AN ANSWER 
 
 TO THE 
 
 LETTER OF REV. J. A. WILLIAMS, ENTITLED, • . 
 " WHY I AM KOT A SWEDEN BURG I AN." g 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN PARKER/ 
 
 " Prove all things ; hold fast that which is gooi."— Paul. 
 
 -^-■.- -.>^ . '*■ i 
 
 TORONTO: 
 JOHN PARKER, 
 
 148 YORK STREET, 
 DEPOT FOR NEW CHURCH BOOKS, ETC. 
 
 1867. 
 
V: "/ 
 
 TORONTO : 
 PRINTED BY THE GLOBE PRINTING COMPANY, 
 
 26 & 28 KING STREET EAST. 
 
AN ANSWER 
 
 TO THE 
 
 LETTElt OF REV. J. A. WILLIAMS, ENTITLED, "WHY I AM 
 
 NOT A SWEDENBORGIAN.". 
 
 By JOHN PARKER. 
 
 ,/ r _^ FIRST PART. 
 
 We have issued this small tract, to the candid and reflect- 
 ing, in the hope that they will give it a careful examination. 
 The cause of its appearance is a Letter addressed to a Friend 
 (hearing the title, Why I am not a Swedenborgian), by the 
 Rev. J. A. Williams, the publication of which was sanctioned 
 by the body of the Association of Wesleyan Ministers of this 
 City ; thus giving the Letter the weight and authority of jhe 
 Church. Such authority is alone sufficient to induce many 
 to believe its contents to be a true and fair statement of the 
 principles taught in the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg. 
 Those who know nothing of the principles of the neif) 
 Church we shall have considerable difficulty in approaching ; 
 but shoidd such be led to make a further and careful inquiry, 
 we have no fear of the results. On the other hand, those who 
 know nothing of us but what they hear through such mediums 
 as the above Letter, and who are unwilling to apply for in- 
 telligence to Swedenborg' s own Avritings, or to those who 
 inteUigently acknowledge his teachings, we have little hope of 
 influencing by this or any other effort that may be made to 
 correct the erroneous impressions they have adopted. 
 
 The writer has taken us over a wide field, too extensive for 
 us to do entire justice to the subject, as this reply must 
 necessarily be short. We can, however, state for the benefit of 
 
the inquirer, that all the questions or objections that are 
 truthfully stated in Mr. Williams' Letter have already been 
 completely answered by very able -writers, who have fully 
 examined the subject, both for their ovm satisfaction and the 
 Church at large. 
 
 At the beginning of his letter, the writer confesses a little 
 embarrassment, as though aware of the colossal proportions of 
 the man he is about to criticise ; and such, indeed, he was, as 
 testified by many great contemporary and subsequent writers. 
 We quote briefly from the Kev. E. P. Wood, a distinguished 
 Minister of the Congregationalist Church in England : "Shall 
 we insult his memory by glancing at any of the other charges 
 preferred against him? *He was a Fanatic' What, then, is 
 a Fanatic? — one of the prof oundest mathematicians of his age, 
 a deep and acute thinker, a subtle logician, a varied and ver- 
 satile scholar, above all, a calm and most quiet bookman and 
 penman, indisposed for any company, and never seen to court 
 the company of the ignorant and vulgar, a man of few 
 words, until compelled to talk, or talking for a purpose; cool 
 in temperament; never rocked by passion or impulse; always, 
 as far as humanity can be, in a state of equilibrium, weigh- 
 ing all his thoughts and all his actions, perpetually bent on 
 giving reasons for things; a man of strong inductive habits, 
 and consistent; a whole life of invariable rectitude, and doc- 
 trine, and principle ; ever above the hour, and even from the 
 period of his illimiination the same — is this the portrait of 
 a Fanatic ?" This is a noble tribute from a Christian Min- 
 ister. But when approached by one who is ready to mis- 
 represent and slander, like the truth, he disappears, and an 
 imaginary Swedenborg of his o^vn fashioning takes the place 
 of the true one. We cannot wonder, however, knowing the 
 power of early impressions, that the wiiter of the letter should 
 compare the "WTitings of the immortal Swedenborg to his 
 juvenile studies, viz. : the wonderful stor}'^ of Jack the Giant 
 Killer. 
 
The summary treatment which he gives to Swedenborg 
 may be best suited to his own bewildered state ; but the 
 friend who possesses more than the average amount of intelli- 
 gence, and has a taste for philosophy withal, will not be dis- 
 turbed by such a summary notice, containing so many un- 
 truthful statements and false references. But it is to be re- 
 gretted that, while it has no effect upon such individuals, 
 there is another class, for which it appears to" be specially • 
 written — those who are below the average in intelligence, 
 raid who have no taste for philosophy. Such minds are 
 willing to receive for truth that which is supported by 
 authority alone, and when they see that the above letter is 
 written and published by the Association of Wesleyan 
 Ministers of this city, it will be sufficient to stamp it with 
 the character of infallibilitv. - - , 
 
 The writer of the letter associates the writing and teach- 
 ings of the Kew Jerusalem Church with spiritism. Here, 
 as in almost everything that he charges us with, he is gone 
 astray. The relation of spiritism to the teachings of the 
 !N"ew Jerusalem Church is so distant, that it may be termed 
 the very opposite. Spiritism denies a personal GqjL; the 
 Xew Jerusalem acknowledges the Lord and Saviour Jesus 
 Christ as the one only true God and proper object of Chris- 
 tian worship. Spiritism denies the Bible ; the New Jeru- 
 salem Church derives its doctrine from the Word of God, 
 regarding it as the only source of genuine wisdom. The 
 Spiritists place themselves in communication with spirits 
 for instruction in doctrine and life, during which time they 
 surrender up their liberty, and in some cases their rationality 
 also ; but the members of the Lord's New Church are taught 
 to approach the Lord through the Word in a state of true 
 liberty, by means of a rational faith deduced from the doctrines 
 of the Holy Word. Besides these essential marks of distinc- _ 
 tion, there are many others which show to the intelligent 
 mind that they arise from quite opposite fountains. Did the 
 
 Jf-: 
 
6 
 
 ^'i-'V 
 
 Rev. gentleman who wrote the letter, and the association of 
 ministers by whom it was endorsed, know these facts] If 
 they plead ignorance, then they are the " Blind leading the 
 Blind /' if they do not plead ignorance, it necessarily fol- 
 lows that they have knowingly testified to what is false. 
 That there is a great gulf fixed between Modern Spiritism 
 and the doctrines of the Xew Jerusalem Church is quite well 
 * known to all who have paid even a verj'' little attention to 
 the subject. 
 
 Let us now follow the wiiter in the order in 
 which he states his objections. In the first paragraph he 
 quotes from Prof. G. Bush, a passage in which he states 
 "that there is a profound philosophy lying at the basis of all 
 Ills revelations." Now our critic, speaking doubtless from his 
 profound acquaintance with his juvenile literature, saw what 
 he deems good reasons for calling the facts trivial and silly» 
 exti-avagant and disgusting. It would appear very trivial 
 and silly to a man not accustomed to reflect upon the 
 phenomena of nature, to have seen the young philosopher 
 Newton leaping boy-like backwards and forwards to test the 
 force 0f' the wind, or to see a man blowing soap-bubbles to 
 get at the knowledge of the diff'erent colours in light. Thus 
 we see it frequently happens that- what is trivial and silly to 
 one is profound to another. The fool sees nothing worth his 
 attention in the dust of the street, while some theologians re- 
 gard it as the material of which Adam was made ; but modern 
 science and philosophy has proclaii.^ed it to be the store- 
 house of the sun's rays, where they are laid down as it were 
 to rest, having left the ancient sphere in ancient times, 
 waiting here in readiness to unlock their treasures in due 
 season for the blessings of man. Swedenborg, in his position 
 as a Seer, revealed this great fact, and his writings enable us 
 to see the arcana of nature in a deeper and wider sense than 
 can be met with in any other works. 
 
 In paragraph 2, Swedenborg is made to say : " The 
 
planet Saturn is farthest distant from the sun, and that is 
 the reason why it is furnished with a large luminous belt." 
 It is only just, before any writer attempts to criticise an author 
 (Swedenborg herein is evidence of the fact), that he be able 
 to read and comprehend his language. The original of 
 Swedenborg is "Quia longissime a sole distat," which properly 
 signifies, because it is very distant from the sun. Thus you 
 see our first fact is not a fiction, but one from which you may 
 safely reason. 
 
 In Paragraph 3 he does not tell us where we are to 
 findwhatheobjectsto respecting the sense inwhichhe, Sweden- 
 borg, uses the word element, but there is no doubt that he 
 used the word in a popular sense, that is, earth, atmosphere 
 and water, are the common principles or elements from which 
 all things are composed (does the writer of the letter know 
 anything that exists on the earth without these elements ]) 
 Speaking in popular language, it is right to say that a fish 
 in the water is in its element, a bird in the air is in its ele- 
 ment. The mole when under ground is also in its peculiar 
 element, and furnishes an apt correspondence of those in the 
 Church who wilfully falsify truths. Perhaps among tbe As- 
 sociation of the Rev. gentlemen there was not one aware of 
 the great scientilic attainments of Swedenborg. For their 
 information I will here give a quotation from the Cyclopaedia 
 of Universal Biography. The writer is here speaking of the 
 Principia of Swedenborg : " This work explains the produc- 
 tions and nature of the elements, the formation and laws of 
 the Solar VoHex, and the sublime analogy between the starry 
 heavens and the magnetic sphere ; it will be found to antedate 
 many wipoHant tliscoveines, especially in the correlation of 
 magnetism, electricity, light, gravitation, and all the physical 
 forces ; while the practical part in mineralogy has been pro- 
 nounced in Cramer's Art of Assaying Metals, magnificent 
 and laborious. 
 
 In paragraph 4 the writer objects to the statement of 
 
8 
 
 Swedenborg " that the soul of man is a nervous, a spiri- 
 tuous fluid." At such a statement " his common sense re- 
 hictates ;" but why does his common sense reluctate 1 Is it 
 from what Swedenborg the Seer has said, or Swedenborg the 
 mere philosopher 1 Now a right understanding, as to when and 
 under what circumstances the above idea was advanced, 
 would have saved the writer from such a state of reluctaiion. 
 The work from which the quotation is taken was published 
 in Amsterdam in the year 1740, five years before he lays 
 claim to illumination, and seven years before he publishes his 
 first volume of Arcana. For the writer to thus quote from 
 .works published before his illumination, is as absurd and 
 futile as it would be for an infidel to quote the acts and 
 opinions of Saul of Tarsus against Paul the Apostle, to 
 invalidate the Apostolic -svritings. In the first instance he 
 was a mere philosopher searching for the soul, and in his 
 search after the soul had advanced as far as unaided intellect 
 could go, as he himself states in a subsequent work written 
 under illumination (Divine Love and Wisdom, 394). "Many 
 in the learned world have labored in investigating the soul ; 
 but as they knew nothing of the spiritual world, and of the 
 state of man after death, they could not do otherwise than 
 construct hypotheses, not respecting the soul's nature, but its 
 operation in the body ; of the soul's nature they could have 
 no other idea, than as of something most pure in ether, 
 and of its continent as of ether. On this subject, however, 
 they durst not publish much, for fear they should attribute 
 anything natural to the soul, knowing that the soul is spiri- 
 tual. Now having such a conception of the soul, and yet 
 knowing that the soul acts on the body and produces 
 everything in it that has relation to sense and motion, 
 therefore they labored, as we before observed, to investigate 
 the soul's operation on the body, which some said was 
 efiected by influx, and some, by harmony; but have thus 
 discovered nothing in which a mind desirous to see the 
 
ground of things can acquiesce. Therefore it has been given 
 me to converse with angels and to be enlightened by othor 
 w isdom on this subject, that the soul of man, that lives after death , 
 is his spirit, and that this is in perfect form a man, and that the 
 soul of this form is the will and understanding, and that the 
 soul of these is love and wisdom from the Lord, and these 
 two constitute the life of man, which is from the Lord alone, 
 and that the Lord, for the sake of reception of himself by 
 man, causes life to appear as if it were man's." This para- 
 graph contains the teaching of the New Jerusalem Church 
 concerning the nature and form of man's soul, in which I 
 can see nothing for my common sense to "7'eluctate" Does 
 not Mt. Williams offend both against the man and the public 
 good, when, perverting the true spirit of criticism, he 
 seizes upon those principles adopted by the Philoso- 
 pher, and rejected by the Seer, from a higher and more 
 interior plane of observation, and uses them to excite pre- 
 judice against the subsequent theological writings'? The Phari- 
 sees and Scribes in the time of our Lord resorted to every 
 means to lower the character of our Lord :n the eyes of the 
 people, so that on one occasion, when the people were aston- 
 ished at his wisdom and mighty works, it is said they 
 were offended at him, and said "Is not this the carpenter, 
 the son of Mary V Such is ever the language of the Phari- 
 see, who is ever blinding himself to superior things by the 
 irderior. Of such our Lord pronounces " "Woe unto you Scribes 
 and Pharisees, hypocrites, for ye shut up the kingdom of 
 heaven against men, for ye neither go in yourselves, neither 
 suffer ye them that are entering to go in." The candid in- 
 quirer will perceive that the quotation from the theological 
 work teaches principles that are sound and scriptural directly 
 opposite to the passage quoted from the Animal Economy by 
 the Rev. J. A. "Williams. The Animal Economy w<is written 
 in the year 1740; Angelic Wisdom in the year 1763, 
 twenty-three years afterwards, and by him as the professed 
 1* 
 
10 
 
 servant of the Lord Jesus. The reader will also observe that 
 the Eev. gentleman could not be ignorant of these facts, 
 seeing he has referred to the book several times in his letter. 
 AVhy did he not give Swedenhorg's true doctrine ? I leave the 
 readers to judge. His next objection is to " that kind of 
 philosopliy that makes the body and the soul together dis- 
 tinctly and inseparably one." 
 
