, to put this text in the front, to prove the resurrection of the body, when it has no relation to a resurrection of any sort, is equivalent to an acknowledgment that the resur- rection of the body is not a doctrine of the Scriptures.J " Ch. xlii. 5. i Job xlii. 10, 16, 17. X To the above remarks may be added, that many of the most em- inent of those who contend for the resurrection of the body, candid- ly allow that this famous passage has nothiuio: to do with the ques- " tion. This admission, for instance, is made by the learned Dr Ho- dy, in his work in defence of the Resurrection of the same Body ; and he cites, to the same purport, the following remarks of Grotius, which I translate as closely as possible: "Not a few Christians have used this text to prove the resurrection : but to do this, they are compelled in their versions to depart much from the Hebrew, as has been observed by Mercer and others. The Hebrew" adds Gro- tius, " is to this effect: ' I know that my redeemer liveth, and that He at last will stand in the field (that is, will be victor.) Although they (his distempers) should not only consume my skin, but also this, (namely, the fat which is under the skin,) nevertheless in my flesh I shall see God (that is, shall experience his favor :) I, I say, with these my eyes, I, not another for me. My reins have failed within me, (that is, my inmost parts are devoured with indignation at yoxir reproaches.)' " THE RESURRECTION. 39 Mr Beaumont's next citation is the following : " There- fore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth; my flesh also shall rest in hope; for thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thy Holy One to see cor- ruption."* This is so palpably beside the question, that it is needless to waste words in exposing its inapplica- bility. The declaration is made respecting a Holy Be- ing, whose body was not to see corruption: but the bodies of all men do see corruption: consequently, this declara- tion does not relate to the bodies of men in general. Probably, then, most readers will prefer, to'Mr Beau- mont's application of the words, the application of them by the Apostle Peter: '' Men and brethren, let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulchre is with us unto this day. Therefore, being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne; he seeing this before, spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul teas not left in hell, neither ms flesh did see corruption, "t Such was the force of this reasoning, that three thousand souls were con- verted by it: but the argument was a mere sophism, and they who yielded to it were not converted but entrapped, if, as Mr B. would pretend, the words are as true of David, and of every other mortal, as of the Lord Jesus Christ. We are then presented with a passage from Daniel; where also, though it is not so obviously remote from the subject, a little reflection may convince any one, that the prophet is not speaking of the resurrection of the body. He says, '' And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt."! jVow most people believe, that, whether the body rises again or not, the resurrection extends to all whose bodies are deposited in the dust: yet this passage only says, that mmiT/ of them that sleep in the dust shall awake: and this difficulty is so insurmountable, that the more candid of the advocates for the resurrection of the body ac- knowledge that this passage cannot relate to the sub- ject. If we are to abide strictly by the letter in the ^ Ps. xvi. 9, 10. t Acts it. 29, 30, 3* $ Ch. xii. 2. 40 THE RESURRECTION. words sleeping in the dust, we must abide by the let- ter in the word many : hence, if we make the passage say, that many of the bodies which lie in the dust shall be raised, we make it say as positively, that some of them shall not be raised: and thus wc involve the whole in contradiction. To sleep, and to sleep in the dust, are phrases belonging to that peculiar style of language in which the Scriptures are written, and which is framed from the correspondence, analogy, or mutual relation, established by the Creator between natural things and spiritual; which is such, that the former regularly an- swer to the latter, and afford exact images for giving them expression; as I have endeavored to explain in a distinct work on that subject. In this style of language, to sleep, and to sleep in the dust, mean, to be in a merely natural and sensual state of life ; and to awake from thi& state to everlasting life, is to arise to a state af truly spiritual life, accompanied with eternal happiness; while to awake to shame and everlasting contempt, is to pass indeed into a spiritual state, but such a one as belongs to infernal spirits, accompanied with eternal misery. Thus to sleep in the dust, and to awake thence, have no reference whatever to the unconscious dead body,, but to the man, of whom the dead body no longer forms any part. Hence we read, both of the wise and the foolish virgins, that while the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept ; and surely no one ever referred the expressions, in this instance, to the body in the grave. So when the Apostle, paraphrasing the prophet, says, Aivake, thou that deepest and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light;* he certainly does not al- lude to the sleep of the grave, or address the dead bodies there but calls those who are slumbering in a merely natural state, and who are spiritually dead, to arise to a state of spiritual light and life- Thus also, when Isaiah exclaims, " Shake thyself from the dust; arise, and sit down, O Jerusalem ;^'t none understand the call to be addressed to the dead bodies of the Jewish people moul- dering in the dust of the grave. Equally unfounded is the application of the prophecy of Daniel, respecting * Eph, v. 11. t Isa. lii. 2. THE RESURRECTION. 41 them that sleep in the dust, to dead carcases in the tomb.* We now pass from the evidence of the Old Testament to that of the New: and though we shall here find ex- plicit documents on the subject of the resurrection, we shall find Mr Locke's assertion to be true, that it, like- wise, never speaks of the resurrection of the same [or the material] body. The first passage hence cited by Mr B, is one which has been much relied on by the advocates of the resur- rection of the body; and yet it is attended with particulars in itself and in its context, which make it utterly irre- concilable with that doctrine. " Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall cx)me forth; they that have done good unto the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of dam- nation."! The specific reference of these words we shall probably see when we come to consider the subject of the Last Judgment; but that they do not relate to any resurrection of deceased bodies, to take place many hundreds, probably many thousands of years after the words were uttered, is evident from this circumstance; that the great event referred to, whatever may be its true nature, is spoken of in the present tense, — the hour 25 coming^ — indicating, that the event was immediately about to take place. This is the constant import of the verb to come when used in the present tense, both in common language and in the language of Scripture. If the Divine Speaker had been referring to an event so distant as experience has now proved that the resurrec- tion of the body, if ever it takes place, must then have * I have explained the above text of Daniel according to its spir- itual sense, because I am of opinion that it really does relate, as they who apply it to the resurrection of the body suppose, to the last judgment ; and it is only in its spiritual sense that it refers to that event. But they who apply it to the resurrection of the body take it in its merest literal sense. That it has also, subordinately, a lit- eral or natural sense, I readily admit : but in that sense it certainly relates neither to the resurrection of the body nor to the last judg- ment. Let any one examine the context, and then decide whether, in the literal sense, it can possibly refer to th& last judgment ; and if not, neither can it, even in that sense, refer to the resurrection of the body. t John v. 28. 4* 42 THE RESURRECTION. been, he would not have said '^ the hour is coming,^^ but " the hour irill come ;" as when he says, in Luke, " The days ?^v7/ cowe when ye shall desire to see one of the days of the Son of man:" — when he says, "the hour Cometh, or is coming,^'' he certainly means, is presently at hand*' But if the mode of expression be not itself deemed sufficient to put this beyond all doubt, all doubt must vanish when the parallel passage, three verses pre- vious, is consulted, of which this is only a more detailed repetition. The Lord there says, " Verily, verily, I say unto you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live. "t Certainly, " the dead," " all that are in the graves," — cannot mean, literally, corpses in the tomb; for all these have never yet heard the voice of the Son of God, lived, and come forth; although the Lord declares that the hour of which he* was speaking, when this should take place, then 7cns. Whatever then may be intended by these divine declarations, we here have conclusive proof that they do not announce the resurrection of the body. The language of the Divine Speaker must be figurative; in fact, it is that of analogy or correspondence. This is further evident from the next verse preceding which introduces the subject: " Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life.''^'\ Here, those who are in a merely natural state, are spoken of as being in a state of death, notwithstanding they are living by natural life in the world. This evinces that it is not of natural death that the Divine Teacher is speaking: consequently, " the dead," mentioned directly afterwards, are not they who are naturally dead, and " all that are in the graves" are not the dead bodies in the tomb.§ Mr B.'s next quotation is the Lord's discourse with Martha (Joiui xi. 23 to 26): but hov/ directly this con- tradicts his opinion, instead of confirming it, we have * See, iy.- instance, Joan iv. 21 and 23. t Ver. 25. % Ver. 24. § But it not only is evident, upon comparino- the context, that " all that are in the graves," cannot mean all dead bodies, but it is shewn by Mr Locke, in the place cited above, that the words themselves, could they be separat^^ froju the context, cannot, without the great- est inconsistencies, be applied to such a resurrection. THE RESURRECTIOX. 43 already seen. It is true that, to strain it to his purpose, he would translate the last clause, ^' shall not die for erer," instead of " shall never die ;" but every one who is acquainted with the idiom of the New Testa- ment, knows that the words which, literally translated, are, " shall not die for ever," mean precisely the same as the English phrase, shall never die. By this phrase, therefore, our translators have honestly rendered them, notwithstanding they also had a predilection for the no- tion, that everlasting life is to have a great chasm in it.* Thus by this divine declaration, the change in the state of existence made by putting off the body is treated as unworthy of any regard; it is represented as not even making a break in the course of existence: and we may be satisfied that the Divine Giver of everlasting life does not mock us with empty words, and call that ever- lasting life, or living for ever, which is presently to be discontinued, and, after a lapse of thousands of years, is to begin again! Next we are presented with these words: "And as they spake unto the people, the priests, and the captains of the people, and the Sadducees, came upon them, being grieved that they taught the people, and preached through Jesus the resurrection from the dead."! No allusion here, we see, to any general resurrection of dead bodies: Indeed, this passage only refers to the res- urrection of Jesus himself; for according to the original it is, — " and preached in Jesus the resurrection from the dead;" — that is, that in the person of Jesus a resurrec- tion i^rom the dead had taken place; — in other words, that Jesus had risen from the dead; which certainly con- stituted the main burthen of the first preaching of the apostles. — Again: " Then certain philosophers of the Epicureans and of the Stoicks encountered him (Paul.) And some said, what will this babbler say? other some, He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange gods: because he preached to them Jesus and the resurrection. "J Still * Dr Doddridge justly observes, in his note upon this passage, « To render the words, — shall not die forever, or eternally, is both obscuring and enervating their sense, and (as I have elsewhere shewn notes on John iv. 14, and John viii. 51, 52) is grounded on a criti- cism v/hich cannot agree with the use of the phrase in parallel pas- sages." t Acts iv. 1,2. jCh.xvii. 18. 44 THE RESURRECTION. nothing about the resurrection of the body: indeed, this text also seems only to refer to the resurrection of Jesus. — " And have hope towards God, wliich they themselves also allow, that there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and unjust. — Except it be for this one voice, that I (Paul) cried standing among them, touching the resurrection of the dead I am called in question among you this day."* Still not a word about dead bodies. — " Women received their dead rai- sed to life again: and others were tortured, not accept- ing deliverance; that they might obtain a better resur- rection."! Here the dead whom the women received again certainly were restored in their bodies; they not only rose again in their bodies, but, as the necessary consequence of such a resurrection, they also died again in their bodies: but they hoped for a better resurrection, that is, better than the resurrection oj the body. — " Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which, according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." Here, again, no resurrection is spoken of, but that of Jesus Christ. " But the rest of the dead lived not again till the thousand vears were finished: this is the first resurrec- tion. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection."! This passage refers to things that were to take place in the spiritual world, not in the natural, at the time of the last judgment, wherefore I shall con- sider it when I come to treat of that subject; at present I will only quote a little more of it, which our refuter has judiciously suppressed, because, if suffered to appear it would take the whole passage completely out of his list of proofs, and add it to ours. The preceding verse says: "I saw the souls'''' (mind this — the souls, not the bodies; — " I saw the soids) of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads or in their hands; and thcij (not the bodies, mind, but they, the pronoun referring to the soids before mentioned as its antecedent,) lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. But the rest of the dead,^^ &c. Here then we ^ Ch. xxiv. 15, 21. t Heb. xi. 35. X Rev. xx. 5, 6. THE RfiSURRECTION-. 45 fiDcl that these souls are called the dead, as having passed by death out of the natural word; as well as for another reason that will be mentioned hereafter: and as, while souls are mentioned, not a syllable is said of any bodies, or of the resurrection of the body, it surely is a palpable violation of the sacred text to apply this part of it to confirm such a notion. The last passage which Mr B. adduces against us is this. " For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, -with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first." I wonder he did not add the next verse, which appears still stronger: for the Apostle goes on to say: '' Then we which are alive, and remain, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air:"* But I suppose the reason why Mr B. declined to add this to his quotation, w^as, because the language is so evi- dently figurative, that scarcely any can suppose that it is meant to be literally understood: and because, also, the Apostle here undeniably speaks according to certain mis- taken notions, which prevailed in the first ages. The fact is, that this text does not so properly belong to the subject of the Resurrection, as to that of the Second Coming of the Lord; and as, according to what has been shewn above, the true nature of the Second Coming of the Lord was not at that time plainly revealed, there- fore the Apostles never speak of it but in that prophetical style in which it had been predicted by the Lord himself, and which cannot be understood till spiritually decipher- ed. t Thus we have seen, that all the primitive Chris- tians, and the Apostles themselves, believed that it was to take place in that first age; and the language which Paul here twice uses, — '' ice that are alive and remain," — evinces, that he, at the time of his so writing, enter- tained the expectation of living to see it. This, experi- ence has proved, v/as a mistaken opinion altogether; yet wdth a reference to this mistaken opinion, assumed as true, all the Apostle's remarks are here framed. The * 1 Thes. iv. 16, 17. t See above, p. 9 and 12, and the note, p. 12 and 13; and I beg the reader to bear in mind what was there advanced, as the sub' ject is of great importance, and what is here stated was there, I trust I may say. incontrovertibly proved." 46 THE RESURRECTION. Thessalonian Christians expected to live to witness the Lord's second coming, and then to be admitted into a kingdom of superlative glory, in a new heaven and earth to be created tor the purpose after the destruction of the former: and they grieved for their deceased friends, fearing that none could enjoy the happiness of the Lord's new kingdom but they who lived to behold its establish- ment. Assuming then this expectation of the Lord's appearing, in this manner, and in the life-time of that generation, to be true, the Apostle applies himself to remove their gloomy apprehensions respecting their departed friends. He opens the subject with saying, ^'JBut I would not have ye to be ignorant, brethren, con- cerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope : for if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also that sleep in Jesus will God bring with him,"* Then he proceeds, *' For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord," [meaning, that he here repeats what the Lord himself had declared] ^' that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord, shall not prevent [be be- forehand with, or have any advantage over] them which are asleep. "f The two verses cited above next follow; and thej^ are purely a paraphrase of the Lord's own statement respecting his second coming, with the intro- duction of a clause respecting those who should be de- ceased, in regard to whom the Thessalonians were un- easy. The Lord had said, " They shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory; and he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. "J The Apostle says, " For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first" [or " shall rise before," or " previously ;" as is the sense of the word 7r/)&;rov, in Matt. v. 24,'ch. xii. 29, Mark ix. 11, 12, John xv. 18, ch. xix. 39, 2 Thes. ii. 3. 1 Tim. iii. 10, Sec.]: '' then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air." What can with certainty be gathered from this language, * Ver. 18, 14. t Ver. 15. J Matt. xxiv. 30, 31. THE RESURRECTION. 47 but that, as has been shewn before, neither the manner nor the time of the Lord's second coming were then re- vealed? Hence, with respect to the manner of it, we find the Apostle repeating, without explanation, the sym- bolic language in which the Lord had foretold it: and with respect to the time of it, we find him countenancing a most palpable error. Can any doctrine, then, with safety be drawn from his statement, beyond this; that they who '' sleep in Jesus," actually are " with him," — that is, that they are awake or alive towards him, though they are asleep towards us; or " that the dead in Christ were to rise" before his second cominc^ even thouorh this was then daily expected, — in other words, that they rise in and with Christ as soon as they die here ? And even if we understand as literally as we can the Apostle's words, respecting the dead in Christ rising first and ice (which must now be changed into theij) which are alive and remain being caught up into the air, still it will not follow that dead material bodies are thus to rise, or that living material bodies are to be thus transported; for, v/hen speaking in a similar manner in another place, to be considered presently, he says, that " we shall be changed," — shall change our material bodies for spirit- ual ones, — " in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye;" evidently teaching that, happen how it may, we are to be dispossessed of that " flesh and blood," which he affirms in the same place " cannot inherit the kingdom of God," and v/hich are so little suited for flying in the air. This brings me to the famous fifteenth chapter of the first Epistle to the Corinthians. We think tliat this por- tion of the Apostolic writings contains most decided statements in support of our views of the subject; and Mr Beaumont directs his reader to peruse the whole chapter from the 12th verse, saying, that "if, after so doing, he is not convinced of the erroneous doctrine of Swedenborg respecting the resurrection, then neither would he be persuaded though one rose from the dead."* This certainly is perfectly true: for we are quite sure that if any one were to come from the other life to inform us of the nature of that much mistaken country, his testimony would be in agreement with the doctrine of Swedenborg and of Paul, that departed spirits * Anti-Swedenborg, p. 48. M 48 THE RESURRECTION. there exist as perfect men, and would shudder at the thought of being again buried in a covering of clay. First let us look at the general scope of the Apostle's argument, — at the dcd^n with which the whole of it was composed: for this will greatly assist us rightly to un- derstand the particular expressions. Was it written to prove the doctrine of a resurrection, or of a future state, in general; or to prove the resurrection of the material body .'' " Now if Christ be preached, that he rose from the dead," says the Apostle when he commences the sub- ject, " how say some among you that there is no resur- rection of the dead?"* Does this mean, no resurrection of dead bodies; or, no rising in eternal life of those who have left this world by death.'' A few verses below we find an answer to this inquiry. The Apostle says, " If the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised: and if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. If in this life only we have hope, we are of all men most miserable."! Here the plain scope of the Apostle's argument is explicitly declared. He is reasoning against those who confined their hopes of happiness to tliis life only. He is disproving the monstrous error of supposing that the Christian's hope terminates here: and surely this awful mistake is guard- ed against quite as effectually by the doctrine which teaches that we shall rise again, and appear before our Judge, immediately after death, in bodies adapted for the liillest sense either of happiness or of misery, as by the doctrine v/hich teaches that \vg are not to be judged at all, nor even to have any distinct consciousness of existence, till the end of the world. Evident then it is, that the Apostle is writing against those who deny a resurrection altogether: not against those who do not expect a resurrection of the body. Accordingly, he says presently, " What shall they do which are baptized, for the dead, if the dead rise not at allV'^^ IVovv^ what- ever this baptizing for the dead might be, the Apostle clearly affirms that the use of it would be frustrated, not if the dead bodij never vises, but if the dead rise not at all. So he proceeds, still arguing against the idea, not that * Ver. 12. t Ver. 16 to 19. t Ver. 29. THE RESURRECTION. 49 there is no resurrection of the body, but that there is no future life, '* And why stand we in jeopardy every hour? I protest by the rejoicing which I have in Christ Jesus our L(;rd, I die daily" [meaning, that he was constantly exposing himself to the danger of dying; and was also mortifying in himself the life of the merely na- tural man.] '' If after the manner of men I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantageth it me if the dead rise not? Let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die."* Here the Apostle puts us still more clearly in possession of the whole scope of his argument. No- thing can be plainer than that he is solely contending for a future life, — a state of retribution, — against the mon- strous grossness of those who imagined that there is no resurrection whatever, and that when we die here we are extinct for ever. The resurrection of the body, then, has nothing to do with the main design of his ar- gument. The Apostle having thus settled so conclusively the main question, proceeds to ansvver those who objected to the doctrine of man's immortality, in consequence of observing, that the natural body was cast at death into the ground, and was there decomposed, without any- thing of the man anywhere remaining visible. " But some will say," he observes, '' How are the dead raised up? and with what body do they come? Thou fool," he replies, " that which thou sowest" (allud- ing to the operations of the husbandman) "is not quick- ened except it die. And that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body which shall he, but bare grain, it may chance of wheat or some other grain. But God givetii it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body."| Here we have the most unequi- vocal assertion, that man does not rise again with the same body as is laid in the grave. And to show that man may have a different body suited to the different state on which he enters after death, he proceeds to illus- trate it by similitudes from various natural objects. " All fle-^h," says he, " is not the same flesh: there is one kind of flesh of men, another of beasts, another of fish- es, and another of birds. There are also celestial bo- dies, and bodies terrestrial: but the glory" (or " form," * Ver. 30, 31,32. t Ver. 35 to 38. 5 1L 50 THE RESURRECTION. or '^ nature," as the original word here signifies) " of Ihr celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another. There is one glory" (Ibim, or nature) " of the sun, another glory of the moon, and another of the stars; for one star differeth from another star in glory."* Was it possible to prepare the rnit^d more naturally for the admission of the idea, that though th(^ natural body rises no more, man is not therefore left desti- tute of a body, but has a better in its place? To what purpose could this enumeration of different species of bodies serve, but to answer the objections of those who concluded, that because the body which was laid in the grave remains there, therefore there is no resurrection of the man? He proceeds: " So also is the resurrec- tion of the dead. It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption: It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory: It is sown in weakness: it is raised in power."! JVow he comes to the full, clear, New Jerusalem doc- trine : ^^ It is soicn a natural body; it is raised a spirit- ual 6ocZt/;" or, as the words might more exactly, and without any ambiguity, be translated, '^ A natural body is sown ; a spiritual body is raised.''^ To confirm this grand idea, he solemnly repeats it as a general truth: " There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body :"J — a most certain fact this, on which the whole doctrine of the New Jerusalem respecting the life af- ter death rests! *' There is a natural body, and there w a spiritual body P^ and the latter is not less real, and less truly substantial than the former. In the next verse he illu^trates this great truth by the example of Adam, though the reference is quite lost in our translation; in which it is given, " And so it is written. The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit."^ How does this illustrate the case of the natural and spiritual body? Because the word here used for soul {-^vxr^ is that always applied by the Apostle to signify the natural or animal soul; or the life of the natural or animal man: it is the substantive from which the adjective always translated natural {'^vx,^^^) in the New I'estament, is formed: thus, to introduce the word natural, answering to what had gone before, we might read it, " the first Adam was made a living 7iatu- * Ver. 39, 40, 41. t Ver. 42, 43. t Ver. 44. § Ver. 45. THE RESURRECTION. 61 ral principle, and the last Adam was made a quickening spiritual principle;" in other words," The first Adam was endued with natural lifcj and the last Adam is the communicator of spiritual life:" with which idea in our minds, we see the propriety of the verse which follows: " Howbeit, that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural, and afterwards that which is spirit- ual."* Thus the Apostle means to state this most accu- rately discriminated and beautiful truth; That there is just such a diflfercnce between our natural and our spirit- ual body, as there is between the nature which we re- ceive by birth from Adam, and that which we receive by regeneration from the Lord. This he further illus- trates by adding, " The first man is of the earth, earthy : the second man is the Lord from heaven. As is the earthy such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly."! Here he shows, that, with the good, of whom alone he is speaking, the resurrection-body is the proper form and image of the regenerate mind. Then he makes this general state- ment: " Now this I say brethren, ihatfltsh and blood cannot inherit thekin<^dom of Gjd; neither doth conniption inherit incorruption.'''''i What can be clearer? How is this to be evaded.^ This is precisely what we believe. The Apostle is arguing as strongly as possible against the notion of the resurrection of the natural body, as being of such substance as cannot enter heaven; and in proof that such resurrection is unnecessary to our future existence, he demonstrates that there is a spiritual body, independent of the former, and which emerges out of the shell of clay when this is laid aside by death. The Apostle now proceeds to sp«'ak of the manner and time of our exchanging our natural body for the spirit- ual one: And though what he here says may be under- stood in reference to a distant period, (though certainly that distant period, in the idea of the Apostle, was not to be protracted beyond the probable duration of his own life,) it also may be understood as taking place imme- diately: and I shall shew presently that it must be so un- derstood, to make the Apostle consistent with himself, * Ver. 46. t Ver. 47, 48, 49. | Ver. 50. 52 THE RESURRECTIOxV. He says, " Behold, I shew you a mystery : we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trump- el shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible; and we shall be changed."* It is generally supposed that the Apostle here refers to a coming of the Lord to put an end to the world; and that when he says " we shall not all sleep," he means to say, that all will not previously die, but some will be then alive; wherefore he also says " the dead shall be raised," " and ice," meaning such as shall be remaining alive," shall be changed." It is not impossible that he might have such ideas, because we have seen that he had such when he wrote the passage above noticed to the Thessalonians. If so, this passage belongs to the same class as that: it evinces, with that, that the Lord did not see fit that the true nature and time of his second coming should then be openly revealed; whence even the Apostles were permitted to entertain, upon ihis one subject, obscure, and, in some respects, erroneous ideas, — to expect it to take place, as figuratively described, in the life-time of that generation, and probably in their own; whence Paul, including himself, here says, " We shall not all sleep," and " we shall be changed." However, whether he now had these ideas in his mind or not, what he has here delivered may certainly be understood as a figurative statement of the true doctrine of the resurrection, as de- livered by himself elsewhere. " We shall not all sleep," must then mean, that we shall not sleep as to the tohoU of us. The trumpet must be mentioned as a figure to denote the great change made by death in the state of our perceptions, and our awaking to a consciousness of the objects of the eternal world: and that this takes place with every one as soon as the interior parts of his bodily frame are dead, which is not till some time after all perceptible signs of life have ceased, is well describ- ed when it is said, that the change shall be effected " in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye," without any interval of total extinction whatever. When the Apostle adds, " For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality,"! he cannot mean to say this of the natural body, " the flesh and * Ver. 51, 52. t Ver. 53. THE RESURRECTION. 53 blood;" for this he had before declared " cannot inherit the kingdom of God," — and that " corruption doth not inherit incorruption," or cannot be made incorruptible. He here then, speaking in a strong, animated style, must mean, that this corruptible state and body must be ex- changed for the incorruptible, this nortal for immortal: and so he comes to the sublime conclusion, " So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swal- lowed up in victory." From this review, then, I think it is plain, that al- though a few expressions in this celebrated chapter niay be interpreted in their own favor by those who look for a general resurrection at some distant period, and who think that our present bodies, though somehow miracu- lously changed, are then to be resumed, the v/ords by no means require such an interpretation, and cannot well bear it if the whole of the context be considered with them. Besides it is plain that the Apostle does not allow of an intermediate reservation of the soul some- where by itself till the body is raised and joined again to it; a doctrine which has been invented to make the passages which openly speak of the immediate resurrec- tion of the soul seem to be combinable with the doctrine of the resurrection of the body: he speaks of the raising of the spiritual body as the only resurrection, and never bints at the soul as existing separately from the spirit- ual body. It is necessary then to understand the whole of an immediate resurrection upon the death of the body.* * Quite evident it is, that, whatever became of Elijah's material body it was not carried up into heaven: for quite evident it is, though the circumstance is generally overlooked, that the transla- tion of Elijah was not seen by Elisha with the eyes of his body, but with those of his spirit: on which mode of vision, customary with the prophets, we shall have to offer some remaiksin a subsequent Section. Elisha liad asked, that a double portion of his mastei's spir- it might be upon him ; to which Elijah answered, "Thou hast ask- ed a hard thing : nevertheless, j/f/^r/u see 7?ic when I am taken fiom thee, it shall be so unto thee ; but if not, it shall not be so." (2 Ks. ii. 10.) Elijah knew that the miraculous event about to take place would be imperceptible to any man in his natural state, and could not be beheld by Elisha, unless, by special divine favor, the sight of his spirit were opened to behold it; the granting then to Elisha of the fa vor of the opening of his spiritual sight, was to be to him the 5* 54 THE RESURRECTION". And we must so understand it, unless we would plac0 the Apostle in contradiction to himself; since it is plain, earnest of the granting to him likewise of the other favor which he had requested. This tlierefore was done and is distinctly recorded. " And it came to pass, as they went on, and talked, that, behold, there appeared a chariot of tire and horses of lire, and parted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by a vvhirlwind into heaven." (Ver. 11.) Certain it is that this chariot and horses of fire did not belong to the natural world, but that they were a spiritual appearance, and, conse- quently, not visible to the sight of a man, unless he were put into a spiritual state proper for beholding it. That Elisha then was put into such a state, is intimated by its being immediately added, " And Elisha sawit ;" — that is, saw the whole transaction, — both the fiery cha- riot and horses and the transit of Elijah ; — " and he cried. My fath- er, my father, the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof." This vision having been granted him, his return into a natural state, in which objects belonging to the spiritual world vanished from his sight, is also marked, by its being further added, " And he saw him nomoiey (Ver. 12.) As then it is evident that Elisha beheld the whole transaction, not with the eyes of his body but with the eyes of his spirit, it follows, that it was the spirit only of Elijah, and not his body, which in that state he saw. Had he beheld the ascension of Elijah with his natural sight, as we behold an aeronaut ascend in a balloon, there could have been no room for the intimatiou,_^that it was by special divine favor that he was enabled to see the vision : but as there is such an intimation ; as, likewise, it is certain that the chariot and horses of lire, could not, like a balloon, be beheld with the natural sight ; it becomes certain that the person who was thus seen to ascend was a spiritual, not a material aeronaut, — was not the body of Elijah, but his spirit. But is it asked, What then became of his body? Suppose we ask in return, If he soared through the air to heaven, considered, as this supposition requires, as a place beyond the region of the stars, what became of the life of his body? We know, from the experience of those who have climbed lofty mountains or ascended in balloons, that the air becomes so rare at the height of but a very few miles from the earth's surface as to make respiration difficult, and that, on con- tinuing to asrend, an animated body would soon come into the state of an animal in an exhausted receiver, and must inevitably expire ; and we know also, that the temperature at the same time becomes so cold, that the fluids of the body would speedily be arrested, and the animal frame become a solid mass of ice. If then it is not imme- diately evident what became of Elijah's body, it is sufficiently evi- dent what became of the life of it; and if we still suppose that it went to heaven by this route, we must suppKJse that it accom- plished the voyage, not as an animated body, but as a corpse. But does not the Sacred Record itself indicate what became of the body, when it informs us, that the immediate agent in Elijah's removal was a whirlwind, or, according to the n»ore extensive signification cf the original expression, a violent storm ? We read in Ps. Ixxxiii. 14, 15; " As the fire burneth the wood and as the flame setteth the mountains on fire ; so persecute them with thy tempast, and make them afraid with thy storm;'' where the word in the origi.al for THE RESURRECTlOPf. 55 from other passages, that he expected such an imme- diate resurrection, and that in a real but spiritual body, as soon as he should be removed f.om the world by- death. This, therefore, we will now proceed to shew. Wc find him speaking to the Philippians in these de- cided terms, *' For me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain."* How could death be gain to him, if he expect- ed to slumber in the grave for no one knows how many ages? for we have just seen that he had no idea of the existence of the soul separate from its spiritual and only resuscitative body. He adds, " For I am in a strait between two; having a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better. "f Here it is plain enough that he expected an immediate resurrection, and to be then in the enjoyment of eternal happiness; from which he cer- tainly would never wish to come to dispute the possession storm is the same as is here rendered a whirlwind; and where an action is ascribed to it like that of fire and flame; Are we not then to infer, that it includes the action of lightning as well as of wind, — the extreme of commotion or agitation (which is the radical idea of the word) in all the elements, — all, in short, to which we usually ap- ply the word storm? Place then any man in the very centre of such a commotion of the elements as we sometimes behold; thus expose him to the action of the electric or galvanic fluid in its utmost ener- gy ; — and any philosopher will inform us, not only that his body would be instantly deprived of its life, or that it would be torn to atoms, — for this would be the result of a comparatively slight action of that mighty solvent, — but that it would be completely decomposed and resolved into its elements. When therefore the Scripture in- forms us, (ver. 1,) that '' the Lord would take up Elijah into heaven by a whirlwind or storm;" and afterwards (ver.ll) that he did so; it tells us, by a euphuism, that Elijah died ; as Aaron and Moses, also by divine appointment, each went up into a mountain to die ; (Num. XX. 25, &c. Deut. xxxM. 49, &c.); and it sufficiently explains why his body could not afterwards be found. The soul and the body, in the spiritual sense, are the internal and external man. The life of the external man by birth is in oppo- sition to heavenly life, and consists in mere lusts or concupiscences ; wherefore this life is to be relinquished or extinguished ; which is effected by means of temptations. They who kill the body, then, are the temptations, and the tempting powers, by whose agency the life of the external man, or the life of man's lusts, is extinguished : and he who hath power to cast soul and body into hell, is the love of evil, which is opposition to the Lord, pertinaciously cherished, and which causes the Lord himself to appear as in opposition to man ; the consequence of which is, the destruction both of the internal and the external man, and immersion in endless misery. * Chap. i. 21. t Ver. 23. 56 THE RESURRECTION. of his body with the worms, and collect again the dust which once served him for a body upon earth. But that he fully expected to enter upon his eternal inheritance immediately on death, and then to be clothed with his immortal body, is indisputable, when we attend to what he says to the Corinthians in his se- cond (epistle. After having remarked that our light afflic- tion, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory:"* he goes on to shew that this is to be entered upon as soon as our earthly body dies, saying, " For we know, that if our earthly tabernacle were dissolved," (no person I sup- pose will dispute that our earthly tabernacle is the body in which we live on earth: — so soon then as this is dis- solved) " we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens :"| — consequently by this house in the heavens, as opposed to the earthly ta- bernacle of the natural body, he means the spiritual body, in which dwells the soul of the faithful after death. " For in this," he adds, " we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven: if so be that, being clothed, we shall not be found naked. "J Here by being clothed upon by the house from heaven, he must mean, to appear in such a body as is enjoyed by the angels, which is the image of the divine graces that adorn their minds, and which is form- ed such while man lives in the world, according as those graces find an abiding place in him: and by being found naked, he means, to be, indeed, in a spiritual body, as being stripped of the natural body, but in such a one as cannot appear in heaven, being the form and image of all our natural corruptions, of which nakedness and shame are constantly predicated in the language of in- spiration. He adds, " For we that are in this taberna- cle do groan, being, burdened: not for that we would be unclothed," — that is, not frowardly desiring to die, — " but clothed upon," — invested with a truly heavenly as well as spiritual form, — " that mortality might be swallowed up of life."§ It is plain, then, that he ex- pected such a glorious investment to take place, with the faithful, immediately after death; accordingly, he adds presently, " Therefore we are always confident, * Ch. iv. 17. t Ch. V. 1. t Ver. 2, 3. § Ver. 4. THE RESURRECTION. 57 knowing that, while we are at home in the bod/, we are absent from the Lord; — we are confident, I say, willing rather to be absent ft^om the body, and to be present with the Lord.''^* Here then we find, that, with the faithfiil, when the earthly tabernacle is put off, the heavenly one is put on, and that as soon as they are ab- sent from the body they are present with the Lord, — that is, immediately after death. Carrying on therefore the same ideas, he proceeds to shew, that every one in particular is judged also immediately after death, with- out waiting to come back to take the material body for the purpose: thus he immediately adds, " Wherefore we labor, that, whether present or absent, we may be accepted of him. For we must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in the body," (mind that, — done in the body, though that is now put off,) " according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad." Who can read these words, and suppose that the Apostle had any idea of coming back again to resume his dead body, before he was thus to " appear before the judgment-seat of Christ.^" Or who can imagine, that, after having had his doom decided " before the judgment-seat of Christ," he expected to be sent back again to re-animate his body of dust.-* Evidently then the Apostle believed, that when once he had laid this down, he had done with it for ever; and was well satisfied with the expectation of entering, instead of it, into the sensible possession of his spiritual body, — of his " house not made with hands, eter- nal in the heavens." In the same manner, he intimately connects together death and judgment elsewhere: " It is appointed unto all men once to die, but after this the judgment:"! on which the pious Watts judiciously re- marks, '' whether immediate or more distant is not here expressly declared; though the immediate connexion of the words hardly gives room for seventeen hundred years to intervene. ^^"^ We have before seen, that the passages in the writing of the Apostle Paul which are commonly cited in proof of the resurrection of the material body, in reality prove no such doctrine, but the contrary ; and that the ^evf ex- pressions which might be understood as applying to a * Ver. 6, 8, f Heb. ix. 27. % Works, Leeds Ed. vol. vii. p. 7. 