life, he may receive spiritual life. For spiritual life cannot otherwise be formed with man, or his spirit prepared for heaven : for to live an internal life and not an external life at the same time, is like dwelling in a house which has no foundation, which either sinks into the ground, or cracks to pieces, and at last falls down."* Here, then, some of the difficulties with which, in the opinion of some, the life that leads to heaven is attended, are at once cleared away;—all the mummery of superstition and popish mortification,-all that mistaken renunciation of the world which withdraws a man entirely from its business and its duties. The author then proceeds to shew, that truly spiritual life is nothing but civil and moral life living from spiritual motives; and thence, again, he infers, that it is not so difficult to live the life which leads to heaven as is generally supposed. For, says he, “Who cannot live a civil and moral life; when every one is initiated into it from his infancy, and comes into the knowledge of it by his life in the world? Every one also brings the principles of civil and moral life into act, he who is inwardly bad, as well as he who is inwardly good: for who does not wish to be esteemed a sincere and just man? Almost all exercise sincerity and justice externally, so as to appear as if they were sincere and just in heart. Let, then, the spiritual man do the same, which he surely is able to do as easily as the natural man; only, as the spiritual man believes in God, he must practise sincerity and justice, not only because civil and moral laws require it, but also, because the divine laws require it. Thus, as the spiritual man, when he acts, has the divine laws in his thoughts, he is in communion with the angels, and, so far as this is the case, he comes into conjunction with them, and so his internal man is opened, which is the real spiritual man. When such is a man's character and quality, he is adopted and led by the Lord, although he is not aware of it; and thus the acts of sincerity and justice belonging to the mor al and civil life are performed by him from a spiritual origin; and this is to perform them from the essential principles of justice and sincerity, or to do them from the heart."+ This is il lustrated at length, and is applied to the case of the ten commandments. It is shewn that many more men of the world keep the ten commandments in outward form, as mere civil and moral laws, for the sake of maintaining a fair character in soci ety; and the intended inference is, What is to hinder the man who wishes to become spiritual from keeping them as divine laws likewise, avoiding the breach of them as sins against God; when the Lord and the angels are ever present with the mind of every one who thus regards them, continually leading him, *H. and H. n. 528 H. 530. and communicating the necessary ability? I will add a few sentences which deliver the practical purport of the whole: “That it is not so difficult to live the life of heaven as is supposed, is evident now from this consideration: That nothing more is necessary, than for a man to think, when any thing presents itself to him which he knows to be insincere and wrong, and to which he feels inclined, that it ought not to be done, because it is contrary to God's commandments. If he accustoms himself so to think, and thus acquires a habit of it, he by degrees is conjoined to heaven; and as the higher principles of his mind are opened in consequence, he distinctly sees what is insincere and unjust; and as he sees them, they may be loosened and expelled from his mind; for it is impossible that any evil can be expelled until it is seen. But when he has made a beginning, the Lord operates all sorts of good in him, and gives him the faculty, not only of seeing evils, but also of not willing them, and finally of holding them in aversion; this is meant by the Lord's words, My yoke is easy, and my burden is light.""—But here follows a most momentous remark, which shews that the writer never intended to represent the work as unattended with any difficulty whatever he adds: "It is however to be noted, that the difficulty of so thinking, and likewise of resisting evils, increases, in proportion as man proceeds to the actual commission of evils from the will; for by so doing he accustoms himself to evils, till at length he does not see them; and next he is led to love them, and from the delight of love to excuse them, and by all kinds of fallacies to confirm them, saying that they are allowable and good. This is the case with those, who, on coming to adult age, plunge into evils without restraint, and at the same time reject all regard for divine things from their heart."* I know not how these sentiments may affect our accusers; but by all the Candid and Reflecting they surely will be thought to carry their own recommendation with them, and to evince, by their intrinsic excellence, that they are the very truth of heaven. They are equally calculated to repress presumption, and to foster hope: they prove that man may, with less difficulty than has been supposed, live the life that leads to heaven, and yet that all the good of such a life is not of man but of the Lord alone and that man himself greatly aggravates the difficulty by neglecting his opportunities. Never before, I believe, was this difficult subject treated, in any human writings, with such clearness and consistency. Surely it must require the front of the arch-accuser of the brethren himself, seriously to look at such sentiments, and impute to them any other character than that of holiness and truth. * N. 533. 66 But, says the accuser in the present case, a Swedenborgian, according to an indulgence warranted by his great leader, may 'go to a play,' may sing a song,' besides some other little indulgences which it is needless here to mention." How pitiful are such charges! What mere Pharisaism do they breathe! How plainly do we see in them the same spirit which exclaimed on one occasion, "Why eateth your Master with publicans and sinners?" on another, because "the Son of man came eating and drinking," "Behold a man gluttonous and a wine bibber, a friend of publicans and sinners!" They breathe a revival of the spirit which was eager to "bind heavy burdens, and grievous to be borne, and to lay them on men's shoul ders;"-which "tithes mint and anise and cummin, but omits the weightier matters of the law, judginent, mercy, and faith;" -which "strains out a gnat, but swallows a camel." They are, in short, the dictates of the same spirit as said of the Saviour in person, "We know that this man is a sinner."