 His authority for this "pitiable philosophy" is Wilkin- 
 son's tracts. We have no copy of these tracts, and therefore we 
 cannot refer to them. Are we to regard the writer as holding 
 the doctrine that the body and the soul make two, that is, 
 ttco persons or individual beings 1 If this is his doctrine, 
 we shall for the present hold on to the philosophy that soul 
 and body make one man, however pitiable it may appear to 
 him and his colleagues. , 
 
 ' In paragraph 5, he quotes Swedenborg: "that the 
 reason why the blood is red is owing to the correspon- 
 dence of the heart and blood with love and its affections." 
 He asserts that the almost universally received opinion is , 
 that this is caused by the presence of iron in the system. He 
 evidently is forgetting, or if not forgetting confounding, in- 
 strumental causes with the more efficient cause. If iron ' 
 causes blood to be red, how is it that it does not retain its ; 
 redness after the life has left the body ] Is not life some- 
 thing distinct from the 'blood, and when present in it in ful- » 
 ness has not the blood an arterial redness, and when absent 
 does it not lose that redness 1 !N"ow in the language of Sweden- 
 borg, love and life are synonyms. Thus in the soul there 
 is a circulation of love and its affections, while in the body f 
 there is a circulation of blood and its affections ; and just as ; 
 the blood draws into itself things suited for the use of the 
 body, the soul in its kingdom does the same for its preserva- 
 tion and nourishment ; and thus in these two kingdoms there 
 is a correspondence, so that ever ing, principle, and affec- 
 tion of the body exisU from the things, principles, and 
 
u 
 
 aflfections of the soul. Is it not then a sounder doctrine to '^ 
 say that the life principle is the more efficient cause of all 
 the changes and variations through which the system with 
 all its members and organs pass, than that the mateiial par- 
 ticles (iron for instance) the life makes use of for its purposes 
 should control the life 1 Is it the fire of aflection that is 
 present in the blush of the young maiden, or is it the force 
 derived from iron that causes the redness of her face ] The 
 ancients as well as moderns have seen and acknowledged a 
 relation between the color red and the allection love. Sacri- 
 ficial fire, says the Yajur-Veda, is a symbol of the celes- 
 tial fire which reposes in the heart. Among the Greeks, as 
 also in India and Egypt, the color red designates love, the 
 sanctifier and regenerator. In the Bible tlie Holy Spirit bap- 
 tizes with fire^ hence the color red has its essence in love 
 throughout universal nature. For the sake of the candid 
 and reflecting, we must state that the Eev. gentleman is 
 altogether out in his reference, for there is not a single refer- 
 ence to the redness of the blood in the whole paragraph, A. 
 C. 6,190. Evidently the writer could not have referred to 
 the work, but has allowed himself to be led by a blind 
 guide ; and if the blind lead the blind they both fall into the 
 ditch. 
 
 Swedenborgsays in the paragraph referred to : " From the in- 
 flux of heat from the sun into all things of the earth, whence 
 comes vegetative life, and from the influx of light into the 
 same things, whence comes what aids that life, and also col- 
 ors, and appearances of beauties in like manner, from the in- 
 flux of sound into the ears, and from others of a similar kind, ' 
 it may be comprehended what is the influx of the heavenly 
 heat which is the good of love, and heavenly light, which is 
 the truth of faith. The influence of these principles is also : 
 manifestly felt ; for the heavenly heat, which is love, consti- 
 tutes the vital heat which is in man, and the heavenly light, 
 which is truth^ constitutes the understanding ; for the truth 
 
12 
 
 which is of faitl: , which proceeds from the Lord, enlightens 
 his intellectual principle, hut in both cases with much variety, 
 for the effect produced is according to reception on the part 
 of man." There is something said in relation to the origin 
 of vital heat in man, but not one word about the redness of 
 t!ie blood being caused by love and its affections. 
 
 The blood does not owe its colour to iron.* I ' 
 
 In paragraph 6, he says that Swedenborg, upon the author- 
 ity of an Angel, taught that the blood in the lungs purifieth itself 
 from chyle, and nourisheth itself with odours, fragrant or of- 
 fensive, corresponding to the character of its love. For this 
 statement he refers his readers to paragraph 153, Wisdom of 
 Angels. This is another error. For the benefit of our read- 
 ers we will give the actual words of Swedenborg ; No. 420, 
 Divine Love and Wisdom. v ^ j - 
 
 " That the blood of the heart purifies itself of crude matters 
 in the lungs (not chyle), and also nourishes itself with suitable 
 matters from the air that is inspired, is evident from much 
 experience. That the blood purifies itself of cmcle matters 
 in the lungs, is evident, not only from the influent blood, 
 which is venous, and hence full of chyle collected from the 
 food and drink, but also from the humidity of the expirations, 
 and from their smell, as well as from the diminished quantity 
 of the blood returned into the left ventricle of the heart. 
 That the blood nourishes itself icith suitable matters from the 
 air inspired, is evident, from the Immense abundance of 
 odours and exhalations that are continually issuing from shrub- 
 berries, gardens and plantations, and from the immense 
 quantity of salts of various kinds issuing with water front 
 
 * Neil & Smith's Compend. of Medicine : Mulder, Sberer and othera 
 account for the change of colour by the hypothesis of a change of form 
 in the red corpuscles, which are supposed to be bi-concave and reflecting 
 bodies in arterial blood, and bi-convex and refracting bodies in venous 
 blood. Mulder shows that the colour is iwt dependent on the presence of 
 iron, since it is retained when all the iron has been entirely removed.. 
 In this science has only proved what is not the cause. 
 
13 
 
 land, rivers, and lakes, and from the immense quantity of 
 human and animal exhalations nnd effluvia with which the 
 air is impregnated. That these enter the lungs with the air, 
 cannot be denied ; and as this is the case, it cannot be denied 
 that the blood attracts therefrom such things as are service- 
 able to it, and those things are serviceable that correspond to 
 tlie affections of its love. Thence, in the air-cells, or inmost 
 parts of the lungs, there are multitudes of small veins, with 
 little mouths, which absorb such things ; and hence the blood 
 returned into the left ventricle of the heart is changed into 
 arterial and florid blood. These considerations prove that 
 the blood purifies itself of heterogeneous things, and nourishes 
 itself from homogeneous ones. That the blood in the lungs 
 purifies and nourishes itself correspondently to the affections 
 of the mind, is not yet known, but it is very well known in 
 tlie spiritual world ; for the Angels in the heavens are de- 
 lighted only with odours that correspond to the love of their 
 wisdom ; whereas, the spirits of hell are delighted only with 
 odours that correspond to some love in opposition to wisdom; 
 the latter odours are stinking, but the former odours are fra- 
 grant. That men in the world impregnate their blood with 
 similar things, according to correspondence with the affection 
 of their love, follows of consequence ; for what a man's spirit 
 loves, that, according to correspondence, his blood craves, and 
 attracts in respiration. From this correspondence it follows 
 that a man is purified as to his love if he loves wisdom, and 
 that he is defiled if he does not love her ; all a man's purifi- 
 cation being affected by the truths of wisdom, and all his 
 defilement by the falses that are opposed to them." 
 
 The Eev. gentleman is nowhere asked to believe this upon 
 the authority of an Angel, as stated in his letter, hut its phil- 
 osophy is as true as it is profound. Liebig, in his Animal 
 Chemistry, 3rd edition, part 1, page 7, says : "All parts of 
 the animal are produced from a peculiar fluid, circulating in 
 its organism, hy virtue of an influence rmding in every cellj 
 
14 
 
 in every o^'gan, or part of an orr/an. Physiology teaches that 
 all parts of the body were originally blood, or that at least 
 they \rere brought to the growing organ by means of this 
 fluid." The Professor, you will observe, says that this is 
 accomplished by virtue of an influence residing in every cell, 
 organ, and part of an organ. Now, science has not, and can- 
 not determine what this influence is that resides in every cell, 
 organ, or part of an organ. Swedenborg says that a man's 
 soul or spirit is present in every part of the body, conse- 
 quently in every cell, organ, or part of an organ, and that 
 within this again is the human will and understanding. With- 
 in this again is the Lord's love and wisdom, giving life and 
 activity to every degree or circle of life, from the inmost to 
 the very extremes, even where we now dwell, sustaining our 
 natural bodies with meats and drinks. In the language of 
 Scripture it is thus expressed : '' Heaven is God's throne, 
 earth is his footstool ;" and the time has arrived in which he 
 will make the place of his feet glorious, by the light that 
 constitutes his throne descending into extremes, or his foot- 
 stool, illuminating the natural mind, and giving it a percep- 
 tion of the glories into which the good of all religions enter 
 on their exit out of this world. From the light in extremes 
 it is seen that all power originates from the throne of God. 
 Now, as it is in universal nature, so it is in individual man. 
 Let us illustrate. Suppose two boys, born of the same parents, 
 under similar conditions ; they shall both be supplied with 
 the same food, bi^t their aflections and thoughts shall be 
 actuated and led out into life differently ; the one shall be 
 taught to have respect to the Divine commandments, (we 
 mean the moral law) ; he shall cherish kind and 
 gentle affection towards parents, brothers, sisters, and 
 playmates, indeed his affections we will suppose to 
 be constantly under the controlling influence .of good ; 
 the other shall cultivate the opposite affections; the 
 spring of his life, (that is where liberty, reason, and consci- 
 
ousness dwells, for this is where the stream of life is deflect- 
 ed, above is pure, below is impure,) wc suppose to be self- 
 love, self-gratification, etc. Both these individuals sit down 
 to the same table, partake of the same fare, but the idea that is 
 present in the mind of the latter, while he is eating for the 
 nourishment of his body, is that of a pugilist or a sensualist. 
 The inmost of his conscious life is sensuality and brutality ; 
 while the inmost life of the other, where it falls upon the 
 plane of his owai consciousness, he, from the freedom with 
 which he is endowed, chooses this life in its innocency and purity, 
 and from that liberty, according to his rational perception, 
 establishes it in his outer life, even to the very activities of his 
 body, in innocency and love. Now, there is no difference 
 outwardly. The evil and well-disposed appear ahke, so far 
 as the nourishing of the body is concerned, and yet we are 
 all aware that there is a difference produced in the course of 
 time, even in the taste for food, where opposite affections are 
 cultivated. Does not our daily experience show that cheer- 
 fulness and hope are powerful stimulants in the preserving of 
 the corporal body, and that depression, gloom and base 
 passions, as truly ultimate in the degradation and destruction 
 of the animal economy ; thus clearly showing it is not merely 
 physical elements that are needed to preserve a healthy or- 
 ganization, but healthy mental and spiritual conditions 
 as well. Medical science is full of confirmation of this fact. 
 Thus the affections act upon the body by correspondence. 
 
 - In paragraph 7 the Eev. gentleman represents Swedenborg 
 as saying that conscience is an acquired habit of mind, is 
 peculiar to the present life, and that there is no conscience in 
 the other world. In support of this he refers his readers to 
 Swedenborg, True Christian Religion, 665. We have looked 
 in vain for such language in the paragraph, also on page of 
 the above mentioned number. And what is more, tht 
 language is his own, and not to be found anywhere throu^- 
 dut Swedenborg's theological writings. Surely such i» oody 
 
16 
 
 of Rev. gentlemen who endorsed such a statement tnew not 
 what they were doing. Statements coming from those who 
 occupy Moses' seat, in order to have a good effect upon those 
 for whom they are purposely written, should at least he truth- 
 ful ; or the friend possessing more than an average amount 
 of intelligence, and a taste for philosophy withal, may hurl 
 them hack as a gross slander, originating in some base and 
 improper motive. The real language of Swedenborg is as 
 follows : True Christian Religion, 666. 
 