58 THE RESURRECTIOxV. resurrection at some distant period, by no means re- quire such an interpretation ; We have now seen, that to put such an interpretation upon them is to make the Apostle contradict himself; for that his doctrine unequi- vocally is, that man rises again immediately after death; — that as soon as his " earthly house," or material body, is dissolved, the good man is clothed with a spir- itual body of celestial origin, "a house from heaven;" while the wicked man is "found naked," having a spi- ritual body indeed, but not of heavenly origin, and all the deformity and shame of which is discovered when divested of its outer clothing of clay; — that a particular judgment is then immediately passed on all, for all then "appear before the judgment-seat of Christ;" — and that the good, being then "absent from the body" and " pre- sent with the Lord," immediately have their " light affliction, which is but for a moment," lecompensed with " a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glo- ry." Thus when the whole of his testimony is brought together, is not this Apostle a most decided preacher of the doctrine, upon this subject, which we offer as that of the New Jerusalem? As these are the sentiments of the Apostle Paul, so also are they those of his Divine Master. In opening the subject above, I adduced one or two of the explicit declarations in which the Lord Jesus Christ propounds the doctrine of an immediate lesurrection; I will here add one or two more of his statements to that effect. What then can be more decisive than the Lord's declaration from the cross to the penitent thief; " Ver- ily I say unto thee. To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise?"* I know what pains have been taken to evade this declaration, by explaining paradise to be, not heaven, or the final state of blessedness, but merely a happy part of the intermediate region called Hades, in which it is supposed that the soul is to wait for its re-union with the body. But certain it is, from an- other remarkable place in which the word paradise oc- curs, (where also, as here, it comes from the mouth of the Lord Jesus Christ,) that it is employed to express man's final and highest state of bliss ; for it is said, ^' To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree * Luke xxiii. 43. THE RESURRECTlOJf. 59 of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God."* Can any suppose, that the reward here promised to the victor in spiritual conflicts is only a comfortable situation in the intermediate state called Hades^ Does it not evi- dently refer to his final happiness in heaven? Then, certainly, when the Lord Jesus Christ says to the peni- tent, " To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise," he promises him an immediate admission into his final state of happiness: consequently, as he did not, then, take his material body thither, it is inconsistent with this promise to suppose, that the final state of happiness is not to be enjoyed without the resumption of the material body. But the parable of the rich man and Lazarus is so positive, that it, alone, is amply sufficient to establish the fact of man's resurrection, in a spiritual but sub- stantial body, with capacities for the fullest sense of either happiness or misery, either delight or punishment, immediately after death. " The beggar died, and was carried by angels into Abraham's bosom: The rich man also died and was buried. And in hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame. And Abraham said," &c.| Here all parties are spoken of as being still men, and as having the members and functions of men. Notice is taken of Abraham's 6osojm, of the rich man's tongue, and of Lazarus's finger, Abraham and the rich man hold a conversation. The rich man is represented as suffering the extreme of tor- ment, and Abraham and Lazarus as enjoying perfect happiness. And all this is described as occuring im- mediately on the death of the rich man and Lazarus; to place which beyond all doubt, — to prevent the possibility of supposing that the narrative relates to a state which they were to experience after resuming their bodies, — the rich man is made to speak of his brethren still living in the natural icorld.'^ No one, I suppose, will have the hardihood to say, that as the whole is a parable, and the rich man and Lazarus are fictitious characters, we ^ Rev. ii. 7. t Luke xvi. 22, to the end. | Ver. 28. 60 THE RESURRECTION. must not apply what is said of them to real persons de- ceased: for it is evident, though the rich man and Laza- rus are imaginary persons, that they are representatives of whole classes of real persons, and that what is said of them is intended to make us acquainted with the real state of multitudes. Indeed, it is obvious, that the main design of the parable is, to communicate informa- tion respecting the real state of certain classes of good and wicked persons after death. The information it communicates is, that man no sooner leaves this world by death, than he finds himself living as a man complete in another, with capacities for the most acute sensibility either to delight or misery; and further, that a particular judgment takes place upon man immediately after death. And, were it true that the material body is to have its resurrection also, it is impossible to conceive that the Di- vine Speaker would deliver a paralile from which every one would infer such resurrection to be needless, without introducing some precautionary words to prevent the mistake. No such precautionary words occur. While the immediate resuscitation of all that makes man a man is decisively asserted, no allusion is made to any resus- citation of that extrinsic adjunct to the man, his material body. Who then but must conclude, from this divine relation, that his material body is never to be attached to him again? I will close this part of the subject with another ob- servation on a passage slightly noticed above, the Lord's answer to the Sadducees; the precise force of which seems generally to have been overlooked. He finishes the debate with them by saying, " Have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living."* As the learned Hody, whose candor I have before had occasion to commend, here remarks,! " The most that this argument proves, is the immortality of the soul, — that the souls of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, did not die with their bodies, as the Sadducees believed." * Mat', xxii. 31, 32. I In his " Resurrection of the Same Body Asserted." He was tlje author of the celebrated work, " Ve Bibliorum Textibus Origi- nalibtis" THE RESURRECTION, 61 But let it be well observed, tbat the que«5tion in debate between the Lord Jesus Christ and the Sadducees was, the resurrection . It is introduced by the statement, " The same day, came to him the Sadducees, which say there is no resurre-ction.^''* They conclude their inquiry re- specting the woman who had had seven husbands, by asking, ''' Therefore in the resurrection^ whose wife shall she be of the seven ?"| As the question had thus been put respecting the resurrection^ it is respecting the resur- rection thai Jesus shapes his answers: " In the resurrec- i^07^," be says *' they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven. "J And finally, to make his answer as full and decisive as possible, and to clear his tneaning from all ambiguity, he applies his argument respecting the continued exist- ence of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to prove, not, simply, the resurreclion, but, explicitly, the resurrection of the dead: for thus he introduces it: " But as touching the resurrection of the dead; have ye not read," 8cc.^ How is tliis to be evaded? Jesus proves the resurrection of the dead, by proving, that the spirits of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, were then living: Is not this com- pletely demonstrative, that, in the idea of its Divine Author, the phrase, the resurrection of the dead, has no reference whatever to a resuscitation of dead bodies, — that the only resurrection of the dead ever to be experi- enced by man. is that of which Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, have long since been the subjects.'' And must we not everywhere understand the phrase in the same sense as is here undeniably given it by the Lord Jesus Christ himself? I may now, I humbly hope, appeal to all the Reflect- ing, and ask. Whether the doctrine which they who humbly trust that they belong to the New Church of the Lord, signified, in the Revelation, by the New Jeru- salem, hold upon the subject of the Resurrection, is not that of the whole Bible? We have found, upon an ex- tensive review of the passages commonly relied on for the proof of the resurrection of the body, that not one of them affords any real countenance to such a notion, but that many of them prove decidedly the reverse: we have found that the passages which assert man's imme- ^ Ver. 23. t Ver. 28. J Ver. 30. § Ver. 31. 6 62 THE RESURRECTION. diate resurrection, and which assign to him, in the resur- rection, a spiritual body, in which he exists as a real substantial man, and becomes a subject either of final happiness or misery, are numerous, unequivocal, and perfectly conclusive: and, finally, wc have ascertained, that the phrase, the resurrection of the deady means such a resurrection as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, experi- enced immediately after death. Thus the doctrine ofthe Scriptures upon this momentous subject is clearly that which we have embraced, as the doctrine of the New Jerusalem: if then the Scriptures are to decide the ques- tion, it appears to us, that our doctrine upon this subject is impregnably established. Let us now ask, by way of conclusion, which doc- trine has most moral advantages, — which is most likely to have a beneficial effect on the life and practice; — that which defers man's final happiness or misery to an indefinite distance, and represents him as without ra- pacities for the comj)lete sense of either, till he again becomes a man by the resumption of his dust, after a lapse of still, probably, many, many ages, whilst, during the intermediate period, he is a mere breath or vapor, or something still less substantial, difl^ering but little from a non-entity; — or that which regards him as rising again, a perfect man, as soon as he quits his clay, possessing far keener powers of perceiving either happiness or mis- ery than he had while shrouded over with flesh, and go- ing to meet his final doom at once? No one, I should think, c?.n hesitate a moment about the answer: but lest I, in giving it, should be suspected of being under the influence of prejudice, the amiable Watts shall be the respondent. " So corrupt," says he, *' and perverse are the inclinations of men in this fallen and degenerate world, and their passions are so much impressed and moved by things that are present, or just at hand, that the joys of heaven, and the sorrows of hell, when set far beyond death and the grave, at some vast and unknown distance of time, would have but too little influence on their hearts and lives. And although these solemn and important events are never so certain in themselves, yet being looked on as things a great way off, they make too feeble an impression on the conscience, and their distance is much abused to give an indulgence to pre- sent sensualities. For this we have the testimony of THE RESURRECTION. 63 our blessed Saviour himself (Matt. xxiv. 48:) < The evil servant says, My Lord delayetli his earning; then he begins io smite his fellow-servants^ and to eat and drink with the drunken.^ And Solomon teaches the same truth (Eccl. viii. 1 1 :) ^Because stnlerxce against an evil tvork is not ex- ecuted sptedihjy therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them io do evil.^ And even the good servants, in this imperfect state, the sons of virtue and piety, may be too much allured to indulge sinful negligence, and yield to temptations too easily, when the terrors of another world are set so far off, and their hope of happiness is delayed so long. — Whereas, if it can be made to ap' pear from the Word if God, that, at the moment of DEATH, the sold enters into an unchangeable state ac- cording to its character and conduct here on earth, and that the recompenses rf vice and virtue are to begin immediately upon the end of our state of trial; — then all those little subterfuges are precluded, which mankind would form to themselves from the unknown distance of the day of re- compense. Virtue will have a nearer and stronger guard placed about it, and piety will be attended with superior motives, if its rewards are near at hand, and shall com- mence, as soon as this life expires; and the vicious and profane will be more effectually affrighted, if the hour of death must immediately consign them to a state of per- petual sorrows and bitter anguish." He then notices the argument, that the dead will awake out of their graves utterly ignorant of the long time that has past since their death, wherefore men should be as careful to prepare for judgment as if they were immediately to undergo it: to which he replies, " I grant, men should be so in all reason and justice. But such is the weak- ness and folly of our natures, that men will not be so ranch influenced, and alarmed, by distant pro>pects, nor so solici- tous to prepare for an event which they suppose io be so very far off, as they would for the same event, if it com- mences as soon as ever this mortal life expires. The vi- cious man will indulge his sensualities, and lie down to sleep in death, with this comfort: ' 1 shall take my rest here for a hundred or a thousand years [or no one knows how much longer;] and, perhaps, in all that space, my offences may be forgotten; or something may happen that I may escape; or, let the worst come that can come, I shall have a long sweet nap before my sorrows begin.' 64 THE LAST JUDGMENT. Thus the force of divine terrors is greathj enervated by this delay of punishmcnl.^^* Who can be insensible to the power of these weighty considerations? And if they could be so strongly felt by a writer, who believed, nevertheless, that the body is at last to be raised again, and that all that is to be enjoyed or suffered in the meantime is but a faint foretaste of what is to be experienced afterwards; how truly cogent do the arguments become when relieved by this neutrali- zing drawback, — when it is seen that the spirit of man is truly the man himself, possessing sensations immensely more acute than any that can be imparted to flesh and blood, — and when it thus is known that all the fulness either of joy or sorrow w hich is commonly supposed to fol- low only upon the resurrection of the body, awaits the man as soon as he enters the eternal world by death! Then the ar«juments of the heavenly-minded Watts be- come powerful indeed. It is only in connexion with our view of the resurrection that they possess their proper weight. May we not then say, that whoever wishes to see the practice of virtue enforced, and that of vice dis- couraged, by the strongest of all possible sanctions, must wish to see the truth of the New-Jer'.isalem-doc- trine of the Resurrection cordially acknowledged by aU mankind ? SECTION IV. The Last Judgment. "to' I now have to appeal to you, my Reflecting Readers, upon the subject of the Last Judgment. The views which we believe to be those of the JNew Jerusalem of the Apocalypse in regard to this great consummation, differ considerably, it is true, from those commonly en- tertained: and they also are such as, when first propoun- ded, universally excite no small degree of surprise: yet * Works, Ed. Leeds, Vol, vii. p. 5, 6, 7» THE LAST JUDGMENT. 65 their truth appears to be by no means difficult of proof; and I trust that it has already, in some degree, become apparent. Respecting the General Judgment our distinguishing opinions are these two: First, that, according to the Scriptures, the scene of it was to be, not in the natural world, as commonly believed, but in tiie spiritual: and, Secondly, that it has there been accomplished according- ly. Of these two propositions, the first njay already have been sufficiently proved: for if it has been proved, as attempted in the last Section, that man rises from the dead, in a spiritual body, immediately on the death of the material body, and that no resurrection of the mate- rial body will ever take place, it necessarily follows, that the spiritual world, into which death introduces him, can alone be the scene of the judgment he is to experi- ence. But, as what passes in the spiritual world cannot be known to the inhabitants of tfe natural world in ge- neral, if performed there, the inhabitants of the natural world would not have any consciousness of what was passing. Hence our second proposition, that it has there been accomplished accordingly, — affirms nothing that is at all improbable in itself, and nothing which can, by any possibility, be proved to be false. We will first give further evidence in proof of our first proposition; after which we shall see, that, independently of the as- sertions of Swedenborg, there are various considerations tending to evince, that our second, also, is certainly true. But as the Rev. IMr Beaumont has devoted a Section of his Anti-Swedenborg to the subject of the Last Judg- ment, I must, agreeably to the plan of this Appeal, take some notice of his observations. As, however, he has here aimed more at misrepresenting than at refuting our sen- timents, he offers nothing in the way either of argume:it or of eviderice that need detain us long. Among the arts too often resorted to by polemic wri- ters, it has been observed that this is one. 'J he contro- vertist selects some doctrine of great importance which no one ever thought of denying; he proves with great display of authorities the certainty of such doctrine; he insinuates that its truth is denied by those whose sen- timents it is wi:shed to render odious; and then, because, he has clearly proved what nobody doubts, he triumphs as if he had completely defeated the object of his attack. 6* 66 THE LAST JUDGMENT, This is the course frequently adopted by assailants of the 'New Church, and, among the rest, by the author of the Anti-Swedcnborg. As if we denied the last judgment altogether, he introduces the subject with these remarks: " The doctrine of the Last Judgment is of high import, and is most clearly revealed in the Word of God. Nor has there ever been much controversy in the Christian world on this subject : which is a clear proof, if more than Scripture proof were wanting, that the doctrine has met with the acquiescence of all men throughout the Christian world, with the exception, now of late, of the Sweden- borgians, who, I suppose, wish to be called Christians." Accordingly, to put down these wicked Swedenborgians, a great display of texts is made in which a judgment is asserted. These are mostly taken, as they ought to be, from the Bible; but the first and longest of them is ex- tracted from the " Mahometan's Creed;" as if, on this subject, the Bible and the Koran were of equal autho- rity! The ancient heathens, also, are brought in to con- demn us. '' Many," says Mr B., " of the wiser hea- thens believed in a general judgment in some form; though theirybnn might differ iroin that recorded in the Scripture, yet the thing they believed. For they could in no wise reconcile themselves to the prosperity of the vicious, and the adversity of the virtuous, which was every day before their eyes, but on the supposition of a future reckoning day, and an hereafter of rewards and punishments."* Now to what purpose is all this, when it never entered into the thoughts of one of those persons whom he calls Swedenborgians, to have any shadow of doubt about the reality of" a future reckoning day, and a hereafter of rewards and punishments?" If the hea- thens are to be commended, because they " believed in a general judgment in some form, though their form might differ from that recorded in the Scriptures," are we to be censured, because we believe in a general judgment in the form recorded in the Scriptures, though our form may differ from that preferred by Mr Beaumont? And because the form of the general judgment believed in by us, and taken by us from the Scriptures, differs from that preferred by Mr Beaumont, are the heathens to be called in to condemn us, as if, worse than they, we de- *P. 54. THE LAST JUDGMENT. 67 nied both the form and the thing? If, in the above par- agraph, our accuser did not mean to insinuate this, he meant nothing, and wrote what was as irrelevant to his own design as it is to our sentiments. Indeed, scarcely anything that he has said in this part of his work applies to our views in any degree whatever. Our doctrines affirm, that a particular judgment takes place, on every individual, at death: he then who wishes to overthrow them, ought to prove from Scripture, that no one under- goes any particular judgment after death whatever. Our doctrines affirm, that the general judgment men- tioned in Scripture was to take place in the spiritual world and not in the natural, and that, agreeably to di- vine prediction, it has there been performed according- ly: he then who would overthrow them should prove, that the general judgment was not to take place in the spirit- ual world, but in the natural, and that it will not be per- formed till the total end and destruction of the world' None of these points has our opponent attempted to es- tablish: as then all that he has said upon the subject is entirely beside the question, I shall proceed to deliver our sentiments respecting it without further noticing either his arguments or his texts. All that he has ad- vanced respecting it we fully admit, except his Mahom- etan proof, and his misrepresentations of our views.* * I here subjoin, with a remark or two to shew their inadequacy to the object, the few sentences in which Mr Beaumont makes any attempt to encounter our sentiments. After the piragraph respacting the acknowledgment by the hea- thens of " a future reckoning day and a hereafter of rewards and punishments," he adds, (p. 54, 55), " But I must not wrong the Swe- denborgiaus, for they allow of a judgment; but it is a judgment on every individual soon after leaving the material body, and takes place in the spiritual world !" In connexion with what had gone befo e- and marked, as it is, by the note of exclamation, this must be intended to treat such a mode of " allowing of a judgment" as nugatory and evasive, — as if it were no judgment at all : What man however, of sound mind but must feel, that " a judgment on every individual soon after leaving the material body," is, to every individual, an in- comparably more serious affair, than a judgment to take place many hundreds or thousands of years hence ? Mr B. proceeds: " If it be true, as some learned men say, that, in the whole world, more than sixty persons die every minute, one minute with another ; then there can be no cessation to the woik of judgment!" Another eloquent note of admiration, to call upon the reader to supply by his imagin- ation the objection, which, the author saw, would appear ulterly fu- tile if plainly stated. For what can be the design of this sentence. 68 THE LAST JUDGMENT. I. The first proposition then that I am to endeavor to establish, is, '1 hat the General Judgment announc- with its note of admiration, but to hint, that the Divine Judge would find such a mode of judgment too troublesome and difficult ? If my dulness of apprehension causes m '. to do our assailant any injustice, I beg his pardon ; but if this be not the meaning of the sentence, it appears to me to have no meaning at all, but to be the merest non- sense ; and whether such a meaning will raise it much above non- sense, the reader must determine. The objector insinuates, that to judge of the cases of sixty persons in a minute, is too hard for Omni- science; wherefore, to simplify the matter, he would have all who have died from the beginning of the world to the end of it judged at once. He goes on : " And if that be true also, which a zealous Swe- denborgian once told me, that according to their doctrine the world will never be at an end, but will last for ever, then there must be an everlasting propagation of mankind." This is a sad aggravation of the difficulty, indeed. If the human race is thus to continue, and the ratio of its increase goes on as at present, instead of only sixty dying in a minute, there will at length be six hundred, or six thou- sand ; and then how can they be judged ? The mind of the objector is overwhelmed at the thought ; and he apprehends that the Almi ghty must sink under the ta«k, as he does under the idea. Can he real- ly mean to suggest that " the everlasting propagation of man- kind" is too much for Infinity ? Can he in fact suppose, that Infinity can be satisfied with less ? Can he behold the countless multitude of suns which the telescope discovers to us, each acco:i.panied, as rea- son necessarily concludes, with its dependent worlds ; can he admit that all these are replenished with inhabitants, and with an endless variety of natural productions, like the world in which we live ; can he believe that the minutest and the greatest of all things are alike the workmanship of the Creator; and that his providence, through- out all worlds, is as universal as the Lord teaches when he says, that not a sparrow falls to the ground without our heavenly Father, and that the very hairs of our head are all numbered .' Can his mind embrace all this, and then shrink from the congenial idea, that He who has produced i^nd who governs these mighty works, did not cre- ate them for the sake of uncreating them again, but, as they are boundless in extent, so are they intended to be in duration, and their Creator will continue to draft ofiffrom them inhabitants for his heaven- ly kingdom, in continuallj' increasing numbers, without end ? Alas, this thought seems to distress our poor friend most of all ; for he adds, as something transcendantly monstrous, " And then again, ac- cording to this New Jerusalem doctrine, all mankind after death be- come either angels in heaven or devils in hell; wherefore, it clearly follows that this world, their doctrine being admitted, is nothing but a manufactory of angels and devils !" Most truly, it does so follow : and if the inference thus sagaciously brought out is sufficient to con- demn the " New Jerusalem doctrine," we have not a syllable to offer in extenuation. If Mr B. will have it so, " this world is no- thino- but a manufactoiy of angles and devils." And pray, for what " manufactory," more worthy of its Creator than that of angels, does he think it can be designed ? (as for devils, he knows that, ac- cording to our doctrines, they are not manufactured such by the THE LAST JUDGMENT. 69 ed in Scripture, as to be performed at the Second Com- ing of the Lord, was not to take place in the natural world, as commonly supposed, but ii the spiritual. That it was not to take place in the natural world, is evident from this consideration: that the circumstances announced in prophecy as being to attend it, are such as cannot be intended to be literally understood, and, some of them, such as are impossible in the nature of things. For what is the nature of the Last Judgment, accord- ing to the common apprehensions of it; and how is it to be performed ? We have all been told from our childhood, that angels are to appear with trumpets, the sound of which shall be so loud, as not only to rouse to a sense of the great event at hand the whole race of mankind then living upon the globe, but also to wake the dead: for then " ^— a mighty trump, one half concealed In clouds, one half to mortal eye revealed, Shall pDur a dreadful note ; the piercing call Shall rattle in the centre of the ball. The extended circuit of creation shake ; The living die with fear, the dead awake."* Or, as another poet describes it, " Celestial guards the topmost height attend. And crowds of angels down from heaven descend; With their big cheeks the deafening clarions wind. Whose dreadful clangors startle all mankind: — Ten thousand worlds revive to better skies, And from their tombs *he thronging corses rise."t No matter how long since they may have lain mould- ering in the dust, nor how widely their particles may have been scattered asunder; no matter into what other sub- stances they may have passed; nor even though, by being devoured by cannibals, or by passing into the sub- stances of vegetables and animals, and being thence again taken into the human system, they may have formed parts Creator, but by themselves.) Does"he mean to deny the fact, and affirm that mankind do not become either angels or devils ? It really is not easy to tell what he means; further than this; that he is de- termined, at any rate, to contradict the doctrines of the New Jeru- salem, but cannot find anything plausible to urge against them. The plain English of such objections is this, — that those sublime and heavenly doctrines make God too wise, too good, and too great. * Young. t Amhurst's translation of Addison's celebrated Latin poem on the Altar-piece of Magdalen College, Oxford, TO THE LAST JUDGMENT. of human bodies many times over; no matter for these and a thousand difficulties more, all shall revive: " And now, from every corner of the eaith, The scattered dust is called to second birth ; Whether in mines it formed the ripenino; mass. Or humbly mixed and flourished in the grass, [Or holds the station that it held before. In human forms incorporate o'er and o'er.] The severed body now unites again. And kindred atoms rally into men — Here an imperfect form returns to light. Not half renewed, dishonest to the sight; Maimed of his nose appears his blotted face, And scarce the image of a man we trace : Here, b}' degrees infused, the vital ray Gives the first motion to the panting clay: Slow, to new life the thawing fluids creep, And the stiff joints wake heavily from sleep."* This description, to be sure, exposes a little of the in- conveniences of the operation; however, all shall be made complete, " not the least atom Embezzled or mislaid of the whole tale. Each soul shall have a body ready-furnished; And each shall have his own."t The whole terraqueous globe, it seems, like one huge mine, is suddenly to explode, and every spot, both of earth and sea, is to shoot out a human body: " So when famed Cadmus sowed the fruitful field, With pregnant throes the quickened furrow swell'dj From the warm soil sprung up a warlike train. And human harvests covered all the plain. "| These, however, though they appear as men complete, are as yet only men's bodies: the souls, therefore, which formerly animated them, and which have been reserved in some unknown region, are to be called from their ob- scure and not very comfortable retreat, and united with them again: " The body thus renewed, the conscious soul. Which has, perhaps, been fluttering near the pole, * Amhurst's Addison. t Blair. Well may the poet add, " Ask not how this shall he." — And well may both poet and dogmatist seek to silence inquiry with the magic word " Omnipotence." tAmhurst's Addison. THE LAST JUDGMENT. 71 Or midst the burning planets wondering strayed, Or hovered o'er where her pale corpse was laid ; O^rather coasted on her final state, And feared, or wished, for her appointed fate ; This soul, returning with a constant flame. Now weds for ever her immortal frame."* And notwithstanding the multitude of spirits and bodies thus seeking for each other, they shall all find their own, •* Nor shall the conscious soul Mistake its partner; but amidst the crowd. Singling its other half, into its arms Shall rush, with all the impatience of a man That's new come home, who having long been absent, With haste runs over every ditferent room, In pain to see the whole. "t These then are all to join those who may then be living, and, forming with them an innumerably great army, are to wait the decision of their lot. To continue our poet- ical selections: " Ten thousand trumpets now at once advance ; Now deepest silence lulls the vast expanse : So deep the silence, and so loud the blast. As Nature died when she had groaned her last. Nor man nor angel moves. The Judge on high Looks round, and with his glory fills the sKy : Then on the fatal book his hand he lays. Which high to view supporting seraphs raise: In solemn form the rituals are prepared, The seal is broken, and a groan is heard. — Aloft, the seats of bliss their pomp display, Brighter than brightness, this distinguished day : Horrors beneath, darkness in darkness, hell Of hell, where torments behind torments dwell ; A furnace formidable, deep, and wide, O'erboiling with a mad sulphureous tide. Expands its jaws, most dreadful to survey, And roars outrageous for the destined prey. — Such is the scene : and one short moment's space Concludes the hopes and fears of human race. "J While this is proceeding, all the elements sympathize: the world takes fire; the stars fall to the earth; and at length all creation perishes in one universal conflagra- tion: " Reverse all Nature's web shall run, And spotless Misrule, all around, Order, its flying foe, confound, While backward all the threads shall haste to be unspun." * Young. t Blair. J Young. 72 THE LAST JUDGMENT. ** The sun, by sympathy concerned, At these convulsions, pangs, antl agonies. Which on the whole creation seize, ^ Is to substantial darkness turned. The neighboring moon, as if a purple flood O'erflowed her tottering orb, appears Like a huge mass of black corrupting blood; For she herself a dissolution fears." *' No more the stars, with paler beams. Shall tremble o'er the midnight streams, But travel downward, to behold What mimics them so twinkling there ; And, like Narcissus, as they gain more near, For the loved image straight expire, And agonize in warm desire, Or slake their heat as in the stream they roll. Whilst the World burns, and all the orbs below In their expiring ruins glow. They sink, and unsupported leave the skies, Which fall abrupt, and tell their torment in their noise."* *' This globe, alone, would but defraud the fire, Starve its devouring rage : the flakes aspire And catch the clouds; and make the heavens their prey : The sun, the moon, the stars, all melt away: All, all is lost: no monument, no sign, W^here once so proudly blazed the gay machine. So bubbles on the foaming stream expire ; So sparks that scatter from the kindling fire. The devastations of one dreadful hour The great Creator's six-days' work devour."f It is thus that the Last Judgment is usually described. I have taken my delineation of it from the poets, because it is to poetry that such ideas properly appertain: I have been careful, however, not to borrow from them any cir- cumstances of their own invention, but only such as, whether related in poetry or in prose, are generally be- lieved to belong to the subject; and it would be easy to repeat all their statements from almost every prose-wri- ter who has handled the theme. Of the poets, also, whom I have cited, three were clergymen, whose ortho- doxy has never been disputed; and the fourth (Addison), IS an author, whose authority, on such a subject, few of the clergy would reject. But who can weigh, in the bal- ance of a cool deliberate judgment, such representations as the above, without concluding, that the facts affirmed in them are as purely poetical as the language ? — in other * Pomfret. \ Young. THE LAST JUDGMENT. 73 words, that the facts are pure figures, bearing, indeed, a distinct signification, — relating to circumstances which were infallibly to come to pass, — but the true nature of which must be totally mistaken while the figurative lan- guage in which they are described is literally under- stood? The facts are all taken from the prophetic lan- guage of Scripture: they are the figures of inspired pro- phecy transferred into the works of uninspired writers: and who can seriously consider them, and advert to the manifold inconsistencies which the literal adherence to them includes, as unconsciously drawn out and dwelt upon by the writers of the above quotations, without ac- ceding to the assertion of the illustrious Swedenborg, That men have formed such notions respecting the last judgment, merely because the genuine spiritual sense of the Holy Word has not heretofore been known, and the language in which it is written, which is that of the perpetual analogy or correspondence established by the Creator between spiritual things and natural, has not been understood?* But why abide by the letter here, when many things are affirmed in prophecy, in connex- ion with the above, which are never literally interpre- ted? no one, for instance, ever yet dreamed, that, at the time of the Last Judgment, or preparatory to it, a dragon would be seen falling from heaven, a woman in labor clothed with the sun, and a beast with seven heads and ten horns ascending out of the sea, while another with two lamb's horns rises out of the earth, as described in chs. xii. and xiii. of the Revelation: and yet it were just as reasonable to expect these phaenomena then to take place, as to expect all dead carcases to leave their graves; the Divine Judge to appear visibly in the clouds, seated on a throne there placed, with books open before him; the sun and moon to be extinguished, and the stars to fall from heaven; and the earth and visible heavens, thus the whole visible universe, to be consumed with fire. The latter are all symbolic images as well as the former, and are only to be understood by the same rule of interpretation. In the spiritual world, indeed, where, as we shall see in the sequel, all the natural objects that * See the masterly and profound manner in which this subject is treated by Swedenborg himself, in the first five Sections of his work On the Last Judgment. 74 THE LAST JUDGMENT. arc seen, .ire not real natural objects, but appearances of them, corresponding to the internal state and circum- stances of the spirits and angels, and conveying to the minds of t!»e beholders the ideas of which they are ex- pressive; — there, such appearances as are described in the prophetic language of Scripture, are doubtless seen on the occasions in connexion with which they arc men- tioned: but in the natural world the case is quite differ- ent; and hence the circumstances mentioned respecting the Last Judgment are not in the natural world literally to take place, and some of them are such as cannot possibly be there exhibited. It will hence follow, that it is in the spiritual world, and not in the natural, that, according to the Scriptures, the Last Judgment was to be performed. The effects of it, indeed, must, doubtless, be ielt in the natural world also, and much that is described as accompanying it must have, in the natural world, a spiritual fulfilment: but it is in the spiritual world only that the judgment itself could be performed; and in the spiritual world only that any of the circumstances pre- dicated respecting it could literally occur. We will, however, consider the common ideas of the Last Judgment a little further. The principal circum- stances expected to attend it, beside the elevation of the good into heaven and the casting of the wicked into hell, are these: 1. The resurrection of all dead bodies: 2. The appearance of the Lord in the clouds: 3. The con- flagration of the world, and of the whole material universe. These three things arc essential to the performance of the last judgment in the manner commonly looked for: if then it can be proved that either of them will not take place, the error of the common idea of the Last Judg- ment is demonstrated, and it becomes certain that the natural world is not to be the scene of its performance. The first of these circumstances. The resurrection of all dead bodies, is the great foundation, the essential basis, of the received doctrine of the Last Judgment. If the bodies of the dead be not to rise again, it is per- fectly evident, that the judgment upon the deceased cannot be performed in the natural world. If then it has been proved in the last Section, as attempted, that there is not a single passage of Scripture which predicts any such thing as the resurrection of the body; if it has been proved that the resurrection of the Scriptures is a rising THE LAST JUDGMENT. 75 in a spiritual body, into a spiritual world, immediately after death; if it has been proved that it is a mistake to understand the Scripture phrase, " /Ae i-csurrcclionoflhe dead,^^ as if it meant the resurrection of the body^ since Jesus Christ himself explains it to mean no other resur- rection than Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, have already experienced: then, as observed above, the common mode of expecting the Last Judgment has already been proved to be unfounded. The materials of such ajudgment are gone: and, to make our ideas of the subject consistent with this fact, we must transfer our expectation ofthe judgment to that world, into which they who are to be judged are transferred by the resurrection. The second circumstance. The appearance of the Divine Judge in the clouds^ is also essential to the received doc- trine of the Last Judgment: for the presence, in the natural world, ofthe Judge, is indispensable, if the par- ties to be judged are there assembled. If then it has been proved in our second Section,* as attempted, that such a personal coming of the Lord in the clouds of heaven, — that is, of the sky, — is a thing impossible; if it has been proved, that if we understand, from the literal sense of some prophecies, that he will make his advent in the clouds, we must understand, from the literal sense of another, that he will come riding on horseback, which idea every mind at once rejects as absurd;! if it has been proved that such symbolic language is intended to an- * See above, p. 12 and 13. For thereasons why the nature of the Lord's Second Cominsj, and of the Last Judgment then to be per- formel, has not hitherto been understood, see also above, p. 9 to 12. t It may be remarked, in addition, that if reason be consulted on the doctrine of the appearance of the Lord in the clouds to judge all who ever lived on the earth, it will be seen to be full of manifest inconsistencies. Thus if all dead bodies are to rise, they must, as observed above, be exploded from all parts of the earth and sea. But this world is in the form of a globe, and the clouds are never more than a very few miles above its surface : Hence, the remotest star can only be visible 1j half the globe at a time ; and the highest cloud can never be seen iVom more than a very small segment of the convex earth. In what part of the clouds, then, is the Judge to appear, so as to be visible to all the inhabitants of the globe, pre- viously living and resurrected, at once ? These and other inconsis- tencies seem alone sufficient to convince any one who reflects on them, that the natural world was not to be the scene of the Last Judgment. 76 THE LAST JUDGMENT. nounce, not his coming into this world in person, but his presence in his Word of Divine Truth, imparting to the intellectual faculties of man the power of rightly un- derstanding it, opening the clouds of the letter, and re- vealing the glories of its spiritual signification: then, al- so, the common mode of expecting the Last Judgment has already been proved to be founded in misconception. The means of executing such a judgment are taken away; and to make our ideas of the subject consistent with this fact, we must look for its performance in that world, where such a personal appearance of the Lord, and such symbolic representations as are described as at- tending it, are not only not impossible, but are perfectly agreeable to the laws of nature, — the nature, that is, of a spiritual world, and of spiritual existences.* The third circumstance, The conflagration of the world and of the ivholc irnterial universe y belongs, in itself, less essentially than tiie two former to the performance of the Last Judgment in the natural world: yet it is equally necessary to the received doctrine on the subject: be- cause the received doctrine is drawn from the prophetic language of Scripture taken in its literal sense only: and in the literal sense of those prophecies the passing away of heaven and earth, the burning of the day of the Lord as an oven, the extinction of the sun and moon and the falling from heaven of the stars, are repeatedly announc- ed. But if it has been proved, as was likewise, in our second section, attempted, that by these phrases, ac- companied also, as they frequently are, by the promise of a new heaven and a new earth, is constantly meant the dissolution or termination of one dispensation of di- vine things and the founding of a new one, — or " the * The Lord's making his Second Coming, in a spiritual manner, among the inhabitants of this world, by restoring the right appre- hension of his Divine Truth, together with the life of it, and thus effecting the renovation of his church universal among men, accord- ing to the view offered in the second Section, is a consequence of his accomplishing the last Judgment in the spiritual world; and this also he accomplishes by means of his Divine Truth, — by pouring forth the influences of his Spirit of Truth in such a manner as the wicked cannot bear. Hence, as it is more particularly in his char- acter as the Divine Truth itself that the Lord executes judgment, he is always called, on that occasion, the Son of man ; — as when he gays, that the Father " hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man" (John v. 27;) for, as is men- THE LAST JUDGMENT. 77 putting an entire end to one order of things, and the comniencement of a new one, either with respect to tioned above, p. 14, and is shewn at large in my work on the Plenary Inspiration ol' the Scriptures, the Son ol man is a tide assumed by the Lord in reference to his character as the Divine Truth : and that it is to his Word, which is the same thing as the Divine Truth, that judgment belongs, he himself teaches when he says, " If any man hear my words, and believe not, I judge him not : for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world. He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him ; the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge hi7n in the last day" (John xii. 47, 48.) Hence we see the harmony between the spiritual fulfil- ment of the predictions relating to his Second Coming to the inhabit- ants of this world, and the spiritual conjoined (in some respects) with the literal fulfilment of the same to the inhabitants of the spi- ritual world. That which is manifested is, in both worlds, the Divine Truth : but in the spiritual world the Divine Truth appears in per- son, for the performance of the judgment ; and in the natural world the Divine Truth is revealed in the Word for the restoration of the church. These tw^o things we understand to form a one, as do the sun and its light : for of the Divine Truth in the Word, and thus of the Word itself even in its literal sense, the inmost essence is the Divine Truth in person, that is, the Lord Himself; just as the sun is the inmost essence of all the light of day ; and thus plenarily, it is, according to our ideas, that the written Word is divinely inspired. Now any one may conceive that the Divine Truth in person can only be visible to the sight of angels and spirits, and not to the natu- ral sight of men; though men may receive in their understandings some apprehension of the Divine Truth contained in the Word, of which the Divine Truth in persoa is the only Source. According to this view it will be seen, that although our doctrines deny the possibility or the Lord's visible appearance, in his Glorified Person, to men on earth, they by no means deny that his visible appearance would attend the performance of the Last Judgment. It is this ap- pearance which is spoken of in Acts i. 10, 11 ; which passage at once teaches, what it is often cited to prove, that at the Lord's com- ing to judgment he would visibly appear, and, what is as generally overlooked, that his appearance would not be visible to the inhabit- ants of the world; in general. After relating the Lord's ascension in the presence of the apostles, and saying that " a cloud received him out of their sight," it is added, " And while they looked sted- fastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel; which also said. Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven .' This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come, in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven." Now if the coming of the Lord to judgment is to be in like manner as his ascension, it cannot be visible to the inhabit- ants of the natural world ; for none of the inhabitants of the natu- ral world beheld his ascension, except the eleven apostles ; and these did not see it with the eyes of their body (see above, p. 13, 14,) but by that of their spiril ; in the rr-anner that, according to what was shewn above (p. .54, &c. note.) the ascension of Elijah was seen 7# ^9 THE LAST JUDGMENT. particular or to general churches;" if it has been proved that some of the occasions in regard to which such con- vulsions of nature arc announced have undeniably pass- ed by, without any such outward catastrophe resulting; if it has thus been proved that the destruction of the world and of the material universe cannot, with any de- gree of probability, be inferred from the use of such im- ages in the prophetic style of Scripture: then, again, has it already been proved to be at least in the highest degree probable, that the common mode of expecting the Last Judgment is altogether erroneous. The ex- pected consequences of such a judgment will not, we see, ensue: the world will not, as far as can be gathered from the Scriptures, be consumed; still less will the whole visible creation, — the countless stars, which we know to Ue other suns, each the centre to a system of earths, — be hurled into ruin, (monstrous idea!) to pun- ish the iniquity of this little globe. Yet such must be the fact, if the judgment istobe performed, as expected, within tlie precincts of nature: again then are we dri- ven out of nature to look for it, and compelled to ac- hy Elisha; hence, as Elisha beheld, together with his ascending master, a chariot and horses of fire, so did the apostles, when viewing the ascension of their Lord, behold also two angels; just as, at his transfiguration, they had seen with him Moses and Elias; all which were spiritual beings and existences, that could not possibly be be- holden with the eyes of the body. " In like manner," then, the coming of the Lord in person to judgment, could not be seen by any inhabitant of the earth, unless the eyes of his spirit were miracu- lously opened for the purpose : thus the declaration, that he should " so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven," can only relate, in its literal sense, to his appearance to the inhabitants of the spiritual world : and thus it was them only that he was to come again to judge. For the distinct apprehension of this, it may be necessary to add, that the Lord, when his Humanity was fully glorified, ascended above all the heavens, into the highest or inmost of all things; that the scene of the judgment, as will be seen pre- sently, is an intermediate region of the spiritual world, between heaven and hell, appropriated to the first reception of departed spirits ; and that the judgment is effected by his exhibiting himself present, in a peculiar manner, in the lowest parts of heaven, in doing which he is said to descend, though he is not the less present in his su- preme residence than before. For space in the spiritual world, which is not formed of matter, is not fixed, but is an appearance de- pending upon the states of those who are there : and in no degree can snace limit the presence of the Onrinipre=eot God THE LAST JUDGMENT. 79 knowledge that the destined scene of its performance was not the natural but the spiritual world.* * We have seen in the note above, p. 67, kc. that Mr Beaumont is quite appalled at the idea of the endless duration of the world, and its shocking consequence, as he seems to think it, that " then there must be an everlasting propagation of mankind." Few be- sides, I apprehend, will think the idea shocking, but most, on the contrary, must regard it as grand and glorious ; yet inany, perhaps, may feel surprised at its novelty ; for the belief that the world is to he destroyed is one of the earliest prejudices with which the mind is imbued ; and few ever think of afterwards calling it under the scru- tiny of the maturer judgment. Yet the future perpetual duration of the world appears to admit of proof, from reason and Scripture, that falls little short of demonstration : a sketch of some parts of the evi- dence shall be here subjoined. It has been shewn in the note above, p. 16, &.c. that tlie passages of Scripture which seem to speak of the destruction of the world, cannot have any such signification ; and that this is now with respect to most of them, admitted by the learned in general. But the single circumstance, that the destruction of the world should be attended, as affirmed in most of the prophecies which appear to speak of it, with the falling of the stars from heaven, seems alone sufficient to convince the reader, that the dissolution of nature is not the thing intended. Tliis idea evidently treats the stars as if they were in re- ality, what they appear to the unassisted senses, mere subordinate appendages to this globe of ours, performing no other use in the crea- tion than that which they perform to us. The Scriptures assume this idea, not for the purpose of affirming it to be the fact, but be- cause this is sufficient to be the basis of that spiritual instruction which alone the Scriptures have for their object, and because, when they mention the stars, the stars of the firmament are never meant : but when we rise from the seeming tu the real nature of the stars of the firmament, we clearly see that it cannot be of them that the Scrip- ture speaks, when it says the stars shall fall from heaven. They cannot fall from heaven but by coming down to the earth, as describ- ed in the verses cited above from Pomfret. Any other mode of falling might as well be called rising ; since it would only be a mo- tion from one part of the visible heavens to another, which, if it caus- ed them to set to one hemisphere of the globe, would cause them to rise to the opposite hemisphere : accordingly, that they are to fall io the ground, is the idea always attached to the expression by the sim- ple, according to whose ideas of natural things the Word of God, in its letter, is uniformly written. While the world was believed to be the largest body in the universe, around which, as their centre tlie sun and all the stars moved, the practicability of such a falling of the heavenly bodies might easily be imagined. But since the ad- vancement of science has dispelled this illusion; since it is known that the earth is but a mere speck in comparison with the sun, whilst the millions of stars which the telescope discovers are other suns, all thousands of times laraer than the earth ; it becomes impossible to im?»einc fo^ a moment, tint these cnorinous bodies can ever come tumbling from the sky, and drop upon the surface of thjs atom of a 80 THE LAST JUDGMENT. That part of our first proposition, which affirms, "that the General Judgment announced in Scripture as globe. Certainly, then, it is impossible, when the Scripture speaks of the falling of the stars, that the stars of the firmament can be in- tended : consequently, the mention of such convulsions cannot be intended to aiiirm the destruction of the world and of the universe. The common reader of the Scriptures takes his expectation of the world's coming to an end, in great part, from the disciples' request of the Lord, " Tell us when shall these things be ? and what shall be the sign of thy coming and oi the end of the world?'" (Mat. xxiv. 3.) The word, however, here translated " the world," is literal- ly " the age," and is a term applied to express the whole continuance of any order of things. But the Lord, in his answer, uses expres- sions, which decidedly demonstrate, that his coming to judgment was not to be accompanied with the end of the world, but that, after the judgment, the world was to remain as stable as ever, and replen- ished with inhabitants. For he says, to illustrate the discrimination which would be used in the execution of the judgment, " Then two shall be in the field ; the one shall be taken and the other left. Two women shall be grinding at the mill ; the one shall be taken and the other /r the increasing multitude, but has poured forth her productions with corresponding profusion: proclaiming the fact, that the divine com- mand requiring her to bring forth her increase, — in other words, the divine energy producing it, — has gone forth anew. Behold, again, the wonderful manner, in which iTjanufacturing skill and power have been augmented; — the astonishing perfection given to machinery; which is such, that wood and metal appear to be informed with human intelligence, whilst they are actuated by a force imparted by inanimate agents immensely beycnd any that could be yielded by animal strength. Hereby every production of human ingenuity required for the necessities, comforts, or convenience of man, has been multiplied to an extent which not long since would have been deemed impossible; and so reduced at the same time in price as to be made attainable by all: in which, again, we behold a new outpouring of divine energies, render- ing, in an unprecedented manner, the hands of men pro- ductive. Look, also, at the amazing improvements, in many other things; such as the banishment of night from our streets by the introduction of gas-lights, and the splendor added by the same invention to our saloons and public edifices; or the ameliorations in ways and roads, and in the facilities for conveying goods and trav- ellers by land and by water; which are such that, in a great degree, as to its separating power, space is anni- hilated, and the remotest parts of the globe are brought into vicinity. Here, again, who can fail to see some 104 THE LAST JUDGMENT. extraordinary agency at work, giving an unwonted im- pulse to human energies, and exhibiting, in its extreme or lowest ejects, the increased action of the world of life and activity? But if we proceed to a slight view ofsomeof the moral phaenomena of the times, greater wonders, if possible, will demand our admiration. Observe, then, the surpri- sing advance, on the one hand, of science; and, on th*^ other, the universal increase of the desire for knowledge, combined with the extraordinary multiplication of the means for its diffusion. Since the time at which we believe the Last Judgment, in the spiritual world, to have taken place, every branch of Science has been improved to a most unexpected extent, whilst many new ones have been added, and others have assumed a form which makes them virtually new: thus Geology, whose discov- eries are so highly interesting, whose conclusions are so momentous, and whose practical uses are so eminent, is entirely the offspring of modern times: whilst Chemistry, which is so continually astonishing us with fresh won- ders, has undergone, in our times, a change equivalent to a new creation.* Nor is the progress that has been * Speaking lately ini company, of tlie great modern improvements in Science as one of the effects of the light flowing from the spirit- ual world in consequence of the accomplishment of the Last Judg- ment, a scientific friend, who was struck with the idea, was so kind as to send me, soon af.erwards, the following list of '■* Improvements in A'^atural Science made about or subsequently to the era of the Last Jud^tnent, 1757. " The distinct classification of natural heings and substances of all kinds, — [he determinate recognition of their respective specific identity, and denotation of that identity by names, — which have effected so many suborditiate improvements in science, were not made until about the above era. — The Linna;an system of natural history, which was mateiially concerned in the improvement just no- ticed, was promulgated from about 1735 to 1778, and came into full reception about the latter period, or perhaps somewhat before. — The doctrine of the regular succession of the stratified masses con- stituting the crust of the globe, forming the foundation of the mod- ern science of Geology, was first delivered distinctly, and to a consid- erable degree demonstrated, by Lehman in 1756, and by Mitchell in 1760. — Five primary planets, and eight or ten secondary planets or satellites, have been discovered since 1757. No addition to the former class of heavenly bodies had been made/rom time immemo- rial ; and none, I think, to the latter, for a century before; but of this I am not certain. — Many departments of mathematical and phy- THE LAST JUDGMENT. 105 made by elegant literature of all kinds less rapid and extraordinary; whilst, of late, particularly, a great pro- sical science which liad scarcely any existence before, and some which were absolutely unknown, have risen to great importance since 1757, Among the former are several branches of mathemati- cal analysis, which, in the investigation of problems in physics, have nearly superseded the old and tedious geometrical methods. — The sciences of Mineralogy, Chemistry ; (see below) and Electricity, have assumed a form since 1757, altogether distinct from that which they bore in the previous period. It would seem indeed that a new discrete degree was developed in the sciences at that era ; a marked character of which wa^ the improvement first noticed in this list. — A great variety of truths merely suspected in the latter part of the seventeenth century and former part of the eighteenth, were seen in the clearest light after the above era. — The entire science of galvan- ism, or voltaic electricity, which has exerted so great an inllucnce on that of Chemistry, as well in theory as in practice, and given rise to so many discoveries in it, has arisen since the era of the last judgment : it was absolutety unknown before. — The true nature of thunder and lightning was discovered about 1750, by Dr Franklin. Is it m correspondence [thunder and lightning being used as figures, in Scripture, of the revelation from heaven of Divine Truth] that this discovery should have been made at the same time that the spir- itual sense of the Scriptures was being revealed to mankind ? [The first volume of Swedenborg's theological works was printed in 1749,] " The steam engine was invented (as a machine for use) about 1700, or a year or two before : but it received its grand improvements about 1764. — The application of iron as a principal article in civil and naval architecture, did not take place until after 1757. It was em- ployed in arms and machinery for ages before. " The following arc a few of the particular discoveries in chemis- try since the year 1757: — The constitution of the atmosp'icre. — The composition of water.— The existence of Latent or combined heat (that is, of certain phssnomena referred by philosophers to such an origin : great fallacies, no doubt, are involved in the prevailing doctrines on the subject; but these phcenomena were unknown, in the science of heat, before). — The radiation of terrestrial heat ; that H, the passage into space in right lines of the heat obtained from ar- tificial sources, independently of the solar beams; as well as of the lieat any substance has previously imbibed from the sun. By this property every substance in nature emulates the sun, as to his diffu- sion of heat. — The doctrine of the mutual relations of the regular geometrical forms assumed by almost every substance, or the science of crystallography. — Tbo doctrine of the definite proportions 'u\ which bodies mutually combine; by which every substance in na- ture, wliether simple or compound, is shev.n to combine in a quantity represented by a certain, 7t?/m5er, which number represents the sub- stance in all its relations; called the atomic theory. — There i? somediuerence of opinion amongst chemists, as to what truly consti- tutes the metnllic nature; but there are probably about thirty '-ine metals, of which twentyfour have been discovered since 1757, How immsuso aa addition to the science this is, is evinced by the 106 THE LAST JUDGMENT. portion of the new works which appear have a moral aim in view, and are adapted to assist in promoting the best interests of mankind.* Whence can such an increase of natural light result, but from a new outpouring of light from heaven, of which, when received in the natu- ral faculties of the human mind, improvements in science are the natural offspring ? And while every kind of mental facts, that not one new metal was discovered between 1541 and 1732, and only four between 1732 and 1757. The polarization of lijifbt, discovered within these few years, forms a more important addition to the science of optics, than any single improvement it ev- er received. " It is of course to be understood that most of the new doctrines in science to which a date has been liere assigned, did not come into full reception in the minds of philosophers until a few years subsequent to their date." * I cannot here refrain from citing the following just and striking- remarks, on this subject, from the Literary Gazette, of Nov. 12, 1825, which met my eye almost while writing the above. " Even the cheapest little sheet that issues from the press is good of its kind. Fifteen years ago — ten years ago, it was hardly possible to lift up a periodical paper with > it pollution. The press teemed with what was desperate in politics, destructive in moials, ruinous in social relations, and horrible in religion : the ienorant were deluded, the irresolute perverted, {'.le firm shaxen, by almost every act of this tremendous engine." — This however, like the political convulsions which have shaken the world, was equally a consequence of the increased infiu- ence poured from the spiritual world, and from the Lord himself, into the world of nature, which is received by every one according to his state, and at the presence, theref > • •, of which, the evil bring forth without reserve what they befoi\ tiove to conceal; and it was thu3 that, in the spiritual world itself, the evil were constrained to discover themselves at the period of the judgment. This effect of the wonderful operation appears now, however, in a great measure, to be passing away. To continue our quotation: "The change, now, is as delightful as it is extraordinary. Except in the newspa- pers, there is not one among fifty periodical publications which is not well disposed, and useful to every rank in life — not one in hundreds of an injurious tendency to the best interests of mankind. And we do not speak of works in extensive circulation, and of course well known ; but of multitudes which fill their narrow circle only, but fill it in a way which half a century ago would have attracted ge- neral applause. In excepting the newspapers, too, we would be un- derstood as not undervaluing those powerful, and, when rightly con- ducted, admirable productions. The extent and variety of their information is astonishing; the style in which their original remarks are written, and the character they display, are such as challenge almost unmixed admiration, when we consider the circumstances under which they are brought forth." — " Consider," says the Di- vine Prophet, in reference to the present times, — " Consider the fig- tree : when his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, yc know that the summer is nigh." THE LAST JUDGMENT. 107 food is thus provided in such abundance the appetite for its appropriation is not less remarkable; and institutions which have for their object to produce this appetite, and to supply it with the means of obtaining satisfaction, are everywhere springing up. The discovery of the systems of Bell and Lancaster, followed, as it has been, by various other improvements, has formed a new era in the science of education; the advantages of which are now impart- ed to multitudes at a less expense than was formerly incurred in bestowing them on a few\ and by establish- ments having this for their object, those advantages are being diffused, not only throughout this favored country but nearly through the whole globe. To these laudable establishments, the new and admirable institution of In- fant Schools is becoming a powerful auxiliary; which, by commencing the culture of the human mind at its first dawn, withdraws it from the consequences of parental neglect and the contagion of parental depravity, and must effectually prevent ignorance and barbarism from being, much longer, the necessary inheritance of the poor. Nor is the love of knowledge and of diffusing it, which in the present age is so conspicuous, satisfied with providing for the instruction of the young. The man de- sires to perfect what the child began; and thus Mechan- ics' Institutions, and Literary Societies of various kinds, have been founded and are spreading through the land; whilst by publications containing the elements of science in a cheap and popular form, and by cheap edi- tions of literary works of established reputation, intellec- tual cultivation, of every species, is made accessible to all. To all, from the infant to the man, and from the peasant to the prince, the flood gates of knowledge are set open: and the nations rush eagerly to imbibe the mind-informing streams. Can we behold such truly astonishing changes in the intellectual condition of man- kind, without referring them to a spiritual cause.'* Can we fail to see in them the effect of a new outpouring of light and life from heaven, preparing the way, by raising and cultivating the rational faculties of man, for his spirit- ual improvement?* * I cannot here refrain from adding a passage from a high»church publication, which fell under my observation while this was going 108 THE LAST JUDG3IENT. Nor is it only of natural knowledge that the streams are thus set flowing: by that truly extraordinary, that greatest of modern benevolent establishments, the Brit- ish and Foreign Bible Society, we also behold dispensed, with a copiousness unknown to former ages, the streams of salvation. The formation of such a society is itself a phaenomenon; and its operations have been a series of wonders. When we behold men of all Christian sects, abandoning their particular differences, unite to distrib- ute the Scriptures free from the glosses and corrupt ex- positions which most sects have appended to them; who can fail to discern in the work the mighty finger of God.'* When we see, by the exertions of this S;)ciety, not only all Christendom supplied with the inestimable treasure, but almost all the nations of the earth, the multitudes of a thousand tongues, who never knew before that God had given such a revelation of his will, enabled to read the Word of God, in their own languages, and presented, in their own languages, with the Word of God to read; who can help exclaiming, " This is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes? " Who can fail to discover in it the effects of a new divine influence, providing, more extensively than ever, the means of human salva- tion.^ Nor are the efforts which are making by Mission- ary Societies, and the success which, in some instances, has attended them, unworthy of being noticed in this sketch of the signs of the present times. If the theology which the Missionaries teach is not such as we can re- gard as pure, its effects upon the degraded idolater are through the press, and which evinces, that those effects of the last judgjiient thiit we are here noticing, have powerfully forced them- selves upon the attention even of those, whose natural prejudices and interests (I do not say this invidiously) most indispose them for admitting their reality, and even incline to regard them as an evil. The following strong statement is from the Quarterly Theological Review (No. IV. p. 399) : " It is now to late too press objections, be they strong or weak, against universal education — against that (if we may speak chemically) hyperoxygenated passion for imparting know- ledge, which is so prevalent in our times. We are not left to argue and debate upon what might have been better or worse ; we must act upon what we find in operation. The fountains of the great deep have been broken up, and a deluge of information, — theologi- cal, scientific, and civil — is carrying all before it, filling up the valleys, and scaling the mountain-tops. A spirit of inquiry has gone forth, and sits brooding on the mind of man. THE LAST JUDGMENT. 109 highly beneficial: and who can fail to recognise the di- vine energies which are now pouring forth for the im- provement of the human race, when he beholds, among tlieir results, the Hottentot reclaimed from his filth, and the Otaheitan from his impurity, — the barbarian brought within the circle of civilized humanity, — the savage ele- vated, to the man! Here, I think, I may close this Section. Were I to attempt to enumerate all the symptoms of the mighty change that has taken place in the state of mankind, I might write a volume on this subject alone. Allow me, then, ye Candid and Reflecting, to request your serious attention to the instances which have been adduced, the number of which your own recollections will readily augment. Is not every one of them, taken singly, of sufficient magnitude to excite surprise, and to awaken serious meditation on the subject of its cause .^ But when such hosts of them press on our notice together, are v/e not compelled to refer the cause to something of a very extraordinary nature indeed? Here are multi- tudes of phaenoraena which every observer sees and owns; and every one who observes them owns likewise, that "the most unthinking, as well as the most preju- diced, must be struck with the fact, that the period in which we live is extraordinary and momentous:" and not only, that '' amongst the great body of the people an unparalleled revolution is at vrork," — that " the foun- tains of the great de^p have been broken up," — but that the main seat of the revolution is in the mental part of man, — " that the intellectual spirit is moving upon the chaos of minds," — that " it sits brooding on the mind of nian," — and this with such energy as to authorize the expectation, that " nature will be melted down and re- coined." Where, I repeat, can the cause of such a simultaneous alteration in human minds be looked for, but in the world of minds itself, — in other terms, in the spiritual world, with which man, as to his mind, is most intimately connected ? And what change there could be adequate to the production of so great a change as we are witnessing here, but the performance of the Last Judg- ment, — the entirely new state which is thence induced on the intermediate region of the spiritual world, the seat of man's most immediate spiritual association, — and the 10 110 THE LAST JUDGMENT. consequent outpouring from heaven of new streams of light and life into the world of nature? The illustrious Swedenborg, so long ago as the year 1758, declared* that, by the Last Judgment, then just accomplished, spiritual liberty was restored, and the state of servitude and captivity in which men's minds were previously held, in regard to spiritual subjects, was removed; and in the year 1763 he added,| that the efflux of divine energies from heaven into the world, which had been in a great degree intercepted by the presence of those called the dragon and his angels in the intermediate part of the spi- ritual world, was, by their ejection, restored. These assertions were made, when no remarkable effects of the change had yet begun to manifest themselves in the world, and when, consequently, they could not be cor- roborated by acknowledged facts: but how wonderfully have they thus been corroborated since, and what strik- ing confirmations of them does every day's experience now bring with it ! Am I then doing any more than an- ticipating the suffrage of many of my readers, when I conclude that our second proposition is sufficiently es- tablished; — that, independently of the assertions ofSwe- denborg, there are various considerations tending to evince, that the Last Judgment has, in the spiritual world, been performed? Will not all acknowledge, that the spiritual cause thus assigned for the astonishing change in the state of mankind, is, at least, likely to be the true one? and since no other can be conceived that is ade- quate to the effect, will not the candid admit it to be at least highly probable, that the Last Judgment, so long looked for and so much misunderstood, has, at length, actually been accomplished? * In his work on the Last Judgment. t In his Continuation of the former work. A HUMAN INSTRUMENT, &C. 1 1 1 SECTION V. A Human Instrument Necessary^ and therefore granted. I MAY now appeal to you, I apprehend, with con- fidence, my Reflecting and Candid Readers, respecting the means by which the great events, considered in our preceding and second Sections, must be communicated to mankind. If it be true that the long expected last judgment has at length been performed, — that the long looked-for time of the Lord's second coming has at last arrived, — in what njanner would it be reasonable to con- clude that the important tidings should be conveyed? Are we to behold a multitude of angels in the air, sound- ing great. trumpets, and vocally calling the attention of the world to the crisis which has arrived? In their spir- itual, which, as regards this subject, is their only true sense, the prophecies which speak of such an announce- ment doubtless must be (and we trust have been) ac- complished: from heaven, — that is, from the Lord through heaven, — the divine truths of the Holy Word must be (and we trust have been) discovered anew; for of the revelation, or communication, of Divine Truth, the sounding of trumpets is, in the Word, the expressive symbol: but if, as I hope has been sufficiently proved, the second advent of the Lord was not to be of a personal nature; if the scene of the last judgment was not to be in this lower world, any otherwise than as to its effects; it follows, that it was not by a visible exhibition of angels with trumpets that the annunciation was here to be made. Yet, most unquestionably, some annunciation was necessary. The events which have passed in our times, and which are transacting still, upon the theatre of the globe, are indeed such as proclaim, with a voice of thunder, that some most extraordinary operation from the spiritual world upon the world of nature is in action; they are indeed such as demonstrate, when looked at under the proper aspect, that the last judgment has been per- formed and that the second coming of the Lord is taking place: thus, when the truth is distinctly proclaimed, they bear witness to it in the most decisive manner: but they 112 A HUMAN INSTRUMENT NECESSARY require a human announcer to give their loud voice a distinctly speaking tongue. The second coming of the Lord, also, as we have seen, is mainly effected by the re-discovery of the momentous and saving truths con- tained in his holy Word: among the signs of the times which we have noticed, are the loosening of the hold which erroneous sentiments had taken on the minds of men, a general change in men's modes of thinkng, and such an alteration in the state of the human mind as in- dicates a preparation for the reception of juster views of divine truth than have heretofore prevailed: but still it is obviously requisite that the truth itself should be explicitly announced, and, of consequence, that a Hu- man Instrument should be raised up for that purpose. This appears to be the evident dictate both of reason and of necessity: and to these is added the confirming suf- frage of experience. Never did a similar crisis in the history of the divine economy occur before, but human agency was employed to make it known. Prior to the flood, the divine purpose was communicated to Noah; who, as tradition reports, warned, though in v^in, his abandoned contemporaries; whence he is called by an Apostle '' a preacher of righteousness."* When the time had arrived in which Jehovah proposed to verify to the Israelites the promise made to their fathers of putting them in possession of Canaan, a band of r^-^.-vels was not sent to announce the fact to the whole nation, but God revealed himself to Moses and commissioned him to bear the tidings to his brethren. Even when the Lord Jesus Christ appeared personally on earth, and when, if ever, it might be supposed that merely human agency might have been dispensed with, he did not shew himself to the people, till John the Baptist had an- nounced his approach, and had proclaimed the kingdom of heaven to be at hand. Surf^ly then, at his second coming, which was not to be a personal one, a human herald must be altogether indispensable. Had it occur- red in the first ages, when Christians were looking daily, though mistakenly, f^r the second coming of their Lord, and when they had not yet learned to regard such an interposiiion as impossible, the appearance oi ^ 2 Pet. ii. 5. AND THEREFORE GRANTED. 113 such a herald would have been hailed with joy: and it surely ought not now to be scouted as ridiculous, by any but them, who, because mankind have lived so long under an economy different from that which prevailed before the introduction of Christianity, — under an econ- omy in which continually repeated missions of divine messengers were not required, — have forgotten that such missions ever existed at all, and that, without them, Christianity itself could not have been established. It is, however, an unqestionable truth, that how long soever the suspension may have lasted, one more example of them must be afforded; — one case more must inevitably arise, in which, without the employment again of one more such messenger, the last great purpose in the divine economy must fail to take effect, the last great predictions of holy writ must remain unfulfilled forever. I cannot then think that any ofyou to whom this Appeal is address- ed, — any of the Reflecting of any Denomination what- soever, — can treat such an occurrence either as impos- sible or as ridiculous: I am sure you will all acknow- ledge, that, at the era of the second coming of the Lord, some Human Instrument or other must be divinely en- lightened to declare it, and to communicate the important truths, which at that advent are, as we have seen, to be unfolded to mankind. Of this branch, then, of the inquiry to be pursued in our present Section, it must be quite unnecessary to go into any further discussion. That at the crisis which we are supposing, and which, as was attempted to be shewn in our second and last Sections, there is reason to believe has arrived, a Human Instrument must be necessary, will, I am persuaded, be generally acknow- ledged: the only question then which we have now to con- sider, is, whether such an Instrument has been granted in the person of the everyway respectable and truly il- lustrious Swedish philosopher and theologian, the Hon- orable Emanuel Swedenborg. II. An intelligent person once asked our author. How he, from a philosopher, became a theologian; to which he answered, " In the same manner as, on being called by the Lord, fishermen became apostles." He added, " That he had himself been a spiritual fisherman from his youth;" which he confirmed by shewing, that in the 10* 114 A HUMAN INSTRUMENT NECESSARY Spiritual language, formed of natural images, in which the Scriptures are written, a fisherman means a person who investigates and teaches natural truths, and after- wards spiritual truths in a rational manner; whence the liord, when he called his first disciples from their nets, said to them, " Follow me, and I will make you fishers of ?)ie»,"* obviously meaning, instj'ucters of men in Ihe truths which relate to salvation. His interrogator express- ed his satisfaction at this answer by the remark, " That the Lord alone knows of whom to make choice for com- municating to mankind the truths to be discovered at his second advent, and whether the suitable Instrument is to be found in the person of a mitred prelate, or of one of his footman," This, certainly, was the judgment both of piety and of good sense. In the case before us, how- ever, even human reason must concur in the fitness of the choice made by Divine Wisdom. All that is known of the illustrious Swedenborg, points him out as a man in whom was centered everything that could qualify a human being for such an office. In his external circumstances there is nothing that can be objected against the probability of his being made the subject of a selection which must fall on some one;, except that he was not a priest, or a minister of religion by profession: but if this objection may with any appear to bear some shadow of reason, a little reflection must convince every one that it carries none of the reality. On what former occasion did the Divine Being first pub- lish a new dispensation of his grace and truth, by the instrumentality of any who had been ministers of the former ? Though Moses was the son-in-law of a gentile priest, and from the necessity of the case, acted as a priest himself in the inauguration of Aaron into the holy office, he did not previously, nor ever professionally, belong to the order. In like manner, it was not from the priests ofthe Jewish Church that the Lord selected his apostles. The Baptist, indeed, was the son of a priest, and entitled, by the Levitical constitutions, to ex- ercise the office himself; but when he arrived at the age fixed for that purpose by law, instead of taking up the function by ministering in the temple, he began in the * Matt. iv. 19. Mark i. 17. AND THEREFORE GRANTED. 115 wilderness to proclaim the advent of the Messiah: and the circumstance of his origin, instead of depriving his character of parallelism wilh that of Swedenborg, really, if a coincidence so unimportant be worth remarking, makes it more perfect; since Swedenborg also was the son of a priest, the excellence of whose character is the subject of encomium with all who have had occasion to mention him, — of a modern Zacharias, who, with Eliza- beth his wife, " walked in all the commandments and or- dinances of the Lord blameless," — the good Bishop Swedberg. But Svvedenborg's intrinsic qualifications, moral and intellectual, for the discharge of such an office, were such as all must allow to be appropriate in the highest degree. In him were united the utmost integ- rity, piety, and innocence of manners, with the most comprehensive understanding and most extensive attain- ments in knowledge. The former excellences, it will generally be admitted, were necessary to prepare him for his office at all; and without the latter, it will easily be seen, he could not have discharged it with effect. He stands not in the character of a new prophet, in the sense usually applied to that term, and as he has some- times been denominated in derision; nor in that of a writer of additions to the Word of God, as he has also been maliciously represented.* The Lord engages, at his second coming, to appear '• in the clouds of heav- en," — or in the outward covering of his Word, which is its literal sense, — *' with power and great glory," — with the full evidence and clear brilliancy of the genuine truth of his Word, to which the letter is the covering: and this could not have been accomplished by sending a prophet, again to speak in the enigmatical, and never, without special illumination, clearly understood language of pro- phecy, but only by raising up a teacher who, under the influence of divine guidance and illumination, should be able to see in the Scriptures, and to comprehend in * To suppose that the writings of Swedenborg, are to be received as new books of Scripture, or that they are either offered by him, or accepted by us, in any such light, is, either ignorantly or perversely, to assume a gross error. It was his belief, and it is otirs, that the canon of Scripture actually was closed by the Revelation of John, though that book does not say so ; and what he delivers are presented as tiuths drawn from the Scriptures now existing, not as new Scriptures given in addition. 116 A HUMAN INSTRUMENT NECESSARY his own mind, the subHme truths he was to teach, and to communicate them in a manner suited to their depth and importance. Hence the necessity that the Human Instrument made choice of on this occasion should be a man of learning. Something similar occurred at the first promulgation of Christianity: for the apostles were not all ignorant men. To diffuse the knowledge of the gospel among the Jews, persons possessing nothing be- yond common Jewish attainments, but guided by the Spirit of God, were competent: but when " a chosen vessel" was required " to bear the Lord's name before the Gentiles, and kings, and to the children of Israel"* scattered among the Gentiles, — to carry the gospel to the learned and polished nations of those times, — a man was miraculously called to the work, who, having been born and long resident at Tarsus, a polite Grecian city, was as much skilled in the learning of the Greeks, as, by having been brought up at the feet of Gamaliel, he was versed in the doctrines of the Jews. Much more was it necessary that, in this age of the general diffusion of na- tural knowledge, the Human Instrument for first com- municating the truths to be made known at the Lord's second coming, should stand upon a par with the first of his contemporaries in scientific attainment; especially as, while all the general doctrines he was to unfold were to be far more clear, and more easily intelligible, than those commonly received at present as the doctrines of Chris- tianity, some of the truths to be discovered were to be of the most profound kind, requiring for their full devel- opment the highest talent for abstruse investigation, and for their full comprehension the most exalted powers of the best cultivated mind. In Swedenborg, every re- quisite gift was centered. Well imbued, under the tu- ition of his learned father, and at the University of Upsal, with all the usual elements of a learned education, he for a time cultivated classical literature with diligence and success. He then applied himself to the most solid and certain of the natural sciences, and, not only by do- mestic study and by correspondence with foreign literati, but by repeated travels in all the distinguished parts of Europe, — in Germany, Italy, France, Holland, and * Acts ix. 15. AND THEREFORE GRANTED. 117 England, — he made himself thoroughly acquainted with all the knowledge of his time, and was admitted, by gen- eral consent, to a station among the first philosophers of the age. As, in the midst of the distinctions with which he was honored by his compeers in learning and by sov- ereign princes, he never forgot for a moment his orig- inal piety and modesty, — his scientific writings constantly breathing the humble and devotional spirit of a true Christian philosopher, — the acquisitions he made in nat- ural science must be acknowledged to have formed an admirable preparation, and a most suitable basis, for the apprehension and explication of the spiritual truths which he was to be the instrument for unfolding. Between the book of nature, read by the eye of humble intelligence, and the Word of God, every one intuitively perceives there must be an exact agreement; and spiritual views can never be so little likely to partake of delusion, as when they make a copious store of sound natural science their foundation. An extensive acquaintance with the knowledge of God in his works, must be the best pre- paration for a superior perception of the knowledge of God in his Word: and by this was Swedenborg eminently distinguished. Admitting then what, we have seen, none will deny, that, at the era of the Lord's second coming, a Human Instrument, to communicate the truths then to be made known, would be necessary; and assuming what, also, it is hoped, has at least been shewn to be probable, that that long expected era has at length arrived; sure I am that all the Candid and Reflecting will confess, that no m.an more likely to be made that Instrument could be found in Christendom, than the man whose qualifications for the office I have here briefly described. A 'priori , there is all the probability which such a case admits, that the pretensions of the eminent and honorable Emanuel Swe- denborg to be received in this character, are well founded. But to raise this probability into certainty, an examma- tion of the views he has communicated in sustaining the character he claims, would be necessary. To go into this with fulness, would require an extensive survey of his writings; which would demand a work of much greater magnitude than this is intended to be. As noticed in the Introductory Section, I am here compelled to shape my 118 A HUMAN INSTRUMENT NECESSARY course in the direction marked out by opponents, partic- ularly by the Rev, INIr Beaumont, and am consequently- confined to the particular explanation and defence of those points, which, in the opinion of our adversaries, it is most difficult to maintain: if then I should succeed in shewing reason to believe, that the views and doctrines most objected to are nevertheless true, it surely will be difficult to doubt, that the light by which the illustri- ous Swedenborg was enabled to discover them, must have had a higher origin than self I am indeed satisfied, that a most convincing work might be written on the Internal Evidence which the writings of Swedenborg bear to their own truth; and this, not only in the great and leading doctrines which they deliver and so scrip- turally and rationally establish, but in innumerable more minute points, in which they speak to the heart, and experience, and best intelligence, of man. There is no subject which they handle which they do not lay open in a deeper ground than is done by any other author: in particular, they discover so profoundly and distinctly the inward operations, the interior workings, of the human heart and mind, and unveil man so fully to him- self, that no person of reflection can attentively peruse them, without feeiing a monitor in his own breast con- tinually responding to their truth. Will it not follow, that a writer who can thus penetrate into the most secret things, and place them in a light which is at once seen to be the true one, must have been the subject of a superior illumination, and must, as he avows, have been admitted to a conscious perception of the things of that world, in which the essences of things lie open? But I am content, for the present, to rest the truth of Sweden- borg's pretensions to the divine illumination he professes to have received, in addition to the support they derived from his personal character, upon the evidence of those sentiments of his which are advocated in the various Sec- tions of this Appeal. May I not recur to the view which has been given, in our second Section, of the true nature of the Second Coming of the Lord, as resting on the strongest basis of Scripture and reason? But that view, so diffiirent from the hitherto received notions, yet so obviously true, was first delivered by Swedenborg, and was seen by him, because the time for the fulfilment of AND THEREFORE GRANTED. 