§ What was the pretence for this blasphemous accusation? Because the Divine Object of it refused to acknowledge the additions which the scribes and Pharisees had presumed to make to his own law and because the doctrines of the New Church are equally regardless of such additions by modern scribes and Pharisees, they are pursued with similar reproaches. The proper answer is that which, on one occasion, was made to the Pharisees by the Lord himself: "If ye had known what that meaneth, I desire mercy, and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guiltless."|| I will now only add on this subject, that, although, according to the Doctrines of the New Church, all the faculties belonging to human nature in a state of order, from highest to lowest, may be allowed the recreations proper for keeping them in a healthful state, capable of discharging their proper functions in the great whole, whence even the recreations proper to the body and the senses are not condemned as criminal in themselves; yet to insinuate from this reasonable and Scriptural truth that our doctrines encourage any disorderly gratification of the lower faculties, any thing that tends to lift them out of their proper subordination to the mental and truly spiritual part,-is a gross, unfounded calumny. Nothing is more insisted upon in the doctrines of our church, than the debasing tendency of pursuing carnal and sensual gratifications,-of the pursuit of them, in any degree whatever, as ruling ends and objects. Of persons who had been devoted to the pursuit of what is called pleasure, our doctrines teach, a very great proportion of the inhabitants of * Matt. ix. 11. Ch. xxiii. 4, 23, 24. + Ch. xi. 19. hell consists. Because, then, we affirm that the life which leads to heaven does not consist in monkish mortifications; because, to use the apostle's language, we do not adopt the precepts of "touch not, taste not, handle not, after the commandments and doctrines of man; which things," as he also affirms, “have [merely] a shew of wisdom, in will-worship and [affected] humility, and neglecting of the body;" it is the extreme of injustice in the devotees of will-worship to tax us with encouraging the love of pleasure and dissipation. We are satisfied that, in its spiritual as well as in its literal sense, the precept," Render unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar's, and unto God, the things which are God's," is a mandate of Divinity; and in its spiritual sense we understand it to teach, that though the world. and the things belonging to the world, including that part of man's constitution which is connected with the world, may, in their proper station, and in the order intended by their Creator, have their necessary share of attention, they must not be allowed to encroach upon our duty to God, engross any share of our supreme affections, or form any part of our ruling motives, which must all be sacred to God alone. : Nothing more needs be said to evince, that there is not anything in our doctrines which is calculated to attract to their banners the careless and the dissolute, who are indisposed to submit to the discipline of sincere repentance and reformation these will rather fly to the flattering remedies of our opponents, who will undertake to set all right in a moment, though that may be the last moment of life. We reject not the sinner but we tell him he must repent, not in words only, but in deed; or, in the language of the gospel that, he must bring forth fruits worthy of repentance. We, however, dishearten no one by telling him that he cannot keep the law of God we tell him that he can; yea, and that it is not so difficult as he perhaps imagines. We learn of our Divine Master not to break the bruised reed nor quench the smoking flax : yet we adopt also his teaching from the heart, and say to the disciples whom we call to him," Except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in case enter into the kingdom of hesven." * Cel. ii. 21, 22, 23. SECTION IX. THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. PART III. Charity not infringed by Swedenborg's Exposure of the Errors of a Perverted Church. I have had occasion to observe above, that " piety to God and charity to man form the soul, both of Swedenborg's system and of his conduct." It is certain that charity is affirmed, in his writings, as in those of Paul*, to be the greatest of Christian graces; yet his accusers pretend, that it is one in which he was extremely deficient himself. Upon the same ground, however, on which this charge is attempted to be established against Swedenborg, it might as truly be brought against the Apostle, and even against their Divine Master: it is purely because, in his writings, he treats evil as evil, and darkness as darkness, and does not, as those who are confirmed in false sentiments would prefer, "heal the hurt of the daughter of the Lord's people slightly, saying, Peace, peace, when there is no peace."+ Scripture expressly affirms (in Matt. xxiv. and the corresponding chapters of Mark and Luke, in many parts of the Apostolic writings, and in the Revelation throughout), that the most deplorable evils and errors would successively devastate the Christian church, insomuch that a judgment would at length. be passed on its corruptions, and God would depart from those who uphold them, to dwell with the new dispensation of pure Christianity delineated as the New Jerusalem: the Apostle, in a holy zeal, exclaims, "Let God be true, and every man a liart :" but Swedenborg, only for declaring that God is true, and that his predictions are fulfilled, is charged with an unpardonable breach of charity. But what does this prove, but that conviction of error, now, as of old, is deeply resented by those confirmed in it?"And the chief priests and the scribes the same hour sought to lay hold on him; for they perceived that he had spoken this parable against him."S "In the Baron's writings" says my guide" the word charity is a very prominent word: of course we have a fair claim upon him, not only for the manifestation of much candour of * 1 Cor. xiii. 13. ↑ Jer. vi. 11. |