 " Conscience is a spiritual willingness to act according to 
 tlie requirements of religion and faith; hence it is that those 
 who enjoy conscience, when they act according to its dictates 
 are in the tranquility of peace and internal blessings, and 
 suffer uneasiness or want of tranquillity when they act con- 
 trary to it. A Priest (says Swedenborg) possesses conscience 
 who has a spiritual willingness to teach truth that he may pro- 
 mote the salvation of his flock; but if he does it from any other 
 view, or to any other end, he is without conscience. All 
 who have conscience speak and act from the heart, 
 in all they say and do, for tfifeir minds not being divided, 
 they speak and act that which they understand and believe 
 to be true and good." In the Arcana, 978, He says " consci- 
 ence is implanted by the Lord in the internal man, where 
 there is nothing but goods and truths." Such is the doctrine 
 of Swedenborg concerning conscience. Now, what is that which 
 the association of "Wesleyan ministers of this city would 
 have us believe as a substitute for this '? It is that of a 
 natural conscience, a conscience arising out of our natural 
 mind ; for says the writer of the letter (also the endorsers), 
 " The ablest thinkers and writers call it a natural endowment 
 of the human mind." A natural endoTvment of the human 
 mind ! Does nature endow man with this noblest of faculties 
 — the faculty by which he j udges of right and wrong 1 Is not the 
 conscience like a mirror, on which the eternal principles of 
 right and wrong are reflected, and is not this mirror bright 
 
17 
 
 or dull, according to the quality and nature of the truths by 
 which it is formed 1 For every man has a conscience accord- 
 ing to his religious tenets, for there is a great difference be- 
 tween the Pharisee's conscience, who looks at outward forms 
 as religion, and that of the man who looks to doing justly 
 and loving mercy. The former is formed from the traditions 
 of men, and is a spurious conscience. The latter is formed 
 by the truths of the Word implanted by the Lord in the in- 
 ternal man, sitting as a judge over the actions of the external 
 man, condemning or else approving of every individual 
 action in the body. But what of those who have a con- 
 science formed from nature 1 The dictates of nature are self. 
 This law of nature is the nrst law. So, as that which is first 
 is natural, afterwards that which is spiritual Kow the 
 Lord has come to give us a new heart and a right spirit, and 
 in this new heart and right spirit a new conscience is to be 
 formed ; this is the inward man, that is to receive the law of 
 the Lord written upon the imcard parts. Dear readers, 
 turn your attention from the traditions of men to the Lord's 
 most holy word, for it is the only source from whence a true 
 conscience can be formed. How do Swedenborg's facts now 
 appear] Are they real or imaginary] Do they stand in 
 contradiction to well-established facts in science] A little 
 reading with average intelligence, and a taste for philosophy, 
 would lead many more to countenance the system propound- 
 ed by him, as well as surprise them by its stupendous com- 
 pass. Garbled quotations from any author (to say nothing 
 of fictitious statements) can be made to misrepresent and 
 distort his meaning. Let those who really enquire for the 
 truth read the author's own writings with a sincere desire to 
 comprehend his meaning, and they will find that he was 
 neither a fanatic, madman, or impostor. 
 
18 
 
 SECOND PART. 
 
 Lit ua now examine what the Eev. gentleman has to say 
 on " matters of greater moment." And even here it does not 
 appear that the importance of the subject deters him from 
 misstatements. Surely he must think all humanity are in- 
 tellectual pigmies, and we especially must so appear to 
 him, when he tells us that he cannot receive the Kew 
 Jerusalem doctrine because it sets aside the Bible ! Why 
 where has the writer of the letter been living this last quar- 
 ter of a century 1 What has he been reading. Surely not 
 the writings of Swedenborg. May not the writer be a little 
 confused with what he has in his own manuscript sermons, 
 or have heard the Rev. Mr. Pollard state when speaking on 
 the inspiration of the Bible, viz., the writers needed not the 
 spirit of God to inspire them when recording facts which 
 happened during their own time, of which they were eye 
 witnesses. This is what we have ourselves heard preached in 
 Richmond St. church. What is this but denying at least 
 the inspiration of part of the Word 1 It is the New Jerusa- 
 lem Church that ti-uly receives the word of God, as coming 
 frofn him through the heavens down to fallen humanity. 
 The Word is made flesh, dwelling amongst vs. And the 
 written Word is near to us, addressing our souls through the 
 senses, proclaiming the necessity of repentance and reforma- 
 tion, as the door to the Lord and the kingdom of heaven. 
 The doctrine of the New Jerusalem Church teaches tl at the 
 Lord is in every single expression of his Word, and it is only 
 as Christians approach through his Word that he is properly 
 worshipped. In True Christian Religion, No. 229, Sweden- 
 borg states, " That doctrine ought to be drawn from the literal 
 sense of the Word, and to be confirmed thereby. The reason 
 of this is because the Lord is present in that sense, teaching 
 and enlightening the mind. For all the Lorj^'s operations 
 are performed in fulness ; and the Word in its letter is in 
 its fulness." This is the true ground why doctrine ought to 
 
19 
 
 be drawn from tlie sense of the letter. "We feel emboldened 
 to further reply to this charge by stating that what are termed 
 Evangelical doctrines are nowhere to be found in the letter of 
 Scripture, as is shown at the end of this Tract. They have 
 their origin in the self-derived intelligence of the Church, 
 developing itself into two diabolical loves, viz. : the love 
 of dominion and the love of wealth; but, thank God, the 
 night is far spent and the day is at hand when the brood of 
 traditional ideas that hang like a night-mare upon the souls 
 of the people shall be dissipated, and like the birds of the 
 night and the wild beasts of the forests they shall retire to 
 their hiding places, as described in Revelation, " saying, moun- 
 tains and rocks fall on us, and hide us from the face of Him 
 that sitteth upon the throne and from the wrath of the 
 Lamb." Light proceeding from the throne, and truth ground- 
 ed in innocency advancing in a sphere of disinterestedness, ifi 
 ^ as the fire of hell to a system grounded in the love of 
 dominion and the love of wealth, which in Scripture language is 
 the wrath of the Lamb. The so-called Evangelical teaching, 
 originating in self-derived intelligence, is at variance with the 
 teachings of the Xew Jenisalem ; and its receivers approach 
 the Lord altogether differently ; the former through tradition 
 of men, the latter in truths contained in the letter of the 
 Word. Hear the language of the man of whom the writer 
 declares that he rejects the Bible: '-The truths from which 
 the Lord is to be worshipped ought to be drawn only from 
 > the "Word, for in the minutest things of the Word there is life 
 , from the Divine," see Arcana 8941. The candid and reflect- 
 ing will perceive that true worship is according to the Word, 
 that false worship is that which is not according to the Word. 
 Let any one test our doctrines by the sacred oracle, compar- 
 ing them one by one with the doctrines of either the Catholic 
 or Protestant Church, and we have no fear for the results. 
 
 The Eev. gentleman further states, " That a new dispensa- 
 tion of truth has been given to the world in the Theological 
 
writings of Emanuel Swedenborg, distinct from etery fonner 
 dispensation, and contrary to the teachings of the Christian 
 Scriptmes." We deny that the writer of the letter has ever 
 read in any writings by an expositor of Swedenborg, or in 
 Swedenborg liimself, any such statement as the above. Such 
 a statement may be found in that virulent attack by Dr. 
 Pond, and in the gentleman's letter, which is an offshoot from 
 his. True, the write^ of the letter refers to Clissold's letter, 
 page 95. There is a Eev. A. Clissold, M. A., formerly of 
 Exeter College, Oxford, a voluminous ^vriter in the Church, who 
 is the author of several letters, one to the Archbishop of 
 DubUn, containing 500 pages, and one to the Vice-Chancellor 
 of Oxford, and one to a Mr. Bonwell. Now we are confident 
 that no such statement occurs in any letter of Mr. Clissold. 
 The New Church teaching is that truths hitherto obscure are 
 now made plain ; tliat the glor}^ of the Divine Word, which 
 is veiled in the letter, has been manifested. 
 
 That the written Word within is glorious is as certain as 
 that the Word incarnated was glorious ; and to deny the glory 
 in the letter leads to the denial of the Divinity and glory of 
 the Son of man himself, who is the Word made flesh; for 
 there is a perfect analogy betw^een the two. In the letter of 
 the Word there is pasture for the natural mind, but within 
 the letter, where the Lord is seen in his glory, there is a ful- 
 ness of satisfaction and delight that can only be realized by 
 the spiritual rational mind. It is so in relation to the Lord 
 himself. The humble mind who acknowledges the Lord as 
 his Saviour, without entering into other mysteries of faith, 
 providing the life is good, is led into green pastures and by 
 still waters. On this subject we quote from Clissold. 
 
 Eev. A. Clissold. Letter to Archbishop Dublin. 2nd ed., 
 page 220. " Swedenborg would, therefore, recall the Church 
 to its ancient principles of inspiration. ' I saw in the right 
 hand of him that sat upon the throne, a book written within 
 and on the back side, sealed with seven seals.' What bookl 
 
21 
 
 Let the ancient writers of the Church testify. (I here quote 
 only one, Richard of St. Victor.) *The book which is held in 
 the right hand of God is the Holy Scriptures ; in which is 
 contained all knowledge conducive to salvation. Of this book 
 well is it said, that he held it in his right hand ; because God 
 is a God of knowledge, and to whomsoever He will He offers it 
 It is held not in the left hand, but in the right; because the 
 spiritual good which is latent within it is hidden from the 
 evil and manifested to the good. Of this right hand and of 
 this book it is written, in his right hand was the fiery law. 
 For Scripture is a law of fire ; a law because it binds our na- 
 ture by restraining it ; fiery, because it ardently inflames us 
 to a love of the Creator. It is written within and without ; 
 within in regard to its allegorical sense, without in regard to 
 its historical sense ; within inj^^rd to its spiritual meaning ; 
 without in regard to its literal ; within for the exercise of those 
 who are matured in spiritual things; without for the instruction 
 of the simple and those of lesser understanding; within that the 
 secrets of Divine Wisdom may be concealed from the impure ; 
 without in order that truth may be made known to the pure.' " 
 "We will not trouble the reader with further quotations. But 
 it is to be lamented, when a writer like the above ac- 
 knowledges a spiritual sense in the Scriptures, that forthmth 
 the natural-minded interpreter crys out he is teaching things 
 contrary to the Christian Scriptures. Let the candid reader 
 reflect upon the following names and characters of our Lord. 
 He is called a Sun and a Star, a Lion and a Lamb, a Door 
 and a AVay, a Father and a Son, a Man and the Son of Man, 
 the Creator and husband of the Church ; besides these there 
 are a great number of names too numerous to mention. Is it 
 at variance with Scripture and sound reason to believe that 
 each title or name contains within itself some spiritual idea 
 or sense distinct from the letter without destroying the letter ? 
 such for instance as the word Lamb, containing the idea of 
 inuocencyj lion, Strength; Father, Love, or the principle of 
 
fecundity; and so on with each expression of the Divine 
 Word. If man is capable of thinking from the two planes of 
 thought, the natural and spiritual, the Bible must possess 
 the two classes of objects, one natural and the other spiritual. 
 Now this is what the members of the New Church believe 
 concerning the Scriptures or "Word of God. Pai-agraphs 9, 
 10, 11, 12, can be dismissed by a few quotations. In the 
 9th he charges us with having "openly and avowedly rejected 
 nearly one-half of the Bible." We do not reject any of what 
 i8 called the Bible, we rather attach a more exalted meaning 
 to t?ie. Word Proper than Christians generally do. 
 
 Some parts of the Bible we believe to be absolutely Divine, ^ 
 containing the Divine Truth itself. But as to the epistles, 
 we regard them in the same light as other Churches regard 
 the whole Bible, as containing one sense, viz., the literal, and 
 teaching true doctrines, but written by the Apostles specially 
 for the first Christian Church. For when the Christian 
 Church was founded they required the doctrines to be written 
 in a plain and simple style, so that the Church might be edi- 
 fied. On this subject Swedenborg says : " The reason why 
 the Apostles wrote in this style was that the new Christian 
 Church was then to begin through them j consequently, the 
 same style as is used in the Word would not have been pro- 
 per for such doctrinal tenets, which required plain and simple 
 language suited to the capacities of all readers." See Bush's 
 reasons, page 85. On the subject of the Canon we will repeat 
 Dr. Milner's question, in his "End of Controversy," in which 
 he asks his Protestant opponent, "By what means have you 
 learned what is the Canon of Scripture, that is to say, which 
 are the books written by Divine inspiration, or indeed that 
 any books at all have been so written T It is somewhat sur- 
 prising that those who know that the present Canon is of 
 human origin, and that not by the unanimous consent of the 
 Church, should open up the question in the manner it is 
 done in the letter to which this is iatended for a reply. The 
 
23 
 
 writer would have us to believe that the Canon is a settled 
 question ; also that the Church is agreed upon what con- 
 stitutes inspiration, and that the common law of interpre- 
 tating human language must be applied to explain the 
 Divine. The Canon of Scripture settled! The nature of 
 interpretation determined! And the Bible only to be ex- 
 plained as the writings of Josephus — that is, by the com- 
 mon law of human language, so that when the same 
 language is used in a profane author, the words are to yield 
 the same significance ! Martin Luther had a ready way of 
 settling what were the inspired Books. Assuming the dog- 
 matic ground, he made the canonical authority of a Book 
 depend upon the evidence it bore of Christ and the dogma of 
 Jvstification by faith alone ; hence, he does not reckon the 
 Epistles to the Hebrews, James, Jude, and the Apocrypha, 
 among the Canonical Books. On the subject of inspiration, 
 the Archbishop of York says, in bis pastoral letter : " The ■ 
 Church has laid down no theory of inspiration ; she has 
 always had in her bosom at least two different theories." ; 
 The Quarterly Review^ for April, 1864, says: "It must bet 
 home in mind that the Church universal has never given any : 
 definition of inspirdtion. Thus the Christians are without a 
 Divinely authorized Canon upon which they are unanimous; . 
 neither can they tell what is to be understood by inspiration. ? 
 What the first Christian Church lacked in this respect, ia j 
 revealed for the New Church, constituting its glory. Theyt 
 are thereby taught that there is an analogy between the i, 
 spiritual and the natural worlds, and that the "Word is writ-| 
 ten according to that analogy. Again, thai the Holy Scrip- f 
 tures are not of private interpretation, but that the key of j 
 explanation lies in the bosom of nature, and that as this I 
 science of analogy is developed, mankind will kno^' that the f 
 Bible and the works of nature are from one and the self-same ^ 
 Divine Being, the God and Father of us all. 
 