119 the prophecies relating to it had arrived. May 1 not advert to the view of the Resurrection, supported in our third Section, as presenting the only scriptural and ra- tional conceptions on the subject ? Yet this view, though partially seen by many, was, in like manner, first con- clusively established by Swedenborg, who learned it, he reasonably declares, from the experience granted him to enable him to discharge his commission. But may I not, especially, appeal to the view of the Last Judgment delivered in the Last Section, and to the evidence there adduced of its having been accomplished, as being as plain as it is new? Yet the performance of that great event was announced by Swedenborg, from, as he aver- red, his own experimental knowledge, while, as yet nothing had been experienced in the world to support his assertion. But by what clouds of evidence has it been supported since! Here is, it really appears, a proof equivalent to the greatest miracle of Swedenborg's having been the Human Instrument requisite to announce the Second Coming of the Lord and the execution of the Last Judgment: he announced them; and we see, by palpable facts, that they must have taken place. He neither performed direct miracles, nor delivered predic- tions: but, by declaring the accomplishment of a great event in the spiritual world which was inevitably to be soon followed by great effects in the natural world, which effects we have so unquestionably witnessed, he has given his testimony all the authority it could derive either from miracles or prophecy, without making it in- juriously compulsive.* In our subsequent Sections and * Swedenborg states, in his account of the Last Judgment, that when the interiors of those who were inwardly wicked, who had established themselves in the intermediate region of the spiritual world, were laid open, by the nearer presence of the Divine Judge, ''they no lofiger appeared, as before, like moral Christians, but like demons : they raised riots, and wrangled with each other about God, the Lord, the word, faith and the church ; and, as their concupiscences of evil were at the same lime loosed from restraint, they rejected all belief in such matters with contempt and mockery, and rushed into enormities of all kinds. — As the opening of their interiors advanced, so the order established in societies was changed and inverted. They who displayed most power in their reasonings against the sanctities of the church, rushed into the centre and seized the government: and the rest, whose power by reasonings was less, gave place to those in the centre, and acknowledged them as a sort of guardian angels. 120 A HUMAN IN'STRUMEIVT NECESSARY in the sequel of this, we shall, I trust, meet other im- portant points that are indubitably true, and capable of the most conclusiv e proof, but to discover which, in the first instance, must have either required knowledge ab- solutely supernatural, or a perception of truth in the Scriptures beyond the reach of any unassisted human intellect. They are fully equal in interest and mo- ment to the most magnificent ideas which can be formed of the truths to be communicated at the second coming of the Lord: do they not then as fully accredit him whose writings convey them, as the herald of the second advent, as the preaching of John the Baptist, owned by the Saviour himself, accredited him as the herald of the first?* Thus things began to assume the form of heil." Now if this had been deUvered as a prophecy of what took place a^the French revo- lution, could it have described it more faithfully ? In the transactions which then occurred, was there not exhibited, in the natural world, a perfect image of what this extract states had been performed in the .spiritual ? In France, after works full of reasonings against the sanctities of religion had long been eagerly read, did not they who were strongest in the same principles assume the government? were not enormities of every kind practised, and religion actually abolished by law ? Who then may not behold, in the one course of transac- tions, effects resulting from the other, and which, without divine in- struction, Swedenborg could not have known ? * We will here support what has been advanced above by some testimonies of men of rank and learning. It will perhaps be most proper to begin with the account which Swedenborg gives of himself, as contained in a letter to his friend, the Rev. T. Hartley ; and then to see how it is corroborated by what others have testified respecting him. (The letter was published by Mr Hartley in his prefaces to his translations of the works " On the Intercourse between the Soul and the Body," and " On Heaven and Hell." The original Latin may be seen in a former periodical pub- lication called the Aurora, vol. ii. p. 224, &c. from which I have in some places corrected Mr Hartley's version of it. The date of it is 1769.) " I take pleasure in the friendship you express for me in your letter and return you sincere thanks for the same ; but as to the praises which you bestow upon me, I only receive them as tokens of your ioveof the truths contained in my writings, and so refer them to the Lord our Saviour, from whom is all truth, because he is the truth. (John xiv. 6.) It is the concluding part of your letter that chiefly en- gages my attention, where you say as follows : ' As after your de- parture from England disputes may arise on the subject of your wri- tings, and so give occasion of defending their author against such false reports and aspersions as they who are no friends to truth may invent to the prejudice of his character, may it not be of use, in AND THEREFORE GRANTED. 121 Now against the illustrious Swedenborg, as standing in this character, what objections are raised? None that order to refute any calumnies of that kind, that you leave in my hands some short account of yourself; as concerning, for example, your degrees in the university, the offices you have borne, your family and connexions, the honors which I am told have been con- ferred upon you, and such other particulars as may serve to the vin- dication of your character, if attacked ; that so any ill-grounded pre- judice may be obviated or removed ? For v/here the honor and in- terest of truth are concerned, it certainly behoves us to employ all lawful means in its defence and support.' — x\fter reflecting on the foregoing passage, I was induced to comply with your friendly ad- vice, bv briefly communicating the following circumstances of my life. " I was born, at Stockholm, in the year 1689 [it has been ascertained that this should be 1688], Jan. 29th. My father's name was Jesper Swedberg ; who was bishop of West- Gothland, and a man of celeb- rity in his time. He was also elected a member of the [English] Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts ; for he had been appointed by King Charles XII. as bishop over the Swe- dish churches in Pennsylvania and London. In the j^ear 1710 I began my travels, first going to England, and thence to Holland, France, and Germany; whence I returned home in 1714. In the year 1716, and afterwards, I had many conversations with Charles XII. king of Sweden, who was pleased to bestow on me a large share of his favor, and in that year appointed me to the office of As- sessor of the Metallic College ; in which I continued till the year 1747, when I resigned it ; but 1 still retain the salary annexed to it, as an appointment for life. My sole view in this resignation was, that I might be more at liberty to devote myself to that new function to which the Lord had called me. On my resigning my office, a higher degree of rank was offered me: but this I utterly declined, lest it should be the occasion of inspiring me with pride. In 1719 I was ennobled by Queen Ulrica Eieonora, and named Swedenborg; from which time 1 have taken my seat with the Nobles of the Eques- trian Order in the Triennial Assemblies of the States of the Realm. I am a Fellow, by invitation, of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Stockholm : butl have never sought admission into any other literary Society, as I belong to an angelic society, wherein things relating to heaven and the soul are the only subjects of discourse and entertain- ment ; whereas the things which occupy the attention of our literary societies are such as relate to the world and the body. In the year 1734, I published at Leipsic the Regnum Minerale, in three vols, folio ; and in 1738 I took a journey into Italy, and stayed a year at Venice and Rome. " With respect to my family connexions : I had four sisters. One of them was married to Eric Benzelius, afterwards promoted to the Archbishopric of Upsal : and thus I became related to the two suc- ceeding Archbishops of that see, both named Benzelius, and younger brothers of the former. My second sister was married to Lars Ben- zelstierna, who was promoted to a provincial government. But all these are dead : however, two bishops who are related to me are still 11 122 A HUMAN INSTRUMENT NECESSARY would demand any notice, were they not continually reiterated, and did they not sway the minds of those living : one of them, named Filenius, is Bishop of East-Gothland, and now officiates as President of the Ecclesiastical Order in the Diet at Stockholm, in the room of the Archbishop, who is infirm ; he married ray sister's daughter : the other, named Benzelstierna, is Bishop of Westermania and Dalecarlia ; he is the son of my second sister. Not to mention others of my relations who enjoy stations of dignity. I live, besides, on terms of familiarity and friendship with all the bish- ops of my country, who are ten in number ; as also with the sixteen Senators, and the rest of the Nobility ; for they know that I am in fellowship with angels. The King and Queen, also, and the three princes their sons, shew me much favor: I was once invited by the King and Queen to dine at their table,— an honor which is in general granted only to the Nobility of the highest rank ; and likewise, since, with the Hereditary Prince. They all wish for my return home ; so far am I from being in any danger of persecution in my own country, as you seem to apprehend, and so kindly wish to provide against; and should anything of the kind befall me elsewhere, it cannot hurt me. *' But 1 regard all that I have mentioned as matters of respectively little moment; for, v/hat far exceeds them, I have been called to a holy office by the Lord himself, who most graciously manifested himself in person to me his servant in the year 1743 ; when he opened my sight to the view of the spiritual world, and granted me the privilege of conversing with spirits and angels, which I enjoy to this day. From that time I began to print and publish various ar- cana that have been seen by me or revealed to me ; as respecting heaven and hell, the state of man after death, the true worship of God, the spiritual sense of the Word ; with many other most impor- tant matters conducive to salvation and true wisdom. The only rea- son of my later journeys to foreign countries, has been, the desire of being useful, by making known the arcana entrusted to me. " As to this world's wealth, I have what is sufficient : and more I neither^seek nor wish for. " Your letter has drawn the mention of these things from me, with the view, as you suggest, that any ill-grounded prejudices may be removed. Farewell; and from my heart I wish you all felicity both in this world and the next ; which I make no doubt of your at- taining, if you look and pray to our Lord. " Emax. Sweden-borg." Now if the writer of this letter really was invested with the char- acter which he assumes, could anything be more suited to that char- acter than the whole of its contents ? Does not every sentence and expression in it bespeak the truly humbhe, pious, and heavenly-minded man? Could any one who falsely pretended to what the Author professes, write of himself in a manner so perfectly in accord with the pretensions assumed ? Would it be possible for an impostor, whether hypocritical or self-deluded, to assume that air of genuine simplicity, iaward composure, and unfeigned contentedness, which reigns throughout the whole .' AND THEREFORE GRANTED. 123 who are destitute of the information requisite for form- ing a correct judgment on the case. We will consider the two principal. - The information here delivered by the Author divides itself into two general parts : first, the account of his own life and general char- acter ; secondly, his call by the Lord to a holy otfice, and the con- sequent opening of the sight of his spirit, and endowment with the priv- ilege of conversing with spirits and angles. We will see how both are supported, by the testimony of others. 1. A confirmation of all the statements contained in the first part of the above letter, is given by the Rev. Nicholas Collin, of Phila- delphia. This gentleman does not profess the sentiments of Sweden- borg: but in the year 1801, when, in consequence of the adoption of those sentiments by many in America, the character and life of Swedenborg had there become the subjects, as he states, of " fre- quent and sedulous inquiries," he published the above letter of his illustrious countryman, with a comment of his own, in " the Phila- delphia Gazette " of Aug. oth, 8th, and 10th. It was reprinted in '' the New Jerusalem Church Repository," published at Philadel- phia in 1817, at which time Mr C. was still peforming the duties of Pastor of the Swedish Church in that city. His testimony thereloreis probably that of a still living witness. Mr Collin was well qualified to give authentic information, having, when a very young man, lived three years at Stockholm when " Swedenborg was a great object of public attention in that metropolis, and his extraordinary character was a frequent topic of discussion. Not seldom he appeared in public, and mixed in private societies ; therefore sufficient opportunities were given to make observations on him." I extract the sentences contain- ing the heads of Mr C.'s comment, in confirmation of some of which he goes into sQ^eral details. " His fa:ni!y connexions were such as he relates, and well known in Sweden : some of them by myself per- sonally. The mention of his father being, though honorable, modestly short, I shall enlarge upon it. This Jcsper Swedberg was well quali- fied for one of the principal bishopricks in Sweden, by his piety, learn- ing, integrity, benevolence, and all other virtues." — " Swedenborg is silent on the merits of his youth, which were great." — " The office of Counsellor in the Metallic College was conferred on him by King Charles as a reward for knowledge acquired by the labors of youth, and a means of making it verj'^ beneficial to the nation : that Board having inspection over the mines and metallic works, so important in that country ; and being a constitutional department of the govern- ment." — " Swedenborg asserts with truth, that he was in favor with the royal family, and generally respected by the first classes. 1 his was due to his learning and excellence of character." — " Sweden- borg states properly his rank of nobility. He had the common degree, and was not, as many style him, a Baron ; which title denotes the second class of noblemen ; the first among the three classes being ' counts." (This is unquestionably a just account of his rank : but it maybe observed, that, though he had not a title, his degree was the same as in England carries the title of Baron, or Lord; for it gave him a seat in the House of Nobles, or of Peers, in the Diet or Par- 124 A HUMAN INSTRUMENT NECESSARY III. The common cry, re-echoed from mouth to mouth and retailed from pen to pen, is, that he was mad; liament of his country. The higher rank, which, he states in his letter, was offered him on his retirement from office, was, no doubt, - that of Baron ; which in Sweden is equivalent to our Earl.) Mr Collin adds an account of an interview whicli he once had with Swedenborg : it contains nothing very remarkable, but enough to evince that his behaviour on intimacy by no means tended to di- minish the respect which his reputation had excited. " In the sum- mer of 1766," says Mr C, " I waited on him at his house ; introdu- cing myself with an apology for the freedom I took. — He received me^'ery kindly. — We conversed for near three hours : principally on the nature of human souls, and their states in the invisible world ; discussing the principal theories of psychology, by various authors ; among them the celebrated Dr Wallerius, late Professor of Natural Theology at Upsal. He asserted positively, as he often does in his works, that he had intercourse with spirits of deceased persons." — •' We parted," says Mr C, " with mutual satisfaction." The next testimony that I shall offer is from a public document of the greatest authority. It is no other than an oration delivered in the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences, on occasion of Swedenborg's death, by the ChevaUer de Sandel, Superintendant of the Mines, and Knight of the Order of the Polar Star, at a meeting of the Academy held'in the Great Hall of the House of Nobles, Oct. 7tb, 1772. The circumstance of the delivery of such a discourse, is r^one a conclu- sive proof of the high e?-timation in which the subject ol it was held. If the most learned of those who have written against him had read the whole of this production, they would have porhops been less ha^y in pronouncing an unfavorable judgment. As Asmus of Wands- beck says, (in his works printed at Breslaw) of one of his censurers who wrote under the name of Polyhistor, " they ^vDuld have sus- pended their opinion concerning him, had they knov. : !..-. Sweden- borg possessed all their learning in his cradle." But I must content myself with only extracting a few passages. " Permit ine," says the Orator to the noblemen and gentlemen around him, " to entertain you this day, not upon i subject which, being of an indifferent nature, might be uninteresting and might even fatigue your attention; but on a man illustrious for his virtues, and celebrated for the extent of his knowledge of every kind, whom you well knew and greatly loved, and who was one of the oldest members of this Academy. By these traits, you will immediately recognise the late M. Emanuel de Swebenborg Assessor of the Royal College of Mines. The respect that we entertained for this great man, and the affection that we bore him, assure me of the pleasure and satisfaction that you will feel in hearing him spoken of: happy shall I deem myself, if I in any degree fulfil the desire you entertain, to behold a man so dear to your hearts recalled to your minds in a manner worthy of his glorious memory. The task is diffi- cult. The most skilful painter finds it not easy to present to the eye the exact features of certain persons : how far less easy is it to sketch and exhibit to the mental eye a genius vast, sublime, and laborious ; whenever rested, and never was wearied in his appHcation even to AND THEREFORE GRANTED. 125 an aspersion which, notwithstanding some totally false and merely calumnious tales have from time to time been fabricated to support it, literally rests upon no founda- the most profound and intricate sciences ; who during many years was engaged in useful efforts to unveil the mysteries of nature, opun- ed a new way to arrive at certain sciences, and finally endeavored to penetrate into the sanctuary of the greatest secrets, without ever losing sight of sound morality and the fear of the Supreme Being; and who retained all the strength of his genius to the last, notwith- standing that decay of the material covering of the soul which others experience at the close of a career so long, and to which so few attain : but who, having allowed his ideas free range, and having carried them as far as they could go, has given occasion to form different opinions respecting him ; according to the different manner in which the same object is looked at by different persons, and the point of view from which they consider it." — " Before we can penetrate the thoughts, and discover the charac- ter, of persons with whom we are in company, we usuaHy observe at first a watchful and cautious reserve. But to be relieved from the necessity of observing this restraint in following Swedenl)org, re- present to yourselves the following happy assemblage of qualities : an excellent memory, a penetrating understanding, a quick concep- tion, and the soundest judgment, united to an insatiable desire for ma- king the most certain attainments in Philosophy, in almost all bran- ches of the Mathematics, in Natural History, in Chemistry, in Anat- omy, and finally in Theology ; not to mention the Oriental and Euro- pean languages, in which he was well versed. Observe in him well formed habits acting in concert with the dictates of reason, especially in regard to the admirable order in which he ahvays arranged his ideas. — Represent to yourselves the best heart and the best charac- ter ; which are evidenced by the rules he laid down for the government of his own thoughts and conduct, as I have found them noted in vari- ous parts of his manuscripts. They are as follows : ' 1. To read often, and to meditate well upon, the Word of God. 2. To be always resigned and contented under the various dispensations of Provi- dence. 3. To observe always a propriety of behaviour, and to keep the conscience clear and void of offence. 4. To obey whatisordain- ed ; to discharge with fidelity the duties of one's employment ; and to do everything that depends on one's self ; to be useful to all, without exception.' — Behold here the picture of Swedenborg's inward state of mind! None but such as are blinded by prejudice can either think or say that it is not a true likeness, or can fail to recognise in it the man himself." " He lived single, but he was never dull. He enjoyed such ex- cellent health, that he scarcely ever experienced the least indisposi- tion. Always filled with an inward content, he under all circum- stances possessed his soul in peace ; and he led a life in the highest degree happy, till the moment that nature demanded her rights." " He possessed a sound judgment upon all occasions : he saw every- thing clearly, and expressed himself well on every subject. The most solid memorials, and the best penned, at the Diet of 1761, on matters of finance, were presented by him." — Count Hopkins. 11* 126 A HUMAN INSTRUMEx\T NECESSARY tion whatever, but that on which the same imputation was thrown against an infinitely greater character. " He hath a devil and is mad: why hear ye him ?"* Such was the salutation with which the Divine Truth, in person, was assailed, when '' he came unto his own, and his own received him not." The Lord Jesus Christ himself was reproached as insane by the leaders of the profess- ing church of that day: and even his own kindred accord- ing to the flesh had so little conception of his true char- acter, that when he began to display it by mighty words and works, " they said, He is beside himself And they went forth to lay hold on him,"! for the purpose of put- ting him under restraint, as a person of disordered mind. So little capable, when in the darkness of its sensual perceptions, is the human mind, of distinguishing the most exalted wisdom from insanity! No wonder then that the proclaimer of genuine truth now should be deri- ded with similar reproaches. '' The disciple is not above his Master, nor the servant above his Lord; if they call the Master of the house Beelzebub, how much more them of hi.s household!"!; Such were the prophetic warnings by which the Lord prepared his disciples for the treatment they were to expect: and the experience of distant ages has proved their truth. When the Apos- tle pleaded the cause of Christianity before Agrippa and Festus, the Roman governor replied with the ex- clamation, " Paul, thou art beside thyself; much learn- ing doth make thee mad:"^ and so, in our times, a man who has been favored with a degree of illumination as much superior to that of modern Christians in general as was the divine knowledge of Paul to the darkness which then overspread both Jews and Gentiles, is assailed with the same cry, and, v/hile his attainments in science are admitted, it is pretended that his studies had ruined his faculties. By the Candid and Reflecting, a sufficient an- swer to this charge will be found in his writings, v/hich, though a period of twentytwo years intervened between the publication of the first of his theological works and the last, exhibit the most perfect consistency of senti- ment throughout, while they are all written with a regard to the most orderly and methodical arrangement, and ^ John X. 20. t Mark iii. 21. J Matt. x. 24, 25. § Acts xxvi. 24. AND THEREFORE GRANTED. 127 display in their author the most acute powers of rea- son and extraordinary strength of memory; which last faculty is evinced by the numerous references to other parts of his works which abound in them all. These, certainly, are qualities which do not usually attend the ebullitions of insanity. Indeed, it is impossible to pre- tend to find in the composition and manner of Sweden- borg's writings any tokens of derangement: even ad- versaries admit that they exhibit plain marks of a very superior mind: and they only pronounce him mad, be- cause his works contain such statements as they might naturally be expected to contain, should his claims to acceptance, as a heaven commissioned teacher, be true. I had here, however, almost forgotten the Rev. Mr Beaumont; for he, willing to be thought a more pro- found critic than any who had gone before him, objects to the manner, as well as the matter, of Swedenborg's writings. He complains that there is in them " an al- most endless tautology and repetition either of expres- sion or meaning," which, he adds, " is to me another plain indication of the author's disordered intellects," But Mr B. is determined to see nothing in the writings of the Author, or at least to produce nothing from them, in which he cannot find a pretence for censure: and this charge of tautology is of a piece with all the rest. The adversaries ofSwedenborg in general only look into his works for such things as may serve to give a v/rong im- pression. These they set forth as specimens of the whole, for the purpose of deterring others from examining for themselves; carefully suppressing those excellent and truly sublime and heavenly sentiments, upon numerous subjects of the first importance, which even they cannot help feeling, and half acknowledging that those writings contain. Thus, respecting some sentiments of our au- thor, which Mr B. cannot deny to be excellent, he has these remarks: ''What the Baron says respecting truth and good, and especially what he says respecting faith and charity, [these are fundamental things, by the by,} as also his opinion respecting man's free-will and pre- destination, accords in general with my sentiments, and may perhaps be read with some advantage."* We here * Pp. 7, 8. 128 A HUMAN INSTRUMENT NECESSARY have, to be sure, an admirable specimen of what Pope calls to " damn with faint praise ;" yet we may be satisfied that there must be something truly striking in what Swedenborg delivers on these subjects, to extort even such praise from a man deter- mined, when looking at his excellences, to apply the wrong end of the telescope, while for discovering what might be distorted into blemishes, he uses the strongest magnifier he could find. Accordingly, he immediately adds, " But on these subjects the Bible may always be consulted with infinitely more success; therefore quit- ting the Bible for Baron Swedenborg's works, is some- thing like leaving good wine for mere water." Can any thing be more futile? Must he not have been sadly at a loss for an objection to offer such a one as this? All that has ever been written in illustration of the Bible, is, it seems, mere waste paper! The Bible not only contains all things necessary to salvation, but all so plainly stat- ed, that every reader, learned or unlearned, may com- prehend the whole without assistance! However, fear- ing that the weakness of this remark must be obvious to every one, and to evince that he only dislikes all "tau- tology and repetition" in others, he repeats the charge made in the page preceding: "If," he adds, " we will read uninspired books upon these subjects, there are plenty to be found more compact and consolidated than the Baron's writings, which are frequently both diffuse and incoherent." This last imputation I utterly deny. I defy any man to produce a fair example of incoherence from any part of our author's numerous volumes. If there be, occasionally, some diffuseness in his style, it arose from his desire to avoid ambiguity; he doubtless had rather seem prolix than obscure. But prolixity is by no means the general characteristic of his composi- tion; it in fact seldom appears but in the uniform and formal mode in which he introduces his comments on each clause of the subject in his expositions of the Scrip- tures. Besides, who can judge of his style, that only knows it through the very disadvantageous medium of a literal translation? In the original, it is often so con- densed, that it is difficult fully to render the sense in AND THEREFORE GRANTED. 129 English without greatly weakening it by dilution. I ap- peal as an example to the Latin of the work '' On the New Jerusalem, and its Heavenly Doctrine;" which is a production truly admirable for the consolidated weight of its matter, and the correspondingly brief and senten- tious character of its style. But in respect to works like his, in which the matter is everything, it only displays a previous determination to be displeased, when an op- ponent descends to cavil about the manner: and a man who wishes to be regarded as a friend of religion in gen- eral, ought, before he resorts to such cavils, to consider whom they will hit besides. It is long ago since Jerome noticed the solecisms of Paul; and it is well known that none of the writers of the New Testament possessed a good Greek style: but who that pretends to a grain of candor regards this as derogating from the importance of their writings? Who will say tl!at, because, as to the composition, their epistles are not faultless, there is rea- son to impute " disordered intellects" to the Apostles? Let Swedenborg's writings be looked at for their senti- ments, and be judged of by them: and we fear not to assert, that they will be found to contain a system of the- ology, which, instead of being, like that of his oppo- nents, at open variance with half the Bible, and really at variance with all the rest, is in perfect harmony with the whole; and, what is no less important, a system which, differently from all others, harmonizes all the Bible with itself. Most unjust then, in every respect, is the representa- tion which Mr B. gives of the writings of Swedenborg. It is fabled of the cruel Medea, that to stop her incensed father in his pursuit, she tore her tender brother Absyr- tes limb from limb, and strewed the way with his man- gled remains: thus, also, is Swedenborg treated by his adversary, to turn the sincere seeker from the pursuit of truth. Mr B. probably exults in the dexterity with which he has performed this feat; for he has received for it loud rJaudits (uttered, I trust, in ignorance) from several of the theological Magazines. Cheered by the commendation, he probably says in his heart, something like what the notorious T. Paine has said in his " Age of Reason," on completing a not dissimilar exploit: " I have now gone through the Bible, as a man would go 130 A HUMAN INSTRUMENT NECESSARY through a wood, with an axe on his shoulder, and fell trees: Here they lie: and the priests, if they can, may replant them. They may perhaps stick them in the ground again, but they will never grow." So easy is it, by overlooking the design of the whole together, and taking detached passages out of their connexion, to hold up to ridicule anything whatsoever, even the eternal Word of truth itself; and so easy is it likewise for men, when they have done this, to persuade themselves that the objects of their scorn deserve it. This is just what the Anti-Swedenborghas done with the illustrious Svve- denborg and his writings: it creates deformities; and then calls upon its readers to bestow on them their contempt. " Trunca sed ostendens disjectis corpora membris, Aspice ait." — And this is not more the case with that part of the work which contains Mr B.'s own conclusions and delinea- tions, than with that which is entitled, ". Sundry Ex- tracts from the writings of Baron Swedenborg." If '' Sundry" means sundered^ the title is truly descriptive. A scrap is taken from one place, and a scrap from ano- ther, while all the explanations necessary for the under- standing of them are omitted: and the reader is solici- ted to condemn the author on account of the grotesque dress in which his antagonist presents him. Suppose a man were to steal into the wardrobe of a prince, and cutting off a snip from one elegant garment, and a snip from another, were to patch them together in the form of a fool's coat: what should we think of him, if he were to exhibit his motley compound, his thing of shreds and patches, as a dress of the prince's, instead of acknow- ledging that it was merely his own.^ Just as good an idea would such a piece of patchwork present of a royal robe, as do the extracts furnished by our adversaries in general, and Mr B. in particular, of the writings of Swedenborg. They endeavor, by garbled quotations, to make him appear ridiculous or unintelligible; and then they call upon the public to pronounce him mad. Return however the fragments to their proper places, and read them in their proper order; and the reason of the whole will appear: and then his writings, instead of lending any countenance to the imputation of insanity, com- AND THEREFORE GRANTED. 131 pietely refute it, and evince his heaven born intelli- gence.* * We will here add some illustrations connected with the above subject. It has given much pain to the receivers of the doctrines communi- cated in the Writings of Swedenborg, that the circulation of the re- port of his insanity, should have been materially promoted by a man so much entitled to respect as the late Rev. Mr Wesley. It is how- ever certain, that in the part which he took in the affair, he was completely imposed upon by the Minister of the Swedish Chapel in London, Mr Mathesius, who was Swedenborg's personal and violent enemy ; — and I am providentially enabled, by some documents which have recently come into my hands, to trace the progress of Mr Wes- ley's mind in regard to Swedenborg, in such a manner, as completely to neutralize his authority in the unfavorable conclusion which he, at last, adopted : for 1 am enabled to shew, that, in that conclusion, Mr Wesley stands in direct opposition to Mr Wesley himself; and that his first judgment was formed upon far better evidence than his last. It appears certain, that Mr Wesley was at one time inclined to re- ceive Swedenborg's testimony in the fullest manner ; and this because he had had induhitahle experience of his supernatural knoiclcdgc. Among Mr Wesley's preachers, in the year 1772, was the late Mr Smith, a man of great piety and integrity, who afterwards be- came one of the first ministers in our church. Having heard a cu- rious anecdote, said to rest on his authority, I wrote to Mr J. I. Haw- kins, the well-known Engineer, who had been intimately acquaint- ed with Mr Smith, to request an exact account of it. The following (a Uttle abbreviated) is his answer : it is dated Feburary 6th, 1826. " Dear Sir, — In answer to your inquiries, I am able to state, that I have a clear recollection of having repeatedly heard the Rev. Sam- uel Smith say, about the year 1787 or 1788, that in the latter end of February, 1772, he, with some other preachers, was in attendance upon the Rev. John Wesley, taking instructions and assisting him in the preparations for his great Circuit, which Mr V/esley was about to commence : that while thus in attendance, a letter came to Mr Wesley, which he perused with evident astonishment : that, after a pause, he read the letter to the company ; and that it was coached in nearly the following words : [the letter was most probably in Latin : but Mr Wesley, no doubt, would read it in English :] Great Bath Street, Cold Bath Fields, Feb — 1772. ' Sir, — I have been informed in the world of spirits that you have a strong desire to converse with me ; I shall be happy to see you if you will favor me with a visit. ' I am, sir, your humble Servant, ' Eman^. Swedenborg.' " Mr Wesley frankly acknowledged to the company, that he had been very strongly impressed with a desire to see and converse with Swedenborg, and that he had never mentioned that desire to any one. " Mr Wesley wrote for answer, that he was then closely occupied in preparing for six months' journey, but would do himself the plea- sure of waiting upon Mr Swedenborg soon after his return to London. " Mr Smith further informed me. that he afterwards learned from very good authority, that Swedenborg wrote in reply, that the visit 132 A HUMAN INSTRUMENT NECESSARY IV. The other principal objection generally made against the authority of Swedenborg, is, that he perform- proposed by Mr Wesley would be too late, as he, Swedenborg, should go into the world of spirits on the 29th day of the next month, never more to return. " Mr Wesley went the Circuit, and on his return to London, [if not, a« is most probable, before,] was informed of the fact, that Swe- denborg had departed this life on the 29th of March preceding. *' This extraordinary correspondence induced Mr Smith to ex- amine the writings of Swedenborg; and the result was, a firm con- viction of the rationality and truth of the heavenly doctrines promul- gated in those invaluable writings, which doctrines he zealously labored to disseminate during the remainder of his natural life. " That Mr Smith was a man of undoubted veracity, can be tes- tified by several persons now living, besides myself; the fact there- fore that such a correspondence did take place between the Honora- ble Emanuel Swedenborg and the Rev. John Wesley, is established upon the best authority. " On referring to Mr Wesley's printed journal it may be seen, that he left London on the 1st of March in the year 1772 ; reached Bristol on the 3d, Worcester on the 14th, and Chester on the 29th, which was the day of Swedenborg's final departure from this world. Mr Wesley, in continuing his circuit, visited Liverpool, and various towns in the north of England, and in Scotland, returning through Northumberland and Durham to Yorkshire, and thence through Derbyshire, Staffordshire, and Shropshire, to Wales ; thence to Bris- tol, Salisbury, Winchester, and Portsmouth, to London, where he arrived on the 10th of October in the same year, having been absent rather more than six months. '•' I feel it my duty to accede to your request and allow ray name to appear as your immediate voucher. " I remain. Dear Sir, your's very sincerely, "John Isaac Hawkins." To this I can add, that the Rev. Mr Sibly has assured me, that he has heard Mr Smith relate the above anecdote ; and that he could mention, if necessary, several other persons still living wlio must have heard it too. He fully, also, supports Mr Hawkins's statement in re ard to Mr Smith's veracity. Thus it is impossible to doubt that Mr Smith affirmed it; and it is difficult to suppose that he could either wilfully or unintentionally misrepresent an ip.cident which must have impressed him so strongly, and of which the consequent change of his sentiments formed a collateral evidence. It may be here proper to observe, that the Translation of Sweden- borg's little work on the intercourse between the Soul and the Body had been published not long previously (in 1770.) with a Preface by the translator, addressed to the Universities, urging the author's claims to attention. This Mr W. had probably seen, and had thence conceived the desire he acknowledges, to see the author. The dis- covery that this desire, though it had remained a secret in his own breast, was known to Swedenborg, must have affected him very strongly : it must have convinced him that Swedenborg's assertion, that he possessed the privilege of conversing with angels and spirits, was true : and it is natural to suppose that he would conclude from AND THEREFORE GRANTED. 133 ed no miracles. This has been replied to by his ad- vocates with the most convincing arguments.* Among it, that the cause assigned by Swedenborg of his having received this privilege, namely, that he might be qualified for a holy office to which he had been called, was true also. There is, further, the otrongest evidence that Mr Wesley's conviction went as far as this. I had sometime ago heard an anecdote demonstrating it related in CO- versation by the Reverend and venerable Mr Clowes, Rector of St John's, Manchester, whose high character for every quality that can adorn a minister of the gospel, and of course for veracity among the rest, is acknowledged by all who know him (and few are known through a wider circle — by those Vvho difTer from him as well as by those who agree with him in theological sentiment ;) I therefore late- ly wrote to him. to request a written statement of the particulars, with leave to publish it with his name ; with which request he kind- ly complied. The part of his letter (dated January 19, 1828) which relates immediately to this subject, is as follows: '• My very dear Sir, — In full and free compliance with your wish- es, as expressed in your kind favor of the 16th, I send you the follow- ing Memoir of the late Mr Wesley, as comm.unicated to me by my late pious and learned fi lend, Richard Houghton, Esq. of Liverpool, who was also intimately acquainted with Mr Wesley, insomuch that the latter gentleman never visited Liverpool without passingsome time with Mr Houghton. As near as I can recollect, it was in the spring of the year 1773 that I received the communication, one m.orning, when I called on Mr Houghton at his own house, and at a time too, when the v/ritiijgs of the Hon. E. S. began to excite public attention. These writings were at that time unknown to myself, but not so to my friend Mr Houghton, w ho was in the habit of correspondence with the Rev. T. Hartley on the subject, and was very eager to make me acquainted with them. Accordingly, in the course of cur conver- sation, my friend took occasion to mention the name of Mr Wesley, and the manner in which he, on a late visit to Liverpool, had ex- pressed his sentiments on those Writings. ' We may now (said Mr Wesley) burn all our books of Theology. God has sent us a teacher from heaven, and in the doctrines of Swedenborg we roay learn all that is necessary for us to know.' " The manner in which Mr Wesley here espressed himself was strong indeed ; so much so, that v/ere it not certain that his mind must have been at that time under a very powerful influence in Swedenborg's favor he might be suspected to have spoken ironically. This I observed in my letter to Mr Clowes ; to which he replies. " I can hardly conceive, from the manner in which it was express- ed by Mr Houghton, that irony had anything to do with it :" and Mr Houghton must have known with certainty whether it had or not. But an examination of dates will shew, that Mr Wesley's statement to that gentleman was made while the impression from Swedenborg's supernatural communication was acting in all its force. Mr Clowes' interview with Mr Houghton was in the spring of 1773 : Mr Wesley does not appear to have been at Liverpool be- tween that time and the 10th of the preceding October, when he re- turned from his last great circuit. In that circuit he did visit Liver- * See in particular Kindmarsh's Letters to Priestley, Let. i. 12 134 A HUMAN INSTRUMENT NECESSARY other considerations it has been urged, that if no human instrument who has a divine commission is to be accept- pool, and was there early in April, 1772. This then must be the " late visit " mentioned by Mr Houghton ; and this was within six weeks after he had received the extraordinary communication from Swedenborg. This is certain : and it is also highly probable, that, at the time of his visiting Liverpool, the effect of that communication was greatly strengthened, by the verification of the announcement, which, we have seenj Swedenborg had made to him of the day of his own death. He died, as he had announced, on the 29th of March ; there can be little doubt that a notice of it appeared in the papers : it would thence, it is highly probable, be known to Mr Wesley when he was at Liverpool, about a fortnight afterwards : and the words he then uttered to Mr Houghton will not appear stronger than he might be expected to use, when two such recent and completely incontro- vertible proofs of the truth of Swedenborg's pretensions were ope- rating on his mind. Yet Mr Wesley, thus miraculously convinced of the truth of Swe- denborg's pretensions (as far, at least, as relates to his intercourse with the spiritual world,) afterwards exerted himself to check the extension of the same conviction to others ! in which, however, he only afforded a proof of Swedenborg's constant assertion, that mira- culous evidence is inefficacious for producing any real or permanent change in a man's confirmed religious sentiments. When Mr Wes- ley uttered the strong declaration respecting Swedenborg and his writings, he spoke of the latter, rather from what he expected to find them, than from what he actually knew them to be. The probabi- lity is, that he at this time knew little more of them than he had learned from the tract on " the Intercourse :" which contains, pro- bably, nothing that he would except against; especially as it is cer- tain, as there will be opportunity of shewing in the next Section, that even the treatise on Heaven and Hell, which gives the main results of Swedenborg's spiritual experience, was not condemned by him. But when he came to find that Swedenborg's writings militated against some of the sentiments that he had strongly confirmed in his own mind ; these, which were his interior convictions, gradually threw off the exterior conviction arising from merely outward though miraculous evidence : hence, even before the end of the year 1773, as Mr Houghton afterwards informed Mr Clowes, he in- serted in his journal a sarcasm on one of Swedenborg's " Memorable Relations ;" and hence he afterwards accepted the false report of Ma- thesius, and promoted its circulation. Indeed, there can be no doubt that, then, such a statement as that of Mathesius would operate as a relief to him ; for though he could not receive the whole of Sweden- borg's doctrines, the positive proof he possessed of the author's su- pernatural knowledge must often have disturbed him in his rejection of them: he must therefore have been glad to meet with anything which could make him, with regard to that rejection, better satisfied with himself. Finally, perhaps other causes assisted to strengthen Ills oppos tion. When first he published the slanderous report (in 1781,) he still seems to have had some misgivings; hence he pre- faced it with the acknowledgment, that Swedenborg was " a very great man" and that in his writings " there are many excellent AND THEREFORE GRANTED. 135 ed in that character till he has performed some miracles, then were the Jews fully justified in rejecting the Baptist: for it is expressly said, "John did no miracle."* Mr Beaumont endeavors to evade this argument by a strange misrepresentation. "As Baron ^ Swedenborg," he observes, with his accustomed wit and elegance, "took upon himself to act the part of a mighty man of valor in revolutionizing heaven, earth, and hell, he ought in any wise to have certified his credentials for such a mighty undertaking by a few notable miracles. Moses, who headed a new dispensation, wrought many in the name of the Lord. Jesus Christ, in his own name wrought numberless miracles, signs and wonders. Whilst the Baron, proclaiming himself to be at the head of a dis- pensation which shall last for ever, does not justify his heavenly mission by even a single miracle! The baron's friends excuse their leader by saying that John the Bap- things :" when he afterwards seemed less indined to admit so much, although, no doubt, he still spoke sincerely, a little human frailty, perhaps, influenced his judgment. It is well known that Mr W. was always prompt in taking measures to put down anything like rebellion among his disciples, — anything that tended to the diminu- tion of his authority over their minds. Now it is a certain fact, that Mr Smith was not the only one of his pupils who began to think the doctrines of the JNew Church superior to those of Methodism : among his other preachers who came to the same conclusion, were Mr James Hindmarsh, Mr Isaac Hawkins, and Mr R. Jackson, deceased, with Mr J. W. Salmon and Mr T. Parker, still living ; all of whom became active promoters of those doctrines : it therefore is not to be wondered at, that Mr W. at last took the most decisive steps to check their further extension among his flock. The above appears to me to be a fair and highly probable account of the progress, on this subject, of Mr Wesley's mind. It is not, however, here offered with the view of casting any imputation on his memory. I have little doubt, that, though some erroneous sen- timents confirmed in his understanding prevented him from accept- ing, in this world, the doctrines of the New Church, his intentions were upright, and there was a principle of real good in his heart, which, in the other life would throw off the errors which obscured it, and enable him to receive the truth. This, it is probable, was seen by Swedenborg, and was the reason of his inviting him to an in- terview : and thus,! trust, though Mr Wesley acted chiefly as an opponent to him while on earth, he may now be associated with him in heaven. Let not then his followers still confirm themselves against Swedenborg's testimony by what Mr Wesley published against him : let them rather weigh, without Mr Wesley's prejudi- ces the reasons he had, and might'have bad, for coming to n finally favorable conclusion ; and let them accept the sentiments which, I * John X. 41, 136 A HUMAN INSTRUMENT NECESSARY tist wrought no miracles. Tliis plea is weak and futile John was not at the head of anew dispensation; he was the harbinn^cr, not the anlhor of the Christian religion — the author was the Son of God, * Ihe author and finisher of our faith!' "* So then it is allowed, that if the Lord Jesus Christ, and not Swedenborg, is at the head of the New Jerusalem-Dispensation of Christianity as he was of the Dispensation of it announced by the Baptist, the per- formance of miracles is not to be demanded of the har- binger; and what a monstrous perversion of truth is it to pretend any otherwise, — to represent Swedenborg as guilty of the atrocious blasphemy of " proclaiming him- self to be at the head of the dispensation" which he announces, in the same manner as Jesus Christ was at the head of the dispensation then commenced! or even to claim anything similar ibr Moses! But supposing the only reason why John the Baptist did not perform miracles, to have been, because he point- ed to another person who did; what could be the reason that the ancient prophets did not perform them? for of all the sixteen prophets, w^ith the Psalmist in addition, there is not one, except Isaiah, of whom any miracle is recorded. t I'o say that it was necessary for Moses to do miracles because he " headed a new dispensation," but was not iequisite in those who, under the same dis- pensation, came with divine messages after him. is a '^ plea weak and futile" indeed. How did the iiii.acles of Moses authenticate the testimony of all who suc- ceeded him ? Did their acknowledging his miracles, and living under the dispensation which he was the Human Instrument for introducing, evince that what they deliv- ered was equally truer As well might we say, that be- cause the Pope acknowledges the miracles of Jesus Christ, and lives under the dispensation which he was the Divine Agent in introducing, he possesses the infal- libility to which he pretends, and all his bulls are to be received for what they claim to be, the dictates of divine trust, Mr Wesley no->v holds, instead of adhering (o those which he, in all probability, has rejected. * Preface, pi), xi, sii. t Jeremiah predicted the death, v.'ithin a year, of Hananiah ; Daniel, with two private mdividuals, was delivered from the fur- nace, and alone, afterwards, from the lion's den : and Jonah was sa- ved by and from the fish : but none of these were miracles wrought by themselves, or of a nature to insure their credit as prophets. AND THEREFORE GRANTED. 137 inspiration. Would the Jews have been justified in re- fusing to admit into their canon more than half the books which we at present find there, bccjiiise the writers of them did not work miracles ? If not, there must be some- thing in the character of every divine communication which carries its own evidence with it; and it must be upon this evidence, and not for outward si^ns and tokens, that He from whom it comes requires that it should be received. But it will perhaps be urged, that the fulfilment of prophecy, without miracles wrought by the prophet, sufficiently evidences its origin. To a cer- tain extent, this is true: but of what use is this ex post facto evidence to those to whom the divine message was first delivered, and whose most important interests fre- quently depended on their immediately believing it.'' Besides, though many things contained in the prophetic writings have since been fulfilled, so obscure are they, frequently, in their literal sense, that the learned dispute whether some of them, yea, whether any part of whole books, have been fulfilled yet: and so far from compul- sive is even the evidence afforded by the fulfilment of any of them, that infidels, we know, reject the whole to- gether. As, then, it is incontrovertible, that, even under the Jewish dispensation, — the only dispensation to which miracles properly belonged, it was not usually that the Divine Being authenticated the writings even of his most distinguished prophets by any immediate external token; much less, surely, was it to be expected, that the deliverer of such communications as Swedenborg's, if true, as they purport to be, should appear with a wonder-working rod, and bring in a new age of prodigies and signs. And, in regard, to the evidence which prophecies derive from their fulfilment, we have seen that the testimony of Swedenborg has received an authentication which is fully equivalent and of an exactly similar kind; for that the visible effects of the Last Judgment which he an- nounced, speak as plainly in his behalf, as any fulfilled prophecy whatever. But let us look a little more particularly at the cir- cumstances attendino; the introduction of the IMosaic, the Christian, and the Renewed Christian or New Jerusa- lem Dispensations; and see if we cannot discern satis- ' 12* 138 A HUMAN INSTRUMENT NECESSARY factory reason why miracles accompanied the two former but cannot form proper accompaniments of the last. By what means, then, other than miracles, was it possible for Moses to have accomplished the external mission on which he was sent? The Israelites were slaves in Egypt, and in no condition to emancipate themselves by force: by what means then but miraculous ones was it possible to compel the stubborn will of Pharaoh to let them go? All the miracles wrought by Moses, or rather by Jeho- vah throngh his almost passive instrumentality (for not one was attempted by Moses but in compliance with a positive injunction), had for their object the deliverance of Israel from Egypt, their preservation in the wilder- ness, and their introduction into Canaan, as the subjects of a species of political government which has been properly called a theocracy, in which Jehovah himself filled the station of a temporal king: and not one was performed which was not obviously necessary to these purposes. As far as concerned the Jews, external ob- jects alone were in view: and by the miracles wrought, external objects alone were attained: the one were ex- actly adapted to the other; and, as external performan- ces, to nothing else. That they all represented spiritual things, and are recorded in the Divine Word for our continual instruction, which is the second and higher end designed in them, does not alter their nature as ex- ternal performances. Having once been wrought and recorded by inspiration, they teach their spiritual lesson lor ever; and to convey this benefit it is totally unneces- sary that they should be v/rought again. Now v»ho does not see that between Moses, the human Instrument in delivering a people from temporal slavery, — their conductor through a series of temporal wander- ings, amid the destitution of a wilderness, to colonize a temporal country, — and the necessary Human Instru- ment for announcing the truths connected with the se- cond and purely spiritual advent of the Lord; no sort of parallel can exist. All that was done by Moses, was in his situation, and for the immediate natural and re- mote spiritual objects to be obtained, indispensable; but to require the same works as were done by him of the herald of the Second Advent, would be like requiring of the present inhabitants of England the task of the back- AND THEREFORE GRANTED. 139 woodsmen of America; tasks which were necessary when England too was a forest, but which are equally unnecessary and inr^oracticable now that the forest is no more, but meadows and corn-fields occupy its place. For the Jews indeed, who hope again to be gathered from among the nations and re-conducted to the land of Ca- naan, it is perfectly natural to expect the great prophet who is to deliver them to bear a rod more powerful than that of Moses, and to smooth the road by a series of miracles; having only a natural kingdom in view they are consistent in looking for its establishment, by super- natural moans, indeed, but productive of none but nat- ural effects: but for Christians, — for spiritual masters in Israel, who know that their Lord's kingdom is avowed- ly not of this world, to expect that, at his Second Com- ing more truly to establish it, he will again send prophets such as Moses to astonish with external prodigies, is to betray conceptions as gross as those of Nicodemus; it is to loathe the manna in comparison of the garlic and leeks, and to sigh again for the carnalities of Egypt. When, however, God himself appeared on earth incar- nate, he was preceded, his coming loudly proclaimed, and the duty of repentance as necessary to prepare for him authoritatively preached, by a " harbinger" who ''did no miracle;" but of whom, nevertheless, it is sta- ted, that " all things which he spake of this man [Jesus] were true ;"* plainly enough instructing us, that mira- cles are by no means necessary to authenticate the most important communications and doctrines; and that a teacher divinely commissioned may point to the Lord, and piepare men to receive him, who does not brinor outward signs to prove whence he comes. Nor is the force of this instance at all evaded by saying, that '' John was not at the head of a new dispensation;" that '' he was the harbinger, not the author, of the Christian religion;" and that "the author was the Sonof God," who " wrought numberless miracles, signs, and wonders." This argument would be very good, and would make strong against Swedenborg, were it meant to prove and could it prove with truth, what alone it tends to prove, that the design of the miracles, signs, and wonders, wrought * John X, 41. 140 A HUMAN INSTRUMENT NECESSARY by Jesus, was to induce men to believe the simple preaching of John! But when the fact is the reverse; when, before Jesus had begun to shew himself, there " went out unto John Jerusalem, and all Judea, and all the region round about Jordan, and were baptized of him in Jordan, con- fessing their sins;"* and when, without a previous be- lief in the simple preaching of John, men could not, not- withstanding the " miracles, signs, and wonders," be brought to believe in Jesus;t the conclusion is indefeas- ible, that miracles are not necessary to the authentica- tion of truth: and it will not be easy to deny, that, when they were performed, it was, as to the outward perform- ance, for a very different purpose. But Jesus Christ himself, the great teacher of all, ^' in his own name wrought numberless miracles, signs, and wonders." Assuredly he did: for how could God Incarnate do otherwise? When God appeared in a natural body on earth, it was reasonable to expect that his power would be exerted, and his benefi/sence displayed, in operations extending even to the bodies of his creatures,^ — that from the person in which he dwelt virtue must go out,'l adapted to operate upon the persons of those, who, by faith in him, were capable of admitting it. But it hence follows, by parity of reason, that at his coming again, not in the flesh but in the spirit, his power would be exerted, and his beneficence displayed, in operations upon the spirits of his creatures, — that the virtue which would then go out from him would be the proper opera- tion of his Holy Spirit, affecting and enlightening the minds of those, who, by their acknowledgment of him should be capable of admitting it. Of what kind, also, were the external miracles which he performed while in the flesh? They consisted almost entirely of cures wrought upon the sick and possessed, and of the sudden production, to support or refresh his creatures, of bread, or of wine. " The blind receive their sight, and the lame * Mat. iii. 5,6. t "And all the people that heard him, and the publicans, justified God, being baptized with the baptism of John : but the Pharisees and lawyers rejected the counsel of God against themselves being not baptized of him.'' Luke vii. 29, 30. X Luke vi. 19. AND THEREFORE GRANTED. 141 walk; the lopers are cleansed, and the deaf hear; the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preach- ed to them."* Who does not see in these operations, something shadowed out of far more importance than the relief of the body? Who does not behold, in him who wrought them, the Physician of the soul, the Dis- penser of spiritual health and life? Who then can doubt that the miracles to be looked for at his spiritual coming, are such, and such only, as those he performed while in the flesh represented? that they will consist in the open- ing of the spiritual eye, or the illustration of the under- standing, and the straightening of the spiritual limb, or the restoration to order of the natural mind and life; in the cleansing of the spiritual leper, or of those who, through ignorance, falsify the truth, and the opening of the spiritual ear, or the bringing into obedience of the disobedient will; in the raising up of the spiritually dead, or of those who are dead in trespasses and sins, and the preaching of the gospel to the poor, or the communi- cation to tlie ignorant of the instructions of the life- giving Word? Thus the miracles wrought by the Lord at his coming in the flesh, by no means lead to the con- clusion, that similar miracles must be performed at his coming in the spirit: they in fact prove such an expect- ation to be unfounded: but they intimate that divine works may then be looked for, as far superior to the former in importance, as the soul is superior to the body. Still then we find that there was nothing, in the cir- cumstances attending the introduction of former dispen- sations, that authorizes the expectation of miracles to be performed by the Human Instrument who should an- nounce the last. If, as we see, the external miracles performed by the Lord at his first coming, do not lead to the infetrence, that he v.'ould perform miracles of the same kind at his second; in no degree whatever can they lead to the inference, that such would be performed by his " harbinger." Who v^ill be so mad as to run a par- allel between the Lord himself and any Human Instru- ment whatever? Who then will advance the monstrous false inference; that because the Incarnate God wrought * Mat. xi. 5, 142 A HUMAN INSTRUMENT NECESSARY miracles in person, the Human Announcer of his second coming should do the same? But in answer to this it will probably be urged, that the Lord not only wrought miracles himself, but em- powered his apostles to do so too. He did so, most certainly; and, in both cases, for the same reason. " The Word was made flesh,"* and shewed himself to men; and, as the natural consequence, he wrought mir- acles that affected men's bodies. To extend the know- ledge of this fact, he sent forth Apostles; and by them, for the same reason, he wrought similar miracles. To evince " that Jesus Christ was come in the flesh,"! was the main point of their testimony: the burthen of their preaching, was, " repentance towards God, and faith to- ward our Lord Jesus Christ ;"J that is, faith that he, who was known on earth by the name of Jesus Christ, was Ihe Word made flesh, was God Incarnate. It was to this that they were to "bear witness."^ There was then precisely the same occasion that "the Word made flesh" should work miracles affecting the bodies of men by the witnesses of the great truth, that the Word was made flesh, as that he should do them by his own imme- diate agency. It still was not the Apostles, but the In- carnate God, who was the sole operator: and the opera- tions in both cases were effects from the same cause, and were but parts of the same whole. To argue, then, from what was done in this way by the preachers of the Lord's advent in the flesh, to what ought to be done by the Human Instrument for announcing his advent in the spirit, is again to draw a complete false inference. The legitimate conclusion is directly the reverse. We have seen that there must be the same difference between the operations produced at the Lord's second coming and at the first, as there is between the whole nature of the second advent and of the first. We have seen that as it was agreeable to order that the Lord at his coming in a human body should perform cures on the human bodies of men, it would be contrary to order that he should do th(; same at his coming in the spirit and power of his Word, but that then the internal operations should * John i. 14. t IJohn iv. 3. :{: Acts xx. 21. § John XV. 27, Acts i. 8, 22, iv. 33. AND THEREFORE GRANTED. 143 take place of which the external were figures. We now see that it was agreeable to order that the preachers of his coming in the flesh should do similar miracles to those which he performed himself. Would it not then be a palpable violation of all order, that the announcer of his spiritual coming should do such miracles as were performed by those " who companied with the apostles all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among thein;'''' — and were "ordained to be witnesses with them of his resurrection?"* Is it not a most clear requirement of order and consistency, that the miracles to be perform- ed by the announcer of the Lord's coming in the spirit and power of his Word, should be such, as the Lord Himself will alone then perform? miracles relating sole- ly to the illumination of the understanding and the rec- tification of the heart, and which cannot appear as mir- acles before the outward eye? These are only to be performed by instruction in genuine truths drawn from the Holy Word : and of such instruction, by such truths, there is ample store in the writings of Swedenborg. These are found, by the humble and sincere, efficacious to the performance of genuine miracles. The restora- tion of sight to the naturally blind is productive of less delight, than many have experienced in the enjoyment of that clear light of truth, which, through the instrumen- tality of those writings, has burst on their mental sight. Through their means, the spiritually lame has leaped as a liart, and the tongue of the spiritually dumb has burst out into singing; for through their means, notwithstand- ing the state of desolation into v/hich the professing church of the day has declined, in the wilderness waters have broken out, and streams in the desert. t Again then we see, from all the circumstances attend- ing the introduction of former dispensations, that there is no reason whatever for supposing that the Human Instrument appointed to announce the last, should accompany his announcement by the performance of natural miracles; on the contrary, they afford the most conclusive grounds for presuming that the time is com- pletely gone by in which the performance of miracles could form any part of the divine economy. ^ Acts i. 21, 22. t Isa. xxxv. 6. 144 A HUMAN INSTRUMENT NECESSARY But, further: who that frees himself for a moment from the shackles of prejudice, and allows himself to think from judgment, and from a regard to the present state of mankind, does not see herein the wisdom of the Al- mighty? Who is there that seriously believes, that a dispensation ushered in by miracles would be at all suit- ed to the present state of the world? Does any one actually think, that a man who should appear working miracles, would at this day obtain any serious attention? When miracles were literally performed, it was among a people to whose habits of thinking they were congenial. The Jews scarcely looked upon miracles as things extra- ordinary. Among a people then of such a turn of mind, it is reasonable to suppose that some of the messengers of Jehovah would be authorized to gratify the popular expectation by miracles. But if, as is certain, to the performance of miracles, a disposition to acknowledge their reality is necessary in the persons among whom they are wrought; if, as is certain, the incredulity of his countrymen was capable of restraining the wonder- woiking energies of the Saviour in person;* who can imagine that, in these times, in this age of incredulity, Divine Wisdom would rest its communications on such a basis ? Would not, in these days, a man working mir- acles be treated as a mountebank? And would he be respected much more, even by those who believed his miracles to be real? Would not the cures he might perform be resolved into collusion, or, where this was proved to be impossible, be imputed to the agency of unknown natural causes, or of that power which modern infidelity has invested with omnipotence, — the more than magic power of imagination? It may be affirmed, that a repetition of the miracles of the Saviour himself would at this day, and in Christian countries, obtain but little attention: they were all such as might either be de- nied altogether or imputed to one of the above causes: and if he did not choose to silence his numerous gain- sayers by the more terrible prodigies of Moses, we can- not suppose that he would cause such interruptions of the course of nature to be produced by the herald of his * " And he could there do no mighty work, save that he laid his hands on a few sick folk, and healed them." (Mark vi. n.) AND THEREFORE GRAXTED. 145 s«cond advent. Indeed, it n-iay be doubted whether even the prodigies exhibited by Moses would now be believed. Were a modern teacher to conduct an army from Calais to Dover, few, probably, would be convinced, by any testimony, that they had marched through the sea. Many, in fact, who would be loth to be thought infidels, confess as much. Even they who are loudest in demanding miraculous evidence, often, almost in the same breath, admit its inefficacy in ahering the princi- ples of a man's religious belief: while they object to Swedenborg that he did no miracles, they inform us, that they would not have believed him if he had. Thus the celebrated Dr Priestley, after having said a good deal on the indispensable necessity of miracles to au- thenticate a divine commission, at last overturns his whole argument by this ebullition of Unitarian firmness: " Should any being, in the complete form of an angel, tell me that God had the form of a man, and that this God was Jesus Christ, I should tell him that he was a lying spirit P"** And the Rev. W. Roby, relying on the stability of the decrees which Calvin has framed for the Almighty, affirms, that '^ even miracles themselves could not confirm the truth of Swedenborgian doctrines. "t What inconsistency! to call upon us to authenticate our doctrines by miracles; and then acknowledge that they agree with us in thinking that miracles are not proper evidences of doctrinal truth! This sentiment, — that miracles are not the proper evidences of doclrinal truth, is, assuredly, the decision of the Truth itself; as is obvious from many passages of Scripture. We have seen that the design of the miracles of Moses, as external performances, was, not to instruct the Israelites in spiritual subjects, but to make them obedient subjects of a peculiar species of political state. And though the miracles of Jesus Christ collaterally served as testimonies to his character, he repeatedly intimates that this was not their main design, and that they were only granted, in this respect, in accommoda- tion to the hardness of Jewish hearts: and he condemns ^ Letters to the Members of the A^ew Jerusalem Church, p. 60. t jJnti- Swedenborgianism, &c. p. 27. 13 146 A HUMAN INSTRUMENT NECESSARY and laments the gross state of the people that could re- quire them. Fie even says to a disciple, in reference to his own manifestation of himself after his resurrection, ^' Thomas, beca»ise thou hast seen me, thou hast be- lieved : blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed:"* clearly teaching, how superior is the state of mind which can see truth without external evidences, above that which demands them. So when the noble- man of Capernaum besought Jesus to heal his sen, though he complied, he answered, in terms expressive of displeasure at such requirements, " Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe."! At another time, more plainly still, he says, that it is " a wicked and adulterous generation (that) seeketh after a sign;"J on which occasion, according to Mark, " he sighed deeply in his spirit. "§ How characteristic is that touch of the Apostle, '• The Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom !"|| (where by wisdom he means the elegance and refinement of Grecian litera- ture :) may we not say, that, generally speaking, these Jews and Greeks are well represented by the religion- ists and persons indifferent to religion of the present day? Even, then, while performing miracles, it is evi- dent that the Divine Energist did not regard them as the proper evidences of spiritual truth, and conceded them, thus far, with reluctance. Hence, likewise, he so often commanded those on whom his miracles were wrought to keep them secret ;1^ a proceeding which would be unaccountable indeed, if he meant them as proofs of the truth! For the evidence of truth he taught men to look at the truth itself, and to the witness it finds to itself in the duly prepared heart. He does not say, '' If any man see a miracle, he will know that the doctrine taught by the operator is of God;" but, ^' If any man ivilL do his will, he shall know of the docti ine whether it be of God."** * John XX. 29. I John iv. 48. i Matt. xvi. 1, xii. 30, Luke xi. 29. § Ch. viii. 12. II 1 Cor. i. 22. IT Matt. viii. 4, ix. 30, xii. 16 xvii. 9, Mark v. 43, Luke v. 14. ** John vii. 17. AND THEREFORE GRANTED. 147 But Truth Itself carries still farther its disownment of miracles as its proper evidences. Although the Lord, at his advent in the flesh, did signs and wonders in condescension to the hard-heartedness of the Jews among whom he appeared, he never intimates that either he or his messengers shall repeat such signs at his second coming; on the contrary, what is quite con- clusive, he seems thenceforth to relinquish them to the powers of darkness. Thus, in reference to the time of his second coming, he says, " There shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and tconders ; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect."* So Paul, illustrating a prophecy of Daniel, notices a wicked one to be reveal- ed, "whose coming is after the working of Satan, with all power, and signs, and lijing iD(mders.'''''\ So the Apocalyptic Divine, speaking of the second beast, says that " he doeth great wonders, — and deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by means of those mirncles which he had power to do. "J And in another place he men- tions "the spirits of devils" as ^^ working miracles.^^^ Is it not then evident, that, after the time of the Lord's advent in the flesh, no miracles were to be expected, but such as might be wrought, or pretended to, in at- testation of error .'' It is probable, indeed, that by the miracles here predicted we are not to understand out- ward miracles, but a certain power of fascinating the mind as if by enchantment, on those who yield to its in- fluence, which always accompanies deeply infernal de- lusions: yet very extraordinary outward occurrences also, very strongly testified, are recorded in the annals, not only of Catholicism, where they are most abundant, but of many protestant sects: however, be the nature of the predicted diabolical miracles what it may, mir- acles they are called : is it not then certain, that, had Swedenborg wrought any, all the texts just adduced would have been cited by his adversaries, and his per- formance of the signs which are now demanded, would then have been urged as infallible tokens that his mis- * Matt. xxiv. 24. t 2 Thes. ii. 9. t Rev. xiii. 13, 14. § Chap. xvi. 14. 148 A HUMAN INSTRUMENT NECESSARY sion was from Satan?* Has not then the Spirit of God "■ done all things well," in that, after having predicted no future miracles but infernal ones, it has omitted to dec- orate the Human Instrument for communicating its last discoveries with those questionable insignia?! ' This has been done in regard to the extraordinary instances of the reahty of his communication with the spiritual world which have been given in a former note. The author of " the Trial of the Spirits," &c. speaking of some of these as adduced by Mr Hind- marsh in his " Letters toDr Priestley," &c. calls them '•' instances of supernatural knowledge, and proofs of a power of command in the world of spirits, which are not a little surprising; and adds, " there seems to be no possibility of denying their truth as to facts." (P. 13.) But he argues from it, " That a power of working apparent miracles, or prodigies, may, on some occasions, be permitted to evil spirits, and their wicked instruments." These facts, however, though proofs of Swedenborg's supernatural knowledge, were not miracles, but natural consequences of the state in which he was placed, and which was required to enable him fully to see the cor- respondence between spiritual things and natural, and to qualify him for giving that information respecting the state after death, the igno- rance of the human mind respecting it at the present day, makes above all things, desirable and necessary. t Wishing, as far as possible, to avoid, in this ap^il, repeating what has been said before, I have not, in the above statement of rea- sons why no miracles were performed by Swedenborrr, dwelt much upon those offered by Swedenborg himself, and Vvhich have been most urged by his vindicators. I thus have not urged the most im- portant of all, — their tendency to close the rational mind. To make the subject more complete, 1 will therefore here su^ ''''^. an extract from an address drawn up by me for a certain occasion (but not used) in the year 1799 ; at which time I had not read anything on the question but what is contained in our authors own writings, with which I had become acquainted the preceding yen*-. There is more warmth in the manner than I should now use ; bui this the reader will excuse in a youthful production ; written too at a time when the delight accompanying the perception of new truths was in all its freshness, and when I literally was filled with astonishment that what appeared to me clearer than the light of the meridian sun should not be seen by others. '•' Some, probably, will sa}--, ' Vr'hat argument can induce us to believe a man in a concern of this nature who gives no visible cre- dentials to his authority ? A teacher commissioned from on high ought to have the power of working miracles. Had we seen hfm raise a dead corpse to life, or jump unhurt from the monument, we might have believed him ; but without such proofs as these, v,c can- not.' But let us ask in return, Is it worthy of a being wearing the figure of a man to require such proofs as these to determine his judgment ? Are we not endowed with rationality? Is it not by vir- tue of this celestial spark that man boasts himself a man, and cliims AND THEREFORE GRANTED. 149 I trust then that all the Candid and Reflecting will agree with me in the conviction, that Swedenborg, by superiority over every other rank of animated nature ? The lower orders of creation have bodily senses as well as we : they can see, hear, feel, taste, and smell : and if we, refusing to exercise those faculties which we possess in common with angels, receive only such evidence as our external senses can grasp ; do we not degrade the dignity of our nature, deny our heavenly origin, and reduce ourselves to a level with the beasts that grovel on the ground ? The beasts act from the impulse of their bodily senses, but are utterly incapable of seeing from reason why they should so act : and it might easily be shewn, that while a man thinks and acts under the influence of a miracle, he is as much incapable of perceiving from any rational ground why he should thus think and act, as a beast is. "'What!' our opponents will perhaps reply, 'Dare any one speak thus disrespectfully of miracles, when they are sanctioned by the testimony of the Bible ? Was it not entirely by miracles that the Jewish Church was established ? Was it not by miracles that the Israelites were induced to believe Moses ? Was it not by mira- cles that they were governed in the wilderness ? And was it not by miracles that the prophets [some of them] testified their authority? Do you not believe these facts ? ' — Yes, my friends, I do most entirely believe them : and at the same time I most ardently hope that none of us are such people as the Jews were ; because the most stupen- dous miracles would then do us no more good than they did them. For can we have a more conclusive evidence of the inadequacy of miracles to convince a man to his real benefit, than in the conduct of that people ; who, notwithstanding the wonderful things which they daily saw, were continually rebellious, insomuch that, we are informed, they were stiff-necked above all the people on the face of the earth? — ' If then the Jews were not amended by those means, what end did they answer ?' — Let us consider what end was answer- ed in their being introduced into the land of Canaan : for how can we suppose that a people of this character ever constituted a real, spiritual church ? * And how can we imagine that they could ever be, in a peculiar manner, the express favorites of God ? — ' But if not, why did he interpose in so w^onderful a manner to deliver them from Egypt?' — We answer: They were delivered from Egypt, which was a type of the natural state of man, and introduced into Canaan, which was a type of his spiritual state, that they might re- present all that belongs to a real spiritual church by their ceremo- nial worship and particular transactions; and that, by their means, a revelation might be given to the world, which, in its literal ; tnse, should treat of their affairs and of those of the neighboring nations, their wars, rites, and customs ; all which spiritually signified such things as relate to the real spiritual church : and because they could not be brought even to represent such a church by superior inducem.ents, thej' were driven and forced to it by miracles; which, likewise, were all representatives of spiritual subjects. * See what is said on this subject in ''• the Plenary Inspiration," &c. p. 404 to 444. 13* 150 A HUMAN INSTRUMENT NECESSARY the non-performance of miracles, has in no degree weak- ened his claims to attention, but that he would have '^But it may be objected. ' That supposing ilie Jews were a gross, external people, who did little more than represent a spiritual church, the Christian was an interior dispensation ; and yet miracles were wrought at its establishment, both by Christ and his Apostles.' — But let us remember, that the Lord passed his whole life upon earth among the Jews, who, being such a people as has just been describ- ed, required testifications of this sort; which here also, as well as in the case of the miracles wrought by Moses, liad a spiritual signi- fication. Besides, the Word of the JNew Testament, wherein they are recorded, was yet to be written : and every sickness and infirm- ity therein described to have been healed, was representative of some evil or false principle which only the divine power of tlic Lord is able to remove. If this were not the reason, why is not this pow- er continued to the dignitaries of the church till this day .' We see that it is not : we find that, as soon as the Christians were entirely separated from the Jews, miracles ceased. " But now, at the opening of a more interior dispensation than ei- ther of the former, — of a more spiritual form of the everlasting gos- pel, — no miracles are performed at all. Is not the reason yet evi- dent ? Let me ask any person whatever, whether he can be forced to think what he does not think, or to love what he does not love ': It is true that, by the civil laws of a state, or anything which occa- .iltefts fear, a man may be forced to speak what he does not think, ^m to do what he does not love ; yet, notwithstanding this, he does not think and love what he thus says and does •, and, were the con- straint removed, he would immediately speak and act otherwise. Now, tliough such conduct as this may indeed answer the purposes of the civil life, do we not see that, with respect to the spiritual life, it is nothing? A man may, by civil and ecclesiastical cnactmentt^. be restrained frosn speaking against the truths of religion and out- wardly transgressing its laws; yea, he may be, and in some coun- tries is, forced to acknowledge and obey them : yet if his knowledge Ciud obedience proceed only from such a cause, what is his religion ? It is evident, that unless a man really thinks what he speaks and loves what he acts, there is nothing of the man in such speech and action. Hence it may appear, that the essential human principle, or that by virtue of which man is man, consists in the liberty of thinking and willing: and that if this liberty were taken from him, w-hich would be the case were he constantly under the influence of a miracle, he would no longer, properly speaking, be a man at all. If w-e see a beast of prey destroy another animal, do we reprobate him as guilty of moral evil ? No we do not : we are sensible that he is gratifying a natural appetite, which he has no liberty of will to re- sist. But if we see a ruan commit an act of cruelty or injustice, we do reprobate him as guilty of moral evil : we are sensible that reason might have taught him it was wrong, and that he was at liberty, had he pleased, to obey her dictates. If then we thus confess it to be these faculties which raise us from mere animals to men, how ought we to disdain to seek an influence, which, by depriving us of them, ■would reduce us from men to mere animals ! And such is the influ- AND THEREFORE GRANTED. 151 weakened them much more had he wrought the most " notable" ones. Even under the Mosaic law, abound- ence of miracles. For if, when we have rejected a truth, the opera- tion of a iriracle force us to acknowledge it; is there anything of true faith in such acknowledgment ? True faith must reside in the rational mind : but the miracle, acting only on the external senses, actually shuts up the rational mind : so that, astounded in a stupid amaze, we become utterly incapable of looking at what is thus forced upon us in any light of reason, or of receiving it in any affection. Wherefore the miracle becomes quite useless : for finding ourselves, while its impression remains, deprived of our freedom, — bereaved of the faculties which constitute us men, — we willingly suffer it to wear off": and thus being restored to our liberty, we confirm anew what our reason dictates ; we return to our former belief; because it is what we think, and what we like to think. But that we may see this as clearly as possible, let us take an example. Suppose a man, having no affection for goodness, to be forced by a miracle to acknowledge a truth which he otherwise would reject : will he be- hold this truth with pleasure, even though it teach the way to hap- piness ? Assuredly not. And why ? Because he wishes to find hap- piness some other way. For this (inasmuch as it is a truth) teache?, that, to be truly happy, we must be good, and renounce the pursuit of such enjoyments as are grounded in the love of evil : but he, be- ing devoted to the pursuit of such enjoyments, which he feels as his very life, will regard as an enemy whatsoever opposes it. Finding himself therefore under an irksome restraint in the prosecution of his favorite pleasures, from the monitory voice of the truth he has acknowledged, he will shortly reject it as founded in error ; and he will deny the miracle which induced his belief, by persuading him- self that it was the accidental effect of some natural cause with which he is unacquainted ; or perhaps, that it proceeded from the agency of powers which delight in deceiving mankind. " Let us then not wish to have our minds closed by miracles, but let us open them by rational investigation. If we are desirous to know whether the doctrines now promulgated are consistent with truth, let us search for them in Moses and the prophets ; for these are they which testify of them ; and if we believe not Moses and ^ the prophets, neither should we be persuaded though one rose from - the dead. These are the Lord's own words ; which I remind you of, to evince, that the reasons I have offered to demonstrate the inu- tility of miracles as evidences of spiritual truth, are derived from Him who cannot err. Let us remember that he also assures us, that it is »> an evil and adulterous generation which seeketh after a sign. Let '1^ us remember likewise, and tremble lest we resemble them, that the Jews, who were such a generation, were not convinced by the signs when they beheld them. Of this, what an awful instance they gave when they crucified the Lord ! •' Come down from the cross,' they cried out, ' and we will believe thee.' Did he not perform the mira- cle they demanded as the condition of their faith ? Nay, did he not perform a much greater miracle ? He raised his glorified body from the grave : the Jews knew it : — and they bribed the guard to say that it had been stolen by his disciples ! 152 A HUMAN INSTRUMENT NECESSARY ing, as that dispensation did, with outward wonders, the performance of them is never laid down as among the credentials of a prophet; while, on the other hand, their exhibition by false prophets is spoken of as pos- sible and probable: " If there arise among you a pro- phet or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder come to pass, whereof he spake unto thee, saying. Let us go after other gods which we have not known, and let us serve them; thou shalt not hearken unto the voice of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams."* Thus the know- ledge of God, as revealed, of course, in his Word, is spoken of as the only infallible touchstone. So in Isaiah: *' To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not ac- cording to this word, it is because they have no light in them. "I To the same purpose is the wise answer of Abraham in the parable: " They have Moses and the prophets: let them hear them. — If they hear not Moses " No, my friends, believe me ! it is not by miracles that disciples are to be gained for the New Jerusalem. The real inhabitants of this ' holy city' are to be interiorly principled in wisdom and good- ness : and it is not in the power of a thousand miracles to affect the interiors of the mind, or to remove one evil which is rooted there. Let us then remember we are men, and look for such evidences as become the capacities of men ; which are, truths that recommend themselves to an enlightened reason : and of these rational eviden- ces there is no lack to accredit the testimony of Baron Swedeii- lorg."