 The Rev. gentleman, in paragraph 12, seems to be in a great 
 
24 ' 
 
 difficulty about the science of correspondence, but unhappily 
 without anxiety. He is unable to see any connection between 
 spiritual causes and natural efifects; yet, we suppose he would not 
 tell us that God, who is the first cause, and from whom every- 
 thing is produced, is not the originator of ideas, and that man, 
 into whom ideas flow, reproduces them in things formed for 
 use and comfort, and that the things thus produced represent 
 his ideas and correspond to them. Now, inasmuch as things 
 on this earth are produced from and by God, and as ideas do 
 not really exist here, but are only representatives of ideas, it 
 follows that ideas, because they belong to the mind, exist in 
 the realm of mind, which is the world of causes. This could 
 be illustrated by the Rev. gentleman's own letter, were it 
 original, but inasmuch as it is copied from Dr. Pond, it had 
 to ascend from the pages of his book into the Rev. gentle- 
 man's mind, where it could have a place to dwell in, like the 
 birds of the air and the foxes of which our Lord spake, 
 whilst the Son of Man (or truth) had not where to lay its 
 head. From their dwelling-place they descended into the 
 natural world, clothed in material form, and coloured with 
 the quality of the writer's mind. When the mind compre- 
 hends this descent and ascent, the light of the science of cor- 
 respondence has already begun to shed its light upon the 
 mind, and the following text may be read with a little inter- 
 est : Habak. 3 ch., 8, 9 v. — " Lord, thou didst ride upon thine 
 horses and thy chariots of salvation. Thy bow was made quite 
 naked, according to the oath of the tribes even to thy word." 
 Jeremiah, 9 ch., 3 v. — " And they bend their tongues like 
 their bow for lies, but they are not valiant for the truth 
 upon the earth, for they proceed from evil to evil and they 
 know not me, saith the Lord." Swedenborg translates this 
 verse : " They stretch their tongue ; their boto ie a lie^ and not 
 for truth, they prevail in the earth, because they have gone 
 forth from evil to evil, and have not known me." Who 
 cannot see iLat the above language contains ideas of which 
 
. 25 
 
 the things mentioned are representatives and corresponden- 
 cies *? Let us instance an example : Lord, signifies the Lord 
 as to his essential nature, which is, Divine Love. Ride, — 
 the going forth or advancement of his love. Horse, — the 
 human understanding into which his love flows, and in which 
 it is perceived as coming from the Lord, and as being the only 
 source of good. Chariot, is that which the understanding 
 arranges and fixes in an orderly form, and which may be 
 termed doctrinal principles^ derived from truths which 
 are of the Lord's love, and when arranged in their order and 
 series they are productive of an heavenly life, which is here 
 expressed by salvation. Thus the above verse represents the 
 Lord coming to his Church, in the truth, in a manner that 
 shall be rationally perceived in the human understanding. 
 Then follows what is described in the 9-17 ver., that truth 
 from the Lord, flowing into the human understanding, where 
 there is aftection for truth for its own sake, dispelling and 
 dissipating the false doctrines of a fallen Church, by shedding 
 its light into every dark corner of falsity and evil, bringing 
 every state and principle to judgment to be tested by the 
 Lord's most holy word, for at his coming a two-edged sword 
 goes forth out of his mouth. 
 
 Paragraph 13. He endeavours to avoid a difficulty by a 
 very ambiguous sentence. He speaks of the " Divine per- 
 sonality of the Godhead. If by this he means that the God- 
 head dwells in one person, and that this one person is the 
 Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, he is both Apostolic and 
 Swedenborgian in his view of God. But if he intends us to 
 understand that the person of the Godhead is a Being resulting 
 from the union of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, whose 
 being is not identically the same in person as the Father, nor 
 as the Son, nor yet as the Holy Spirit, why then he has four per- 
 sonalities, viz. : the personality of the Father, the personality of 
 the Son, the personality of the Holy Spirit, and the personality 
 of the Trinity also, making in all, four ; and which he says has 
 2 
 
■■:■■■:,■■ . 26 .:•;^.,■"•:: , -■■ 
 
 been the common doctrine of the Church in all ages. People 
 who bftYe not the average intelligence, and no taste for phil- 
 osophy, and we might say without a smattering of Church 
 history, may believe his last sentence ; but we have no doubt 
 that some of his readers have already come to the conclusion 
 that the Wesleyan Methodists have four personal Gods, if not 
 four real self-existing ones. We all understand by person- 
 ality that which constitutes individuality, or a thinking, 
 intelligent being. In this sense the word is used by Lord 
 Bacon, Locke, Rogers, and others. If the writer of the attack 
 upon us understands something else, let him inform us in his 
 next attempt to prove the tri-personality of the Godhead. 
 Personality, he says, is taught in Genesis L 26 v. We have no 
 doubt that he is aware, (or should be,) that the word vs refers 
 to that which was active in the making, and which also con- 
 stitutes the essential nature of man. The nominative to which 
 this is the pronoun is Elo-hiniy so that the nature and quality 
 of the latter is determined by the former. Elo-him is the 
 plural of EL Now Dr. Adam Clark, on Exodus xxxiv, 6 v., 
 where the Lord passed by and proclaimed his name the Lord, 
 the Lord God, &c., says : ** These words contain the proper 
 interpretation of the venerable and glorious name Jehovah. 
 £1 signifies the strong or mighty God ;" and it is admitted 
 by biblical critics that Elo-him signifies the omnipotent one, 
 or omnipotent powers, but as El expresses strength or might 
 in the singular form, may it not be reasonable to consider that 
 the Word Elo-him, which means Gods or Powers, signifies the 
 aggregate of trutks ^ laws that were in operation in forming 
 all things in creation, ^ of which laws or truths are gathered 
 into man, giving him the pre-eminence over all things 1 We 
 will here recite a passage from Swedenborg, as it may be of 
 use to some of ou? readers. " That El involves one thing, 
 uid Elo-him another, every one may conclude from this, that 
 the word is Divine, and that it is hence inspired as to all 
 expressions, yea as to the smallest apex; hence it is that by £1 
 
27 
 
 and Elo-liim, in the supreme sense, is signified the Divine 
 Spiritual, for this is the same with Divine Truth, but with 
 this difference, that by El is signified truth in the will and 
 act, which is the same thing with the good of truth. Elo-him 
 in the plural is used, because by the Divine truth is meant 
 all truths which are from the Lord ; hence also angels in the 
 Word are sometimes called Elo-him or Gods." See also Dr. 
 Hengotenberg's Dissertation on the Pentateuch, in which he 
 has investigated the names of God, as they occur in the Books 
 of Moses, with singular felicity. The plural form of Elo-him, 
 he suggests, may intimate that the true God possesses in him- 
 self what men were disposed to divide among a plurality. On 
 account of the signification of this word it is applied to kings, 
 judges, and angels, because they are the embodiment of power 
 from the Lord. The very same principles produce by their 
 operation in man the corresponding effects under the Christian 
 dispensation, viz.: a new man. For in their silent operation 
 the truths of faith, (or Elo-him,) are ever saying let us make 
 a man after our image and likeness, for a man is a true man 
 when he is a true image and likeness of the Eternal Word j 
 " being born again not of corruptible seed but of incorruptible, 
 by the Word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever. 
 And this is the Word whereby the Gospel is preached unto 
 you." This Word was in the beginning, crediting and forming 
 all things ; from it is derived all truth, all law, all order, 
 and it is the essence of all power, so that what is called 
 Elo-him, in Genesis, is Logos in the Gospel of John, 
 the only power in creation. If the reader will elevate 
 his mind above natural things, so as no longer to think of 
 the Divine Trinity from the personality of corporeal man, 
 he may bo led to a perception of the divine . and spiritual 
 things of the Word. Cudworth, in his Litellectual System, 
 speaking of the three essentials of the Deity, says : " The first 
 whereof is infinite goodness with fecundity, the second infin- 
 ite knowledge and wisdom, and the last infinite, active, and 
 
28 
 
 perceptive power !" From these three essentials in the Deity, 
 man has derived into him the faculties to love, to become 
 wfse, and to live a life of activity according to the dictates 
 of love and wisdom flowing into him from the Lord ; and 
 when those principles are obeyed, man is an image and like- 
 ness of God. In this sense and in no other can man be an 
 image and likeness of God. If God is three, or, as taught hi 
 the letter, four persons, how is man, who is one person, an 
 image and likeness of the Deity ] 
 
 In paragraph. 14, the writer informs us that he is 
 not so favorable to materialism as to receive the 
 statement that God is a man! From the sense of the 
 above sentence, the writer evidently has his ideas mix- 
 ed, and it reminds us of what Lord Monbodo says in his 
 ancient metaphysics. Speaking of the beginning of all 
 things and of man's perceptions of them, he says " they are 
 all perceived by our senses, which are our only inlet to 
 knowledge in this state of our existence, but the senses per- 
 ceive them altogether in a lump, and as they exist in nature; 
 but in order to form ideas of them, we must arrange them 
 and perceive their several relations and connections. This 
 is done by the two great facultie'S of the human intellect, ab- 
 straction and generalization, that is dividing, and imiting." 
 ^ence, before a man can form a true understanding he must 
 possess the above faculties, and studiously apply them to the 
 subject he has in hand, or he will find his wisdom consists only 
 in plirase-mongering in which there will be no idea, or if 
 an idea, a very erroneous one. Had not the Avriter read 
 Swedenborg from a kind of chaotic mind in which he mixed 
 the garments of things with the things themselves, he 
 would have arrived at a truer conclusion. For those who 
 can separate things in their mind by those two great facul- 
 ties above mentioned, viz., abstraction and generalization, 
 may be led to perceive that the dust of which it is said Adam 
 was made is one thing, and the breath breathed into him 
 
29 
 
 was another; and if he will advance a little in thought he 
 may be able to perceive that the breath from the Lord is 
 that which constitutes the human principle ; seeing that it 
 is not said that the Lord breathed into the nostrils of beasts 
 the breath of life. As to the materiality of man s body, it 
 differs in no respect from the beasts of the field in its consti- 
 tntent elements and natural sensations. The soul, which is 
 the real man dwelling within, ic what constitutes the imper- 
 ishable and immortal nature. The writer of the tract and 
 the Rev. gentlemen who endorsed it would have us believe 
 that flesh and blood (or bonej) make the man. In proof of 
 this they refer us to two texts of Scripture. St. John's Gos- 
 pel, 4, 24, "God is a Spirit." This is given to prove the 
 nature of God. The other text is from Luke 24, 29. "A 
 spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have. This is 
 quoted to prove that God is not a material man. Let us put 
 it in the following form : 
 
 God is a spirit, Christ is flesh and bone that can be han- 
 dled and seen by the organs of sense ; therefore he is not God. 
 Here we have two substances, one spiritual the other mate- 
 rial ; one is of God, the other of Christ. So that the Eev. 
 gentleman has a Spiritual God unmanifested, and a material 
 Christ, that can be seen and felt with the organs of sense. 
 Let us hear what the Great Apostle says about flesh and 
 blood, 1 Cor. 15, 47—50. "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. Xow this I say, brethren, that flesh 
 and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of Heaven." It is 
 evident to the unprejudiced mind that the Apostle Paul is 
 liore speaking of a humanity that came from Heaven, and 
 that this is the Loi'd of Heaven. Is the Lord of Heaven, 
 who visted this eartn, and is here called tht second man by 
 
30 
 
 Paul, made of dust 1 Surely the true man is of an heavenly 
 origin, but that which has deceived humanity and led us all 
 astray is of the earth, earthy. Christian readers, let not 
 the first Adam blind you from looking up to the second man, 
 who is the Lord God Almighty. Is Swedenborg in error 
 when he states that our Lord is a divine man, and the asso- 
 ciation of Wesleyan Ministers right when they say he is 
 material flesh and bone — that his humanity is like Adam's, 
 viz., made of dust? It looks as though they mistook the 
 Scriptures. We will here quote from Swedenborg. " The 
 Lord alone is man, and all others are men in their degree 
 from him," 565 Arcana. " The Lord is the only man, and 
 men are only so far men as they are his image, that is, so far 
 as they are in good." There is nothing here calculated to 
 lead a reflecting mmd to the belief in a material God. 
 Evidently the writer of the letter has put out the lights, and 
 is looking at humanity and spiritual things from an earthly 
 state of the first Adam ; but those in whom the lights are 
 burning are enabled to see that their humanity is an off- 
 spring of the one humanity who is the man from Heaven, 
 for the human principles, or those which constitute a man, are 
 liberty and rationality. Liberty is of the will, rationality 
 is of the understanding. These two faculties enable man 
 to know and love his Creator, which beasts cannot do ; 
 nevertheless, these two faculties of and from them- 
 selves could not know and love the Creator, for they 
 are only finite receptacles into which the Divine love and 
 wisdom flow. The Divine love is infinitely free, the divine 
 wisdom infinitely knowing ; from these two essential princi- 
 ples in the divine, the finite human principles are formed, 
 and these principles make him an image and likeness of 
 God. It necessarily follows that because the essential 
 human principles are love and wisdom, the Divine 
 in whom these principles are infinite is an infinite 
 man. In the book of Gen., we read that the " Lord God 
 
31 
 
 breathed into man the breath of life (lives) (life into his 
 will and life into his understanding), and man became a liv- 
 ing soul" This breathing is still going on, " for in him we 
 live, move, and have our being." The candid and reflecting 
 will see that our views of God and man are in keeping with 
 Scripture and sound reason. The New Church knows noth- 
 ing of a God out of Christ (or a God without humanity). 
 When the mind attempts to think of God out of Christ or 
 without a humanity it is confounded. 
 
 The writer appears to be able to think of two personal 
 Gods out of Christ— the Father and the Holy Spirit, 
 whereas the Bible declares God in Christ, the Father in 
 the Son, the Spirit of God. From God, his Spirit, that is 
 God's Spirit. Jesus said "he that seeth and knoweth me 
 seeth and knoweth the Father. I and my Father are one." 
 Jesus is a divine man^ and in him the fulness of the (rod- 
 head dwells bodily. The divine and human make one Christ, 
 as soul and body make one man. To this divine 
 being shall every knee bow and tongue confess that 
 he is Lord of all, and the time will come when the 
 Church on earth will join in concert with the Church in 
 Heaven, to sing "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive 
 power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and 
 glory, and blessing ; and every creature which is in Heaven, 
 and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the 
 sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, blessing, and 
 honor, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon 
 the throne and unto the Lord for ever." 
 
 In paragraph 15, Swedenborg is charged with Pantheism. 
 The book referrred to for this is the Animal Economy, see 
 paragraph 4th. The teaching of the New Church on this sub- 
 ject is " that by the word of the Lord were the heavens made, 
 and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth." The 
 Lord's word is life, and from life something may be pro- 
 duced, but out of nothing, nothing comes. II is no proof 
 
9 f* 
 
 32 
 
 that the world was not made from the "Word of God, because 
 (as the writer asserts) Adam was made from dust. St. Paul, 
 quoting from a Greek poet, perhaps may help our opponent 
 out of his difficulty : " For in IJim we live and move and 
 liave our being," as certain also of your poets have said, " For 
 we are also His ofispring." But our opponent entertains the 
 idea tliat creation was from nothing, and that Adam was from 
 dust ; so that, according to his idea, we are the offspring of 
 nothing. What a ridiculous ahnirdity. Humanity without 
 a root ; without a parent ; by parity of reasoning without a 
 God ; we sjyi'ang from nothing ! Dr. Adam Clark, on the 
 above text, says : " God is the very source of our existence ; 
 tlie pnnciple of life comes from Him ; without God ice not 
 oidy can do nothing, hut without Him we are nothing ^ 
 
 Paragraph 16 is answered in Paragraph 13, in which he 
 has both confused and confounded Father, Son and Holy 
 Ghost in what he terms the Divine Personality of the God- 
 head. 
 
 , Paragraph 17. The reverend gentleman charges us with 
 teaching that Christ had no human soul, and was not pro- 
 perly a human being. For this statement, he refers to Mr. 
 Koble's Appeal, p. 388. If the writer ever read ^""oble, it 
 was with the veil over his eyes. We would rather think he 
 has been drinking at Dr. Pond's, and reproduced liis garbled 
 statement, for it is not to be found in page 388 in two edi- 
 tions we have lying before us, but in page 372. He says : 
 " Now let it be observed, tlat there was a difference between 
 the Lord Jesus Christ, while in a body of flesh on earth, and 
 all ordinary men. That '\ThRreas they take their soul or spiritual 
 part from a human father, as well as their body or material 
 from a human mother, and thus are finite human beings, as 
 to both y Jesus Christ having no father but the Divine Fathc7\ 
 had his soul or internal part from the Divine essence itself ; 
 or the Father was in fact his soul or internal part, while his 
 body or external part, including the affections of the natural 
 
tt 
 
 inarij was all that he took from the mother. That this was 
 80 is evident from what the Angel said to the Virgin : " The 
 Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the 
 Highest shall overshadow thee ; therefoi^, also that Hohj 
 tiling which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of 
 God" Here is a son bom in time begotten of the Holy Ghost ^ 
 but neither here, nor anywhere else in Scripture, is the 
 doctrine taught of a Son of God begotten from eternity. 
 It is the Holy thing called the Son of God that constitutes 
 the soul ; and as Mr. Noble further says, " that inasmuch 
 as the Divine Essence cannot be diWded, it was the Father." 
 In the meantime, there was a manifestation or descent of 
 Divine Truth first. Just as the human mind manifests itself 
 in speech ; the speech is the first that is heard or seen — after- 
 wards the idea. Thus the Lord manifested himself as the 
 Word, or Logos, which was made flesh, dwelt amongst us, 
 and in this Word or Logos the Father dwelt, which is the 
 Divine principle of Love, or as Cudworth states, fecundity. 
 The two principles in the Divine cannot be separated ; there- 
 fore, the " Holy thing horn of the Virgin" which was the 
 "Word made flesh, contained the Divine Love or principle of 
 fecundity. Thus in the incarnation of God there was the 
 very essential Deity, Emanuel, God with us. iN'ow, if the 
 reader will endeavour to separate in his mind the Holy thing 
 called the Son of God from the corporeal organism derived 
 from the Virgin, and in which dwelt, and to which adhered, 
 the creaturely and depraved affections of our fallen humanity, 
 he will be prepared to admit the doctrine of the New Church, 
 viz., that God was his Father. This view of our Lord does not 
 deny Him a proper humanity, but rather regards Him as a per- 
 fect man — the man type, the man from Heaven. This view is 
 irrefutably stated in the Gospel of St. John, 1 ch., 14, 16, 
 " And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we 
 beheld His glory as of the only begotten Son of God, full of 
 grace and truth, and of his fulness have we received, and 
 2* 
 
34 
 
 grace for ^race." This we believe is the Scripture view of 
 the great doctrine of God incarnate, God with us. If our 
 Lord possessed in Ilim that particidar nature and quaUty 
 that is derived froin a human father, it follows that he must 
 have had a human father ; but this is contrary to the plain 
 teachings of Scripture, Avliich says that God was his Father. 
 
 Paragraph 18. Tlie Eev. gentleman " shudders at the 
 doctrine that the Lord was subject to moral infirmities and 
 imperfections ; that he was full of impure and unhallowed prin- 
 ciples." This is a phantasy of the writer's own mind, or one 
 from the pond in which he has unfortunately been fishing 
 for what he calls -Swedenborgianism. Had the writer 
 gone to the author liimself, he might have seen it otherwise, 
 as there is no such language in the Summary Exposition by 
 Swedenborg. Barrett says, page 227, (not page 305, as re- 
 ferred to by jVfr. Williams,) " The Lord came into this world 
 in a bodily form, clothed Himself with the natural humanity, 
 defiled, borne down, and oppressed with evils of all kinds as 
 that humanity was, and by degrees purified it from all defile- 
 ments, and filled every region of it with his own Divinity ; 
 thus he glorified it or made it Divine." The above doctrine 
 is what the Scriptures teach. Isaiah 53, 60 — " The Lord 
 hath laid on him the iniquity of us all." The New Church,;.; 
 believes that our Lord assumed the human nature, and purified 
 it of all its defilement ; sanctified, perfected and glorified it, so 
 that it for ever sits at the right hand of God ; or in other words, . 
 being filled with all the fulness of the Godhead, bodily, the 
 Lord is Omnipotent in His humanity. 
 
 Be careful, dear reader, not to confound the Lord's 
 humanity with that which is ours, and which the Lord re- 
 ceived from the Virgin. The one is infinitely pure, the other, 
 is evil itself. All the texts that the wiiter mentions — 
 Luke 1—35 ; Heb. 7—26, 1 ; Peter 1—19, 2, 22,— refer to 
 Him as the Son of God, and not as the son of Mary. He 
 died as the son of Mary, but we shall know Him no more as 
 
35 
 
 ♦ 
 
 such, for St. Paul says in Cor. 1, Epistle 6 — 16 : " Yea, 
 though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now hence« 
 forth know we Him no more." In another place Paul says, 
 " He fe declared to be the Son of God with power, according 
 to the Spirit of Holiness, by the resurrection from the dead.** 
 He died the son of Mary, and rose the Son of God, and in the 
 fact of the incarnation Jehovah had stretched out his arm 
 and come near to save. 
 
 In Paragraph 19, his objection to Swedenborgianism arises 
 from a mistaken idea of the atoning work of Christ. He 
 asserts that " Whatever spiritual advantages come to man 
 through Christ, come throtigh his death" The New Church 
 not only regards the Lord laying down the natural life on the 
 Cross as being necessary, but as only one of a series of events, 
 all of which were equally necessary ; for instance. His birth, 
 circumcision, flight into Egypt, speaking with the doctors in 
 the Temple, baptism. His betrayal by Judas, and His treat- 
 ment in the Judgment Hall, and above all. His resurrection 
 and ascension ; yea, all His teaching and miraculous works 
 in healing and feeding the people, for He came to fulfil the 
 Scripture, and blessed are they who see ihe Bible full of 
 Him. The efficacy of Christ is present in every part of His 
 Word ; but the question of difference is, did Christ die to 
 reconcile God to man, or man to God 1 The New Church 
 teaches that it was man that was the object of reconciliation. 
 Methodism says, no — the work of atonement was to reconcile 
 God. This is seen to be so heathenish and immoral, that the 
 best writers and educated among Protestant Churches are 
 giving it up ; and Rome itself is feeling the change, as is 
 evident from recent works on the subject. 
 
 Objection 20 is partly disposed of in the preceding (see 13th) ; 
 but with regard to the latter part, viz. : "that influence which is "" 
 usually referred to the Spirit of God is imparted through 
 the agency of created spirits" — were not the Apostlea 
 created spirits 1 and did not the Lord breathe upon them 
 
His Spirit (not a Personal God) 1 and were not they agents 
 to bear that influence to the world 1 Again, on the day 
 of Pentecost were they not agents of His Spirit, .testi- 
 tifying to His resurrection and ascension 1 The Power was 
 in the truth ; the Lord is the Truth, and every receiver of 
 truth, be he in Heaven or on earth, is an agent of the Lord, 
 for the Lord works through agents, and He has more agents 
 than Mr. Willliams can see. " Arc they not all ministering 
 spirits, sent forth to minister to them who shall be heirs of 
 salvation 1" St. Paul was a created spirit, and he performed 
 miracles through the Holy Ghost, given unto him. Can the 
 Rev. gentleman tell us how the Infinite Personal God, which 
 he calls the Spirit, operates man's regeneration without agents 
 or mediums 1 " Have we not the Lord's humanity, His Divine 
 Word, the Heaven of Angels, and the ministers of his Word 
 on this earth, all of which are conjoined in one great work, 
 the regeneration of man, and the Lord Jesus the Life of 
 all 1 First in His own humanity, without measure, end in 
 the Church according to its capacity of reception, so that the 
 Lord is all and in all. It is unscriptural to separate God 
 into three, and apportion them their separate works. This is 
 naturalizing Divine and Spiritual things. 
 
 Paragraph 21. Mr. Williams objects to the statement 
 " That the sins and corruptions of man are in no way con- 
 nected with the fall of Adam." In this quotation, Mr. Wil- 
 liams has given Dr. Pond's words, not Swedenborg's. I quote 
 from Sw. True Christian Religion, 521 — "Hereditary evil is 
 derived solely from a man's parents ; not, indeed, that very 
 evil which he actually commits, but his inclination to it. 
 Hence it follows that a man is not born in evils themselves, 
 but only with an inclination to them, yet with a greater or 
 less bias to particular evils; therefore, after death no one is 
 judged or condemned for any hereditary evil, but only for 
 those which he has actually committed. This is evident from 
 this statute of the Lord : ♦ The father shall not be put to> 
 
Vf 
 
 death for the son, neitlier shall the son be put to death for 
 the father ; everyone shall be put to death for his own sin.* " 
 The Rev. gentleman would have us all put to death for 
 Adam's sin. To prove this, ho quotes Paul, Rom. 5, 18-19, 
 wishing us to believe that by one single act of Adam the 
 whole human race sinned, and, as a consequence, we are all 
 under the wrath of God. I simply say, that no Swedenbor- 
 gian believes this, nor is it rationally believed by anyone ; for 
 we are all the creatures of His love, under His kind and mer- 
 ciful government. Our Lord is not a God with two mouths 
 and « double face, out of one spitting fire and brimstone, 
 indignation and wrath, and from the other sending love, 
 mercy and compassion. And not holding the above doctrine, 
 we do not require to resort to another awkward device, viz., 
 a belief in one God called the Father, the avenger of a violated 
 law, and another God called His Son, the pacifier of his ex- 
 cited wrath. These healihenish ideas we brush away out of 
 our vocabulary, leaving them for the moles and the bats, 
 according to a Divine command. If the doctrine of the fall, 
 as taught by the evangelical school, is true, how is it that 
 our Lord says not one word about it in any of his discourses ? 
 Kor do the Twelve Apostles mention it. All that is said is 
 by Paul. What does Paul mean by Adam 1 A careful read- 
 ing of the Apostle will prove to a demonstration that he uses 
 the word in a generic sense, and of the natural man. " For as 
 in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." Of 
 this Adam he says — ^^And so it is ivritten, the first Adam was 
 made a living soul, the last Adam a quickening spirit. How- 
 beit, that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is 
 natural, and afterwards that which is spiritual." Paul evi- 
 dently uses the term Adam to signify the natural mind ; but 
 when he applies it to Christ, it signifies the spiritual mind — 
 the one heavenly, the other earthy. On this subject the 
 New Church teaches that in the natural mind things of the 
 earth are collected ; in the spiritual mind, things of Heaven. 
 