— See also some remarks upon the unsatisfying nature of the evidence from miracles in the preface to " the plenary Inspiration," &c. I had there said, in reference to those defences of Christianity which build chiefly on that evidence, that they " are more adapted to silence than to satisfy even an ingenuous inquirer." The observation has been cavilled at by some of the Reviewers ; but I have since had the satisfaction of finding precisely the same idea, in nearly the same phraseology, expressed by Mr T. Erskine, in his very popular work, " Remarks on the Internal Evidence for the truth of the Chris- tian Religion." — " We generally find," says that amiable writer, " that the objections which are urged by sceptics against the inspi- ration of the Bible, are founded on some apparent improbability in the detached parts of the system. These objections are often repel- led by the defenders of Christianity as irrelevant ; and the objectors are referred to the unbroken and well supported line of testimony in confirmation of its miraculous history. This may he asilendng ar- gument, hut it is not a convincing one.'' (p. 200, Ed. 1823.) * Deut. xiii. 1, 2, 3. f Ch. viii. 20. AND THEREFORE GRANTED. 153 and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead."* And the Lord himself : ^' Search the Scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me. — Had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me : for he wrote of me."| It is to this testimony that Sweden- borg appeals. As the " harbinger" of the Lord at his first advent preached of, and pointed to, the Word made flesh, and they who thence were led to Jesus acknow- ledged, that, though " John did no miracle, all things that he said of this man were true;" so does the herald of the second advent point to the Lord in his Word, and they who, guided by his directions, seek him there, will assuredly find, that, though Swedenborg did no miracle, all that he has said of the presence of the Lord therein, in the power and glory of its spiritual sense, is true also. And the one is as great a divine discovery as the other. As it was impossible for John, without illumination fi-om above, to have known in his true character the Word in person; so was it impossible for Swedenborg, without illumination from above, to have known the true charac- ter of the written Word of God, to have seen how it makes a one with the living Word himself; being a de- rivation from him in the inmost of w^hich he is, and by the opening of the internal sense of which he is bringing himself nearer than ever to mankind, and granting to them a nearer access to him. It would he idle, I admit, to talk in this manner, if the views of Scripture given in the writings of Swedenborg differed not from those of com- mentators in general, — if they contained nothing beyond what learning and study and piety might discover: but if they exhibit far more than this; if they present the Word in a light completely new and transcendantly glorious; if they prove that it includes throughout a reg- ular spiritual sense, which, without superseding that of the letter, immensely exalts and dignifies the whole, dis- playing it to the enchanted eye of reason as well as of faith as the very Divine Truth and Wisdom, — as, with- out a figure, the Word of God indeed; then surely it will be conceded, that flesh and blood could not have re- vealed this unto him, but he must have received it by special illumination from the living Word himself. * Luke xvi. 29, 31. t John v. 39, 46. 154 A HUMAN INSTRUiMEXT NECESSARY Why is this not generally seen ? Because Christians in general now, like the Jews at the Lord's first advent, have their minds pre-occupied with erroneous conceptions respecting spiritual subjects: because, as the Jews were possessed with gross but darling notions respecting the earthly kingdom of the Messiah and the perpetual car- nal observation of the ceremonial law, and thus were dis- qualified for relishing the spiritual things which he de- clared were contained in that law; so Christians are pos- sessed with external but fondly cherished sentiments respecting all the great points of the religion of Jesus, and with the persuasion that it is to continue unaltered, as professed by them, till the end of the world; and are thus disqualified for relishing the truly heavenly doc- trines and really spiritual ideas which are now shewn to be contained in the Word of God. Perceiving, on a slight inspection, that the views presented by Sweden- borg oppose their prejudices, few take the trouble to make themselves sufficiently acquainted with his wri- tings to be able to form anything like a correct judg- ment respecting their truth and credibility: yet, I apj>re- hend, :«ven the most prejudiced will hardly deny, that the sphitual sense opened by his instrumentality, if true, is a discovery of such importance as to be wor- thily referred to God. But let us hope that the reign of prejudice, though it has lasted long, will soon, in this as in so many other instances, be broken down. The Lord at his coming in the flesh was crucified; no wonder then that, when appearing again in the opening of a higher order of Truth in his Word, he should be reject- ed: but as he then rose again, and from his throne in heaven extended his reign over multitudes who then began to acknowledge him, so, doubtless, the hour is coming when an influence from himself in heaven will accompany his Word as opened, — when the prejudices which oppose its reception will be abolished from the minds of multitudes, — and when they will again "look upon him whom they have pierced," and accept the truth they have denied. Begin then, I intreat you, ye Candid and Reflecting, to use the freedom which, by the accomplishment of the last judgment, is restored to the human mind. Suffer, in your own breasts, the power of prejudice to reign no longer. Take the pains fairly to AND THEREFORE GRANTED. 155 estimate the views of, and from, the Word of God pre- sented by Svvedenborg, not rejecting the whole as soon as you find something that differs from your previous opinions, or that you do not immediately understand: and the result, I trust will be, that you will find them, as com- pared with the Word of God, testifying their own truth by evidence far more convincing than that of miracles, because by evidence that does not merely strike the senses, but reaches the understanding, and affects the heart. Then you will see that the illustrious Swedenborg must indeed have been the Human Instrument for com- municating the great truths connected with the second coming of the Lord. If, with any degree of candor, you look at his character and writings without admit- ting this, you will find the whole an inexplicable riddle. His writings, you will see, are far too replete with su- perior views of Divine Truth to be the productions, in its ordinary state, of the human mind; in addition, you will perceive, that they are far too methodical in their form, too soberly as well as sublimely rational, to be the imaginations of a lunatic; and, in further addition, you will acknowledge, that their excellent moral tendency, together with the eminently amiable and virtuous char- acter of their author, render ridiculous the notion, that they can be the offspring either of wilful imposture or of diabolical illusion. What remains, but that you ac- cept them as the result of divine illumination, — the com- munications of a writer who had really been called to a holy office by the Lord? Admit this, and the mystery is solved. You will be satisfied, that this much calum- niated and much mistaken man was as consistent and exalted a character as was ever known: you will con- fess, that having been selected as the Human Instrument for announcing the last great dispensation of gospel- truth, though differing from former similar Instruments as much as this differs from former dispensations; and being " not disobedient unto the heavenly vision ;"* he pursued the course appointed him with as much stead- iness and consistency, self-devotion and zeal, as mark- ed the career of a Moses or a Paul ; and your hearts will " Acts xxvi. 19. 156 HEAVEN AND HELL ; tell you, that, like them, he deserves to have his memo- ry for ever embalmed in the grateful recollections of mankind.* SECTION VI. Heaven and Hell; and the ^Appearances in them and in the Intermediate Region or World of Spirits. If the character of the illustrious Swedenborg, as the divinely selected Human Instrument for announcing the second coming of the Lord, and for communicating the discoveries of Divine Truth to be then afforded, be satisfactorily established; and if the reality of his inter- course, in that character, with the spiritual world, be * The impossibility of explaining the character of Swebenborg upon any other hypothesis than that which admits the truth of his pretensions, has been tacitly acknowledged by some of his Review- ers. The Monthly Review, for instance, though it has sometimes indulged an ill placed levity in regard to Swedenborg's writings, yet on the first publication, in English, of his treatise on Heaven and Hell, which is precisely the work of his which may most easily be distorted into matter of ridicule, spoke of the Author in the following tone of moderation: " Count Swedendorg (so it styles him) is cer- tainly to be ranked among the wonders of the age : for though en- thusiasts and visionaries have arisen at all times, it is very rare to meet with one who so calmly, yet confidently, and with so much simplicity and cool reasoning, relates the frequent interviews he has had with the world of spiiits." The Reviewers then give an ex- tract from the book ; after which they say, " In whatever light we regard this author, there is somethin;^ truly astonishing in him and in his writings. He was a man of eminence and distinction in his country ;" &c. continuing to relate much that was honorable in his character, and concluding with an extract from the translator's pre face,. exhorting to the perusal of his works. (M. R. Nov. 1778.) In their account of the work entitled " The New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Doctrine," after a sort of abstract of its contents, they say, " Possibly, when the doctrine here taught is stripped of its peculiar garb, it will be found to mean nothing more than that real piety integrity, and goodness of heart, which all goodmen must plead/or, and earnestly wish to see universally prevail. — We will only add, that while we cannot but consider the late Count Swedenborg as an Enthusiast of the first order, we must also regard him as a most ex- traordinary, and, indeed, a must wonderful man?" (M. R. Vol. Ixiii. App.) We here see precisely the same feeling as the force AND THE APPEARANCES IN THEM. 157 confirmed, as we have seen it is, by indubitable proofs of his supernatural knowledge; all the objections which are made against him on account of the particulars brought to light by him respecting the hitherto unknown state of man after death, fall at once to the ground. If those particulars are in harmony with his general system of doctrine, and his general system of doctrine, inclu- ding that part of it which relates to this subject, is se- curely founded on the Scriptures, it is the height of absurdity (o reject them, and with them the whole of his system, because they clash with some unfounded pre- judices of our own. Most men avow, that, in regard to all which relates to the life of man after death, beyond the simple fact that he continues to exist, they are in- volved in the deepest ignorance: yet offer them any spe- cific information on the subject, and they reject it as un- true, with a decision which would only be justifiable were they already in possession respecting it of the most accurate knowledge. Supremely interesting to an immortal as is the nature of the state on which he enters at the death of the body, the opposers of the New Church act as if it were here a high privilege to be in the dark. Allow me then now to appeal to you, my Can- did and Reflecting Readers, on this much misrepresent- ed and much misunderstood part of our Author's tes- timony and writings. of truth, by another of its distinguished prociaimers, excited in one of old, whose previous habits had in Uke manner disqualified him for receiving it, but who, while under its Influence for a moment, could not refrain from exclaiming, " Almost thou persuadcst me to be a Christian." (Acts xxvi. 28.) The previous habits of the Monthly Reviewers, together with the character they had to maintain, con- strained them to speak of Swedenborg as an enthusiast ; while the force of truth compelled them to admit, tliat he was such an enthu- siast as the world had never before seen. ¥/hat could have made them say, '•' In whatever light we view this author, there is some- thing truly astonishing in him and his tvritings ?" What, but an inv/ard feeling, though not acknowledged to themselves, that no other hypothesis could explain the phsnoruena of his case but that which the author himself assigns ? without which his character and v*^ritings must ever remain an inexplicable riddle, calculated to ge- nerate all that astonishment which attends the combination of con- tradictions ? what more extraordinary contradiction than to talk of a CALM and COOLLY REASONING euthuslast ' WHOSE DOCTRINE, too, is such as all good men must earnestly wish should become uni- versal, — that is, is the essence of reason and excellence ? 14 158 HEAVEN AND HELL ; I. It is we are well aware, (and it may be expedient, first, to meet that objection with a few remarks,) a great offence with many in this Sadducean age, that our Au- thor should profess to have had open communication with the spiritual world; to have been so in the spirit, — and this, as he declares, not when he was asleep but when he was wide awake, — as to be able to communicate with those in the world of spirits, or the first receptacle of souls after death, and occasionally with those in heaven and with those in hell; as also, to behold the appearances which exist in all those places and states respectively.* But what is there in his pretensions on this subject, which is not sanctioned by the experience of those who have formerly filled a similar office ? Did not the Apostle Pe- ter behold as extraordinary a vision as any that is detailed in the '' Memorable Relations" of Swedenborg, when he beheld " a certain vessel descending unto him, as it had been a great sheet, knit at the four corners, and let down to the earth; wherein were all manner of four- footed beasts of the earth, and wild beasts, and creeping things, and fowls of the air. And there came a voice to him. Rise, Peter, kill and eat."t Does not the Apos- tle Paul declare, that, to him revelations from heaven were things of common occurrence? He says, — and states it among his claims to respect and attention, not as what ought to involve his pretensions in doubt and denial, — " I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord. I knew a man in Christ, [meaning himself,] about four- teen years ago (whether in the body or out of the body * It was this which the writer of this Appeal found most repulsive, when first, by the kindness of Providence, the writings of Sweden- borg came into his hands. Accustomed, as is so commonly the case at this day, to consider the other world and this to be separated by an impassable barrier, I could scarcely believe it possible for an inhabit- ant of the natural world to have any open communication with the spiritual, — not even by the special gift and providing of the Lord. Hence I at first ridiculed what I read (for the first book I opened was the treatise on Heaven and Hell), beautiful, sublime, and affect- ing, as were the views presented. But examining further, the su- perior views on all the subjects of religious doctrine which the writings of Swedenborg everywhere exhibit, and the luminous ex- planations they offer of the Word of God, entirely convinced me, that, in these respects he was truly an enlightened and safe guide. t Acts X. 11, 12, 13. AND THE APPEARANCES IN THEM. 159 I cannot tell; God knoweth;) such a one caught up to the third heaven. And 1 knew such a man (whether in the body or out of the body I cannot tell ; God knoweth ;) how that he was caught up into paradise, and heard un- speakable words, which it is not possible for man to utter. Of such a one will I glory. — And lest 1 should be exalt- ed above measure through the abundance of the revela- tions^ there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, a mes- senger of Satan, to buflet me, lest I should be exalted above measure,"* Communications with the spiritual world, then, were common with the apostles, and were regarded by them as properly belonging to their ofiice: and specific examples of them abound throughout the Scriptures both of the Old and New Testament. So, if we are to give any credit to the unanimous assertion of all the primitive fathers, similar communications were extremely frequent in the early ages of Christianity. But, without adverting to these, the possibility of such communications cannot be denied by any believer of the Scriptures. Surely then we may say, that, standing in the situation in which Swedenborg asserts he did, he would have been but half qualified for his work had he been without them. His pretending to them does not, indeed, afford proof that his other pretensions are true; but it makes the whole consistent, and thus it gives to the whole the character of higher probability. In him, as the instrument for restoring the true knowledge of re- ligious truth, they were entirely in place. Without them, all that he advances besides would have lost half its claim to attention. And if the information communi- cated by him is far more distinct than had ever been made known on such subjects before, this, also, is pre- cisely what, under the circumstances, was to have been expected. If the knowledge respecting life and immor- tality brought to light at the first promulgation of the gospel, greatly exceeded in clearness what the world previously possessed; it surely was to be expected, that the knowledge on the same subjects unfolded at the Lord's second advent, would rise in distinctness above that communicated at his first, in the same ratio as this transcended the mere shadows afforded under the Mo- * 2 Cor. xii. lto5,7. 160 HEAVEN AND HELL ; saic dispensation. Is it then the part of sound reason to reject the information communicated, for being what, if true, it assuredly ouglit to be? Is it the part of sound judgment to conclude, respecting Swedenborg, from the mere fact of his asserting that he had such communica- tions with the spiritual world, as, if his pretensions were true, he ought to have had, that therefore his pretensions were false? We surely cannot justly come to such a conclusion, till, after having weighed all that he offers as the result of his communications in the balances of Scripture and Reason, we have found them wanting. II. To induce a condemnatory decision respecting the subjects of Swedenborg's spiritual intercourse, the author of the Anti-Swedenborg has brought together, as before observed, such a collection o{ Sundered Scraps as he deemed most likely to make an unfavorable impression on the reader: and he prepares for them by a Section headed On Heaven and Hell; in which he states, in his own way, — that is, in the way he thinks best cal- culated to generate prejudice, — such particulars as will most easily admit of misrepresentation. To create odium, he imputes to us on a former occasion, as notic- ed above,* the denial of '' a future reckoning day and an hereafter of rewards and punishments;" so now, for the same purpose, he falsely represents us as abolishing The difference between heaven and hell. " The Baron," he affirms, " by his descriptions of the invis'' ':^ "vorld, has gone a great way towards making those who will believe him, neither very anxious for heaven, nor much afraid of hell, which, wherever such a feeling obtains, is a dreadful mental disease. For the sauotions of re- wards and punishments do mightily restrain from vice, and promote virtue and piety. We are all naturally too remiss in religious duties: there is therefore little need to bereave us of those two great stimulants, hope and /ear."t So then, Swedenborg deprives virtue and vice of their sanctions: — a serious charge indeed, were there a grain of truth in it! To be " afraid ofhell,^'' however, in its most proper sense, is to be afraid of evil; for though Jicll is a place and state of misery, the essence of it is evil. The fear of hell which is not accompanied ^ P. fi6. t P. 67. AND THE APPEARANCES IN THEM. 161 with the year of evil is but a spurious and Pharisaic kind of feeling, productive of little benefit either to the individual or to society. A man may be afraid of hell in the manner recommended by Mr B., — even of" the Mahometan's hell,'' the description of whose terrors he quotes, (for he here again refers, for the third or fourth time, to his favorite standard of orthodoxy, " the Mahom- etan's Creed!") — without being much afraid of evil: and Mr B. seems desirous to evince this by his own example; for surely it is no light evil continually to sin, as he does, against the commandment, " Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor." That any man who has ever looked into Sweden- borg's treatise on Heaven and Hell, and by making references to it, as Mr B. has done, wishes it to be be- lieved that he has read it, should be capable of advancing such a calumny as to say, that the Baron's descriptions of the invisible world tend to make men neither very anx- ious for heaven nor much afraid of hell; to take away from virtue and vice the prospect of reward and punish- ment; and to deprive men of those stimulants to good conduct, hope and fear; is truly a deplorable example of the power of theological prejudice; for, most assured- ly, never before was heaven represented under so truly attractive, exalted, and glorious an aspect; never was hell depicted so morally appalling, so repulsive by credible horrors. Is there nothing calculated to render us anxious for heaven, — to make us regard it as a reward of virtue de- sirable in the highest degree, — in the assurance offered by Swedenborg, that he who enters heaven comes into a scene, where every object that can impart delight sa- lutes his new-quickened sensations; while yet it is not in anything imparted by outward objects that his hap- piness essentially consists, though they contribute to its fulness, but in that ineffable sense of blessedness which fills his whole mind, and which is inherent in that life of love, wisdom, and use, by which he is inwardly animated, and into the full activity, and completely developed enjoy- ments of which, he now finally enters? He is immedi- ately, according to our Author, surrounded by kindred angels, all ready and eager to shew him the most winning offices of attention, and in whose society he feels at once 14* 162 HEAVEN AND HELL; entirely at home, as if he were among friends and rela- tives known to him from infancy; whence his spirits expand, and his life is exalted, being conjoined with the life of all around him; which being all in harmony with his own, and not the slightest disagreement creating an opposing or uncongenial sphere to be felt, occasions such a sense of fulness of delight, as can never here be experienced, nor even conceived. Nor can any de- scription ever exalt the imagination even to the threshold of the state requisite for apprehending it; for it can only be apprehended, as it is, by those in the spiritual state belonging to angels, and which cannot be perceptibly communicated to man in the natural world. Of man in his natural state it will ever be true, as Divine Truth hath spoken, that " Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." ]Vor does the experience of our author form any excep- tion to this statement; for it was not to tlie faculties of his natural part, by which he lived as a man in the world, that the experience was communicated, but to those of his spiritual part, which properly belongs to the spiritual world; and he constantly declares that he can give no description of what it was thus granted him to perceive, that can convey any adequate idea of it to man in the world: all that he sketches therefore, and all that we can apprehend, is to be regarded but as a faint approxi- mation to the reality. But we must not attempt to enter into particulars here. Let those who feel sufficient in- terest in a subject interesting above all others, consult our Author's work on Heaven and Hell; and if they do not, on a serious examination, find his representations of the heavenly state to be heavenly indeed ; to be, to the truly rational and justly feeling mind, pre-eminently attractive: and to bear so distinctly the stamp of truth as to indicate that they could only have been derived from positive knowledge; we will admit that he has no higher claim to superior illumination.* * Let any one turn in pa'"ticular to the chapters on the Wisdom of the Angels of Heaven, on the State of Innocence of the Angels of Heaven, on the State of Peace in Heaven, and on Heavenly Joy and Happiness; and it may surely be affirmed, that if anything can affect him, and awaken in his bosom any heavenward aspirations, he AND THE APPEARANCES IN THEM. 163 And if they who believe the testimony of Swedenborg have reason to be animated in the highest degree to will find it there. I select a few passages, that the reader may see how easy it would be to make a collection of Extracts from Sweden- borg's works that would powerfully recommend them to the pious and sincere. " The angels can express by a single word what a man cannot ex- press by a thousand words. Besides, in one angelic expression are conveyed things innumerable, which cannot be expressed by the words of human language ; for in every individual thing uttered by angels are included arcana of wisdom in continual succession, to which human sciences cannot reach. The angels also supply by the tone of their voices, what they do not express fully by the words of their speech ; and in the tone of their voices is contained the affection belonging to the things of which they speak in their order : for by the tones they express affections, and by the words the ideas of thought flowing from their affections. Hence it is that the things heard in heaven are said [by the Apostle Paul] to be ineffable." (H. and H. n. 269.) " It is said in heaven, that innocence dwells in wisdom, and that the angels have wisdom in proportion as they have innocence. That this is the case, they confirm by these considerations: That they who are in a state of innocence attribute nothing of good to themselves, but consider themselves only as receivers, and ascribe all to the Lord : that they are desirous to be led by him, and not by themselves : that they love everything which is good, and are de- lighted with everything which is true, because they know and per- ceive that to love what is good, thus to will and to do it, is to love the Lord, and that to love what is true is to love their neighbor : that they live contented with what they have, whether it be little or much, because they know that t]|^y receive as much as is profita- ble for them, little if little be profitable, and much if much : and that they do not know what is profitable for them, because this is known only to the Lord, who hath a view to what is eternal in all the operations of his providence." — " All who are in the good of in- nocence are affected by innocence, and so far as any one is in that good, so far he is affected. But they who are not in the good of in- nocence, are not affected by it : wherefore all who are in hell are altogether contrary to innocence, nor do they know what innocence is ; yea, they are of such a character, that in proportion as any one is innocent, they burn with a desire to do him mischief." (n. 278, 283.)— "The inmost principles of heaven are two, viz. innocence and peace. They are termed inmost principles, because they pro- ceed immediately from the Lord. Innocence is that principle from which is derived every good of heaven ; and peace is that principle from which is derived all the delight of heaven. Every good is at- tended with delight : and both good and delight have relation to love ; for whatever is loved is called good, and is perceived as delightful : Hence it follows that those two inmost principles, innocence and peace, proceed from the divine love of the Lord, and affect the an- gels from an inmost ground." — " The divine sphere of peace in heaven flows from the Lord, and exists in consequence of his con- 164 HEAVEN AND KELT. ; secure the joy that is set before them, they are instiga- ted, by the clearest conviction of the eternal wretched- junction with the angels of heaven, and in particular in consequence of the conjunction of good and truth in every angel. These are the origins of peace : whence it may be evident, that peace in heaven is the Divine Sphere inmostly affecting with blessedness every prin- ciple of good there, thus, acting as the source of all the joj'^ of hea- ven; and that in its essence it is the divine joy of the Lord's divine love resulting from his conjunction with heaven and with everyone there. This joy, perceived by the Lord in the angels, and by the angels from the Lord, is peace. Hence, by derivation, the angels have every blessedness, delight, and happiness ; or that which is called heavenly joy." (n. 285,286.) " Every one may know, that when man leaves the external or natural man he comes into the internal or spiritual ; whence it may be known that heavenly delight is internal and spiritual, but not ex- ternal and natural ; and since it is internal and spiritual, that it is purer and more exquisite, and that it affects the interiors of man, which are the faculties of his soul or spirit." — " The delights of hea- ven are ineffable, and likewise are innumerable. But of those innu- merable delights not one can be known or credited by him who is in the more delight of the body or of the flesh ; since his interiors look away from heaven and towards the world, that is, backwards. For he who is wholly immersed in the delight of the body or of the flesh, — or, what is the same thing, in the love of self and the world, — has no sensation of any delight but what is to be found in honor, in gain, and in the pleasures of the body and the senses, which so extin- guish and choke interior delights, which are those of heaven, that their existence is not believed. Wherefore a person of this descrip- tion would wonder greatly, if he were only told that there are de- lights existing when the delig}^ of honor and gain are removed ; and still more if he were told, that the delights of heaven succeed- ing in their place are innumerable, and are such, that the delights of the body and the flesh, which are chiefly the delights of honor and gain, cannot be compared with them. Hence the reason is evident, why it is not known what heavenlyjoy is." — " All the delights of hea- ven are conjoined with and are in uses^ because uses are the goods of love and charity, in which the angels are principled ; wherefore everyone enjoys delights of such a quality as are his uses, and like- wise in such a degree as is his affection for use." — " Heavenlyjoy itself, such as it is in its essence, cannot be described, because it has its seat in the inmost principles of the life of the angels, and thence in every particular of their thoughts and affections, and from these again in every particular of their speech and actions. It is as if the interiors were fully opened and expanded to the reception of delight and blessedness, which is diffused into all the fibres, and thus through the whole angel ; whence its perception and sensation are such as to admit of no description : for what commences from the inmost parts, flows into all the parts derived from them, and propa- gates itself, with continual augmentation, towards the exteriors. Good spirits, who are not as yet in that delight, because not as yet raised up into heaven, when they perceive it emanating from an an- AND THE APPEARANCES IN THEM. 165 ness which awaits the wicked and impenitent, to shun the paths which lead to its abode. They are assured in the most decisive manner, that the state of those who are inwardly wicked, — who are confirmed^ in principle as well as in practice and inclination, in the evil dispo- sitions of their corrupt hearts, — will be hereafter intense- ly miserable: since the increased activity of perception peculiar to those in a spiritual state of existence, whilst it incomparably augments the felicity of the good, must proportionately increase the unhappiness of the bad. We are assured, also, that not only are the inward feel- ings of the wicked hereafter full of pain and misery, but that, although they are not unceasingly roasted. in mate- rial fire, without which Mr B. would fain have it believed that hell cannot be hell, yet actual inflictions of punish- ment inconceivably severe, and often reiterated, also await them in the dark world; these being the only means by which their malignant natures can be restrained from breaking forth into such outrages as would disturb the gel by the sphere of his love, are filled with such delight, that they fall as it were into a swoon through the sweetness of the sensation." — " That I might know what is the nature of the delights of heavenly joys it hath been granted me by the Lord to perceive them ; wherefore, since I have had living experience, I can know, but" not at all describe them : yet something shall be said to give some idea of them. — It was perceived that the joy and delight came as from the heart, diffusing themselves with the utmost softness through all the inmost fibres, with such a sense of gratification, that the fibre is, as it were, nothing but joy and delight ; and in like manner every perception and sensation thence derived, receiving its life from hap- piness. The joy of bodily pleasures, compared with these joys, is as a gross and pungent clot compared with a pure and most gentle aura. It was observed, that when I was desirous to transfer all my delight to another, a more interior and fuller delight than the former flowed in its place ; and it v/as perceived that this was from the Lord." (n. 395, 398, 402, 409, 413.) I know not how these extracts may impress the reader, but I ven- ture to think that every one may in some measure judge of his own spiritual state, according as he is affected by them or not ; and that whosoever is affected by them will be of opinion, that they are in the highest degree worthy of the subject, and that heavenly wisdom , innocence, peace, and joy, could only be so well described by a com- munication from heaven itself. If any should still think, with Mr B. that such views of heaven are calculated to make a man not very anxious to attain it, — that they deprive virtue of its prospect ofre- ward, and bereave us of the stimulant of hope, an obviously true solution of the enigma, but a most awful one, is given in the ex- tracts themselves. 166 HEAVEN AND HELL ; peace of the good, and even endanger the siibsistence of the universe. According to Swedenborg, all who are in hell can feel no enjoyment but in the doing of evil; yet no sooner do they attempt it than they fall into punish- ment. Their existence is thus passed in alternations between two states; in one of which they are in the sense of the privation of all delight, in consequence of being withheld from doing surh things as alone are de- lightful to them, — and this in addition to that turbid wretchedness which lusts such as theirs, even when en- joying their gratifications, carry within them; and in the other they are suffering the positive tortures of pun- ishments inconceivably dreadful. This is the hell of which Mr B. declares he should not be much afraid!* " It may be satisfactory to the reader, if we illustrate this subject also by a (ew extracts from our Author's treatise on Heaven and Hell. "Evil spirits are severely punished in the world of spirits, that by punishments they may be deterred from doing evil. This likewise appears as if it were from the Lord; when yet there is nothing of punishment from the Lord but from evil itself. For evil is so con- joined with its own punishment, that they cannot he separated. For the infernal crew desire and love nothing more than to do evil, especially to inflict punishment and torment ; and »hey likewise do evil, and inflict punishment, on every one who is not protected by the Lord ; wherefore, when evil is done by any from an evil heart, since this rejects from itself all protection from the Lord, in- fernal spirits rush in upon him who does it, and punish him." — " What eternal fire is, — which is mentioned in the Word as the por- tion of those who are in hell, hath as yet been known scarcely to any one, by reason that mankind have thought materially respecting the things mentioned in the Word, not being acquainted with its spiritual sense ; wherefore by this fire some have understood mate- rial fire, some torment in general, some the pangs of conscience ; and some have supposed that it is mentioned merely to impress the wick- ed with terror." — " The spiritual heat appertaining to man is the heat of his life, because in its essence it is love. This heat is what is meant in the Word by fire ; love to the Lord and neighborly love being meant by heavenly fire, and self-love and the love of the world by infernal fire." — '-Since the lust of doing evils, which originate in the love of self and of the world, is what is meant by infernal fire ; and since such lust possesses all who are in the hells ; therefore, likewise, when the hells are opened, there is seen a sort of fiery appearance with smoke issuing from it, such as is usually seen from buildings on fire. — But when they are closed, this fiery appearance is not seen, but in its place an appearance like a dark mass of con- densed smoke. — It is however to be noted, that they who are in the hells ai'e not in fire, but that the fire is an appearance ; — for love cor- responds to fire, and all things which appear in the spiritual world AND THE APPEARANCES IN THEM. 167 III. In the general views then which are presented in the writings of Swedenborg on the subject of Heaven appear according to correspondence*." — " As by infernal fire is meant every lust to do evil flowing from the love of self, by it is al- so meant torment such as has place in the hells. For the lust deriv- ed from that love is the lust of hurting others who do not honor, ve- nerate, and pay court to the subject of it : — and when such lust pervails in every one, in a society which is restrained by no exter- nal bonds, such as the fear of the law, and of the loss of reputation, of honor, of gain, or of life, every one, under the impulse of his own evil, rushes upon another, and, so far as he prevails, enslaves the rest and reduces them under his dominion, and from a principle of delight exercises cruelty towards those who do not submit. — All the hells are such societies; v^herefore every one there carries ha- tred in his heart against another, and from hatred bursts forth into cruelty, as far as he pervails." — " But as rebellious disturbances con- tinually exist there, since every one there desires to be greatest, and burns with hatred against others, hence come new outrages. Thus one scene is changed for another : wherefore they who were made slaves are taken out to help some new devil to subjugate oth- ers ; when they who do not submit, and yield implicit obedience, are again tormented by various methods. And so they go on con- tinually. Such torments are the torments of hell, which are called infernal fire." (n. 550, 553, 566, 568, 573, 574.) Beside these ge- neral miseries, in the first volume of the Arcana Ccclestia are de- scribed a number of specific inflictions which follow the perpetrators of various crimes. Now can anything be conceived more truly horrible than such a state as this ; — to be incapable of any delight but in doing injury to others, and to have the injury thus done speedily return upon their own heads? But some are offended that delight, under any form, should visit the breasts of internals : yet every observer of human nature well knows that even the most atrocious ciimes are attended with delight to those who are in the love of them, and that nothing is more true than the observation of our Author, that whatever a man loves he regards as good, and feels as delightful. Thus one well acquainted with the human heart represents Satan as exclaim- ing, " Evil, be thou my good!" P. L. iv. 110. Again, he makes Satan justly express the nature of evil, and its de- light, in the following lines : " The more I see Pleasures about me, so much more I feel Torment within me, as from the hateful siege Of contraries. All good to me becomes Bane, and in heaven much worse would be my state. — For only in destroying find I ease To my relentless thoughts." B. ix. 119, &c. The same character speaks of his aim as being " — all pleasure to destroy. Save xohat is in destroying: other joy To me is lost." lb. 477. &c. 168 HEAVEN AND HELL; and Hell, as the abodes, respectively , of happiness and of misery, while there certainly is not anything which is not in the highest degree agreeable both to Reason and Scripture, there also seems nothing which could be deemed inconsistent with the usual conceptions of the Christian world. I have therefore not thought it requi- site to dwell upon the general subject further than was necessary to refute Mr Beaumont's unjustifiable calum- ny," that heaven, according to our Author's representa- tion of it, is not to be desired, and hell not to be feared. In forbearing to enlarge upon these subjects, I am w^ell aware that I am foregoing a great advantage; for the views we entertain of them only require, I am sure, to be fully and fairly exhibited, to win the admiration and charm the effections of all candid and reflecting aspirants for heaven. But my aim in this Appeal is, to recommend our views of the eternal world and state, and our doc- trines of faith and life, not so much by the direct presen- tation of their obvious beauties, ;is by the vindication of those points which have been most assailed by objectors, because they most differ from the common apprehensions of the Christian world. Now some of the particulars brought to light in the writings of Swedenborg respect- ing Heaven, Hell, and the Intermediate Region or World of Spirits, — some of the circumstances relating to their inhabitants, and to the appearances which are there presented to the view, — certainly do widely differ from the commonly received apprehensions. It is by these then that such adversaries as Mr Beaumont chiefly hope to make an unfavorable impression on their readers; with which view they set them forth in an isolated man- ner, separate from the explanations of their causes which the Author gives in various parts of his works, which, when seen, though they do not bring the statements objected to nearer to the common apprehensions, evince the common apprehensions to be founded in mistake, and establish the agreement of all the Author's state- ments with Reason and Scripture. The explanatory truths then necessary to the right understanding of the subject, I propose here to offer; and nothing more will be necessary to vindicate every relation which our adversa- ries would stigmatize as unfounded or ridiculous. In order to see the reasonableness and Scripture AND THE APPEARANCES IN THEM. 169 ground of the seemingly most extraordinary of the par- ticulars stated by Swedenborg respecting the inhabitants of heaven, hell, and the spiritual world in general, and the objects and appearances which there exist, only these two general truths are necessary to be known : First, That man after death, though no longer clothed with a material body, is no less a real and substantial man than before : and, Secondly, That all things which exist before the sight in heaven, hell, and the inter- mediate state or region, are appearances, expressing and outwardly exhibiting, according to the laws of the immutable analogy or correspondence that exists by creation between spiritual things and natural, the state, ideas, and inclinations, of those who dwell there. With respect to the first of these general truths, suffi- cient proof, I apprehend, to satisfy any mind open to conviction may have been given above in our Section on the Resurrection ; where we found that the Apostle Paul expressly teaches, that there is a spiritual body as well as a natural body ; and where it appeared that all the testimony of Scripture upon the subject treats this spiritual body as the man himself, — as a real substantial existence, which rises in eternity immediately after death. Mr B., however, quotes as ridiculous, Sweden- borg's account of this matter: I will adduce the para- graph in which the difference is stated between man in the other v/orld and man in this, and leave you to judge, whether, instead of its being ridiculous, it is not rational in the highest degree. His v/ords are, '^ The differ- ence between a man in the natural world, and a man in the spiritual world,, is, that the latter is a man clothed with a substantial* body, but the former with a material body, within which is his substantial body; and a sub- stantial man seeth a substantial man as clearly and dis- tinctly as a material man seeth a material man; a sub- stantial man, however, cannot see a material man, nor can a material man see a substantial man; by reason of the difference between what is material and what is sub- * The author uses the terms substantial and substance, in the log- ical sense of that which subsists by itself and sustains accidents : but he confines it to spiritual subsistences as distinct from material, be- cause the latter do not exist of themselves, but from the former ; as do these from the Lord, who is the veriest substantial Being of all. 15 170 HEAVEiN AND HELL ; stantial, the nature of which difference may be describ- ed, but not in a few words."* Now, that this is the true representation of the matter, may be scripturally proved from all the accounts of the visions of the prophets. Did John the Revelator see the wonderful things that he describes with the eyes of his body ? Does he not be- gin his revelations with saying, " I was in the spirit on the Lord's day?"t In this state it was that he first heard behind him '' a great voice as of a trumpet," and that, on turning round, he '' saw seven golden candle- sticks, and in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of man. "J When he was in the spirit, he was in his spiritual or substantial man, and it was with the eyes and senses of this that he witnessed all that he afterwards describes. And that this idea is as agree- able to reason as to Scripture, is evident from the opinions of many intelligent and pious persons, who have been convinced of its truth by their own reflec- tions. I will mention here one testimony of this sort : it is that of Mrs Fletcher, the widow of the late cele- brated Mr Fletcher, the pious and every way accom- plished Vicar of Madeley. The life of Mrs Fletcher, which was published from her own papers a few years ago, has been very extensively read among religious people: and in it this intelligent and excellent lady thus speaks of the state of man after death. She entertained the full belief, that though separated from her husband, so far as death could separate, her union and communion with him still remained; and she thus expresses her ideas, in answer to objections made to them, partly in the very language of Swedenborg. " Is not [the objector is supposed to ask] the spirit divested of the body become of a quite different nature to what it was before, so as to be incapable of the same feelings.