^ 
 
 When the natural mind is subordinate to the spiritual, 
 man is in the order of his life, but when the natural mind 
 pules, then he is in a state of disorder. The natural mind is 
 where natural affections and thoughts dwell. In the most 
 ancient church, which is called Adam in Gen., the natural 
 mind was properly subordinated to the spiritual, causing man y 
 to dwell in a state of peace and blessedness. The natural 
 mind being formed of the earth, the most external faculties 
 are represented by the serpent, so that the serpent is the sym- " 
 bol of the sensual mind. Through the senses it appeared to 
 man that his life was self-derived ; from this appearance he^ " 
 fell into the persuasion that it really was so. The falf was 
 not consummated in one single act, but rather gradual, and 
 came to its consummation at the fulness of time, when Christ 
 came into the world. At this state the natural man was tri- 
 umphant, and man would have perished forever. So that in 
 Adam all died^ but in Christ all are made alive. He is the ^ 
 Spirit that quickens. The natural man now is the seed of 
 lust, from whence the act of sin springs, the den of vipers and >' 
 serpents, from whence it has- usurped the authority of the 
 spiritual, so that it either denies spiritual things, or makes 
 them subservient to self. The self-hood of the natural man 
 being the father of all carnal affections and thoughts, the Lord 
 calls it the Devils Sin, Fornication, when disputing with the 
 Jews concerning their parentage ; He said to them, " Ye are of 
 your father the Devil, and the lusts of your father ye will ' ' 
 do." The Bible speaks of the genealogy of principles, •one 
 class emanating from the self-hood of the natural mind, the 
 other emanatirg from a new will which is spiritual, and is ; 
 implanted by the Lord from heaven. The former is designa- "; 
 ted by the serpent, the carnal mind, lust, the Devil, and by 
 Paul, the first, Adam ; the latter the serpent-bruiser, a new ^ 
 mind, the mind of Christ, a new will, a new heart,- all of 
 which emanate from the second Adam, the Lord from heaven. 
 This view is in harmony with Gen. concerning man's creation. 
 
39 
 
 As Paul says, " It is written." How written 1 A woman 
 talking with a literal serpent, conversing upon the 
 character of the Divine Being, upon the laws of life and death, 
 and at last yielding to the serpent's advice by eating of some 
 literal fruit, called " the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, of 
 Good and Evil !" A tree bearing a fruit called the knowledge 
 of good and evil ! What conception can the mind have of 
 such a tree 1 none, if it is regarded as literal ; and what con- 
 nection between the fruit and the poison of sin 1 none. But 
 if the serpent is regarded as the alluring power of the senses, 
 contending with the internal perceptions and acknowledge- 
 ment of spiritual things, and the fall as consisting of the do- 
 minion of the serpent over the spiritual, we not only see it to 
 be consistent and rational, but we feel its truth, and the whole 
 Bible appears radiated with a new light. And the second 
 Adam, the serpent-bruiser, is recognized throughout the whole 
 Word, as also in the experience of every man undergoing re- 
 generation. So that in this life every Christian can testify to 
 the first and second Adam — the one warring against the other. 
 The Rev. gentleman says that it cannot be true " that re-' 
 generation is a work commenced in this life, and perfected 
 after death," because it is at variance with Scripture, and here 
 he quotes from John, " Ye must be born again." This proves 
 the fact of a birth being necessary, and we suppose if he will 
 reflect he will see the absurdity of a still birth, that is, one that 
 cannot grow spiritually. The writer is evidently not aware 
 that the Lord's truth is a living word, and that every truth 
 received into life is the cause of growth, as Paul teaches in 
 Eph. 4 ch. 15 v., *' Speaking the truth in love, may grow up 
 into him in all things." It is something new in Methodism 
 to oppose the spiritual growth and improvement of the soul 
 in this life and the life to come. Regeneration, which is the 
 constant renewing of our mind after the image and likeness 
 of Christ's glorious nature, is something so excellent in itself* 
 that it is astonishing how it can be objected to. 
 

 40 
 
 . ^i^ • ^~a.f*^' 
 
 ' Paragraphs 23, 24. Mr. Williams says :' " If I listen to the 
 teachings of Swedenborg, &c., I must believe 'that the doctrine 
 of justification by faith is contrary to the word of God, and to 
 the nature and constitution of things ' — that it is a dreadful 
 doctrine, the abomination of desolation." This quotation is 
 a mistake, so also the one in Xo. 24, viz. : " All who hold 
 the doctrine of salvation by faith, will consociate with infernal 
 Genii after death." The writer refers to Parson's Essays and 
 Clissold's letters. Such language is not to be found m them. 
 He also refers to Swedenborg's Apoc. revealed, 163, in which 
 there is not one word about faith, but he, Swedenborg, refers 
 the reader to 158 of the same book for an explanation of 
 watching, in which he says " Be watchful " signifies that 
 they should be in truths and a life according to them. By 
 watching in the Word, nothing else is signified ; for he who 
 learna truths and lives according to them is in a state of 
 watchfulness. 
 
 Mr. Williams has mistaken faith for faith alone. It is faith 
 alone that Swedenborg says is contrary to the word of God — 
 faith without repentance and reformation of life ; all that are 
 found to hold such a faith in heart and life will undoubtedly 
 consociate with infernal Genii after death. A true faith is 
 always united to charity. To believe on the Lord Jesus 
 Christ is tho reaching of the '^qvt Church ; to believe on the 
 Lord is to believe what the Word teaches, and the Lord, who 
 is the Word, says, "Therefore all things whatsoever ye would 
 that men should do to you, do ye even so to them, this is the 
 law and the prophets; enter ye in at the strait gate, for wide 
 is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, 
 and many there be which go in thereat ; because strait is the 
 gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life, and few 
 there be that find it." Dr. Adam Clark, in his notes on the strait 
 gate, says " The words in the original are very emphatic. 
 Enter in (to the kingdom of heaven) through this gate, i.e., 
 of doing to everyone as you would he should do unto you, 
 
41 
 
 /©?• this alone seems to be the strait gate which our Lord 
 alludes to." Here is Swedenborgianism full ripe, Avlmch Mr. 
 Williams has such an abhorrence of. If the Church at large 
 had a little more of this doctrine, and less of faith alone, in 
 which they seem so much to glory, we might expect an im- 
 provement in the moral condition of society. 
 
 In Paragraph 25, Mr. Williams says that Swedenborg 
 teaches in Xo. 326, of heaven and hell, that believers in justi- 
 fication by faith alone have no respect to the life and deeds 
 of love, &c. What a careless slanderer this man is. In the 
 paragraph referred to there is not one word on the subject. 
 ]N"evertheless, it is a doctrine of the New Church, because it is 
 a doctrine of the Bible, and not because Swedenborg or an 
 angel has taught it. The doctrine of the Bible is, that faith 
 alone is dead, heing alone ; that is, it has no repentance, no 
 Godly sorrow for sin, no forsaking of sin, consequently no re- 
 formation and regeneration. It is faith only. The Rev. 
 gentleman thinks he has upset the doctrine that it is faith 
 united to a good life that saves, in his quotation from Paul : 
 " For what the law could not do, in that it was weak tluough 
 the flesh, God sending His owti Son in the likeness of sinful 
 flesh, condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of 
 the law* might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh, 
 but after the spirit." Now there is not one word here about 
 faith alone saving, but a fulfilling of the law of righteousness 
 by icaVdng after the spirit. To live according to the law of 
 righteousness is right doing, or doing justly, loving mercy, 
 and walking humbly with our God. Those who hold not 
 this doctrine cannot have heaven implanted in them, as Swe- 
 denborg says. M ■ - ^ ■ 
 r . aragraph 26. Resurrection of the man we believe, but 
 not the resurrection of the dead body. " He that goeth do%vn 
 to the grave shall come up no more." This truth science de- 
 monstrates, and our Lord says, in Luke 20 ch. 37 v., " !N"o%v 
 that the dead are raised, even Moses shewed at the bush* 
 
42 
 
 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 the God of the living, for all live unto him." Seeing 
 that Abraham, &c., are alive and doing very well without bodies 
 of flesh and blood, it would be a useless work to call them 
 fJrom heaven to take up their abode here again, to say nothing 
 of the inconvenience of so many dwelling in bodies of flesh, 
 for the reader must remember that flesh and blood cannot 
 enter the kingdom of heaven, and there is not room on this 
 earth for all the descendants of Adam. 
 
 Paragraph 27. The Rev. gentleman objects to Sweden- 
 borg's doctrine, that this world will never be destroyed. The 
 phrase, end of the tvorld, means consummation of the age, 
 or end of a dispensation ; the end of the age or Christian dis- 
 pensation is now come, and a new order of things is already 
 set in, and every eye can see it ; yes, and those who deny can 
 see, and when they speak in a state of freedom, bear testimony 
 to it Mr. Williams little thinks that he is fighting against 
 the Bible, Eccl. 1, 4 v.: "One generation passeth away, and 
 another cometh, but the earth endureth for ever ; " Psalms 
 78, 69 V. : " He that buildeth his sanctuary like high places, 
 like the earth which he hath established for ever ; " Psalms 
 100, 5v: " Who laid the foundations of the earth, that it shall 
 not be moved for ever." 
 
 Paragraph 28. The subject of marriage, as taught in the 
 New Church, Mr. Williams knows nothing about ; and so 
 long as he confuses prolifications of Love and Wisdom with 
 the birth of children, he is not likely to learn. Swedenborg 
 nowhere says they have children in heaven. The marriage 
 that Swedenboi-g speaks of, is the union of two minds by the 
 Lord during the work of regeneration, in which case neither 
 rules, but both mutually love each other, from an internal 
 principle of religion, implanted by the Lord alone, so that 
 they are spiritually united. Such the Lord joins together, 
 and they will never be separated. These principles are per- 
 
43 
 
 ceived where there is mutual love and regard for each other's 
 good in all things, but they cannot be seen where lust seeks 
 dominion. The marriage principle is heaven, its opposite is 
 hell. 
 
 Paragraph 29. He makes Swedenborg say that those he 
 saw in heaven were unchaste and wanton in their desires. 
 For this statement he refers his readers to 611 Apoc. Revealed. 
 We are sorry the paragraph is too long to quote ; we will give a 
 little from it. Swedenborg, after mentioning some particulars 
 which occur in the middle state, with those who are preparing 
 for heaven and those who are preparing for hell, says : 
 " There is a communication of affections in the spiritual world. 
 Man being then a spirit, and the Ufe of a spirit being affec- 
 tion, from which, and according to which, thought proceeds ; 
 and that homogeneous affections conjoin, and heterogeneous 
 affections disjoin, and that heterogeneity ivould torment a devil 
 in heaven, and an angel in hell ; for which reason they are 
 separated, exactly according to the diversities, varieties and 
 differences of the affections which are of love." Unchaste 
 and wanton desires constitute hell, so that the Rev. gentle- 
 man was looking in the wrong place for heaven. , j*^ ^^ 
 
 In Paragraph 30, Mr. Williams quotes from Swedenborg*s 
 Divine Love and Wisdom the following: " Some who enter 
 there (that is, heaven) experience at times severe suffering." 
 This passage is so presented that it cannot but mislead those 
 who are not familiar with his writings. Our opponent does 
 not appear to be aware who they are that experience severe 
 suffering at times in heaven. Had he read the author care- 
 fully, we think he woidd have concluded that such persons as 
 Swedenborg speaks of as suffering at times, had no light there 
 at all, and, according to Mr. Williams' doctrine, they ought 
 to suffer in fire and brimstone for ever. Let us hear Sweden- 
 borg : " The lot of those after death in whom the spiritual 
 degree is not opened and yet not shut, and who are still na- 
 tural and not spiritual, is that they are in the lowest part of 
 
44 
 
 heaven, where tliey sometimes experience severe sufferings, or 
 they are in the boundaries of some superior heaven, as it were, 
 in the light of evening, for in heaven, and in each society 
 there, the light decreases from the middle toward the bounda- 
 ries, and those are in the middle who excel others in Divine 
 tniths, and those have few truths who know no more of re- 
 ligion than simply that there is a God, and that the Lord suf- 
 fered for them, also that charity and faith are essentials of 
 the Church, but do not know what charity and faith are ; when, 
 nevertheless, faith in its iessence is truth, and truth is mani- 
 fold ; and charity is every duty of a man's office that he does 
 from the Lord, when he shuns evils as sins." The principles 
 taught in the above quotation cannot be seen by those who 
 are confirmed in the idea of heaven as a place located some- 
 where in the natural universe, and the redeeme«l entering it 
 as we in this world enter a city or a large hall. From the 
 natural mind the r(3deemed are vievv^ed as an immense multi- 
 tude crowded together, without order or arrangement, without 
 habitations or apartments. All the social ties formed in this 
 life amongst the good are supposed to end mth^this life ; our 
 present nature and sympathies are to cease, and we are to be 
 something quite different there to what we are here. We be- 
 lieve heaven to be a social heaven, and that a truly good life 
 here is a type of the heavenly life ; so that if we will allow 
 our mind to contemplate heaven from the iife we are now in, 
 tracing out the analogy in all good and useful things, as cor- 
 respondences to the heavenly, we should soon come to the 
 conclusion that there was more than mere words in the 
 Lord's language when lie taught his disciples to pray : 
 "Thy kingdom come. Thy will >>e done on earth as 
 it is done in Heaven." The laws that regulate Heaven 
 are those of goodness and truth; and each Angel 
 being a form of goodness and truth, it follows that 
 they are all governed by the same laws. Kow, goodness and 
 truth are infinite, because they form the Divine itself ; but 
 
45 
 
 it is different iu each individual Angel, because differently 
 . received. Some of tlie Angels receive the law in the inmost 
 of their nature, and from thence (as of appearance) rule them- 
 selves ; others in the more intermediate part of their nature ; 
 while others receive the law in the very external of their life. 
 This arrangement of the Heavens is represented in our reli- 
 gious and civil institutions. In each there is a chief or 
 head, with different subordinate magistrates, all for the sake 
 of order and good government ; while the great mass of the 
 people, who have little or no desire to enquire into the nature 
 . of causes, or the motive from whence actions spring, are in 
 the lower part, or in the extremes of the body politic. It is 
 here where the waves of passion and prejudice roll and rock, 
 and at times are very boisterous ; while within is calm and 
 = safety. On this earth there are good people existing in the 
 , various degrees mentioned above ; but those who. see less 
 into the causes of things are more likely to be disturbed than 
 those who can trace the causes, and know from superior light 
 how to remove them. That which is shadowed forth on the 
 earth, and is in itself good and true, comes from Heaven ; 
 i and if it only affects our natural mind, so as to produce only an 
 j external reformation, and that /ro7)i /ecu\ leaving the internal 
 T spiritual mind unreformed, the lot of such will be with those 
 who dwell on the boundaries, in the shade of evening as to 
 Heavenly things. :r ..4^:j ;.r-v> 
 
 i^ Oui' Methodist friends entertain a similar idea, only less 
 scientific ; for they speak of those who have spent a good life 
 in the service of the Lord as being near the throne, and as 
 having many stars in glory ; but to those who have lived a 
 life of evil, but at last get religion by the exercise of faith in 
 I their dogma, they give a place less glorious ; sometimes they 
 are represented as just gaining admittance. So that, accord- 
 ing to Methodism, some are in the centre, and some at the 
 boundaries. In the New Church, the rationale of this is 
 seen, while the truth of it is conceded by the common sense 
 
46 
 
 of mankind. Who cannot see the manifold types of mind, 
 some suited to rule, some to serve, some to occupy promi- 
 nent and useful positions, while others are not ; some for 
 honour, some for dishonour ; nevertheless, all are happy ac- 
 cording to their reception of the Lord. The Church is His 
 body, and every member has its use to perfo'?n. t- .^ .ie«« 
 
 Paragraph 31. Mr. Williams objects to the doctrine, 
 " That no one suffers pain in hell on account of the evils 
 which he had done in this world, but on account of the evil 
 he there does." For this he refers his readers to paragraph 599, 
 Heaven and Hell. This is another specimen of Mr. Williami' 
 carelessness, and shows that his prevailing desire was to in- 
 jure the character of Swedenborg, and hold those who em- 
 braced the doctrines contained in his works up to ridicule. In 
 the paragraph referred to there is not one word on the sub- 
 ject. Swedenborg says, 599, "In order that man may be in 
 freedom, as a means of his reformation, he is conjoined as to 
 his spirit with both heaven and hell ; for spirits from hell 
 and angels from heaven are attendant on every man ; by 
 spirits from hell he is in his own evil, and by angels from 
 heaven he is in good from the Lord, and thus in spiritual 
 equilibrium, which is freedom." All are judged according to 
 the deeds done in the body ; but there is no vindictive pun- 
 ishment inflicted by God on anyone. ^ 
 
 When Swedenborg says that no one suffers pain in hell on 
 account of evils done in the world, he means that the lord 
 does not take into account the acts of sin singly, and inflict 
 punishment upon the sinner from a spirit of vindictiveness or 
 the love of punishing.. He regards sin to be of such a nature 
 that every time that a man commits it, it increases in strength 
 and volume ; so that if it is not arrested in the man during 
 his life, in this world, he becomes a form of the evil he made 
 choice of, and so remains to eternity. It is in this sense that 
 a man's works go with him, and that he also suffers in the 
 
47 
 
 next life from a confirmed life of evil, not from anything that 
 God does to him, for evil punishes itself. 
 
 In Paragraph 32, Mr. Williams charges Swedenborg with 
 slandering the whole Church of Christ, and vilifying the most 
 sainted characters the world has ever been privileged to see. 
 "We think that we should be careful what we have to say on 
 these matters, for who can tell the real state of man. Our 
 Lord has said that there would be wolves in sheep's clothing. 
 The Church then would have those who would appear to us 
 as saintly worthies, but inwardly may be ravening wolves. 
 The Lord only, who judgeth the heart, knows their real state ; 
 and if Swedenborg has been permitted to see the dreadful lot 
 of some in the other life, whom the Church on earth thought 
 had arrived safe home, let us take warning. Eemember we 
 are not called upon to believe such statements as a condition 
 of our own spiritual welfare ; but while the disingenuous laugh 
 such statements to scorn, and are not content with the simple 
 facts stated, but rather exaggerate some, and record others that 
 are utterly false, as is done by Mr. Williams in his letter — offend- 
 ing against the Lord's commandment, *' Thou shalt not bear 
 false witness against thy neighbour " — the good and well dis- 
 posed are always unwilling to misrepresent or exaggerate the 
 opinions of those who differ from them. Mr. Williams 
 forgot his argument, in Paragraph 31, against Sweden- 
 borg, where he tries to prove that men suffer in hell for 
 sins committed in this world, by quoting 2 Cor. 5, 10, "We 
 must all appear at the judgment seat of Christ, that everyone 
 may receive the things done in his body, according to that he 
 hath done, whether it he good or had." .Before this tribunal 
 the most saintly characters that Mr. Williams refers to must 
 appear. It was in the world of spirits, where the evil is sepa- 
 rated from the good, that Swedenborg declares he saw some 
 of the saintly characters, like other men, to be judged accord- 
 ing to the deeds done in the body, as proved by Mr. Williams 
 himself. Looking at David through his actions, does he ap- 
 
43 
 
 pear as one of the most saintly characters the world ever saw] 
 Did David ever appear insane and outrageous on the earth's 
 plane] Read your Bible for evidence. With whom was he then 
 associated] As David held the doctrine that it was right to love 
 iieighhours and hate enemies, could the heart be pure where 
 such opposite principles dwelt ] Is not hatred of and from the 
 Devil ? And may it not be on account of such a mixed state 
 in David's character that Peter said of him, many hundred 
 years after he left this world, Acts 2 ch., 34 v., " For David 
 is not yet ascended into the heavens." No doubt he was be- 
 . low the heavens at that time, associated with his like ; or, like 
 Judas, in his own place or state, for every one is located in 
 spiritual space in the other life according to his life in this 
 world. If his life has boon evil, in hell ; if good, in heaven ; 
 and no amount of singing pious hymns or writing religious 
 psalms, or any amount of pious acts, if the life is evil, will 
 save him. ^^ According to the .deeds done in the bodf/" as' 
 quoted by Mr. "Williams, "a man is Judged." Let it be so ; 
 we have no wish to dispute the point. The same rule is ap- 
 plicable to Paul as to David ; they were both Jews, educated 
 . in the doctrine that it waB right to hate those who differed 
 from them ; and the former part of Paul's life proves how 
 deeply this doctrine entered into and formed his character, 
 9 chap. Acts., 1 v., " Saul yet breathing out threatenings and 
 slaughter against the disciples of the Lord." He testifies 
 himself also to an intense hatred towards the disciples ; yet 
 he loved his friends. 
 
 After this time Paul's opinions change ; and according to 
 th.e experience of ^the Church, and -the bloody struggles 
 through which it has passed, the principle of loving those of 
 a similar faith, and hating those who differed, has been too 
 much its practice. Evil is so deeply rooted in our nature, 
 that experience has proved a thousand times that a change in 
 our opinion is comparatively easy, whilst a change in the 
 heart is very hard. When Paul preached Jesus he became 
 
49 
 
 the persecuted — one of a despised few ; but supposing Paul 
 to have been converted to another powerful body ; or sup- 
 posing there had been such an increase of numbers to the 
 Christian standard during Paul's life, is H not possible that 
 the native character of Paul would have showed itself in an ' 
 overbearing manner toward those who dijffered from him in 
 those things that he considered of great moment 1 It is not 
 lor us to judge ; but the Church, whenever it had the 
 ascendancy, has done so. The evils of the human heart can 
 only be removed as they are known and brought to light, 
 when the true man, by spiritual combat, removes them. A 
 simple consent to a certain dogma docs not, and cannot, 
 remove them, any more than a persuasion that we are good will 
 cause us to be good. These principles apply to all the 
 characters Mr. Williams refers to. Now, allow us to correct 
 Mr. Williams' false statement: He says Swedenborg states x 
 that Martin Luther is shut up in Hell. This is a misrepresen- 
 tation. Luther is in Heaven — is the teaching of Swedenborg, 
 because he was good at heart ; and from a good heart he was pre- 
 pared to reject tJie doctrine of faith alone. What is said concern- 
 ing Paul and David is said in his diary, a work that he never 
 intended for publication. That he saw Paul in the World of 
 Spirits or Hades is true, we have no doubt ; but after the last 
 judgment was accomplished — that is, after the chaff of his 
 life was separated from the wheat — he ascended into Heaven ; 
 and from Swedenborg's published theological works we learn 
 that he is in Heaven. These things do not form a part of the 
 faith of the Kew Jerusalem Church, but they stand as most 
 awful warnings to those who say and do not, declaring unto 
 us all, " Not everyone that saith Lord, Lor^ jhall enter into 
 the Kingdom of Heaven, but he that doeth .the will of the 
 Father who is in Heaven." 
 
 Paragraph 33 is such vile slander that it is not worthy 
 of a reply. 
 
 Paragraph 34. Mr, Williams says man is not free, because 
 3 
 
50 i ' ^ 
 
 he is in equilibrium, — that is, he is not free because he is not 
 forced ; so that Mr. Williams' idea of freedom must be com- 
 pulsion, or not equally balanced. 
 
 Swedenborg nowhere says that the Trinity, as existing at 
 the incarnation, existed in the time of Abraham. This is 
 another wrong quotation. 
 
 The contradiction in Swedenborg, when he says that chil- 
 dren ai-e evil (that is, as to what they receive from their 
 parents,) but innocent in what they receive from the Lord, is 
 no more a contradiction than it is one to say that a saint is 
 one that has received a new nature from the Lord, but that 
 the old nature is evil ; making him a sinner and a saint. 
 
 Paragraph 35. Mr. Williams objects to Swedenborg's 
 teaching because it lowers the standard of morals ; " that a life 
 of prayer, devotion, and self-denial, is not only not conducive 
 to spirituality, but embarrassingly inconsistent with it ;" and 
 what is still more strange, he objects to the doctrine " that a 
 man must live in the world to become spiritual." We suppose 
 Mr. Williams, and all spiritual Methodists, are living in the 
 . world. Is he in earnest when he says that those living in 
 the world are under the wrath of God 1 If a man, desirous 
 of being made spiritually-minded, is not to live in the world, 
 will the Rev. gentleman tell him where he is to live % He is so 
 blind to what constitutes a truly spiritual man, that he quotes 
 the following text to prove that it is not in this world that 
 the spiritual-minded live : " Because of these things the 
 wrath of God cometh upon the children of disobedience.** 
 Now, the Apostie Paul is called by the writer of the letter a 
 saintly charafeter ; yet he lived in the world, worked at tent- 
 making, and preached the Gospel also. But if Mr. Williams 
 it right, Paul was under the wrath of God, because he lived 
 in this world, and became spiritual. If those who live in the 
 world and become spiritual are under the wrath of God, per- 
 haps it is thought by the Bev. gentleman that a natural mind 
 • is safe. It is the disobedient that is under the wrath of God. 
 
51 
 
 Spiritual-mindcdness and disobedience are at variance ; l)ut 
 obedience is the foundation to spiritual mindedness. It is 
 in the world that we first learn obedience ; first the child to 
 its parents, the servant to his employer. These things pre- 
 pare us to respect the lav of our country ; these, again, to 
 respect the higher and Heavenly laws; so that the Lord 
 leads us, step by step, into His Kingdom. This world is dis- 
 ciplinary for the next ; therefore, as Swedenborg says, a man 
 must live in this world to become spiritual. But Sweden- 
 borg's teaching " lowers the standard of morals." To prove 
 this, he refers his reader to 494 Noble's Appeal. Hear what 
 Nobie says : " A good life, or a life of righteousness seriously 
 commenced in this world, is the only life that can endure the 
 sphere of Heaven and the presence of the Divine Judge. On 
 this account, a life according to the ten commandinenta is one 
 of the two essentials to which the doctrines of the New Church 
 reduce the ichole of religion. The other is the acknowledg- 
 ment of the Lord ; and these two are incapable of being sepa- 
 rated in act, though they may be thought of separately in 
 idea ; for no one can live a life of obedience to the command- 
 ments from an internal ground, as well as in outward form, 
 from himself; it is only possible by and from the Lord, and 
 by power communicated from him. Let none, therefore, sup- 
 pose that when insisting upon a life of righteousness we go 
 about to establish our own righteousness. It being only pos- 
 sible by power communicated from the Lord, all the merit of 
 it belongs not to man, but to the Lord alone.*' This is a 
 righteousness that exceeds the righteousness ofjnodem Scribes 
 and Pharisees, and is essential for admittance into Heaven. 
 The Pharisaical righteousness is altogether difEerent. It says 
 in its heart, '^ stand away and come not near, for I am holier 
 than thou ; " and the professors of which, in the language of 
 the Gospel, " trusted in themselves that they were righteous, 
 and despised others." It was a righteousness that made 
 clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, while within 
 
■•.f» 
 
 * they were full of extortion and excess. It was a righteous- 
 ness which paid tithe of mint, and anise, and cummin, and 
 
 J omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy 
 and faith. The New Church admits prayer and devotion as 
 contributory to man's spirituality, when connected with the 
 Golden Rule given by our Lord, " What ye would that men 
 should do to you, do ye even so unto them." But when it 
 is according to the prescribed rule of a Pharisaical over-bear- 
 ing Priesthood, unattended with a good life, it tends towards 
 the profanation of holy things, and is denounced by the Lord. 
 . " Hear ye the word of the Lord ye rulers of Sodom, give ear 
 unto the law of our God, ye rulers of Gomorah ; to what pur- 
 
 - pose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me, saith the 
 Lord ; I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat 
 of fed beasts, and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or 
 of lambs, or of goats." Outward form and ceremony only, 
 avail nothing, except to confirm a Pharisaical pride ; but to 
 " wash you, make you clean, put away thf- evil of your doings 
 from before mine eyes, cease to do evil, learn to do well, seek 
 judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead 
 for the widow," is the teaching of our Lord, and is what is 
 taught and inculcated throughout the writings of the New 
 Church more than can be found anywhere else. Does such 
 
 > teaching lower the standard of morals. Contrast it with what 
 the Faith-alone preachers teach % You may be a good father, 
 an affectionate and kind husband, an honourable member 
 of society, but unless you receive this faith that I now set 
 before you, ancT that without understanding it, you will be 
 damned everlastingly. Such is the common teaching of the 
 Methodists. Yet these men, who teach faith alone as saving, 
 have the blind audacity to publish a letter, charging the New 
 Church people with lowering the standard of morals, who openly 
 and constantly proclaim the union of charity and faith, as 
 being necessary for salvation. 
 