^ I answer, Certainly no; the spirit is the mail. The spirit of my dear hus- band loved and cared for me, and longed above every other desire for my spiritual advancement. Now if it were the body, why doth it not love me still.'' You an- swer, Because it is dead. That is to say, the spirit is * Tr. Chr. Rel. n. 793 ; Beaumont, p. 123, t Rev. i. 10. i Ver, 10, 12, 13. AND THE APPEARANCES IN THEM. 171 gone from it: therefore, that which loved me is gone from it. And what is that but the spirit, which actuated the body, as the clock-work does the hand which tells the hour? It therefore appears quite clear to me, that every right affection, sentiment, and feeling of mind, we have been exercised in here, v/ill remain in the spirit just the same immediatehj after death.''^* Now if many believe this to be true when they read it in Mrs Fletcher, why do they deride Swedenborg as an enthusiast for saying the very same thing? Our 'opponents will say, ''Be- cause she gives it only as her opinion: he delivers it as a truth which he could testify from experience." This does not make it less true, at any rate. But I might add, that Mrs F, also gives us experience on the sub- ject, both of her own and of others.! * P. 195. Svo. ed. 1818. + I extract the following vision, which she relates (p. 227) as an indubitable fact, of a woman whom she calls " that dear old saint, Mary Matthews." This good woman having awaked under an ex- traordinary influence early in the morning, on getting up and coming down stairs, relates what happened to her thus : " All around nie seemed God ! It appeared to me as if the room was full of heavenly spirits. — Falling back in my chair, I remembered no more of any thing outward, but thought I was at the threshold of a most beau- tiful place. I could just look in : — The first thing I saw was the Lord Jesus sitting on a throne. There was a beautiful crown over his head. It did not seem to bear vrith a weight, but as if it was suspended there, and as he turned his head it turned with him. A glorious light appeared on one side, and all around him was glory ! I thought of that word of St Paul, — Who dwelleth in light unap- proachable. Turning my eyes a little, I saw close to my Saviour my dear minister, Mr Fletcher. He looked continually on the Lord Jesus with a sweet smile. But he had a very different appearance from what he had in the body, and yet there was such an exact re- semblance, that I could have known him among a thousand. Fea- tures and limbs just the same, but not of flesh. It was what I can- not describe, all light ! I know not what to call it : I never saw any- thing like it. It was, I thought, such a body as could go thousands of miles in a moment. There were several passed who ihad the same appearance : and I seemed to have lost my old weak shaking body. I seemed to myself as if I could have gone to the world's end, as light as air. I looked on him a long time, and observed every fea- ture with its old likeness. He then turned his eyes on me, and held out his hand to me, just as he used to do. After this, the whole dis- appeared, and I came to myself." — I offer no opinion of this vision , but I suppose that all the people called Methodists, and most pious persons, will admit it to have been something real. Yet here we have an account of man's retaining his identity after death, and ex- 172 HEAVEN AND HELL ; Are we not then entitled, from the whole, to say, that, according to the evidence of Scripture, the conclusions isting in a spiritual and yet substantial body, that exactly accords with the statements given by Swedenborg. Having here had occasion to make use of the testimony of Mrs Fletcher, 1 will take the opportunity to correct the false impression that might be made by a passage in her life (p. 377), and to establish the assertion, that " among the believers of Sweden- borg's spiritual intercourse, if not of the whole of his doctrine, is certainly to be reckoned the celebrated and eminently pious Vicar of Madeley, the Rev. Mr Fletcher ;" — a man who was far the brightest ornament that Methodism ever possessed, if in- deed, his religion was that of Methodism; for certainly, though he used the doctrinal forms of Methodism, he, in many respec*^s, pene- trated beyond the mere appearances of truth according to which they are framed, and soared into the light of tlie genuine truth it- self, being elevated into it by the purity of his affection*. It is also certain that ]\Ir.- Fletcher, atone period, approved, at least, of much of Swedenborg's writings. This is evident from the quotation given above, as well as from other testimony : for those beautiful senti- ments are in substance, and partly in expression, the same as are given by Swedenborg in his treatise on Heaven and Hell ; and they were written by her just after she had been reading that identical work. But her mind was greatly under the influence of Mr Wes- ley, who, as we hav^e seen, exerted himself, after he had been im- posed oa by ]\Tathesiu3, to prevent the reception among his people of the doctrines of the New Church ; and this may accj mt for the paragraph which appears in her printed journal under the date of March 5, 1S06, more than twenty years after Mr Fletcher's decease. But there are some Avho can hardly believe that that paragraph, as it stands, though it makes favorable admissions, ever proceeded from her pen. It begins thus : " A thought has struck my mind. That from some things mentioned in the notes subjoined fo the T ;• 'rriit of St Paul, edited by INIr Gilpin, after my dear husband's death, he might be thought to favor the opinions of Baron Swedenborg, I therefore think it my duty to bear my witness to the contrary." — What Mr Gilpin had said on this subject, I have not ascertr'ned, not having been able to obtain a sight of the first edition of the- work ; and the passage has been so carefully erased from the subsequent editions, that not a syllable respecting Swedenborg is in them to be found. Mrs F. proceeds : " The first book winch he sajc contained hut little amiss: and Mr Wesley having observed concerning it, 'I think it will neither do good nor harm,' — Mr Fletcher, soon after writing to his brother, who had mentioned it, observed, that it was a bonk ichich he did not condemn." — Ao?c this book, which Mr Fletcher did not condemn., which Mrs Fletcher allows to contain hut little amiss, and li'hich Mr Wesley did. not think capable of doing any harm, teas the Treatise on Heaven and Hell : and that is a work of no neutral character ; for its details being constantly given as the results of the Author's personal knowledge and experience, not to condemn them is to acknowledge it to be at least highly probable, that he wrote from divine illumination. And that work not only contains the Au- AND THE APPEARANCES IN THE3I. 173 of the intelligent, and the experience of the pious, the testimony of Swedenborg, upon this subject, is most cer- thov's views respecting Heaven and Hell, and the Life after Death in general, but it touches, either directly or incidentally, upon the whole of his doctrines; in particular, it devotes two chapters to the explanation of the correspondence between spiritual things and na- tural, and advances throughout the great doctrine on which all the others hinge, — that of the sole divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ. If then Mr Fletcher did not strongly favor the whole, would he have encouraged his brother, for whose spiritual welfare he felt the most tender solicitude, to study such a work, by telling him " it was a book which he did not condemn ?" — Mrs F.'s journal adds, " But when he had seen a little more of the Baron's works, he said to me one day, ' Polly, I believe Mr will be a Swedenborger, and I am very sorry for it.' I said, well, if he can believe there are wax candles and feasts in heaven, he must have strange ideas. Mr F. replied, ' My dear, thou dost not perceive the snake in the grass. These books deny the atonement, and so strike at the root of all true reli- gion.' In the same mind he continued to the last." It is here very strange that Pvirs F. should have made the remark about wax candles in heaven ; for no such statement is ayiyichcre made hy Siocdenborg. That Swedendorg's works do not deny the atonement as represented' in the Scriptures, will be seen in the next Section but one ; and it seems scarcely possible that Mr F. should have thought so. And that he esteemed Swedenborg's works injurious, and continued in that mind to the last, is utterly irreconcilable with the certain fact, that one of the last acts of his life teas, to introduce those icorlis to a helovcd friend, tcho is living at this day, and blesses his memory, for having been brought by him to a knoivledge of those invaluable icritings. The following is from a letter of Mrs M. Walker, of Bath, to a lady in London, dated May 10, 1820. The original is before me. " I do not remember ever to have read any passage put forth by a public religious character with feelings of more surprise and astonishment, than one lately put into my hand by a friend, who is a lover of truth. The passage alluded to is in Mr H. Moore's Life of that late very dear and venerable mother in Israel, Mrs Fletcher, and is relative to Mr Fletcher's opinion and sentiments on the invaluable writings of Emanuel Swedenborg ; for which, I have from undoubted and uni- ted testimonies been convinced, that both Mr and Mrs F. enter- tained much respect, if they did not fully appreciate their worth. When young, I was honored by intimate acquaintance with both those distinguished and pious characters ; and I for some years cor- responded with the above lady, both as Miss Bosanquet and Mrs Fletcher. The last time I had the pleasure of addressing her, my letter was conveyed to her hands by William Gilbert, Esq., a native of Antigua ; in which I informed her that I had embraced the doc- trine of the New Jerusalem Church, requesting her sentim.ents thereon. On this gentleman's return to Bristol, I naturally and ar- dently expected her reply : But to my great disappointment Mr G. informed me, that Mrs F. had requested her kind love, and hoped I would excuse her not writing, as the weak state of her eyes prohi- 15^ 174 HEAVEN AND HELL ; tainly true? Man after death is still a man, — a real man in a substantial yet spiritual body, though no longer in a material body, as while here. bited her doing; it. I tlien in((uired if she had made no remark rela- tive to E. S. Mv G. replied, that she had conversed freely with him on that subject, and said, that she could always see a great difference in his writings according to the svon Tviiilo hu Uy^o in the bod/; self_(iud iiicurnate — declares, that they shall never be put asunder; and all who by living near to heaven, or by the occasional illapses of a heaven-descended intelligence, have been qualified to judge of the subject correctly have here set to their seal, that God is true. having commenced in this life cannot prevent its accomplishment in the other. Thus then the meaning of this answer to the Phari- sees is most explicit, and it admits of no interpretation which will reconcile it to the answer to the Sadducees, if that be supposed to affirm that in the other life there are no marriages whatsoever ; whereas if we understand the answer to the Sadducees to mean, what, we have seen, the same phraseology certainly does mean else- where, — that in heaven there are no marriages originating in the union of evil and falsehood, — all appearance of contradiction disappears ; and the declaration, that " in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven ;" harmonizes most beautifully with the other declaration, that they who are in the marriage which originates in the union of goodness and truth, as are all " the angels in heaven," " are no more twain, but one flesh," and that " what God hath joined together," it is not for man to " put asunder." It is probable indeed that the Sadducees, like many who have come after them, understand the Lord to affirm that in heaven there are no marriages whatsoever : but it was quite customary with the Lord to give such answers to those who conversed with him as were understood by them in a contrary sense to the true one, without his correcting their misapprehensions ; according to his own statement, that he spoke "to those who were without in parables " or dark say- ings, " that hearing they might hear and not understand," Thus we read (John ii. 18 to 21,) " The Jews said unto him, What sign shew- est thou unto us, seeing thou doesi these things ? Jesus answered and said unto them. Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this tem- ple in building ; and wilt thou rear it up in three days ? But," adds the evangelist, "he spake of the temple of his body." He did not however tell them so, but lefl them to their own notions. Just so in his answer to the Sadducees. He answered their questions in a sense strictly true. He told them that there were no marriages such as alone they thought of in heaven, — such as are of the natu- ral man alone, and not of the spiritual man, and which thus have their true origin in the man of evil and error : and he left them to understand his words also in a sense not true, and to suppose that in heaven there are no marriages whatever. The reason of this con- duct, in this instance, is obvious. It is impossible to impart to such characters as the Sadducees pure and elevated ideas on the subject of marriage. Explain it as you will, they will still attach to it their gross and merely carnal conceptions. It is better then for such per- sons to think that in heaven there are no marriages at all, than to think there are any such connexions there as they call by the name ; for this would indeed be to carnalize heaven. Hence Divine Truth AND THE APrEAEANCES IN THEM. 197 he must then be at once perceptibly amid the objects of the spiritual world, in the same manner as he will be 2. We are now to pass to a less pleasino; subject. If it be certain that such marriages as originate in the heavenly marriage of good- ness and truth exist in heaven, and this by reason that man after death is still a man, and the distinction of sex exists in the spirit ; and that the circumstances in which spirits and angels are placed are all such as correspond to, and are expressive of, their internal state ; it will follow also, that such marriages as the Sadducees thought of, which are connexions of the sexes originating in the in- fernal marriage of evil and falsehood, and which the Lord declares do not exist in heaven, exist in hell. According to Swedenborg, the state of every one's mind in regard to the connexion of the sexes always agrees exactly with the state of his mind in regard to his re- ception of the gi'aces constituent of the church : hence, all in whom the church really is, think chastely of marriage, and regard adultery with aversion and even horror ; whereas all who are opposed to the principles of the church, think unchastely of marriage, and regard adultery with pleasure, even though, by external considerations, they may be restrained from practising it : thus such characters are truly adulterers, even when they remain within the forms of mar- riage. As then man's state in regard to the connexion of the sexes always keeps pace with his state in regard to the principles of the church, all who are in heaven are in the love of marriage, and all who are in hell are in the love of adultery ; the former are chaste conjugal partners, the latter are foul adulterers and harlots. But it would be a great error hence to conclude, that in hell is permitted, as Mr B. expresses it, ard to which he repeatedly turns, as a cir- cumstance so inviting, " the indulgence of keeping a harlot," in the manner that the dissolute practice it on earth. The dissolute keep harlots on earth, because they are not bound by the same duties to them as to a wife ; because they do not consider themselves under, to them, any obligation of fidelity, and can dismiss or change them at pleasure ; thus, because, as is so often boasted, they retain their liberty, and are not under an irksome restraint, as such characters esteem the tie of marriage. But in hell such license is not permit- ted. A wicked man, when become a spirit, is indeed allowed to as- sociate himself with one of the opposite sex ; and all the females there are by Swedenborg called harlots, because they are all such in heart, and because it would be a prostitution of the title to apply to such the sacred name of wife ; but, as is even stated in a passage cited by Mr B. to support his calumnies, " he is forbid, on pain of in mercy speaks to such characters in proverbs: hence the Saddu- cees were left to believe, as better for them, that in heaven there are no marriages at all : and hence Divine Providence so overrules men's apprehensions of heavenly things, as is best for their own states, that they who are still incapable of forming any but carnal conceptions of the divine institution of marriage, will never be per- suaded, even by the clear light in which the subject is placed in the writings of Swedenborg, that it exists in heaven. 17* 198 HEAVEN AND HELL ; after death; and accordingly, we have seen, it was thus that views of the spiritual world have been vouchsafed punishment, to connect himself with more than one." Thus those whom Swedenborg calls harlots, Mr B. would call " their lawful wives : " (See Anti-S. p. 68 :) and then, perhaps, the delightful fas- cination, which he represents as inseparably connected with the name o[ harlot, would be gone. As to the delightfulness of such cohabitation, it may be in some measure appreciated from what is experienced by those who are tied to an utterly abandoned compan- ion here ; and when this is the character of both, it is well known that such scenes of horror even here arise, as every one acknow- ledges to exhibit on earth an image of hell. What then must be the case in hell itself, where as Swedenborg affirms, they not only soon regard each other with the utmost coldness and disgust, "but they interiorly burn with deadly hatred against each other, which is so great as to admit of no description! " (H. H. n. 377.) If then the distinction of sex is rooted in the spirit, it is certain that there must be connexions between the sexes in hell as v;ell as in heaven : but those in hell, it is evident, must be of a diametrically opposite character to those in heaven. Where there is the infernal marriage of evil and falsehood in the mind, as is the case with all in hell, the connexions between the sexes must derive their essence from that origin ; and as all evil is inseparably conjoined, in the other life, with punishment and misery, such infernal marriages, alias adulteries, can be productive of no sensations which have not misery in their centre. Whether these can yet be so delightful as to out- weigh all the other miseries, with which, as we have seen above, the inhabitants of hell are pursued, and to make hell a place to which " our paupers may go on speculation," let the reader judge. The circumstances that we will next vindicate from aspersion, may be stated in the follov.'ing proposition. That those who die as infants or children all go to heaven ; hut that at first they appear as children still, and arc educated hy the viinistry of angels till they become adult angels themselves ; and that in the mean time they are instructed by such representations of hcavenhj things as arc suited to their tender capacities, and are alloiccd such recreations as arc congenial to their state. Proposed in these terms, what is there here to which the rational faculty does notimmediatly assent? Ye\. this it precisely what Swedenborg has advanced, however Mr B. may hold up his statements to ridicule. When a man dies at an adult age and in a state of regeneration, we may suppose that he is qualified presently to appear in heaven as an angel : but who can imagine that the case is the same with the dying infant ? The infant is indeed in a state of innocence ; it has never committed or appropriated anything evil, and thus is secure from hell ; but its innocence is the innocence of ignorance, not as yet that of wisdom : it as yet is incapable of appropriating good : consequently it is not as yet prepared to take its place as an angel. An angel is a form of love and wisdom derived from the Lord ; an infant has capacities for becoming such a form : but it is not made such a one by mere death. As an infant is born with only the rudiments of a perfect human body, so also is it born, we Ai\D THE APPEARANCES IN THEM. 199 to prophets and others. Is it at all surprising then, that such an opening of the spiritual sight should take placo know full well, with only the rudiments of a perfect human mind, or which amounts to the same thing, of a perfect human spirit, since it is the spirit which is the seat of the mind : and the one is to be successively developed and perfected, as well as the other. To suppose then that, if it passes in this state into the eternal world, the mind and spirit will instantly expand into the fulness of the standard of an angel, is just as reasonable as to imagine, that a new born child may expand in an instant into the stature of a man. There surely then cannot be a shadow of doubt, that when an in- fant enters the spiritual world by death, it will appear there in a form exactly answering to the infantile state of its mind : conse- quently, it must appear there, and be, an infant still. As the fac- ulties of its mind are developed, and it advances in wisdon), it will advance also to the form and appearance of the adult angel. It is reasonable to imagine, as Swedenborg assures us, that in that world of higher perfection its advancement will be far more rapid than is possible here : yet even there the rudiments of wisdom must first be inseminated, and afterwards be cultivated and enlarged, before the mature angelic state can be attained. Now under what aus- pices is this to be effected ? Doubtless, under those of the Lord, who is the only Parent known in heaven, and whose especial care and providence, according to the dictates of reason and the state- ments of Swedenborg, watch over the v.^elfare of helpless and in- nocent children. But is it to be supposed that he will lead them to maturity there, any more than he does here, without deigning to associate any of their fellow creatures in the important task ? Scripture informs us that, even while here, infants are under the guardianship of angels exercised under the particular providence of the Lord : " Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones ; for I say unto you, that in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven" (Mat. xviii. 10). — Is it then to be supposed, that, by passing from this world into the other, they not only lose their human parents but their angelic guardians too ; that to them the eternal world is an immense desert, where no protectors are near, — v/here, though helpless in- fants still, they are friendless and alone ? Will no kind angel min- ister to them in the tender manner which their state requires ? Is it the part either of the rational mind or of the feeling heart to rid- icule such ministrations, by applying to them, as Mr B. does, the contemptuous title of " nursing inhearen .?" Is there any among the natural affections so exalted as that of the love of children ? Is anything more affecting to be seen on earth, than the care of a fond mother for her offspring, and the delight with which she min- isters to their helplessness.' Is not the implantation of parental love in the human breast one of the most striking products of the divine love in the Great Parent of all, and one that most nearly imitates its original ? Is it not then to be concluded, that this af- fection, which is heavenly even on earth, will not be extinguished, but exalted, on transplantation into heaven itself, and that they who have here been eminently influenced by a love to children 200 HEAVEN AND HELL ; in an extraordinary manner, with one individual, at the era of the Lord's second coming? Most people believe, that in the primeval ages of the world man lived in per- petual society with angels, and that it was not till he had far descended in degeneracy that it came to be the char- acter of " angel visits" to be " few and far between:" and most people believe also, that in the latter ages of the world such communications will be restored, and angels will again be closely associated v/ith men: is it then at all unreasonable to expect, that, as preparatory to such a state, should it be the purpose of Providence to produce it, or in lieu of it, should that be v/ithout the provisions of the Divine Economy, some distinct, accu- rate, precise, and even familiar knowledge, respecting the eternal world, its appearances, its inhabitants, and its laws, should be communicated, through the instru- mentality of one commissioned herald, to beings who belong to it, in part, even now, and are soon to belong to it altogether? When man's former state, and his still unaltered nature as a subject of both worlds, are reflect- ed on, the wonder surely is, that the world of which his better part is a native and a denizen should ever have become so shut out from him, and all particular know- will be animated by a corresponding but spiritual affection for them there, and will be impelled by it to undertake, with the utmost de- light, the charge of the infant spirits v/hichare continually passing thither ? If Mr B. will put this inquiry to the ladies of his ac- quaintance, the hearts of all of them, I am sure, will dictate an affirmative answer. Common perception appears to inform every reflecting mind, that such must be the fact ; — that the task of re- ceiving the children who go thither, and nurturing their innocent but unformed minds in the accomplishments of heavenly wisdom, must be one of the most delightful, and one of the most gene- ral, of the employments of angels. Let then Mr B. be careful how he extinguishes in himself or others the principle that would take delight in such offices, and how he too proudly disdains, what no sneers can degrade, the sweetest exercises of charit3^ Infants, when first landed on the eternal shore, must need such exercises from some quarter ; and they by whose instrumentality the Lord administers them, doubtless regard it as a high privilege, and feel in it the most delicious enjoyment. Insensibility, we may be assured, is not an inmate of angelic breasts ; and heaven is not peopled with a starched and stiffened race, who deem it beneath their high vocation to descend to the softest and most affecting duties of the meekest tenderness and love. " Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not ; for of such i= the kino-dom of God." i AND THE APPEARANCES IN THEM. 201 lerig© roopooting it SO Utterly lost, — not that they should again be restored: and when could their restoration be more appropriately in place, than among the blessings attendant on the second coming of the Lord, and conse- quent upon the performance of the last judgment? Whilst then there is so much to give probability on this subject to the statements of Swedenborg, and nothing which, fairly estimated, detracts at all from their credi- bility; whilst all the particulars advanced, when their causes are understood, are found to be in the strictest agreement both with Scripture and Reason; they surely may be pressed upon the Candid and Reflecting as in the highest degree worthy of their attention, be- cause conveying information of the highest interest to man as an immortal. SECTION VII. The Trinity, as centered in the Person af the Lord Jesus Christ. Having gone through all the " curious" subjects objected against in the sentiments held by us as those of the New Church predicted under the figure of a New Jerusalem, — being chiefly those which are connected with our Views of the Eternal World and State, — I am now to appeal to you, my Reflecting and Candid Read- ers, in regard to our Doctrines of Faith and Life This is the part of the general subject which is. in reality, of far the highest importance: it is the part of the sub- ject, also, on which every well-disposed mind, having the Word of God to refer to, may most readily determine whether our sentiments are well founded: and it is the part of the subject in regard to which, as we think, we are able most conclusively to evince, that our senti- ments are those of the AYord of God itself Were I then to adopt that course which I should most prefer, I should dwell most at length on our Doctrines of Faith and Life; and then again appeal to you to judge, whether 202 THE TRINITY. a writer who, like the illustrious Swedenhorj^, wnq ena- bled to present, in so clear a light, the certain dictates of truth upon every subject in which we are most inter- ested as Christians, and so completely to clear the clouds which have so long hung over the doctrinal interpreta- tion of Holy Writ; and who has done this, as he assures us, by virtue of a special illumination, bestowed on him as the herald of the second advent; could possibly be deceived in this assertion, or in anything else which he advances. But, as observed above, I here am com- pelled to direct my course in the direction marked out for me by our opponents, and particularly by the Rev. Mr Beaumont. As he has filled the greatest part of his Anti-Swedenborg with observations and extracts in- tended to throw ridicule on the views of the eternal world and state presented in the writings of Swedenborg, and on the character of Swedenborg himself; and as these also are the subjects in regard to which the most unfounded and injurious prejudices prevail; I have de- voted the greater part of this Appeal to the examination of them on their own merits: and I trust it has suffi- ciently appeared, that, when the whole of the statements of Swedenborg respecting them is understood, all must be admitted to be securely established on the immovable basis of Scripture, Reason, and Fact. Mr B., however, has not left our more important doctrinal sentiments unassailed; on the contrary, he has put out all his strength in an attempt to overthrow the most important of them all, — that which presents the Lord Jesus Christ as the Being in whose single Person the whole of the Divine Trinity centers, — as being, himself, the Person of the Father, and thus the proper Object of Christian worship. IMr B. is hostile to this doctrine, evidently, because it overturns his erroneous views of the Atone- ment and IMediation of the Lord Jesus Christ; the true nature of v.^hich, as exhibited in the doctrines of the New Church, he likewise assails v/ith gross misrepresenta- tions. He also occasionally throws some unjustifiable slurs on our sentiments in regard to the Christian Life. These three subjects then, I propose, as briefly as their importance will admit, to discuss in this and the two following Sections: and so to conclude this Appeal. That the doctrine of the Xew Jerusalem respecting THE TRINITY. 203 the Divine Being and the Trinity in the Divine Nature should be fixed upon by any as an object of attack; that, on the contrary, it should not be eagerly accepted by all who assume the Christian name, as relieving them from difficulties which all ingenuous minds are well aware are not a little embarrassing; are facts which, to us who have embraced it, would appear astonishing, were we not conscious of the power which received opinions and early prejudices always exercise over the judgment of weak and fallible man. All acknowledge, at least in words, that God is and can be but one: yet when it is affirmed, as is done by the majority, that this One God exists in Three Persons, each of whom, ^' by himself' (as the Athanasian Creed expresses it,) is God and Lord; a perplexity and confusion are introduced into our conceptions, which many find to be distressing in the extreme. To escape from the embarrassment, numbers have rejected the idea of a Trinity in the Di- vine Nature altogether; and not seeing how to connect this rejection with an acknowledgment of the divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ, have refused the honors of divine worship to the Saviour of the world. In the midst of these contending opinions it is, that the New Church, which they who have embraced it believe to be prefigured by the New Jerusalem of the Revelation, ad- dresses itself to the Candid and the Reflecting. We see in Scripture too decisive evidence of the Divinity of Jesus Christ, to suffer us, with the Unitarian, to call it in question: on the other hand, we find too strong de- clarations of the indivisible unity in the Divine Nature, to allow us, with the Trinitarian, to portion it out between three separate persons. /We take all that is true in the system of each, separated from all that is false. The doctrine of the Tripersonality was first invented, because those who framed it saw no other means of preserving some acknowledgment of the divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ: and we agree with them, that this acknowledg- ment is indispensable, in order that any true church may exist. The doctrine of Unitarianism has been intro- duced, because they who framed it saw no other way to preserve inviolate the perfect unity of the Godhead: and we agree again with them, that where this is in any degree departed from, no true church can exist. Both ; 204 THE TRINITY. these mischiefs are completely avoided in the doctrines of the New Church, as drawn from the Scriptures in the writings of Swedenborg. May I not then appeal to the Candid and Reflecting, of all Denominations, and ask, whether such a system of doctrine ought not to be looked at by all with respect; whether it might not be reasonably conluded, that it would excite violent hostility in none, but would be accepted by multitudes of sincere Christians with thankfulness and eagerness? That it is entitled to such acceptance, because it not only proposes what is obviously desirable, but estab- lishes what is certainly true; we will endeavor in some degree to evince. I shall take it for granted that all parties will admit, that the unity of God is a doctrine most perpetually in- sisted upon by Scripture, and constantly held forth as the fundamental idea on which all true religion is erect- ed. I shall also take it for granted, that, though the word " Trinity" does not occur in Scripture, we repeat- edly find the idea properly intended by that term; since we'everywhere read, in the New Testament, of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, as equally concerned in the^great work of man's salvation. I shall further as- sume, that there are a great many passages likewise which ascribe Divinity to the Lord Jesus Christ; for even the deniers of his divinity admit this, though, not knowing how to reconcile this doctrine with that of the unity, they endeavor to explain away their force. On the admission, then, that these three doctrines are ex- plicitly affirmed in Scripture — so affirmed that they na- turally result from the sense of the words themselves; how are they to be combined into one coherent senti- ment? The fundamental doctrine of the Divine Unity implies, that the doctrine of the Divine Trinity must not be so strained as to be set at variance therewith, as is done when the Trinity is understood to be a trinity of separate persons in the usual acceptation of that term. It must then be a trinity of Essential Principles, — of Con- stituent Elements (so to speak, for want of better terms), forming together One Person. And if the Divinity of Jesus Christ is also certain, — thus if he is God at all, and yet God is but One, who can he be but that One Person? In him, as he decidedly declares, the Father THE TRINITY. 205 dweileth: "the Father, that dwelleth inme^ he doeth the works:"* — he must then be the person of the Father. From him, or out of him from the Father within him, as he also declares, the Holy Ghost proceedeth: ''the Comforter, — whom / will send unto you from the Fa- ther:"! to represent, also, his sending of which, "he breathed on them, and said unto them. Receive ye the Holy Ghost. "J Does it not then appear, that, properly, the Father is the Divine Essence; the Son, the Man- ifestation of that Essence in a Personal Form; and the Holy Spirit, the Sanctifying Energy and Influence — the Divine Life — thence proceeding to operate the graces of salvation in the human mind.'' This is a ge- neral view of the Doctrine of the New Church upon this subject: I do not propose here to go at large into the direct proof of it: but I will shape my remarks so as to meet all the objections which, as far as I am aware, can be raised against it. Thus, though by a different method, I trust we shall arrive at complete proof of the doctrine proposed. § The objections to the doctrine that the whole Divine Trinity is centered in the Lord Jesus Christ, whose Per- son is thus the person of the Father, are chiefly drawn from these two sources: First, from the beliel^, that the Being who became incarnate was a Son of God born from eternity: here, therefore, I shall endeavor to shew, that the phrase, Sou of God, is the proper title of the Humanity born in time, and that the Being who assumed that Humanity was the One Jehovah: Secondly, objec- tions are raised from the fact, that Jesus Christ, while in the world, sometimes spoke as if the Father were a separate Being from Himself: here, therefore, I shall endeavor to shew, that, while in the world, he was en- gaged in the work of glorifying his Humanity, or making it divine, as part of his great work of redemption: thus * John xiv. 10. f Ch. xv. 26, ch. xvi. 7. | Ch. xx. 22. § I have collected some of the direct evidence for this important doctrine in a tract entitled, The True Object of Christian JVorskip demonstrated, and the Doctrine of the Divine Trinity elucidated, &c. printed for the Missionary and Tract Society of the New Jeru- salem Church, and pubUshed by the printer of this work. I could wish that this Tract might be read in connexion with the present Section. 18 206 THE TRINITY. that SO long as he was in the world there was a part of his nature which was not divine; but that the work of glorifying the whole was completed at his resurrection and ascension; that all belonging to him was then divine; and that thus he now ever liveth and reigneth, with the Father an Indivisible One, the Only God of heaven and earth. I. I am then, firsf, to meet the objections arising out of the belief, that the Being who became incarnate was a Son of God born from eternity, by shewing, that the phrase. Son of God, is the proper title of the Humanity born in time, and that the Being who assumed it was the One Jehovah. The idea of a Son of God born from eternity includes such a contradiction in terms, that, if those who enter- tain it will pardon the remark, we may well wonder how it could ever have found a propounder; especially when, on searching the scriptures, we discover, that nothing whatever countenancing such a notion is there to be found. Had there been such a being as a Son of God existing from eternity, governing the universe in con- junction with his Father, and the Head and particular Ruler of the church, is it to be supposed, that the church could have been left, for four thousand years, in total ignorance of his existence ? Yet such is incontroverti- bly the fact. The Old Testament, which contains the records of all the churches that ever appeared on this globe, from the creation till the coming of the Lord, never once speaks of a Son of God as then actually existing: it speaks indeed, prophetically, of a Son of God who, in the fulness of time, was to be born, but never makes the slightest allusion to a Son of God then born already. Seeing then that Moses and the prophets give us no information about a proper Son of God as existing when that part of the Divine Code was composed, we must come to the New Testament for instruction; where the term is often used, and always in reference to the Lord Jesus Christ. And of all the places in which it here occurs, perhaps that in Luke i. 35, is best adapted to convey a full insight into its meaning. It is there applied by the angel Gabriel to the Lord Jesus Christ at his birth, or rather, prior to his birth; in a manner which THE TRIXITY. 207 plainly intimates that there was no Son of God before. In the other gospels, this epithet is given to Jesus Christ, oris assumed by him: but in this passage of Luke we learn the origin of the title, and the reason of it. Had there been a Son of God already existing, and it was this which became incarnate and was born of the virgin, we undoubtedly should have had some intimation of it when the angel announced to her the approaching event. He surely would have made some mention of the Being who was about to assume Humanity by her means. He would not merely have told her, that that Holy Thing which sJiGuld be born of her should be called the Son of God; but, that the Son of God who had existed from eler- nity, luas ahoid, by her instrumentality, to come into the world. No such thing. He says: " The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the Power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that Holy Thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the SonofGod.'^^ Here is express mention of the Holy Ghost, and of the Highest, or Father, as operating in the divine concep- tion; but nothing is said of a Son from eternity as being in any way concerned: and the omission most plainly implies, what all the perceptions of common sense must be outraged before we can doubt, that the Son does not assist to produce himself, nor exist before he is born. The Holi/ Thing that icas to be born, it is said, should be called the Son of God; and so called, not because it had already been born from eternity, but because (v/hat else does the illative particle, ^'^ therefore,^'' intend.^ — be- cause) it was ')iow first conceived of the Holy Ghost and the Father. Here, also, is another circumstance which it is im- possible for the tripersonalist to reconcile with his creed: that the Holy Ghost, as well as the Highest or Father, is represented as standing in the relation of a parent to the Son of God. It is commonly believed, that the Holy Ghost is a distinct personal being, separate from both the Father and the Son: if so, then, according to the angel Gabriel, the Son had two distinct fathers. The Athanasian Creed says, that ''the Son is of the Father alone, neither made, nor created, but begotten:" but the angel Gabriel positively declares, that the Son is of the Holy Ghost and the Highest, begotten alike of 208 THE TRINITY. both. How evident then it is, that, before we can have clear and consistent notions of the Divine Incarnation, we must not only dismiss from our minds the wild belief of a Son of God born from eternity, but also, that equal- ly extravagant and unscriptural notion, the separate per- sonality of the Holy Ghost. The whole subject, however, loses its imputed cha- racter of incomprehensibility, and becomes, agreeably to the divine promise, plain; and the words of the angel Gabriel in particular, become easy to under- stand; when we know that the trinity in the Divine Nature does not consist of three Persons, but of three Principles or Elements in one Person. " The Highest,^'' which is the term used by the angel in- stead of " the Father, '' most clearly denotes the In- most Principle of Deity, or the Essence of the Divine Nature. Unquestionably, God is called the Highest or most High, not in reference to any station which he oc- cupies in space; for God is independent of space and no more stationed in one place than in another. He who is Omnipresent, cannot literally be either high or low. The reason then of his title of Most High, is, because he is the Inmost, being everywhere present as the in- most source of the life and existence of all things. And, with respect to the three Essentials of his own Nature, it must be his Inmost Divinity which is called the Highest. So when, elsewhere, this Inmost Prin- ciple is called the Father, it is, because the essence of Deity is Love, and Love is the Great Parent of all. The Holy Ghost or Holy Spirit, in like manner, is not a separate Person, but is the Divine Emanation of influen- ces and energies proceeding from the Divine Being, by which all things are kept in existence, and especially by which the graces of heavenly life are imparted to human minds. Much the same is meant by ihe Poiver of the Highest as by the Holy Spirit: for as the Highest de- notes the Divine Essence, so the Power of the Highest denotes the influence and operation thence proceeding; only there is this difference in the import of the two phrases; that the Holy Spirit means the Divine Eman- ation of life and influence more with respect to the Di- vine Truth and Wisdom, and the Power of the Highest is the same Divine Emanation more with reference to THE TRINITY. 209 the Divine Goodness and Love. What then can be "that Holy Thing," "the Son of God," conceived by the energy of these two Principles within the sphere of Humanity, but themselves, and consequently the High- est with them, brought into open manifestation, concen- trated in a Divine Human Form, and thus adapted to be an Object both of the love and perceptions of finite and infirm human minds? The consequence of this assumption of Humanity by Jehovah, was, the redemption of mankind, by the subju- gation of the powers of hell, which could not otherwise have been approached and conquered; and the commu- nication of saving energies for the restoration of fallen man, with an efficacy which could no otherwise be ob- tained. But respecting this part of the subject we shall have occasion to say more in the next Section. We may now have advanced as much as was necessa- ry to elucidate this branch of our argument. We were to meet the objections arising out of the belief, that the Being who became incarnate was a Son of God born from etennty, by shewing, that the phrase. Son of God, is the proper title of the Humanity born in time, and that the Being who assumed it was the One Jehovah. This has, I trust, sufficiently appeared: and with it, we have in some degree seen, how much light the view proposed throws upon the great doctrine of the Trinity.* II. I am next to meet the objections which are raised from the fact, that the Lord Jesus Christ, while in the * It may be necessary to observe, that we are not to conclude from the fact, that there was no Son of God born from eternity, that there- fore there was no Trinity from eternity. Though there was not such a Trinity as since the incarnation, there must always have been a Divine Essence, a Divine Form, and a Divine Influencing Power. As the Divine Essence is identical with the purely Divine Love, the Divine Form is identical with the purely Divine Truth, which is the Word, of which it is said in the beginning of John that it was made flesh, or assumed the ultimate form of existence. The state of the Divine Trinity before the assumption of Humanity, or before the birth of the Son of God, is compared, by Swedenborg, to the state of an angel or spirit ; who has a soul or inmost principle of life, a spirit- ual body, and a sphere of operation thence : but the state of the Di- vine Trinity since the assumption of Humanity, is compared to the sta'e of a man in the world, in whom his soul and spiritual body are clothed with a natural body also, and thus have a sphere of activity in the world of nature. 