 Paragraph 36, He charges Swedenborg with teaching con- 
 
53 . ■ • 
 
 cubinage and adultery. This could only have come from the 
 bottomless pit, and is such a foul and false charge that I shall 
 only quote Swedenborg, recommending Mr. Williams to read 
 Swedenborg again (if he ever has read him) wheji he has 
 learned to judge between the christian and unchristian man, 
 the man-beast and the truly christian man, for Swedenborg 
 speaks of the two, and unfortunately for Mp. "Williams, he 
 has mixed them. 
 
 Conjugal Love, 69, " Adulteries are profane and infernal.** 
 
 147, Conjugal Love, "The chastity of marriage exists by 
 a total abdication of whoredom from a principle of religion.'* 
 
 Doctrine of Life, 74, " Adultery is so great an evil that it 
 may be called essentially diaboHcal." 
 
 Sec. 500, Con. Love, " As soon as a man actually becomes 
 an advltere^" heaven is closed against him." Does this look 
 like teaching adultery 1 Men who could circulate such un- 
 called for slander against a people living in their midst, must 
 be past all hope of being brought to a sense of truth. 
 
 " A great deal more could be said against the system 
 which is called a rational religious belief." I have no doubt 
 whatever, that there is plenty more where such misrepresen- 
 tations came from as are contained in Mr. Williams' letter to 
 a friend. The human mind is bottomless, and in this in- 
 stance has proved to be fiery and dark ; I, however, have no 
 desire to excite the man to injure himself by circulating more 
 slander against a man he has betrayed such ignorance of. 
 But when he says the New Church teaching is not Christian- 
 ity, because it has one God in one person, I think he mis- 
 reads history as well as Swedenborg. For, like the ancient 
 Christians, we woiship Christ as God. From Christ the 
 Christians derive their name ; so that Mr. Willianis, denying 
 this great truth, is not so much entitled to the name as Kew 
 Church people. He believes in a God th« Father, and a 
 God the Spirit, out of Christ ; so that to him the nam« is 
 not appropriate ; Tripersonalist is better. 
 
54 
 
 " Its Bible is not our Bible." True, for Mr. Williams has no 
 proof what books are the real Word of God. Christ himself 
 is the Word to us, and He is Lord and Master ; from Him 
 the creation and the letter of Scripture emanated, and they 
 fit each t^ each, for the Lord is the life of both. To say that 
 we supplement the Word by Swedenborg's writing, betrays 
 his ignorance, for we do no such thing. " Its rock is not 
 as our rock." True. The Lord Jesus is our rock ; we don't 
 require three rocks. If it is not Jewish, it is Christian, as 
 shown above. " It has no pardon nor regeneration," says Mr. 
 Williams. True ; it has no Methodist pardon, nor yet re- 
 generation, neither does it want to be self-deluded ; for the 
 system of getting pardon, as practised in protracted meetings, 
 is of the same kind as getting influenced by spirits at seances 
 and spirit circles, only instead of surrounding a table, the in- 
 dividual is surrounded with enthusiasts, and animal magnet- 
 ism and spiritism induce the persons to surrender up 
 their freedom. The men and women of strong will, and 
 lung power, surrounding women and girls, can readily pro- 
 duce corresponding changes in those who place themselves in 
 their company with a manifest desire to become like-minded. 
 Such things are common all the world over ; it is not simply 
 in a Methodist prayer-meeting that people get "sg.yed," as the 
 phrase goes. The Mormons can far surpass the Methodists 
 in inducing apirit influence, and the spiritualist can out- 
 da all that has ever gone before. I have been in spirit 
 circles, and in Methodist Eevival meetings, and I have 
 met with a number of Methodists who have conducted their ' 
 service tmder spirit influence ; and I pronounce, from the best 
 of my judgment, all those excited meetings, where 
 men, women and children are howliug and screaming for 
 pardon to a God the Father, full of wrath, to look upon 
 His Son's bleeding side and hands, and for His sake give 
 them a sense of pardon, to be a wild state of enthuaL 
 asm, a mixture of Heathenish ideas and sj^iritkm; a^ 
 
55 
 
 the Sooner they cleanse their temples of such ahomiSatldfts 
 the better for society at large. The candid and reflecting do 
 not want to get religion through such means. They know 
 that religious truth is the highest and noblest thing in the 
 world, and ought to be presented in a manner to excite the 
 noblest faculties of our nature — rationality and liherty. What 
 liberty or rationality is there active when pardon is being 
 sought in such an excited state? True, we have none of these 
 things; but we strive to teach reUgious truth as our Lord 
 taught it from the mount, addressing the heart through the 
 intellect, and inculcating a life according to the Lord's com- 
 mandment. With this we are perfectly satisfied, knowing 
 that at last we shall be judged according to our works, and 
 if we have lived well, we shall go to heaven, but if evil, we 
 shall go to hell. 
 
 True doctrine should be expressed in the letter of the word : 
 
 BIBLE DOCTRINES OB PRIMITIVE TRUTHS. 
 
 In Jesus Christ dwelleth all the ful- 
 ness of the Godhead bodily, consequent- 
 ly the whole Trinity. 
 
 Jesus said, the Father dwelleth In me ; 
 he that seeth and knoweth me, seeth and 
 knoweth the Father ; no man cumeth to 
 the Fat>.er but by me ; I and my Father 
 are one ; all should honour the Sun, even 
 as they honour the Father. 
 
 Hear, O Israel, the Lord our Ood is 
 ovu Lord. In that day there shall be one 
 L<3rd, and His name One. 
 
 "God was in Christ reconciling (or 
 atoning) the world unto Himself." Thus 
 the Father was the reconciler, the world 
 the reconciled, and Christ, not the re- 
 cnnciier, but the medium through which 
 the reconciler operated. 
 
 "The Son of Man hath jwwer on earth 
 to furtive sins." The Father hath made 
 the %on (or the Divine nature hath raado 
 tiie human nature n*,med Jesus Christ) 
 "a Prince and a Saviour, to give repent- 
 ance and remission of sins ;" thus is 
 "Qirist made unto us of God. wisdom, and 
 righteousness, and sanctificatiun, and 
 redemption." "All power," said Jesus 
 
 TRADITIONAL TEACHING OR PREV.U,ENT 
 ERBORS. 
 
 In Jesus Christ we behold one of three 
 Divine persons, or one-third part of the 
 Deity. 
 
 The Father Is to be addressed sepa- 
 rately from Jesus Christ, and as a per- 
 fectly distinct individual ; consequently, 
 to worship Jesus Christ exclusively, or 
 without worshipping the Father in addi- 
 tion, as a superior Divine person, is ac- 
 tual idolatry. 
 
 God is not one Lord, in the sense of 
 onepers( n or individual bein§, for he is 
 three Divine persons, — — ^i— -j--^ 
 agents. 
 
 or individual 
 
 Christ, as a separate person, reconciled 
 God (here one person only, not three per- 
 sons) to the world : thus Christ was the 
 reconciler, God (meaning here the first 
 person only) the reconciled, and the 
 world the pardoned. 
 
 The Son is not to be asked to forgive 
 sins, but the Father for the sake of the 
 Son. The Father is to be exclusively 
 petitioned to grant repentance, wisdom, 
 righteousness, sanctification and redemp- 
 tion, as the exclusive giver and dis- 
 penser of all good; and Jesus Christ 
 (although the Father in a human form) 
 is to be passed by entirely ; thus, prac- 
 
56 
 
 Christ, after His resxirrection, "isgivrn 
 to M« is Beaven and on earth." "where 
 two or three are gathered tc^ther in my 
 nam*, there am I in the mi^ of them." 
 " I am He that searcheth the heart." 
 
 "Thou Shalt love the Lord thy God 
 with all thy heart," for "God is love," 
 and " His tender mercies are over all 
 His works. " "He changes not. " "He 
 is the same (Lore) yesterday, to-dav, and 
 for ever." " He is good to all." 
 
 " For this purpose, the Son (or human- 
 ity) of God was manifested, that He 
 nJghtdestroy the works of the devil ;" and 
 the Son (or humanity) being "glorified," 
 and so become possessor of "all things" 
 of the Father, pours out His spirit to 
 onmmunicate His nature, according to 
 Bis own saying, that "the Spirit should 
 take of His, and show it unto us, " becarise 
 ' ' aU things that the Father hath are His. " 
 
 Jesus being "made perfect through 
 wIlBrings," and having thus "purchased 
 the Church with His own blood," has 
 become tiie "author of eternal salvation 
 unto all them that obey Him." Having 
 beeoaie ffimiel/the author of salvation, 
 tt(»ftnr Jms arrived of which he spake— 
 "AXuaidtf I say not that I will pray 
 tile Father for you ; but whatsoever ye 
 diaU a^ in my name (that is, of God, as 
 beirlasiii His humanity the name of 
 ft i us lliriet), that loiU I do, 
 
 that the 
 Iktter BUiy be glorified in the Son." 
 
 It ie declared by Isaiah, that Jehovah 
 bloM out transgressions fur His ovm saJce : 
 •ad by David, that He saves for His 
 mercy'xaake, and pardons for His name's 
 sake, and thit he is ever ready to forgive. 
 
 Hw Apostle says, < ' Now abideth faith. 
 hope, aad charitv, but the {/rtaUtt of 
 theae (because it is "the end of all the 
 eommandments" to believe and do) is 
 charity. Be also declares that charity 
 oempnaec because it practises, all the 
 Tirtaea; and that without charity a 
 Christian is "nothing," whatever Us 
 iktth, and whatever his works. 
 
 . "We must all appear before the judg- 
 ni«tt seat of Christ, that everyone may 
 receive according to the things done in 
 the body, whether they be good, or 
 whether they be evil" Judgment is 
 according to works, and not according 
 to opinions, because such as are a man's 
 w«»ks, such is his ruling affection and 
 eeeentjal character, according to which 
 he il fitted eitiier for Heaven or for Hell. 
 
 tically, the Father, as a separate person 
 from the Son, is to be considered as Ood 
 alone, and the exclusive possessor of 
 Divine power and only forglver of sins, 
 and granter of prayer. 
 
 Part of God, called the Father, is 
 dreaded for His wn»,th ; part of God, 
 called the Son. is loved for His mercy ; 
 and the other part, called the Holy 
 Ghost, is neither feared, nor loved, nor 
 worshipped, except at Whitsuntide, and 
 once in the Litany. 
 
 The Son is usually thought of and 
 treated as the mere dependent of the 
 Father. The three persons, although 
 co-equal, are yet unequal. The Father 
 was wrathful against sinners, the Son 
 was not, and the Holy Spirit was not. 
 Since there exist three Divine persons, 
 there exist three Infinites— three Al- 
 mighties— tliree possessors of all things, 
 who aie three objects of worship ; but 
 (it is said) not three Gods ! 
 
 Altbcugh Christ has purchased aalva-, 
 tion for ALL that believe IT, it is neces- 
 sary that he should Jbr ever be showing 
 his bleeding wounds, in order to induca 
 his Father to be merciful. It is tims 
 that he intercedes continually for those 
 who believe (wJuit iscaZ7ed)true doctrine. 
 It is not considered that God the Father's 
 faithfulness and foreknowledge are suffi- 
 cient to rule and guide Him, apart from 
 the intercession of the Son for the per- 
 formance of the purchase of His vicarious 
 sufferings. 
 
 Christians pray to God to have mercy 
 yxpan them, and to blot out their trans- 
 gressions, not tor His own sake, but alto- 
 f ether for His Son's sake, or because of 
 [is sufferings and meritorious death on 
 the cross. 
 
 Charity is not denied, ii^ words, to be 
 the greatest of the Christian graces, but 
 faith is always virtually set ahove it, for 
 it is said, that a man may be aaved 
 merely because he has faith, but that he 
 cannot be saved merely^becatoe he has 
 charity, unless he believes certain unin- 
 telligible opinions called ' ' orthodox. " 
 
 No evils that are past will condemn 
 those who die in a right, or "orthodox" 
 fiaith, or doctrine. If a sinner should 
 spend a whole life in sin, and at the last 
 moment believe this doctrine, he will not 
 be judged according to his works, for he 
 will be saved by his faith. Thus it is 
 virtually taught that judgment will not 
 be according t j works, but according to 
 opinions, or what is called faith. 
 
 'PBOVE ALL THIKGS ; B0U> FAST THAT WEICB IS GOOD.' 
 
y' 
 
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