18*^ 210 THE TRINITY. world, sometimes spoke as if the Father were a Being separate from himself. To this end I am to shew, that, while in the world, he was engaged in the work of glo- rifying his Humanity, or making it Divine, which was part of his great work of redemption; thus, that so long as he was in the world there was a part of his nature which was not divine; but that the work of glorifying the whole was completed at his resurrection and ascen- sion; that all belonging to him was then divine; and that now he ever liveth and reigneth, with the Father an Indivisible One, the Only God of heaven and earth. It is necessary to be observed, that there was this difTerence between the Lord Jesus Christ, while in a body of flesh on earth, and all ordinary men: that where- as they take their soul or spiritual part from a human father,* as well as their body or material from a hu- man mother, and thus are finite human beings as to both, Jesus Christ, having no father but the Divine Father, had his soul or internal part from the Divine Essence; and as the Divine Essence is obviously incapable of di- vision, the Divine Essence Itself, or the Father, was in fact his soul or internal part; while his body or external part including the affections, &c. of the natural man, was all that he took from the mother. So long as he had attached to him this body from the mother, he was necessarily an inhabitant of this material world; nor could he return, as he expresses it in John> to the F'ath- ^ It is supposed by many, that nothing is derived by man from his parents except his bodily frame, and that when this has arrived to a certain s^ ^ God; which is your reasonable service."* Such a 4 * living sacrifice is a man wholly devoted to the Lord, who is wholly renewed by the reception of new principles of love, thought, and action, from him; whose selfish life ^ ,. is extinct, whilst he lives by a new life, which is life in- ^ ^ deed. This the same apostle speaks of as being his own state, when he says, " lam crucified with Christ: never- theless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me:"| where, by the flesh, and, in the preceding quotation by the body, the apostle, as in other parts of his writings, i >, does not merely mean the material body, but all that is * called the natural or external man. Here then he clearly describes a state of renovation of the whole man in which he is made a living sacrifice unto God. II. We now shall be enabled to see the truth of our second proposition: That the sacrifice of Jesus Christ did not consist in his suffering the punishment due to sin, — for if, as we have seen, nothing relating to punish- ment is included in the Scripture idea of sacrifices, nothing of this could be included in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ; — but that his sacrifice consisted in the hallowing of every principle or element of his Human Nature to the Godhead, till at length his whole Human Nature became a living sacrifice, or thing fully consecrated, sanctified, and hallowed, by perfect union with his Di- vinity. We have seen in the last Section, that, whilst the human form which the Lord assumed by birth of the vir- gin, necessarily partook, at first, of her infirmities, its soul, from conception, was no other than the indivisible Jehovah. So long, then, as has also been shewn, as the human form thus assumed partook at all of what it de- rived from the mother, it could only receive the commu- nications of the Divine Essence with more or less of * Rom. xii. 1. \ Gal. ii. 20. JESUS CHRIST. 227 limitation: in order to its receiving the whole, and be- coming properly the Divine Form of the Divine Essence, it was necessary that it should be entirely renewed, by the successive extirpation of the disorderly and finite human forms, and the bringing down, from the Divinity within, of divine forms, into the human and natural de- gree, to supply their place. To this operation the Lord Jesus alludes on various occasions. Sometimes he refers to the painful part of it, which was the extirpation of what he had from the mother; as when he says, " I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I strait- ened till it be accomplished!"* At other times he speaks of the glorious part; as when he says, " Father, glorify me with thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was."t And that this was necessary for man's salvation, he declares when he says, " For their sakes I sanctify myself; that they also may be sanctified through the truth:" J where, by sanc- tifying himself, the Lord means his purifying his Hu- manity from the infirmities inherited from the mother, and thus rendering it divine. The same thing is fre- quently spoken of by the apostles: as by Paul, when he speaks of Jesus as being '' made perfect through suffer- ings :"§ the sufferings were the temptations and conflicts by which he put off the imperfections inherited from the mother; and the making perfect was his rendering the Humanity the perfect image, the appropriate Form and proper Person, of his Divine Soul. The last suffering, by which he wholly put off all that he had received from the mother, was the passion of the cross. By this, all the merely natural life of the finite and material nature was extinguished: and when this was done, the Divine Life flowing down from within (everything uncongenial with it being extinct), descended into the very lowest forms of the human nature, extirpated all that was yet left from the mother, even to the consuming of the ma- terial particles; clothed itself with divine forms, still belonging to the human and natural degree, put on in place of what was put off; and so raised his body from the tomb, no longer finite, no longer liable to any of the accidents of the mere creature, but wholly divine, the * Luke xii. 50. t John xvii. 5. t Ver. 19. § Phil. iii. 21. 228 ATONEMENT AND MEDIATION OF adequate Form for the reception and in-dwelling of the whole Divine Essence. This is his '' glorious body," as it is called by the Apostle, after the image of which our spiritual bodies are to be fashioned. Some idea of it may also be conceived from the glorious view granted to the three disciples at the transfiguration:* what was seen by them was the Divine Person in the sphere im- mediately within and above that of the material frame. In this Divine Form and Person, therefore, as the Apostle declares, " all the fulness of the Godhead dwelleth bodily :" — in any form and person not altogether divine, it is obviously impossible that all the fulness of ike Godhead — the whole infinitude of the Divine JVature — can dwell. It all is centered in the Person of Jesus, demonstrating that his Person, since his resurrection, is altogether Divine: how vain then must it be to look for the Godhead anywhere else, than in that Divine Form in which the whole of it dwells! Now admitting this view of the completeness of the sanctification, glorification, or deification, of the Lord's Human Nature to be correct; and admitting at the same time the view above developed of the nature and effect of real spiritual sacrifices as offered by man; and we clearly see how truly the Lord, as to his Humanity, is called a sacrifice. The series of the Mosaic sacrifices, in their complete order, represents the entire sanctifica- tion of man, insomuch that the man who spiritually offers them becomes himself a sacrifice, — a thing or being wholly devoted to God, and wholly assimilated, in his finite degree, to the divine imago: so, in a higher sense, it represents the complete sanctification or glorification of the Lord's Humanity, whereby this was really devoted to the Divine Essence itself, and entirely assimilated to the Divine JNature, so as to be the actual Form for its bodily in-dwelling. And this is correctly said to be done for us: for us this sacrifice was offered, to effect atonement, or reconciliation, between man and God: as Jesus says, ''for their sokes I sanctify myself;" and as Paul declares, " Christ our passover is sacrificed for us;'''' not because the Father's anger required appeasing, or could be appeased by the sight of the Son's sufter- * Mat. xvii. 2. JESUS CHRIST. 229 sngs; but because, when the Humanity was thus sacri- ficed, that is sanctified, and united to the Essential Di- vinity, the divine influences were accommodated to man's state, so as to be operative to the renewal of his heart and mind, — to his sanctification also. Thus it is most true, as the Apostle observes, that ^' he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself." It is to put away sin from the mind which receives him that the Holy Spirit is given: and of this it is said, while Jesus was engaged in his ministry on earth, " the Holy Ghost was not yet, because that Jesus was not yet glorified:"* — not that no divine influences had ever before been af- forded; but that such as were adapted to reach and affect man in the state to which he had then fallen, could not be imparted, till the Humanity of Jesus, — the only Divine Principle from which such influences can be jy;„«„, ^«o giijiincd, that is, sacrificed, that is, deified. The above observations may also sufficiently explain, how it is that man is saved through the sufferings and death of the Lord Jesus Christ; or through his blood, which, in the Apostolic writings; is constantly used, ac- cording to the phraseology of the Jews, as a figurative expression for his sufferings and death. These were not inflicted on him as the proper punishment of our sins: yet were they most truly undergone by him /or W5, and were indispensable to our salvation. They, and especially his last suffering of death, were the means by which his Humanity was glorified. They thus were the means by which we are delivered from hell and raised to heaven, through our reception of the saving graces communicated by the life-giving energies of his Holy Spirit; which could only be imparted to us from the Eternal Jehovah in his Glorified Humanity. Thus it is most strictly true, according to our apprehension of the subject, that " by his stripes we are healed." We may novv' then discern, how truly atonement or reconciliation was made between God and man bv the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. The enmity, or contrariety, between man and God, was first abolished in his own person, and in him man, or human nature in general, * John vii. 29. Our translators have said, " was not yet given f^ but they have marked the word given by Italics, to intimate that there is nothing answering to it in the original. 20 230 ATONEMENT AND MEDIATION OF was reconciled to God:* and then, by his agency and influence, it is abolished in us also, and we are recon- ciled, and restored to agreement with God, in and by him. In the expressive language of the apostle ;| '' If, when we were enemies" — when human nature in gene- ral was in a state of contrariety, — " we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son," — the separation v/as abolished by the glorification of the Human Nature of the Lord Jesus Christ, which is the Son of God, and of which glorification his death was the immediate cause, — " much more, being reconciled, shall we be saved by his life," — much more, now that the utter separation no longer exists, shall we be endowed with saving graces through the life-giving influences proceeding from him, who ever liveth to make intercession for us, — What reason then have we to "joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by ^vhom we ha^-h >ioxt- uvrFivrr) THE Atonement !"J Blessed be God, who " hath atoned us to HI3ISELF BY Jesus Christ!" Adorcd be the mercy, by which '' God was in Christ atoning the WORLD unto himself !"§ III. That the Lord is called a Mediator in respect to his Humanity, because in this he has opened a new and living way of access to his Divinity; must now, I apprehend, be so evident, that it is needless to employ many words in its proof. We have just alluded to the text in which the apostle says of Jesus, that '•' he ever liveth to make intercession for us, "II But by interceding he does not here mean soliciting or entreating, as a supplicant to a sovereign; nor is there anything in the context to sanction such a gross external idea; but, acting as a medium, or as that which goes between, which is the strict, literal meaning of the word to intercede. Such intercession is the proper oflice of the Divine Humanity: for this receives into itself the unmitigated fulness of the Divine Essence, and dispen- ses it to man in a form adapted to his capacities of re- ceiving it; just as a man's body receives into itself the whole of the powers of his soul, and dispenses its ener- * See this truth, which is usually so entirely overlooked, largely proved and insisted on in Sherlock on Happiness and Punishment in the JVext JVorld, ch. v. § 3. t Rom. v. 10. t Ver. 11. § See the note above. || Heb. vii. 25. JESUS CHRIST. 231 gies, in the manner adapted to make them efficient, on persons and things around it. How exactly does the Lord himself describe his action in this interceding or mediatorial character, when he says, respecting the Comforter or Holy Spirit, "whom /will send unto you from the Father:''^* teaching, that the Divine Essence is the origin of the Divine Influencing Power, but that the Divine Humanity, in which it abides in all its infinite fulness, is the Medium of dispensing its agency on man- kind. "f How accurately, also, is the true doctrine on * John XV. 26. t The reader, I am sure, will be gratified by seeing the above idea beautifully illustrated by Dr Watts. '• The sun in the natural v/orld," he observes, " is a bright emblem of divinity, or the God- head ; for it is the spring of all light and heat and life to the crea- tion. — Now if we should suppose this vast globe of fire, which we rcill *^~ — ", *- i^<- ciiciu5t:a In a- huge hollow sphere of crystal, which should attemper its rays like a transparent veil, and give mild- er and gentler influences to the burning beams of it, and yet trans- mit every desirable or useful portion of light or heat ; this would be a happy emblem of the man Christ Jesus, in whom dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. It is the Lamb of God, who in a mild and gracious manner, conveys the blessings originally derived from God, his Father, to all the saints. We partake of them in our measures in this lower world, among his churches here on earth ; but it is with a nobler influence, and in a more sublime degree, the blessings of paiadise are diffused through all the mansions of glory, by this illustrious medium of conveyance, Jesus the Son of God." [IVorks, vol. vii. p. 143.] This emblem is as just as it is striking, provided v/e guard against one or two misapprehensions which may arise from it. Though the Son of God, or the Divine Humanity, is the medium of conveying all bles-jings to men and angels, we are not to regard it as a mere passive conveyance, but an infinitely ac- tive one. He says, " As the Father hath life in himself, so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself :" thus the Divine Energies or Holy Spirit are not simply transmitted from the Divine Essence through the Humanity, but are first received by the Humanity, and thence, by its own life and activity derived from its perfect union with the Divine Essence, dispensed to mankind ; precisely as is ex- pressed in the words quoted above, " whom I will send unto you frojn the Father. Secondly : although it is true that the rays of Godhead are " atteirpered" by the humanity, they are not thereby weakened or blunted ; but, on the contrary, are rendered, as to their influence on man, far more penetrating and powerful ; so that Watts's crystal sphere must be considered as operating, in regard to man, in the manner of a magnifying lens. Thus the prophet, in regard to the effect on man of the assumption of humanity by Jeho- vah, uses these strong figures ; " In that day, the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days ; in the day that the Lord bind- 232 ATONEMENT AND MEDIATION OF this subject expressed by the Apostle Paul! ^' There is one God/' says he, " and one Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus."* He expressly affirms, that it is the man Christ Jesus who is the Mediator. But Jesus is generally allowed to be God as well as man: yet the apostle takes care to guard us from sup- posing that his Divinity mediates between us and some other Divinity, by thus expressly restricting the office of mediation to his Humanity; hence, also, he never uses the title, "the man Christ Jesus," on any other occasion whatsoever. How plainly does this instruct us, that the Human Nature of the Lord Jesus Christ is the only Medium by which we can have access to his Divine Essence; and that his Divine Essence is not distinct from that of the Father, but is the Father Himself! His essential Divine Nature is what the Apostle calls God, and which ho Jo^la,i-c.o to h^ Ono: his glorified Human Nature is what he calls the man Christ Jesus; and which he also declares to be one, to intimate that the Human Nature in him is essentially different from what it is in all other beings, and is as his Divine, being the adequate organ of conveying to man the divine communications. It is commonly imagined, from the Lord's being call- ed a Mediator, as well as from his being said to inter- cede, that he uses entreaty and prayer with the Father in behalf of man. How vain is it for those v^ho believe this to deny, that in heart they believe in at least two Gods, and those, also, of opposite natures! for how can the God who supplicates and entreats be the same God as he who is supplicated and entreated'- How can the nature of the God, who, without any feast on another's sufferings to appease his offended justice, entreats and supplicates another God to lay aside his wrath, be the same as that of him who only lays aside his wrath in com- pliance with such entreaty and supplication; in which eth up the breach of his people, and healeth the stroke of her wound." (Isa. xxx. 26.) I will only add further, that if the sun enclosed in a crystal sphere is a just emblem of the Father and Son of the Scripture*, we S3c how impossible it is to regard them as two persons ; we see that their relation is precisely that of the soul and the body ; and wa see how idle it must be to seek for God, any- where but in the person of Jesus Christ : to which conviction Dr Watts himself is reputed to have arrived before he died. * 1 Tim. ii. 5. JESUS CHRIST. 233 also he is continually reminded of the sufferings to which the supplicant has submitted to appease him? Nay, how can the God who cannot raise man to heaven of his own free motion, but must first obtain his forgive- ness of another God by prayer and supplication, be any God at all? Does not the supposition fully imply, that the Father and Son are as completely two Gods as any two human beings are two men, and that they differ as much from each other as a subject from an absolute sove- reign ? All this fiction, also, respecting the Lord's me- diating and interceding for man by praying to the Father, has been invented in direct contradiction to his own as- surance: " I say NOT unto you," says he, '-'■ that I will pray the Father for you: for the Father himself lovelh you, because ye have loved me, and have believed that I came out from God."* To believe that the Lord came out from flr^, :<, i^ b,.i;cvc thai his Humanity is an immediate evolution from his Divine Essence — an actual maiiifes- tation of what was always potentially included in the Divinity, ready to be put forth, for the salvation of man, when the fulness of state and time should have arrived. When this is acknowledged, the Father himself is said to love us, because the love which constitutes his essence is then capable of being communicated to us and received by us. Hence again we see that the Lord's Humanity is the Medium by which we gain access to his Divinity, and are brought into communication with it, just as by the medium of a man's body we gain access to, and have communication with, his soul. The Lord teaches the same truth in the most direct form when he says, " I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture."! VVhat is the door but the medium of access? And that, to obtain such access, we are not to address the naked Divinity immediately, but the Lord Jesus Christ as the Divine Person of the Father, he again teaches when he says, *' Verily, verily, I say unto you. He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber. "J Altogether, it assuredly is abundantly evident, that the Mediatorship of Jesus Christ does not consist in his * John xvi 26, 27. j John x. 9. J Ver. 1. 20* 234 THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. introducing us, by entreaty or any other means, to the favor of a God out of and separate from himself^ but in his having assumed and glorified a Humanity to afford a Medium of access to the Divinity which dwells in ful- ness in it. Let us then, instead of thinking to climb up some other way, enter in '' By a new and living way which he hath consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say, his flesh;^^* — that Humanity, which he has deified and united to Deity to be for men the Medium of ap- proach 10 God. In conclusion: May not these views of the New Church on the Atonement and Mediation of Jesus Christ be confidently recommended to the consideration of the Candid and Reflecting.^ Do they not unfold the true doc-, trine of the Scriptures on these momentous subjects, in a manner which is calculated to recommend the Scrip- tures themselves to the more cor<3ial n/-.r«pptnnp.e of men of reason and reflection? Do they not satisfactorily clear the Christian Religion from the imputation of sanction- ing doctrines at which all reason and common sense revolt, by shewing that the sentiments on those subjects which bear that character are not those of the true Christian Religion, but are the mere fallacious conclu- sions of gross minds, that have looked at the Scriptures in a merely superficial manner? Do they not evince, that the genuine doctrines of Scripture are here coinci- dent with the views of sound reason and true philosophy? Ought not then the writings of the enlightened Instru- ment by whom these doctrines are deduced from the Scriptures, to be favorably regarded by all those to whom true philosophy, sound reason, and scriptural the- ology, are objects of esteem? SECTION IX. The Christian Life. I AM now finally to appeal to you, my Candid and Reflecting Readers, on the subject of the Christian Life; and I trust I shall not find it difficult to convince Heb. X. 20. THE CHRISTIAN LIFE, 235 you, that when our doctrines affirm, that a life of right- eousness, but not of Pharisaic righteousness, is the life that leads to heaven, they affirm the genuine doctrine of the Scriptures. Among the accusations which have been brought against the doctrines of the New Church, there is none which will appear more extraordinary to future ages, none which at present appears more surprising to those who know what they are, than the monstrous charge of their being opposed to true holiness of life: Yet the Rev. Mr Beaumont has thought proper to affirm, that the enlightened man who was made the instrument of dedu- cing those doctrines from the Scriptures, comes under the condemnation of the Lord's words when he says, *' Whosoever shall break one of the least of these com- mandments, and shall teach men so, shall be called least in the Uin£yrlr.rr^ of koctvon." He founds this imputation chiefly upon the title of one of the most heavenly chap- ters in that truly heavenly work, the treatise on Heaven and Hell, — " That it is not so difficult a thing to live for heaven as some suppose," which he calls *' a written prescription for dealing with a slack hand, and being at ease in Zion." A more artful attempt to raise an un- founded prejudice has seldom been witnessed. The title of the chapter, and the title alone, since no other part of it would suit the purpose, is quoted: a turn is given to it by the manner of introducing it quite dif- ferent from any that its author ever thought of its bear- ing; and then the assailant goes on, through two or three pages, moralizing on the " awful responsibility" lying on the writer, the translators, and circulators, of '' false doctrines and loose principles;" as if such guilt were incurred by the writer, translators, and circulators, of the doctrines and principles of the New Church! Yet why should it surprise us? when truth has always receiv- ed the same treatment on its first promulgation, and be- fore its doctrines were so generally known as to make evident to all the falsehood of the accusation. The wri- tings of the early Christian apologists are filled with ac- counts of the monstrous fictions which were invented to blacken the then new religion and those who received it. All the most celebrated Reformers, at the era of the separation from Rome, were represented as monsters of impiety: an imputation certainly which was grossly 236 THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. scandalous and unfounded, though I would by no means represent those upon whom it was cast as maintainers of genuine truth. Slill less would I affirm this of the mod- ern Methodist: but this is no reason for representing their excesses as worse than they were: yet their severe antagonist, Bishop Lavington, concludes his celebrated work entitled The Enthusiasm of Methodists and Papists Compared, with a delineation of abominations which were practised at the Eleusinian mysteries, and intimates his conviction, that the private meetings of the Methodists (and he quotes passages from their writings as counte- nancing the charge) were not more innocent. But why advert to inferior instances to evince how naturally both genuine and comparative truth, even to the mere zeal tor what is believed to be the truth, are maligned and mis- represented on their first appearance } Do the opponents of the doctrines of the new Nor Oh^vok ctrc.;r> fliAm to a sense which does not belong to them? the Lord Him- self, by his representative, David, complains that his divine sentiments were similarly perverted: " False wit- nesses did rise up: they laid to my charge things that I knew not;" — " Every day they wrest my words."* Do they affirm of the doctrines of the New Church which are formed from the pure truths of the Word of God, that they teach men to break the divine commandments ? The disciple is not above his Master; and the teachers of the professing church said of the Word of God himself, when Incarnate among them, " We know that this man is a sinner. "t The whole of the verse of which a part is so calumnious- ly applied to the illustrious Swedenborg by his accuser, with the verse which follows it, delivers, in the most explicit manner, the Lord's doctrine respecting the spe- cies of righteousness which was to distinguish his disci- ples: " Whosoever," he declares, " shall break one of these least commandments, shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven; but whosoever shall do and teach them shall be called great in the kingdom of heav- en. For I say unto you. Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Phari- sees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heav- en. "J It is here most decisively taught, that a life of * Ps. XXXV. 11, Ivi. 5. t John ix. 24. t Matt. v. 19, 20. THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. 237 righteousness, but not of Pharisaic righteousness is the way to heaven. I propose then to shew, that the doc- trine thus advanced is to be understood in all the fulness of meaning which the Lord's words naturally convey; that to invent any interpretation of them which tends to evade their evident purport, — to break, or diminish the force of any of the divine commandments, — is to incur the condemnation which they pronounce; and that the doctrine they teach, is, in all its integrity and purity, the doctrine of the New Church and of the writings of Swe- denborg. By a life of righteousness, it will of course be under- stood, we mean a life of obedience to the Lord's com- mandments: and that such obedience is required of all those that call themselves his disciples, is so evident in Scripture, that scarcely any can be so bold as openly to ^^„_,. ;*, tKv/v^gii lijctijy break the force of the command- ments respecting it by straining their language to differ- ent meaning. The whole of the Bible, both in the Old Testament and the New, is nothing else but the code of God's commandments, with an ample comment respect- ing the rewards which Divine Goodness bestows on those who keep them, and the punishments which una- voidably overtake those who persevere in disregarding them. Under the Jewish dispensation, the keeping of the commandments of God had rewards in this life at- tached to it, and the disobeying of them was followed by punishments in this life: and when such disobedience became national, it was to be followed with expulsion from their own country and exile and captivity in foreign lands. Accordingly, when the Jews, having long refu- sed, by obedience to the divine commandments, to ren- der of the fruits of the vineyard to its rightful Lord, pro- ceeded to the direful extent of casting the Divine Heir out of his own vineyard and slaying him, they were finally ejected from being tenants of the vineyard, or from being the recognised church of God in the world; and with it agreeable to the nature of the punishments with which, under that dispensation, disobedience was attended, they were miserably destroyed by foreign invaders, were finally cast out of their own land, and have been abject wanderers in foreign countries ever since; exhibiting a standing monument before our eyes of the awful conse- 238 THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. quences of disobedience. But many modern teachers ■will hero exclaim, '^ Yes! but the case is quite different now: they were under a covenant of works, but we are under the covenant of grace." True, I answer, from the doctrines of the New Church: we are under the covenant of grace: but in what does this grace consist? In the power which is bestowed upon man, in conse- quence of the increased divine aids and communications of the Spirit, which are the blessed effects of the Incar- nation of Jehovah in the person of Jesus Christ; where- by he is enabled to keep the divine coinmandments from that inward ground, in the spirit and not in the letter only, — in the heart and mind as well as in the outward form, — v/hich is intended by the Author of those com- mandments, the God who looketh at the heart. We are under grace: " Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ:" and " as many as received him to ihem gcirv. Ko j>o.../^». i^ become the sons of God, even to as many as believe on his name."* Believing on his name, then, does not, of itself, make them sons of God, but brings the power of becoming such; in other words, it is indispensably neces- sary to our receiving from God the power to keep his commandments in the spirit as well as in the letter: and '^ he that hath my commandments, and keepeth them," saith the Lord Jesus Christ, " he it is that loveth me : and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself unto him:"t which is only another mode of declaring, that such shall be sons of God, If v/e were to cite all the passages in the discourses of the Lord Jesus Christ in which he declares that the keeping of his commandments, in other words, a life of righteousness, is indispensable to admission into heaven, we must quote a great proportion of his instructions in- deed, including the entire burthen of the whole. More, surely, cannot be necessary, to remind Christian read- ers of the constant tenor of his exhortations, than to repeat the sublime and pathetic conclusion of the longest of his discourses, his sermon on the mount. That whole dis- course is a series of precepts enjoining righteousness of life; and he closes it with saying, " Whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him * John i. 17, 12. t Ch, xiv. 21. THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. 239 to a wise man which built his house upon a rock : and the rain descended and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not; because it was founded upon a rock. And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it."* So, how plainly are the conditions of admission to eternal happiness laid before us in the parable of the sheep and the goats! To the sheep, with words ofthe highest tenderness and affection, the Divine Judge enumerates a number of good works, as represen- tative of a life of charity and goodness, which he says they had done, and done to him: and these are expressly denominated the righteous: to the goats the same works are mentioned as having Uy them been entirely neglected : and the discourse concludes with saying. ''And these shall go away into everlasting punishment, out the righteous into life eternal."! -^^^ the doctrine of the Epistles is precisely the same as that ofthe Gospels, though much mischievous industry has been employed to set them at variance; and many theologians of high name have thought they have effected a glorious achievement, when they have made the Apostles appear to contradict their Divine Master, and when they have extolled the sentiments thus forced from their epistles as the genuine gospel, and depreciated the opposite sentiments of Jesus Christ as not " evangelical. "J Paul, however, plainly enough teaches, that it is righteousness of life which ena- bles man to stand in the judgment, and to obtain admission into heaven. " God," he declares " will render to every man according to his deeds: To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, — eternal life: But unto them that are con- tentious and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteous- ness, indignation and wrath: tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that doeth evil; — but glory, honor, and * Matt. vii. 24 to 27. t Matt. xxv. 34 to 46. X See a Sermon of Nathan Taylor, an old divine, in the Method- ist Magazine for July or August, 1823. Toplady, in his posthumous tracts, quotes the words of Paul in Acts xiii. 39 as the doctrine of the gospel, in opposition to the words of Jesus in Matt. v. 48, which he treats as the abrogated doctrine of the law. It would be easy to multiply examples. 240 THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. peace, to every man that worketh good."* So the same apostle assures us, that to produce this life of obedience ia the design of the grace of God: " The grace of God," saith he, "that bringeth salvation, hath appeared unto all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and world- ly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God, even our Saviour Jesus Christ; who gave himself for us, that he might re- deem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a pe- culiar people, zealous of good works, "t Here the apos- tle plainly tells us, that the grace of God, of which he elsewhere speaks so often, is given to enable us to live righteously; that it is by living righteously that we shall be prepared to stand before our Saviour and Judge; and that the design of his coming into the world, whence we receive such grace, also was, to onoKlo n;r.h must exceed iliui <.'f tKo Snibcs and Pharisees?' Does he mean that we must be still more scrupulous than they in matters purely indifferent? Does he mean that, whatever they do, we must go further in the same line? that as they make sad their faces that they may appear unto men to fast, we must make ours sad- der? that as they so arrange the form of their gar- ments as to announce their pretensions to. holiness to all beholders, vvo must still more distinguish ourselves by the singularity of our appearance? Nothing, surely, notiiing of the kind. He does not mean that we are to exceed them in that in which they are superabundant, but in that in v»'hich they arc deficient; by keeping the divine commandments in our hearts as well as in our actions; by supplying to the observance the inward prin- ciple, without which the outward form is an idle mock- ery, a dead letter. This is evident from the comment which the Divine Speaker makes upon his own text. The Scribes and Pharisees thougiit that they sufficiently obeyed the commandment which says, '^ Thou shaft not kill," if thev did not carry their enmities into the out- ward act of murder: the Divine Author and Expositor of the commandment declares, that he is guilty of a breach of it, and liable to divine judgment accordingly, "who is angry with his brother without cause." The Scribes and Pharisees thought that they sufficiently obeyed the commandment which says, " Thou shalt not THE CHRISTIAN LIP£. 243 commit adultery," if they did not carry the concupis- cence into the very act: " But I say unto you," says the Divine Author and Expositor of the commandment, ''That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her, hath committed adultery with her already in his heart." * And from these two instances, the Saviour plainly inti- mates the extent of all the other precepts of the deca- logue, and clearly shows in which direction the righteous- ness of his disciples must exceed that of those who act- ed in that day as the teachers of righteousness. He calls not upon us to be more sanctimonious than they w^ere, but more sincere; not to shelter ourselves behind the mere letter of a precept, but to take in with it its whole spirit and design; and not to be content only to shun evils as they appear before the world, but so to shun them as to avoid them also in the sight of God. Ttxia men is tne species of righteousness which the Lord Jesus Christ prescribos'to his disciples, and with- out which he declares that they shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven: and this accordingly is the life which is insisted upon in the doctrines of the New Church. The ten commandments, those doctrines affirm, understood both naturally and spiritually, are the rule of life for Christians. Let any one who wishes to see this clearly proved, consult that v/ork of Swedenborg's, which treats expressly and solely on this subject: it is called The Doctrine of life for the JS'eio Jerusalem^ from ike Com- mandments of the JJccalogue. It consists of fourteen chapters, in which the same number of leading proposi- tions is stated and proved ; and as they are all most pro- foundly important, and shew in the strongest light what our doctrines are upon this truly vital subject, I will here repeat them. The first — the sentiment with which the work opens, and which it lays down as the fundamental of all, is one which ought to be written in letters of gold in every church and in every house, and, most indispen- sably, on every heait: It is, That all Religion has rela- tion io life ; and that the life of Religion is to do goofL The next affirms, That no one can do good which is really good from hir.iself The third declares, That so far as man shuns evils as sins, so far he does good, nut from him- self bid from the Lord. The fourth states. That so far ' Mat. v. 21 to 23. 244 THE CHRISTIAX LIFE. as rimj one shuns evils as sins, so far he loves iruths. The fifth pronounces, That so far as any one shuns evils as sins, so far he has faith, and is a spiritual man. The sixth observes, That the Decalogue points out uhat evils are sins. The seventh explains, That murders, adulteries, tliefls, and false wHjicss, of every hind, are the evils which are to he shunned as sins. The four next evince. That so far as any one shuns these evils as sino, he is in the opposite good: thus thai so far as any one thus shuns nmrder of every kind, he loves his neighbor; so far as any one thus shuns adultery, he loves chastity ; so far as any one thus shuns theft, he loves honesty ; and so far as any one thus shuns false U'it7icss, or lying, he loves truth. The twelfth de- monstrates, That no one can shun evils as sins, so as to hold them in aversion, but by combating against them. The thirteenth assures us. That man ought to shun evils as si7is, and to fight against thtm, «^ :f J..^.^..ir] rfn it from himself (becaubt- tko'jLr^vfl is present with every one thai strives, and gives him the power.) The fourteenth dis- closes. That if any one shun evils from any other motive than because they are sins, he in reality does not shun them, but only prevents them from showing themselves before the jcorld. — This, my Candid Readers, is our doctrine on the life that leads to heaven: I appeal to you whether any doctrine can go more completely to the root of all evil. Is it not evident, that when this doctrine affirms respecting each of the evils prohibited in the Decalogue that every kind of such evil is to be shunned as sin, it goes to the full extent of the Lord's requirement, that the righteousness of his disciples should exceed the right- eousness of the Scribes and Pharisees ? To shew what is meant by shunning all the kinds of each general evil, I will mention how this is explained in the chapter on the precept respecting shunning adultery. " By com- mitting adultery, is meant," says the enlightened author, " in the sixth commandment of the Decalogue, in a nat- ural sense, not only the external crime, but also all ob- scene practices, v.anton discourse, and filthy thoughts: but, in a spiritual sense, by committing adultery is meant to adulterate the good things taught in the Word, and to falsify its truths: but in the supreme sense, by commit- ting adultery is meant, to deny the Lord's Divinity, and to profane the Word: — And they are guilty of all these kinds of adultery together, who do not, both in faith and THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. 245 life, hold adulteries to be sins." And, after shewing how diametrically opposite the uncleanness of adultery- is to the chastity of marriage, he presently adds, " Hence it may plainly be concluded and seen, whether a man is a Christian or not, — yea, whether a man has any reli- gion or not. He who does not, both in faith and life, hold adulteries as sins, is not a Christian, and has no religion. On the other hand, he who shuns adulteries as sins ; and still more, he who on that account holds them in aver- sion ; and still more, he who on that account abominates them ; has religion, and is a Christian." — Does not this come up to the full doctrine of the Lord Jesus Christ.'' Is it not his doctrine in all its integrity and pu- rity ? And as all the other evils prohibited by the Dec- alogue are laid open in the same searching manner, — I will not say what a want of integrity, — but, what igno- xauce ui me subject, is displayed by those, who can re- proach the doctrine of the Now Ch«.^ii cvr me " laxity of its precepts !" All the precepts or commandments of God they enforce in all their fulness: they are only indif- ferent about such precepts as are Pharisaical additions to the lav/s of God, — the mere commandments of men, — vain traditions, the tendency of which is, to withdraw at- tention from the commandments of God, and to make them of none effect. I now close this Appeal; and to avoid protracting it further, I will make no additional attempt to recommend the subjects which have been considered to the favorable attention of you to whom it is addressed, — the Reflect- ing of all Denominations. I will only entreat you, as becomes men of reflection and thence of candor, to weigh what has been offered in the balance of a serious and impartial judgment, and under the influence of a real love of truth; and, in order that you may be guided aright in your decision, I would only earnestly beg of you to remember the request made in the introduction above (pp. 6, 7), — to put your minds for the occasion under the direction of Him, who is the Truth itself, the Light of the world. Then, and then only, may you rely, that the Holy Spirit, which He sends from the Father, will guide you into all truth. The consequence, I trust, will be that you will be brought to the conviction, that the important Doctrines of Faith and Life which have now been pre- sented to your consideration, are those which tend^ above 21* 246 THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. all others, rightly to inform the understanding and to purify the heart; that the Views which have been offer- ed respecting the Eternal World and State, are such as carry the highest evidence of their own reality, and impress the reality of the things belonging to that world and state in the strongest manner on the human mind; and that the opinions which have been advanced respect- ing the accomplishment of the Second Coming of the Lord and of the Last Judgment, with the raising up of a Human Instrument for making them known, are pre- cisely what Prophecy, rightly understood, should lead mankind to expect, and what Experience and Fact, — the experience, in our day, of the whole world, and facts which press upon the observation of all, — irresistibly confirm. And even such of you as, not yet venturing to put your minds under the direction of the Lord Jesus Christ, but looking for light lu Rumo aim. c _.....„„ shall not be cunvinoca that these sentiments are true, must yet, I trust, be satisfied, that both our doctrines and ourselves have been greatly misrepresented, and are in general much misunderstood; — that our doctrines are not altogether undeserving of attention, and that those who hold them are not altogether deserving of contempt. As to what is thought of ourselves, however, we desire to be indifferent; but the sincerest charity compels us to wish, that mankind may be led to think less unworthily of what, we are satisfied, is the Truth. But this also, we are instructed, will, sooner or later, be the case. For though it is agreeable to divine prediction, that, at the time of the Second Coming, " they should make war with the Lamb," — should oppose the belief of the Divin- ity of the Lord's Humanity and of his oneness with the Father, with the other truths then to be made known; yet the same prediction assures us, that "the Lamb shall overcome them," — shall convince them, from the Word, of their mistake: " for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings."* Happy, assuredly, are they, who yield to his dominion! Thus happy are they, by what- ever denomination they wish to be called, Vv'ho practi- cally admit the two first essentials of the New Church, prefigured, as we believe, by the New Jerusalem; which are, — The acknowledgment of the Lord in understand- ing and in heart; and, A life according to his command- ments. * Rev. xvii. 14. m DATE DUE / Fro « to 1 5 ZOOS kin\/ ^nnE NUV 4 IuUd NOV< 3ZUD5 PrmtaO .nUSA 933.94 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES 0043353819 11663 1